Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (5 page)

only
pretty girl here. The rest are hags and munters."

He laughs, tucking his face against Lindsay's neck and kissing him there. "I need to get changed, it's my turn soon. If you can look but not touch you can come with me, deal?"

"Deal," Lindsay agrees, but he's got his fingers crossed so that makes it okay when he pushes Valentine's back hard against the closing dressing room door, making it slam, and puts his hand up his skirt.

"Lindsay!" Valentine says, a ridiculous exaggerated pantomime of affront. "Grabby hands get broken."

"Shut up." They're not tights, they're thick stockings held up near the top of his thigh with bands of elastic hidden in the lace trim, and above that, flimsy frilly black lace shorts. That bit's a surprise, he always wore his own underwear before to make it funny and less of a real
thing
, as if wearing men's pants cancelled out the dress. "You've got girls' underwear on."

"Well, yeah. Do you like it?" He wriggles in place. Lindsay's got the predictable urge to slap him there until he's blazing red through all the layers of gauzy black. Valentine knows it too, twisting back to look over his shoulder and curling his mouth into a slow, sly smile. He bends over a little bit more, splaying his hands against the door. "I can take it off if you don't."

"I hate it," Lindsay says, suddenly ripping at the fabric. It's stronger than it looks, it won't tear, so he yanks the knickers down around Valentine's thighs instead, leaving them stretched there around the tops of his stockings. The skirts and petticoats keep falling down and getting in the way so he bunches them all together and shoves them roughly at Valentine's chest, telling him to hold them there, which he does with a hand he's trying to pretend isn't shaking.

"Lindsay, I have to get changed..."
"In a minute," Lindsay snarls. He can't make himself stop looking, the ice-pale skin and black hairs, black lace, black elastic. He looks more obscene like this than he would completely naked, there's something so vile and seedy about only exposing the parts you need.

"Lindsay-" Lindsay slaps him hard and Valentine sucks in a sharp, shocked breath that's more like a plea. He parts his legs slightly, takes a little step back so he's bent over almost ninety degrees now. "I have to get changed."

"You wouldn't have asked me back here if you didn't have enough time." He starts rubbing the spot he slapped, warm soothing circles with his big palm, and Valentine sighs and shivers.

"Not here. I don't wanna just bang you in a dirty dressing room, save it for a bed."

 

"It doesn't always have to be some perfect candlelit romantic moment, don't be so pathetic."

 

"Second time, though. I want it nice. Please."

 

He's still rubbing, both hands on both cheeks now, and Valentine's breath is coming quick and shallow. "Do you love jazz?"

"I... quite like jazz. Please."
"Talk plainly. Do you want this or not?"
"Lindsay, I've really got to be on stage in like ten minutes."

"Fine." He steps back and watches Valentine drop his skirts and turn round, flushed and breathless and still smirking. "I don't know what you're smiling about, there's a word for people like you."

Valentine's got no shame, openly staring at the bulge in Lindsay's trousers. "Yeah, you just wait, you don't know what cockteasing
is
yet. Can you undo these laces?"

It's not helping. It's
really
not helping. By the time Valentine's shuffled out of his dress and into a glimmering white satin playsuit with a blue striped sailor collar, Lindsay feels about ready to burst into flames and hates himself for it, but what's the point? Must work on that, he tells himself. Valentine's never going to change, it'll have to be him instead.

"Do I look nice?"
"You look ridiculous."

"Shut up, it's meant to be funny." He's straightened his hair for tonight and it looks so much longer without all the usual backcombing and hairspray, spilling out from under his sailor hat like a sleek black waterfall. He tips his hat down and winks at Lindsay, then falls out of character and turns whiny and bratty. "Wish I could kiss you. You'd smudge my face."

"So?" He's back on Valentine in a second, pushing him against the door again and nudging his knee between his stockinged legs, winding Valentine's smooth hair around his fingers and knocking his hat off.

"After," Valentine says, sounding desperate and miserable. "I promise after, I have to go back, can I go?" Then he whimpers, catching the sound behind his clenched teeth and clamped red-painted lips when Lindsay tugs his hair to tilt his head and bites him on the neck, sucking hard at the caught bit of flesh until it's hot in his mouth and Valentine makes another little sound like a suppressed sob. "Again," he chokes, so Lindsay slips both arms around his body to hold him tight and does it again, bite-suck, hard and slow just below the first.

