I Am The Wind (2 page)

Maybe that’s why I don’t mind being here. At least he wants me.

“Wood,” he says. “For the fire.”

“Can I see the fire? Sit in front of it? It’s kind of cold down here, and when you brought me back, you know, the other week, I didn’t get to see the living room.”

He doesn’t turn around, doesn’t even flinch, and I get to wondering what he’s thinking. What’s a good-looking guy like him playing at, doing something this mad?

“Look, man.” I dare to walk towards him. I glance at the door, can run out of here right now if I have a mind to, but I ignore it, instead refocusing on him. On his back, the rigid set of his shoulders. The way they seem to be shaking. “I’ll stay, I promise. No one needs to know you’ve locked me down here. I’ll be staying, won’t I? It’d be like you invited me here and whatnot, yeah? We can forget all…this.”

He spins to face me, cheeks wet, eyes watery. “I don’t believe you. Everyone leaves me in the end.”

I open my mouth to protest, but he prevents any words coming out by lifting his hand.

“But you can come and sit by the fire. I don’t like the thought of you being cold now the season’s on the turn.”

He walks to the door, jerks his head at me to indicate that I follow, and fuck, I follow, with every intention of sitting in front of that fire.

In the living room, the blaze crackling, we sit in silence. It’s often like that with us. Minimal conversation, some nice, easy fucking, his big warm hands all over me, massaging away the kinks my mattress brings. Him bringing me food and drink. Leading me to the corner where he turns on the hose acting as a makeshift shower. I could do that bit myself, but he’s said he wants to do it, makes him feel good.

“I’m looking after you,” he said.

He’s by the door now, sitting bolt upright in a ladder-back chair. I’m lying on the rug, a shaggy affair that feels good on my body, me having been used to the hard mattress on the steel bed or the concrete floor. I fiddle with the pile, inch-long, dark red strands that are so soft they tickle. He keeps a clean place, I’ll give him that, and as the heat warms my chilled bones, I take in my surroundings. I know he’s watching me, probably thinking I’m nosing about so I can tell the police what I’ve seen should I ever get out of here, but really, I’m not.

I’m interested in the man who chose dark red for his walls and black suede for his furniture. Curious as to why he’s picked abstract art for his walls instead of scenes filled with people or ships on lonely seas. And he’s a ship, isn’t he? Full of cargo, I’ll bet, floating along with a destination in mind but seemingly getting nowhere fast due to the lack of wind. I mean, he hasn’t indicated to me he’s about to take his journey further—if he even had a journey or plan in the first place—unless you count him allowing me up here. For all I know, he could have picked me up on a whim, brought me back here and, after we’d fucked, felt we’d got some connection, one he didn’t want to lose.

The same as I had.

I decide I’d be better off finding out what his intentions are if I want to gain his trust. Be the wind in his sails.

“Uh, what do you plan on doing next? With me, I mean?” I stare over at him, watch as he fixes his brown-eyed gaze on me and gnaws his full bottom lip. “I don’t want to sound a know-it-all bastard, but you don’t seem the type to do this. Doesn’t feel as though you’ve got it in you to hurt me, to kill me when you’re bored of me. Not the abductor kind. So what happened?”

“None of your business.” He narrows his eyes, turning them into slits. Two deep crevices appear between his eyebrows.

“It is, though, isn’t it? I’m here, you’re keeping me here, so it
is
my business. Might not seem like it to you, but whatever’s happened in your past has had a direct effect on me now, yeah?”

His expression darkens, and I know I’ve said the wrong thing again.

“Not that I don’t like being here,” I go on. “As I said, I’d stay if only you asked me to. But you haven’t, and no amount of me telling you I’ll stay is going to cut it, is it? If I were you, I wouldn’t believe me either.”

He clears his throat, sits more upright, placing his hands on his knees. “So tell me, why
would
you stay?”

I grab the chance to talk, to have him listen, to believe. “I liked you that night—still do, mind, otherwise I wouldn’t have come back with you. I thought…fuck, I thought, after…after we’d fucked that we’d clicked, you know? I wanted to come back, see you again. Even had some fucked-up idea of us having a relationship. A proper one. Exclusive. But I haven’t got a job and I live in a dive. Got nothing going for me, if I’m honest. You wouldn’t want me like that.”

Had I said the right things?

“How do you know what I’d want?”

