by Tina T. Kove
I jumped away from the wall to stare at whoever had spoken.
Marcus. He blocked my exit to the street, stance wide, arms crossed menacingly.
This was the lunatic who’d hurt Alex back in January. Who’d also gotten away with it because no one had been able to prove it was him that had done it.
He also beat on his brother from time to time, so there was that.
Even knowing what he was capable of—maybe because I knew what he was capable of—
‘Did Glenn tell you I was good for a blowjob?’
His expression thundered over. ‘What?’
‘I can go for the set.’ I leered at him.
‘The hell?’ He started moving forwards, arms unfolding, fists clenching.
‘Oh, Glenn didn’t tell you?’ I was mocking him now. Danger, danger, danger signs flashed in my mind, but I ignored them. ‘I’ve shagged him. I’ve sucked his dick. I’ll suck yours too, all from the goodness of my heart. That’s what us queers do, isn’t it? We suck dick and we like it.’
The first blow had me staggering backwards. My jaw ached, but I couldn’t stop goading him now I’d started.
‘And you know what? Everyone likes it when I suck their cock. I’m just that good. I’ll give you a taste. Maybe you’ll turn gay.’ Another blow to the other side of my face put me on my knees. ‘On my knees is where I like it best. Just the right position to whip a dick out and suck it down. You don’t even have to get undressed.’
Another blow, to the same side he’d just hit.
Fuck, he hit hard. I spit blood. I bled inside my mouth, and my lip was split too.
‘You like it rough, huh, Marcus? I don’t mind. This is what gets you hot, I’m all for it.’ Maybe I was masochistic.
His next blow left me crawling on the ground. When his foot connected with my ribs, I curled up, crying out in pain. He sure didn’t hold anything back.
‘You piece of shit,’ he snarled. ‘Think you can talk like that to me?’ He stomped on me, then grabbed my jacket and pulled me back up on my knees. ‘Talk like that about my brother?’
‘Since when do you give a shit about Glenn?’ I spit out. ‘No wonder he’s such a mess, with you for a brother.’
Glenn and I’d shagged when he was drunk—and he’d said lots of things. I didn’t think he remembered them afterwards, but I’d memorised it. Not because I cared much for Glenn, he was an arse after all, but he was nothing compared to his piece of shit brother.
Marcus, who had hurt Alex—the shyest, sweetest guy I knew.
‘Are you going to try and do to me what you did to Alex? Mash my head against the gravel?’ I spit more blood, making sure to hit his trainers. ‘Go ahead, fucker. Do me the favour.’
Veins throbbed in his forehead as he glared down at me. ‘Not doing you any favours.’ But his fists came back down on my face again, and now blood ran in thick torrents from my nose as well.
I didn’t know how long he hit me, or kicked me, but eventually he let me sag to the ground. I distantly heard the slap of his feet against concrete as he ran away.
Everything hurt.
Blood ran down my face. I was pretty sure he’d broken my nose. It hurt enough for it, anyway.
Get up, I told myself. I couldn’t lie on the ground.
But everything hurt too much to get up. How the hell was I going to get home?
I fumbled a shaking hand in my pocket and drew my phone out. But who would I call? Nik had just made it clear he didn’t want to see me. And even if he had, he was too drunk.
Jo… no. He would probably come back, but Kristina would find out and then Thomas would—and he’d probably come straight back home from Spain. His first holiday in years. Just no.
There was only one person I knew would come—and who wouldn’t go blabbing to everyone if I told him not to. Only one person I knew who always had my back.
I pressed his name, listened to it ring for ages.
When he finally took it, his voice was rough with sleep. ‘What?’
What was I going to say?
‘Hello?’ He sounded a bit more alert.
I ached all over.
‘Ben?’
My name…
‘Help me,’ I croaked out, then burst into tears.
‘Ben!’ His sleepy voice changed to worried and alert. ‘Where are you?’ There were sounds on his end of the phone. I had no idea what he was doing.
‘Downtown,’ I muttered. My voice was weird because my nose was stuffed with blood. ‘Outside Steam. In the back.’