"Am I hurting you?"

"Yeah. Don't stop." His hands are claws, one scrabbling at the door, the other twisted in Lindsay's hair. "Please, oh my god
oh
!" he splutters when Lindsay bites him again on the other side of his neck, sucking a violent red bruise into his pale skin. It's the tiny noises he makes, every hitched breath, every
oh
and
ah
and
yes
, the way his fingers in Lindsay's hair go limp and then tighten again when he's bitten...

"Christ, you look diseased," Lindsay murmurs, kissing gently over the bruises. Valentine just laughs, weak and breathless.

 

"I have to go. Come on."

There's enough time for Lindsay to get some drinks and find his table again, still miraculously empty though that's maybe because everyone seems to be crowded on the dancefloor laughing at the man on stage. Woman. Whatever it wants to be called. Lindsay drinks his whiskey and starts on his pint and goes on ignoring the looks he's been getting all night. Flattering, of course, but ugh. His jeans feel tight and uncomfortable, and even over the music and voices he can still hear Valentine in his head, those breathy little begging noises.

"-Ophelia Cumming," someone says, and the name breaks through his thoughts like a bullet. He looks up, squinting when someone swings a spotlight around and the beam strikes him right in the face, then Valentine's stepping onto the stage and laughing, air-kissing the person who was on before him, going to stand in front of the microphone with his toes pointed slightly together in that way he's got of trying to look cute. He does it with his face too, he's got this stupid performance down to an art form: lowering his chin so he has to open his eyes wider to look at the crowd, so they can see the long curve of his false lashes and the smears of glitter eyeshadow, the sharp lines of his cheekbones.

"Alright?" he says, plastering on that infuriating cheeky grin. Lindsay's lost, gazing at him like some disgusting lovelorn puppy, and barely even notices what he's saying. Something about Tess, something about anniversaries, some soppy crap about the club owner until he, she, comes on stage for a hug and an air-kiss that won't budge anyone's makeup.

"Who's been at you?" he hears Tess say, pulling Valentine towards one of the lights and peering at his neck. Valentine actually blushes. It'd be adorable if it wasn't so ridiculous. If he wasn't wearing a satin sailor suit and stockings that didn't quite cover the top of his hairy legs.

"Yeah, my new boyfriend's got a big bad wolf complex..."

"New boyfriend?" Tess repeats, and the place erupts in whoops and catcalls. It's worse than a room full of
actual
women, at least they know when to give over. He tries to hide under the table but it's too late, there's no point. He drains his pint instead and stares at the debris of foam, until Valentine hops down off the stage and the crowd parts like a Red Sea of feathers and spangles to let him through.

"Outed," he says, biting on his painted thumbnail and masking anxiety with cheeky bravado. Lindsay tries to give him a black look until Valentine sits on his knee again and kisses him and then he can hardly kiss back because he can't stop smiling.

5.

They're driving. They've been driving for ages. They went to Bournemouth and had dinner in a pub and Pip ate a toffee apple walking down alongside the beach, but it felt too much like all the times they wandered round Llandudno when they used to live there all those years ago and then everything went strange and awkward. They got back in the car and just drove east instead, as close as they could keep to the coast; they passed Dover not long ago, and that was weird as well, seeing all those people on their way to France.

There's no point avoiding it. They're
supposed
to be talking, that was the whole reasoning behind this stupid dating idea Pip's been regretting more or less since the second he suggested it. "Do you miss it?" he says abruptly, forcing out the question. "Living in France?"

Lindsay doesn't answer for a moment, keeping his eyes fixed on the road and guiding the car around a bend. "I did. Less the place, more you."

"Oh." Pleasure unfurls somewhere in Pip's stomach and creeps out through his whole body. He wonders if he's ever going to get used to hearing things like this again.

"I've not been back since I left, it was too... don't know. All your shit's still there, if you want it."

"Yeah, maybe." Reclaiming some old t-shirts and paintings vs. never having to go to that paradise prison ever again. It's tough. He changes the subject instead. "Where we going?"

"Not a clue. You just said let's drive."
"Can I have a go?"
"If you want."
"Pull up somewhere."

