Last Line (11 page)

The cell door banged. The sound came from nearby, as if the room were far smaller than he remembered. He didn’t have to endure this. If he wasn’t bound, he could and he would struggle off the waterboarding bench and defend himself. He twisted and encountered something slippery and cold, like a low ceramic wall.

“Michael! Jesus Christ! Mike!”

The wall bruised his chest and stomach as he tried to launch himself over it. Hands closed on him. He tore free, but all that did was dump him back in the water again. Fear reached its pitch. This was the end, in a white ceramic coffin. He loosed a roar of denial and rage, lashing out blindly at his captor. “Fuck you, Anzhel! I’ll come back from hell for you!”

“Mikey, for God’s sake! Hold still.”

A grip went into his armpits, lifting. It was warmer and stronger than Michael remembered, but that could be part of the torture as well: to be held, caressed, and then let go. He flung himself at the side of the tank again, succeeding this time because of the assisting grasp—an arm round his waist, hauling him out onto the floor. He landed with a crash on wet tiles. Oh God, he was free, but it would do no good. He was too weak to follow his advantage. Anzhel would only summon faceless men with rubber-gloved hands to put him back. The torture would go on, unless…

He remembered what he had to do. It broke him every time, but he remembered. He pushed up onto his arms, lifting one hand to shield himself from the glaring light. “Anzhel, please,” he rasped. “
Please
.”

“In English, sweetheart. English, or I won’t understand.”

English? Michael retracted his hand. He pressed the back of it to his lips, feeling the shape they were forming again and again.
Please
… No. “
Pazhalusta. Pazhalusta. Anzhel, pazhalusta
.”

He shut up. Not Anzhel in front of him. John Griffin. His own Griff. Captured and imprisoned here too? The flashback dissolving, Michael told himself this wasn’t true. He told himself that he was in his own bathroom at home, on his hands and knees in a flood of cooling bathwater. Everything was very real: John, wet to the skin, holding out a trembling hand toward him, his face a blank of shock, the scent of coffee drifting through the open door.

But so had the cell been real—clearly, absolutely. More so than this. Caught between the worlds, he subsided onto his backside, lifting both hands to hide his face. “Oh fuck. John…”

“Yes.” The outstretched hand descended gently on his soaking hair. “Christ, mate. You scared the living shit out of me.”

“What did I…”

“You screamed. I was making coffee. I…I’m sorry, I dropped your percolator jug. Are you all right?”

Michael couldn’t tell him. He didn’t know. He wasn’t really interested anymore—cell and bathroom, life and death, were falling away from him. Neither was real, he concluded. He didn’t care. “I dunno.”

“Stay there. Don’t move, okay? I’ll be back in a second.”

It could have been a week or a millisecond. The airing-cupboard door creaked. John reappeared with an armful of dry towels and a blanket. In sheer weary indifference, Michael allowed himself to be hoisted up to sit on the edge of the bath. The towels went around him. From a long distance out, he could appreciate that their friction on his skin was pleasant—that John was efficient in his ministrations, and kind too. Anzhel had sometimes used to be kind. He didn’t come and sit beside him, wrap both arms around him suddenly tight and ask him in a rough, frightened whisper how the fuck he had got so cold—didn’t softly beg him to say what was wrong—but the difference felt irrelevant, meaningless, even when John kissed his brow and the side of his face and called him
sweetheart
for the second time. His mind darkened, and he lost the contrast, the memory, the whole chain of horrors that had dragged him here. “John. What happened?”

“That’s what I’m dearly hoping you’re gonna tell me. Got to get you warmed up, though. Can you walk?”

“’Course. Don’t be stupid.”

“Good. Then walk it through here.”

They were in the living room. Michael looked around it—a big, pleasant room that belonged to someone else. New, although constructed from the original stone; John and a laughing stranger wearing Michael’s skin had finished tiling the roof on their last visit. The stranger had lit a fire in the open hearth earlier in the day even though it had been so hot, just a handful of flame to tick over and help dry the mortar and timbers and freshly plastered walls. There were books scattered on the chairs and sofa. No carpet down yet but a rug borrowed from the stranger’s flat in London, bright and clean before the fire.