‘I’m coming. Just wait there. Wait for me.’
A sob left me as I hung up on him. I curled up with my back against the wall, shivering. It was cold outside and my breath misted. I hugged my knees tight and buried my face against my knees. It hurt a little, but it was better than sitting there bleeding for everyone to see if they walked past.
I heard tyres screech eventually and then Tarjei was there.
‘Ben?’ He was on his knees next to me now, one hand touching my shoulder.
I slowly lifted my head. I didn’t want him to see my face either, but he had to if he was going to help me.
‘Who did this to you?’ He tentatively touched my lower lip.
‘Marcus.’ I couldn’t look at him, so I stared down at my knees. My jeans were bloodied, but at least they were black so it didn’t show much. ‘He came here. Called me a poof. I goaded him. I wanted him to hit me.’
What a fucking mess I was. I wanted the biggest homophobe in town to beat me. I really was masochistic. Or I just had a death wish. Probably the latter.
‘Come on, let’s get you to A&E. They need to look at your face.’ He helped me up, but I doubled over in pain as my ribs protested my body straightening.
‘I’ll back the car in here. Sit tight.’
I sat back down on my arse, head thudding back against the wall. Lights flashed as he backed his car in the driveway and I covered my eyes. The backlights were red, but it still hurt getting a face-full of them.
He came hurrying back out, got me into the passenger seat, buckled me up, and then he drove uptown to the hospital.
My whole body hurt as he led me across the parking lot and into the waiting room of the A&E. Tarjei was there every step, holding me, steering me. When I was safely sat down in a hard, uncomfortable chair, he headed behind the glass door to speak to the nurse.
A screaming infant was sitting with its mother across from me. Its wails drowned out the TV and everything else. Even my own damn thoughts.
Tarjei came back out. He sat down next to me and took one of my hands in his, squeezing. He probably got blood on himself, but he didn’t seem to care.
‘We’ll have to wait.’ His voice was low. But not low enough I couldn’t hear him over that damn screeching baby. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ I tipped sideways to rest my head on his shoulder. ‘Everything hurts.’
‘I know.’ He slid an arm around my shoulders, holding me loosely. Maybe he was afraid of holding me too tight.
He was warm. Not soft in the least, but he was safe. He was familiar. He felt good. Steady.
The lady with the screaming infant was led out of the waiting room eventually, leaving it in blissful silence. No one spoke.
Eventually, it was my turn.
Tarjei had to help me up again as my ribs protested.
‘Do you want me to—?’ He hovered uncertainly next to me.
‘Yes.’ I squeezed his hand tight, refusing to let go. Tarjei had to come with me or I wouldn’t go in at all.
The doctor led us into his office where he asked some lame questions about what had happened before he started examining me.
I told him I’d been beat up by some psycho because I was gay. That was a hate-crime, wasn’t it? But was this a hate crime when I was the one who had goaded Marcus into attacking me? I knew what he was like and what he was capable of. So really, this was just my own fucking fault.
Tarjei kept in the background thro
ugh the whole thing. He didn’t speak. Did hardly move.
My face stung as the doctor washed off all the blood. What hurt the most was my split lip. It felt like it had swollen to twice its size. I probably looked like I’d had a bad experience with fillers—if I did that kind of shit.
‘Sit back.’ The doctor pushed my head back slightly and held some square-cut paper under my nose. ‘It should stop bleeding soon. It’s not broken, at least.’
Well, that was certainly good news. I didn’t want to deal with a broken nose. But there was something else that might be broken and I struggled as I pulled off my jacket. I just wanted to lie down and cry, that’s how much it hurt.
The doctor couldn’t determine if they were broken or not without an X-ray—which meant hours of waiting.
Tarjei sat with me the whole time. While we waited for an X-ray, while I got X-rayed and then again as I waited to come back into the doctor’s office to get the answers from the X-rays.
‘Don’t you have to go to work?’ I asked eventually. I had no idea what time it was, but we’d been in the hospital for hours. It must be light out now and time for people to start their day.