There's a turn-off a few minutes ahead and a sign Pip doesn't see properly before it's too late to read it. Some kind of lookout point up a cliff somewhere, a winding road ending in a little carpark surrounded by trees, with some wobbly-looking picnic benches clustered on the grass. Lindsay pulls up facing the wide darkening sky and sea and turns off the engine.

Pip's laughing without meaning to, trying to hide behind his fingers. "You could've just stopped at the side of the road and swapped seats."

"Could." "What you brought me up here for, then?" "Depends." "I ain't having sex with you, you wouldn't respect me after." "Probably not." "I might let you kiss me, though."

Lindsay's been stroking his fingers through Pip's hair since he stopped the car, luring Pip in to settle his cheek against his palm, but now he tugs harshly and drags him closer, hard enough to make him do a really pathetic hungry little noise, and kisses him. It's hard and relentless, almost like he's angry but his fingers are gentle again in Pip's hair, stroking and coming round to cup his jaw and hold him close there. They didn't even take off their seatbelts; Lindsay's is loose but he dragged Pip across so sharply that his seatbelt locked and he cant move, aggravated and struggling to find the button to pop it free without having to stop kissing. He manages it after some fumbling, doing Lindsay's for him too, trying to untangle the strap and pounce on him again at the same time. He's half in the space between the seats, the gearstick is jabbing him in the side of the leg, this is the crappest car ever for parked-up mischief.

"Buy me a new Ferrari," he murmurs, kissing up Lindsay's cheek to his ear and just getting a mouthful of hair. Lindsay laughs, trying to brush it out of the way, his sound of amusement morphing into a cracked little gasp when Pip finds his earlobe and bites down gently.

"I bought you one, it's not my fault you lost it."
"I want another one."
"What for?"

"No roof." He sits back a bit, flushed and breathing unsteadily, trying to figure out how to make this work. They got each other off in cars loads of times before but they were always convertibles with endless space to move up and down without crashing your head off a chunk of metal. There was
one
time Lindsay's precious old XK8 was involved, but since Pip was shoved face-first up against the boot leaving sweaty fingerprints and harsh condensing breaths smeared over the back window he's not sure it counts. He finds the lever under the front of Lindsay's seat and pulls it up so the seat slides back as far as it'll go, then starts turning the round handle at the side to recline it. That'll have to do.
"This is-"

"-a brilliant idea," Pip interrupts. He can't stop laughing, this is so stupid and uncomfortable and
teenage
. There's a bit more room now the seat is tilted back so far, more than enough space overhead for him to swing his leg over both of Lindsay's and settle there, shuffling closer at the hips and pressing into him so he can almost
feel
the rush of blood before Lindsay even starts getting properly hard. Lindsay's hands are in his hair again, one winding the long loose strands around his finger, the other resting at the nape of his neck. He always used to do that and Pip never quite knew whether it was meant to be control or protection or maybe a bit of both, but just the feel of it now, the heavy weight of Lindsay's hand and the heat of his skin, makes him feel dizzy. He can taste sweat on his upper lip already, the car's getting so stuffy and thick with their breathing. He finds the buttons to roll down the electric windows; that makes it cooler, but now they can hear the quiet crash of the waves down below. It's like before, that place they went the day he left the other two in Manchester and moved into Lindsay's house. Their first kiss, first groping hands, first blowjob. Later on that day back in Lindsay's house, their First Time. He always thought of it with capital letters, something momentous like D-Day or New Year's Eve.

"Stop thinking," Lindsay says. His voice is rough and quiet. He uses the hand on Pip's neck to urge him to look up, right at him, although their faces are so close Pip can't focus and it's all a twilight blur of shapes. "I know what you're thinking, why does it matter?"

"It doesn't. It ain't a bad thing, just memories."

"Kiss me." Like he needs telling. He settles down on Lindsay's body, reclined halfway between sitting and lying, and kisses him. It's slower this time, more relaxed as if they've both stopped panicking the other is going to run away. He feels Lindsay's fingers playing with the bottom hem of his t-shirt, gently tugging at the fabric, smoothing it down against the curve of his back, slipping just underneath to touch his skin. It goes on for ages and it's wonderful, Moonage Daydream right through to Suffragette City just kissing, barely even any tongue, just sharing breath. It's dark out by now and there aren't any lights in the carpark; the only illumination is from the dashboard and Lindsay's face is just black shadows and tinges of LED green and electronic orange.