He opens his eyes a bit more, staring at me with a gaze so full of pain I’m hard pressed not to get up and touch him, give him comfort. I don’t want to spook him, don’t want this going wrong now I’m out of that damn cellar.

“I don’t,” I say. “Just guessing. No one’s wanted me that way before, so why should you be any different? This…” I gesture around the room, the cable tie around my wrists chafing, “this situation we have, me thinking we could have a thing going, well, it’s all wishful thinking, isn’t it. Stupid of me to think otherwise.”

“You’re fucking with me. Don’t do that. It isn’t nice.”

“I’m not! Seriously, I’m not.” I sound like I’m pleading, sound like a
girl,
but I don’t give a shit. Time to care about that later when he takes me back into the cellar and I have nothing left but time to think. “You want to hear why I could do with staying here with you? You want me to tell you why you don’t frighten me when maybe you should? Why I don’t get up right now, give it a good go at kicking you in the fucking head and getting the hell out of here?”

He nods, a slow movement, eyes wary as hell, hands bunching into fists.

“All right, I’ll tell you.
Then
maybe you’ll believe me.”

One way or another, this is the beginning of the end. Either he’ll believe what I have to say and put a stop to the shit I’ve been through, or he’ll do what every other abductor I’ve read about does and end it in another, entirely different way.

CHAPTER TWO

Goodbye, Mr Christian Simmons, You’re Not Wanted Here Either

“
S
o you reckon you can live without me,” I said to Ted. I couldn’t believe I’d said it. Finally.

He stood behind me, breathing on the back of my neck, face so close I could smell coffee mixed with the carrot cake we’d recently eaten. My face, pressed up against the wall, ached with the pressure Ted was applying.

I wished he’d stop holding my hands behind me, between us like that. My shoulders strained from the angle my arms were at, and his fingernails bit into the soft skin of my wrists. He got like that every so often, mean and nasty, and it extended to the bedroom too.

Ted laughed, spite infusing every note of it as his chuckle grew in volume and heartiness. It churned my stomach. I didn’t love him anymore, wonder if I ever did really. His recent act of unkindness had been an epiphany—it had been the last straw, showing me what he was really about. Not that I needed telling. I knew what he was about all right, just refused to see it. To think about it.

He was one mean son of a bitch, and it begged the question: What the hell am I doing here?

“Of course I can,” he said. “Why the fuck would I want to saddle myself with a prick like you for the rest of my life?”

He knew how to hurt, to wound, his barbs going so deep they gouged out great chunks of my emotions, putting them through the wringer. I wondered why I’d stayed so long, why he said things like that yet kept me here. If he could live without me, what was the fucking point?

“No idea,” I said, squirming to free my hands from his grip. My cheek throbbed. A bit of anger bubbled inside me at the unfairness, the way my life had turned out. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. I was meant to find someone—and I thought it had been Ted—who cared about me above all others, put me before them. Understood me, wanted to take all the hurt away and make me smile every day, even when things were shit and I had nothing to smile about.

“Me neither,” he said. “You’ve got a fine arse, I’ll admit that, and you give a good blow job. You’re cute, great-looking, but other than that? Fuck knows. I mean, come on. You were brought up on a council housing estate amongst the dregs. Not in my league. Me, on the other hand… Well, it stands to reason why I shouldn’t even have you here. We’re classes apart. Need I go on?” He paused, then, “Yes, I think I will. I have prospects, you have none. I’ve got power, respect, you get none. I’m rich, you’re shit poor—”

“I wasn’t until you lost me my job.” I shouldn’t say shit like that, shouldn’t say it out loud, but tonight his mean words had tipped me over the edge. Those and his hard fist. He’d thumped me one in the gut just now. The ache it left behind hurt more than just my stomach. Kind of gets to your heart too, you know? Your emotions.

“Yeah, well, you did that to yourself. I only told them what you are to teach you a lesson. To show you that being gay isn’t acceptable to everyone, that you really shouldn’t flaunt the fact you’re living with me. I told you not to do that. My reputation can’t stand the flack. I told them you’re a gay prostitute who only
thinks
I’m his lover, and also that you’re a thief, that they’d be better off letting you go. Because you didn’t play by the rules, did you? I wanted you to see you need me and only me, that you’ll do as you’re told,
exactly
what you’re told, and stay even though I don’t want you here because you’ve got nowhere else to go. I crave control, Christian, things in order.”