“Can you hang on here a second?”

Michael nodded. John had eased him down to sit on the arm of a chair. Detachedly he watched while John pulled the dampers open on the fire, chucked on three logs and the remains of a bucket of coal, then applied himself vigorously to shoving the heavy sofa to within five feet of the blaze. “Okay,” he said, holding out a hand. “C’mere.”

Michael subsided onto the sofa. He wasn’t aware of being particularly cold—or particularly anything else. He was floating. He felt vague irritation as John insisted he clamber into a thick jumper, then a pair of jersey-cotton running pants; vague relief when this was accomplished and he was being pushed down to lie flat, a cushion going under his head, a duvet descending over his numb limbs. Habits of courtesy stirred in him. Someone was going to a lot of trouble. He ought to say thanks. “
Spasiba
.”

“Oh shit.”

Someone—it was hard to tell in the soft golden light—sat down hard on the sofa beside him. His jaw was taken in a careful but very firm grip. “Michael, you speak English to me—and make it make sense—or I’m going to have to get help.”

“
Chto proishodit
?”

“Oh
shit
.”

* * *

“Well? How is he?”

“Not too bad, as far as I can see. More sleepy than anything now.”

“Thank Christ. I thought he’d had some kind of stroke.”

“There’s no sign of that. His pupils and his responses are normal. But he must have given you a fright.”

“What? The screaming flip out and the lapse into Russian? Just a bit.”

A faint chuckle. Michael, lying on his side, sleepily watching the flames, thought he knew the second speaker—Dr. Anselm, the village GP. If he made an effort—the mental equivalent of squinting round a corner—he could just recall the doctor here in the firelight with him, shining a beam into his eyes, making him lift and bend various bits of himself. A pressure cuff tightening, then easing off. A routine exam, and the old man’s face too familiar to be of much interest. Who was he talking to? There were two candidates in Michael’s bruised mind: John Griffin and Anzhel Mattvei. He didn’t know why he couldn’t work it out. They were different as water and air. But he was tired now, something pulling at him, weighing him sensuously down. He listened to the doctor’s low voice, losing interest. “His mother was Russian, wasn’t she? A nice lady. I’d just come to Somerset when she… Well. Never mind. Did he say anything else you could understand, anything to give an idea what was going on in his head?”

“Not really. I think once or twice he said the word
angel
.”

“Hmm. Not terribly helpful. Does he ever use drugs?”

A faint snort. “Michael? He’d sooner eat dog food.”

“I didn’t think so. You’re his partner, Mr. Griffin. I should think you know more about his past, what he’s been through, than anyone else. I know he was doing something very
hush-hush
for a while. In my opinion, he’s had some kind of flashback, and it’s disoriented him. I’ve seen it lots of times in lads returning from the Gulf.”

“Will he be okay?”

“Well, he was fairly coherent—and English—with me. I’ve given him a shot to make him sleep. If he’s still distressed or confused in the morning, call me, and we’ll get him to Yeovil for some checks. You should probably have your people in London look him over anyway.”

“I will. Thanks, doc. Thanks for coming out.”

A shot to make me sleep
. Shifting, frowning, Michael remembered the sting in his arm. He tried to lift his head. “No,” he tried to say, but the figures outlined in the brightly lit hallway were oblivious, deaf to him.
No, you mustn’t sedate me. I won’t remember who I am, or who I love or hate. Please…

* * *

Quarter past four. This close to midsummer, light like pearls was already finding its way over the hills to the east. It gathered, cool and spectral, in the farmhouse living room, slowly winning out over the fire’s rosy glow. Michael stood looking down at his partner, who had fallen asleep in an armchair. He was pale in the dawn light, his expression undefended, long limbs in an abandoned sprawl.

