The Bruise_Black Sky (11 page)

Ben finished his hour with some stretching. Muscle mustn’t appear bulky. It needed to be sleek—post-apocalyptic muscle. He chuckled and wandered back through the bathroom to the bedroom, stripping out of his soaking shorts, T-shirt and socks as he did so.

Nikolas had turned again, right around, his feet on the pillow, his head half hanging off the bed, one arm trailing back towards the nightstand. Ah, the alarm had gone off at…eleven! Nikolas had apparently struggled awake to turn it off. Ben could read the bed like a forensic scene. He went closer, stood right by the sleeping figure and dropped his stinking clothes onto the upturned face.

§§§

Ben liked company in the shower.

He liked sex in the shower, which is why he’d woken Nikolas.

Infuriatingly, Nikolas’s muscles were as ripped as his.

Apparently, he could achieve the same physical perfection from stretching out his arm.

Ben didn’t care. So long as it led to this.

He was bent double, holding onto his ankles, and Nikolas was pressed into him under the streaming water. It demanded a lot of trust, because if Ben slipped, he’d go headfirst into the tiled floor, and Nikolas was thrusting so hard he’d probably crack one or other of them—tile or skull.

But, fuck, it felt good. Every single molecule worked to exhaustion and now this, this rising surge of desire from the core of all his masculinity, the hardness of his cock, the tight rise of his balls—and all this with another man. That was the beauty of the whole thing. There was nothing of a woman in this. It was all a man’s concern—his strength, his power, his manhood, his sex, his smell, and the roughness of his flesh, the intensity of his grip. The pain. The bruises.

Nikolas was going to come. Ben could feel the change in his rhythm, knew the signs, the sounds he made. He pushed back harder and reached the same place, and they fell together from that great height, freefalling through the layers of euphoria until they hit the dirt and needed to retreat into themselves, no talking, no murmuring of endearments. They were men. They understood these things. He got a slap on his arse as Nikolas pulled out. He got his hair washed for him with a mock punch to his belly when he refused Nikolas’s poofy-smelling crap. He got a perfunctory kiss from unshaven skin, which rasped against his stubble. He got brown eyes fixed upon him at his exact height, and awareness that he was sharing these intimate moments with a man as powerful and as dangerous as he was.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Nikolas claimed he ought to visit the cottage and wanted to take Ulyana Ivanovna and Emilia with him. It would be the first time Emmy had seen it.

They didn’t talk about the fight. They didn’t discuss what Nikolas had told him that night. Ben needed more time to process all this before he could speak of it. He hadn’t even suspected…Christmas. No wonder Nikolas had not enjoyed celebrating Christmas.

Ben’s Christmases hadn’t been like a Hollywood movie, but he and his dad had exchanged a few presents, watched TV together, cooked a turkey…

He watched Nikolas teasing Emilia as they guided Radulf across the lawns, saw him offer his arm to Babushka over a rough patch. The sun fell onto Nikolas’s blond hair, making it gleam. He was remarkably brown already, and it was only the first day of the official summer holiday.

He was beautiful, and he was Ben’s.

Forever was a long time to hold onto something so magnificent, so rare, so precious.

He’d better get started.

He took the boxsets of DVDs into the TV room and put the first disc in. He didn’t normally sit down during the day, but this seemed more like work than lazy pleasure.

The first episode, the pilot, launched him into a post-apocalyptic world with no explanation at all of what was happening or why. A group of survivors were introduced gradually as they struggled with their horrific environment. They were likable, in the main. Only in the last few minutes did the whole mood shift. The group had slaves—gladiators who’d been soldiers in the wars, doing their duty. Now they were used to solve conflicts. For this new world had no war, no clashes, no disagreements whatsoever. That was the law. Everything was decided upon by the outcome of a different kind of combat—a battle in the arena between hostile dogs of war.

Then Ben saw Oliver Whitestone for the first time in his role as Yoshitsune the gladiator slave—an ex-Delta Force soldier captured in the dying days of the final war and held by the Voice of God survivors in Louisiana. He was the greatest warrior in this bleak, dystopian world, his slave name chosen to illustrate the grace and power of his killing technique.