‘It’s Maundy Thursday, Ben,’ he reminded me. ‘It’s a bank holiday.’
Right. No work for him. Was that why he could sit with me for all these hours? Because he had nothing better to do?
‘Even if I had to go to work today, I would call in sick,’ he said then. ‘I wouldn’t leave you.’
I looked away, eyes burning at his soft words. Why was he so kind to me when I was so horrible to him?
I shouldn’t have attempted to take a shower on my own. All I was capable of was standing naked under the spray.
Movement caught my attention and I turned my head to see Tarjei fill the doorway. He stared at me in worry. He was right to worry right now.
‘Want to help?’ I hated asking it, but I had no choice.
‘You want me to?’ He sounded uncertain.
‘I can’t bend. Or turn.’ So I had no bloody choice. I needed help if I wanted to get clean—and I did. My face might be void of blood, but I’d been drinking a lot yesterday.
Tarjei slid the glass-doors open and stepped in behind me.
I turned slightly to hand him the soap bar before facing the shower spray again.
Tarjei didn’t say anything as he lathered up my backside, from my neck, down my shoulder, even my arse. Then he bent to do the back of my thighs and legs.
I turned, and since he was still crouching, he was now eye-level with my dick. It was soft, so it wasn’t like it was asking for any attention. Still, Tarjei’s gaze lingered on it for a bit before he went back to washing me from the bottom and up.
He hadn’t shied away from my arse earlier, but he completely avoided my crotch now, going directly from thighs to my stomach, chest and arms. I could’ve done those on my own, but I leant against the tiles and just let him do it for me. He didn’t seem to mind, after all.
Not his dick either, for matter.
‘Even when I look like this, you get hard for me.’ I cupped him, palm rubbing against the sensitive skin down there. I chuckled as he hardened further. ‘Yeah. Too bad I’m too sore to do anything about it.’
‘You don’t have to do anything.’ Tarjei cleared his throat self-consciously.
What he was self-conscious about, I had no idea. There was no shame in a hard dick. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would’ve dropped to my knees and sucked him off.
‘I could give you a wank. Take the pressure off.’ Now that I could do, even in my current state.
‘No, Ben. It’s because it’s you, not because I crave sex.’
I froze for the tiniest second, then slowly lifted my head to look at him. What the hell did that mean? I didn’t want to think about it, so I wrapped my fingers around his dick anyway, stroking him oh-so-slowly.
Tarjei might say he didn’t crave sex, but his dick was telling me differently.
‘I told you, you don’t have to,’ he said in a low voice.
‘I want to.’ He’d helped me. Now it was my turn to help him out. A handjob would go a lot quicker than all the hours he’d spent with me in the hospital, but it was a start, at least.
Tarjei didn’t protest again. Instead, he put the soap bar back on the shelf, squirted shampoo in one palm, and started massaging it into my hair.
Damn, that felt good.
I closed my eyes but kept up a slow rhythm with my hand. I was going to make him come, but not right away.
He pushed me under the spray and ran his fingers through my hair again to get all the shampoo out. The soapy water stung the cuts on my face, but that sort of pain was something I was used to. I had scars up and down my arms to prove it.
When he pulled me back out from under the spray, and up against him, I rubbed my free hand over my eyes to get rid of water and residue shampoo. I blinked as I opened my eyes, gazing straight into his eyes.
‘Thanks for coming to get me,’ I offered in a low voice. ‘You were the only one I knew would come.’
‘I’m not.’ He leaned in closer. ‘You’ve got loads of people who worry about you and would do anything for you.’
I shook my head at that, hand speeding up on his dick. ‘I don’t. And those that do care aren’t even in town right now.’ If he could talk like that, I wasn’t doing my job properly.
Tarjei put his hands on my shoulders and moved his hips in time with my strokes. He wanted to come now. His little brain had taken over for the big one.
His breath stuttered—and then he came. The spray of water washed the semen away down the drain. It seemed to wash my mood with it too because bleakness settled over me now.
Tarjei stepped out of the shower and found a big, fluffy towel to wrap me in. His kindness was like a kick to the gut. I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t even want it. We had sex. That was all we had. There weren’t any feelings—except the pleasurable kind—and we definitely weren’t friends.