Like I didn’t know that? Like me being his cleaner hadn’t earned me a few swift kicks up the arse because I hadn’t done it right? Like I hadn’t suffered being kicked out by Mum, shunned by the people I’d grown up with after she’d spread the “foul news” that I was gay? Jesus. I knew all about people craving control and order, not accepting gays, all right. Knew very well the sting words could cause. How they made me turn in on myself, wish I was dead rather than the freak they thought me to be. Knew that no matter how many times I told my boss—former boss—that I hadn’t fiddled the books, he wouldn’t believe me. Who would, given the fact I was a skinny twenty-something who looked a bit rough around the edges, with my short hair and stubbled face. Someone whose appearance made it seem as though I was a bad lot. And with Ted telling them just that…Ted, so clearly a man of importance, a man to be believed. He owned the solicitors, for God’s sake. Cranley & Partners. Who in their right mind would disbelieve a lawyer?

Ted picked me up after I’d walked from Mum’s to the Seven-Eleven on the corner, a holdall the only thing I’d left home with. Pulled up in his black car, he had, asking me if I wanted a ride.

I wasn’t sure what kind of ride he meant—one in his car or his cock in my arse—and it didn’t much matter either way. I was too distraught over the way Mum had changed from the caring woman I’d always known her as, to the harridan she’d turned into when I’d dragged up the courage to tell her who I really was.

I’d thought she’d understand.

She’d raged. God, she’d raged. On and on about why did it have to happen to her twice, how I was just like my father, a man I’d never known. How he’d pretended he loved her when all along he’d been fucking the bloke who ran the butcher’s down the road. And hadn’t I done the same? Loved her, all the while thinking about fucking men?

I dared a little more now, asking Ted, “If you cared about me you wouldn’t have done that. Wouldn’t do all the things you do.”

“Ah, that old chestnut. You sound like a fucking girl, you know that?” He tightened his grip on my wrists, dug his nails in deeper, pressed me closer to the wall, if that was even possible. “Who said I cared about you? Have I ever said that? No, I think you’ll find I haven’t. I took you in, used your arse, and you’ve been here a few years too long.”

“So I’ll leave.” I had no clue where I’d go, what I’d do for money now my income had ceased to exist, but I didn’t care. Not right then.

“Go then!” he screamed in my ear.

I winced from the loud assault, my eardrum bulging to the point I thought it might pop. My stomach rolled over—fear was a right wanker—but I was determined to get out of this shit, to make a better life for myself.

“Go, you ungrateful little bastard!”

He’d said that quietly, his voice chilling. Goose bumps spread all over my body, and I swallowed to make the sudden nausea go away.

He spun me to face him, shoving me back so hard my head hit the wall. What was another bit of pain in the grand scheme of things? I’d suffered worse at his hands. He raised one leg, jabbing his knee into my groin, and pressed—pressed so damn hard I almost cried out in pain. My cock, he’d trapped it between his knee and my thigh. The pain was excruciating, my bollocks aching, but I didn’t move. I knew better than to do that. Knew better than to argue with him. So why had I started this?

It was time to break free, that’s why, to stand on my own two feet, and although it scared me, what lay ahead and all that, I couldn’t stay with someone who didn’t give a toss whether I was there or not. He’d miss me as his punching bag, I had no doubt about that. Miss me for my “talented” mouth and “greedy” arse, but other than that? He’d find some other trusting prick to take my place. The fact he had money drew twinks to him all the time, young blokes after a sugar daddy, someone to take care of them and treat them right.

They wouldn’t find what they were looking for with Ted.

“You,” Ted said, “are going to regret this.”

I thought he meant me saying I’d leave, but he didn’t. I knew what he meant the minute he stepped back, released my wrists, and gave me an uppercut to my nose. I felt the bone crack, heard it, I think. Pain exploded in my head, and for a moment I wondered whether he’d done that thing where the nose bone spears the brain and kills you. The blinding, excruciating agony was enough to make me think I was on the way to the pearly gates, and the blackness that seeped into the edges of my vision only proved to cement my suspicion even more. Silver dots mingled with red ones, dancing in the air between me and Ted. I lifted one hand to my nose, thinking it was one of the last actions I’d ever make before I fell to the floor and died.