Ben was mesmerised by the final scenes of the pilot, as Yoshitsune fought a slave from a rival clan.

They met for battle in what had once been the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in a destroyed city now called The Floods. After three generations of war, the broken superdome resembled…a coliseum—a ruin of the latest empire fallen to greed, stupidity and decadence.

Yoshi won, of course. This was fiction and only a pilot before another thirty episodes. Three seasons. Of course, he would win. But Ben had to give Oliver Whitestone his due—as you watched him fight his fellow Delta Force soldier, his ex-best friend, you weren’t all that sure who would win. Oliver managed to bring a sense of vulnerability and tenderness to his performance even when Yoshi was doing the unthinkable to another human being—a man who had fought in the wars with him, had been captured as he had, was forced to fight to the death over and over and over again. As he was.

For one moment, Ben thought that Yoshi would deliberately lose, allow the marauders from the People of Tradition to annihilate the survivors of the Voice of God, these fanatical remnants of fundamental ideologies that had begun the wars. But he didn’t. He took his friend’s life, and even Ben, who usually only watched movies for the explosions, could see that something in Yoshi died along with the bloodied man at his feet.

How much had Oliver Whitestone put of himself into his portrayal of Yoshitsune? That was an interesting question to ask about a man who had taken his own life only a year or so after this fictional killing.

Ben clicked to the second episode. He was hooked now.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Nikolas wanted to take Emilia to Plymouth later that afternoon. She had learnt about the Pilgrim Fathers in her American school, of course, but had never seen where they had left England. She also needed new clothes for the holiday, Babushka informed him.

He found Ben watching TV, which was odd for him in the middle of the day, so he switched it off and asked him if he wanted to come. When he saw a slight frown of annoyance, Nikolas changed this to a plea to accompany them or otherwise he’d be turned into one of those sad men you see sitting outside changing rooms in clothes shops. He’d be asked whether Emilia looked fat in something, to which he might be tempted to say yes, just because, which he suspected might then cause her to have lifelong eating problems. So, Ben had to see, Emilia’s ability to have a full and satisfying life depended entirely on him not being so disagreeable and coming with them. Please? They’d stop for supper on the way home at his favourite pub…

Ben was fun to win over.

He had an easy grace, an affability, that was returning after their small blip. He liked a trip as much as Radulf. He occasionally hung his head out of the window, too. Nikolas suddenly had an idea, something new to ponder. He enjoyed planning things and usually had concurrent schemes going on quite happily in his head. Some were long term—like Kate, for example. At the moment, Kate was willingly ensconced in America and therefore unable to see Ben, so that was good. She was still able to work for him quite easily, given the type of work she did. She was currently monitoring Ion Boc for him, ensuring that he stayed in Bucharest, as agreed. Along with strategies for Kate and Kristina, therefore, he now added buying Ben a convertible sports car. He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought about it before. It was nicer to think about than his intentions for both Kate and Kristina, although they had their moments, too.

What sort of sports car said Ben Rider-Mikkelsen? Nikolas could foresee a lot of research needing to be done. Because, of course, it also had to say Nikolas Mikkelsen…

Ben drove and they went first into the city centre where Babushka took Emilia off for their shopping foray. Although Babushka couldn’t speak English, didn’t know the city, or England much come to that, and had rarely travelled outside the small logging settlement where she’d lived and worked in Siberia, she was undaunted by most things. She seemed to have complete faith in other people, an unswerving belief that if she smiled and was happy, everyone would respond in kind and help her. So far, she’d not had this theory disproved since she’d arrived in England. She was lucky that her experience of England was actually Devon, which, as Nikolas knew, was a bit of a law unto itself.

He and Ben headed to a sports shop. Nikolas wanted to buy Emilia a decent tennis racket so he could revenge himself upon the archery debacle, not that he put it in those terms to Ben. Ben was always content in a sports shop and bought himself some new training gear.

They all met back at the car, and Nikolas then guided them down to the Barbican so Emilia could appreciate this part of her culture—see the Mayflower steps. For some reason, Ben seemed fascinated in another marker and pulled Nikolas over to see.