My feelings belonged to Nik. Nik, who…
‘Nik basically told me to fuck off last night.’
Tarjei spit toothpaste into the sink, rinsed his mouth, and then turned to face me with a strange expression on his face.
‘I’m sure he didn’t.’
‘Oh, he did.’ I looked away. ‘He was quite clear we shouldn’t be around each other.’
‘He’s your best friend—’
‘He said some other things.’
‘What things?’ Tarjei frowned.
‘As long as I’ve got a thing for him we can’t be around each other. Or something like that.’ I sniffed, hating that my eyes burned. ‘And that I needed to see what I’ve got right in front of me.’
Tarjei swallowed heavily. ‘I’ve got your clothes from the other day. All washed. Do you want them, or do you want me to find something more comfortable to wear?’
‘Something more comfortable,’ I muttered. He’d changed the subject on purpose, I could tell.
He handed me joggers and a T-shirt. Since I was lankier than him, they were baggy on me. Not too baggy, but comfortably so.
He dressed in almost identical clothing too.
‘Breakfast?’
I shook my head. ‘Not hungry.’ I tentatively touched my lip, hoping it wouldn’t start bleeding again. ‘Don’t think I can open my mouth enough to get anything in, either.’
‘Take the painkillers.’ He pointed to the bedside table.
When had he put painkillers and a glass of water there? He must’ve done it either after I fell asleep or before he joined me in the shower.
I did as commanded, swallowing the two pills with a sip of water. My phone was still in my dirty jeans, so I grabbed it before I followed him into the living room. The sofa looked mighty inviting and I collapsed on it as I checked my notifications.
There were a lot of them.
‘People’ve been ringing me.’
‘Who has?’ Tarjei sunk down next to me.
‘Thomas, Jo, K
ristina. Maria too.’ I put my phone away. I couldn’t deal with them now. Jo had clearly blabbed to Kristina last night, who again had blabbed to everyone else. That was just great. Sometimes I hated how close my family was.
‘Aren’t you going to ring them back?’ he asked.
‘No.’ No way. ‘I don’t want to talk to anyone.’
The doorbell chimed.
‘Oh, god.’ I groaned and lay down, hiding my face under a pillow. If they were showing up at Tarjei’s place looking for me, I was fucked. No one was supposed to even know about me and Tarjei, but they all knew anyway.
Tarjei left to answer the door.
‘Oh, god, Tarjei!’ Nik’s voice was frantic—and my blood turned to ice. ‘I did something really, really stupid last night.’
Stupid? Drunk people told the truth, didn’t they? He was just regretting it now because he was sober.
‘What did you do?’ Tarjei sounded calm.
‘I confronted Ben. Said stuff to him I shouldn’t have said. Not like I said them, anyway. I wasn’t very nice to him.’
No shit.
‘What am I going to do?’ Nik’s voice turned shrill.
‘Talk to him. Apologise.’
I lay very still. I didn’t want to talk to Nik. I didn’t want him to know I was right here.
‘I don’t know what to say.’ Nik sounded miserable. As he should. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Ahh—’ Tarjei drew the sound out. ‘Now’s not really a good time.’
‘What? Why not? Have you got someone over?’ Nik wasn’t stupid and Tarjei was a bad liar. ‘Is Ben in there?’
‘Yeah.’
Scratch that. He wasn’t a bad liar. He wasn’t a liar at all. He was too bloody honest.
I got off the sofa—so quickly my whole body screamed in pain, but I wasn’t sticking around for this. I stomped into the hall, pulled my jacket on with jerky, painful movements, and stepped into my trainers.
‘Thanks a fucking lot,’ I spat at Tarjei as I pushed him out of the way.
Nik’s eyes widened as he saw me. ‘What happened to your face?’
I didn’t answer, only pushed past him too and walked away as quickly as I could.
Once my room was pitch dark, I tentatively lay down on the bed, curled up on my side, and let everything I’d struggled to hold back as I walked home loose.