“The first settlers to New Zealand left from here, too—look,
The Tory
! Did you know that?”

Nikolas hadn’t known this. “Of course. I told you, I went to the finest—”

“I wonder how long it took to get there then—”

“Why are you—?”

Babushka wanted an ice cream from the inevitable ice cream van, so Nikolas got sidetracked from asking Ben why the sudden interest in New Zealand.

Finally, they drove up onto Plymouth Hoe. Babushka seemed awed and avowed it was the most beautiful place she’d ever seen. Ben was telling Emilia about a house Hitler had planned to live in just visible through the trees on the distant hill. Nikolas wanted to slip his arms around Ben, perhaps have Emmy take a photo of them. He frowned at his own very uncharacteristic thought. He never touched Ben in public, and he never wanted his picture taken.
How odd
. He returned to thinking about convertibles.

On the way home, they had to pass a large cinema complex. Emilia had put her new smartphone (an end of year present from him) to good use and discovered a film she wanted to see, which, she assured them, they’d all really enjoy. As it was about a teenage girl who could kick ass—as she put it—against anyone she met, particularly all the men, Nikolas doubted this. He didn’t want to be a killjoy though and point out the realities of life to her just yet. Emilia, he reckoned, knew well enough about the realities of life. Perhaps, she needed her fictional world more than most girls her age.

They went in. Nikolas suggested to Babushka that she should apply for her OAP card—then she could get in half price in the future. There was something of a scene at this, very unusual for Babushka, but Nikolas was quick and clever and managed to convince her that he’d only been joking—teasing her. After all, as he pointed out, he’d tried to get Radulf into a shop once as a blind dog for the guides.

They settled in. Ben didn’t buy the family-sized box of popcorn he usually bought for himself, but some beef jerky instead. Nikolas didn’t do snacks, and he definitely didn’t do anything that sounded like the word jerky. It did make a good pun though, which he told to Ben in Danish, given their companions, but which then lost much of its humour in the translation. Jerky just didn’t work in any other language. At a suitable moment, he leant closer to Emilia and muttered, “How old is your grandmother? Do you know?”

Emilia turned and hissed back, “She doesn’t speak English. There’s no need to whisper.”

Nikolas wrinkled his nose in annoyance and repeated his question, to which she replied, “Fifty-two.”

Ben turned his head, looked at Nikolas then burst out laughing. Nikolas wanted to thump him and would have done had they not been in public.

Ben volunteered in a sotto voice, “Only six years older than you...”

“I
can
count. Thank you, Benjamin.”

“I’m twelve years
younger
than you…”

“Thank you, again.”

“She’s closer to your age than me…”

“Than
I
. I should introduce you to my new grammar nazi.”

“Whatever. Old man.”

Nikolas gritted his teeth on the provocation. Fifty-two! Fucking hell. He began to rethink some of the things he’d said to her, allowed her to do and see, assuming her to be in her eighties at least and well past admiring men’s bodies. Fucking hell, but he wished he’d put on more clothes now when walking around the house…

The movie was starting. The lights dimmed. Ben’s hand slid unobtrusively into his, just down between the seats where no one could see. It was very pleasant.

So, convertibles…

§§§

Ben hadn’t wanted to be dragged from his couch or his new show, but he’d suddenly realised that it would be more fun to watch later that night with Nikolas. Which went entirely against his plans to just up and leave him very soon. He didn’t want to even watch TV on his own, but he was willing to travel around the world away from Nik for some considerable time…

He was glad they’d gone out, despite his slight blip at the Mayflower Steps—sometimes having a belief in fate left you vulnerable to concluding that the universe was trying to tell you something. He’d convinced himself in the car, driving down the A38, that he would call Peter Cameron and tell him he couldn’t make the movie. But then he’d stood on the very spot where the first colonists of New Zealand had stood. It was too spooky to be real. And then there was Nikolas’s reaction at finding out that Babushka was younger than his ex-wife Philipa…He was
so
entertaining sometimes, always lurking behind his fronts, thinking he was invisible, unknowable, whereas in reality Ben knew exactly what he was thinking most of the time.