The effects of the sedation weren’t as bad as Michael had feared. He had woken with his mind clear enough, although his memory gaped vacantly over a stretch between running a bath the night before and being bundled onto the sofa like a sack of potatoes, then wrapped up in clothes and duvets despite the mild May night. The clothes were on him still—restrictive, too hot. Impatiently he stripped and let them fall.

He was okay. He must have had a blackout. God knew what he had done to scare John into calling the doctor, but it didn’t seem to matter now. Nothing did. No, Michael knew who he was, and who he was meant to love and hate. He just didn’t care. The cold John had fought to claw off him last night had moved inside.

“John, wake up.”

He did so instantly, eyes flicking wide. His sprawl became a stillness, a readiness to jump. Michael observed how his right hand twitched toward a gun holster that wasn’t there. Neither of them ever brought weapons to Glastonbury, but Last Line habits died hard. His gaze swept the room behind Michael, looking for threat, then focused. “Mike? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

“Are you okay? What time is it?”

“Early. I woke up, and…” He frowned. He couldn’t recall the train of thought that had brought him from the sofa to here…wasn’t sure how long he had stood in silence, watching John sleep. But his reasons were simple enough now. He stood naked in front of his partner, his cock growing heavy, beginning to rise. “And I wanted you.”

John’s lips parted. His eyes, more slate than green in this light, kindled with amusement. “So I see,” he said, stretching out a hand. “Come here, then, morning glory.”

Michael straddled him on the chair. John’s arms went round him, and for a moment, all he wanted to do was bury his face in John’s shoulder, fall into the embrace he knew would catch him, and weep. But the coldness moved inside him—glacial, ruthless—and instead he grasped John’s shirt in his fists. “I want you.”

“Well…
have
me, sweetheart, as long as—” John arched up, needing no encouragement to meet Michael’s kiss, meeting the thrust of his tongue with open-mouthed willingness and a strong push of his own. “God, that’s nice,” he said when he could. “As long as you’re properly with me, and we can do it in English.”

“What?”

“You don’t remember? You weren’t well last night.” He put his hands on Michael’s shoulders and surveyed him anxiously, stilling his dive for the next kiss. “I should probably put you to bed, not—”

“No!” Michael strained against the halfhearted barricade, transferred one fist from John’s shirt to the hair at his nape, and captured his mouth again. He wanted its fullness, its beautiful shape. Wanted to silence all the words that might come out of it. Wanted—and deliciously suddenly got—the fearless ingress of John’s tongue, a hot penetration all the way to the back of his throat, a promise of how it would be if… “Nn-nn.” He grunted the refusal against the sweet obstruction in his mouth, then tore back. “No. Don’t.”

“What? You don’t like me to kiss you like that?”

Michael couldn’t have told him what he didn’t like or what was the source of the icy denial rising inside him. He pushed John to arm’s length, then got up clumsily, still holding the front of his shirt. John rose with him, grabbing at his shoulders for balance. He was laughing, but there was a note of fear in it. “Mike, go easy. How do you want this?”

“You know how.”

“I’m not…
one hundred
percent sure, no, but—”

Michael swept his feet out from under him, an easy judo move he’d never have pulled off if John had been on his guard. He heard without compassion John’s scared gasp and followed through, dropping him to his knees on the fireside rug. Renewing the grip in his hair, he bore down on top of him, using all his weight to drive him down flat on his belly. “Lie still.”

“Mike, I don’t think—”

“Quiet.”

The body under his went rigid. “Listen, Casanova. I’m not up for it again, not like this—and not without lube; you’re too bloody big.” John’s voice softened, as if despite all appearances he could salvage this, make it into something good. “You know, you could…let me do you for a change. I’m told I’m very good.”

Michael slid an arm under his throat. He didn’t tighten it—not yet. He buried his face in the soft hair just behind John’s ear. He forced his free hand under John’s body, feeling with satisfaction how he’d hardened. Every hurt Michael had ever received, he could turn outward and exorcise upon this willing man. For every time he’d been pinned down and raped… “You want to fuck me?”

“Crossed my mind. This isn’t gonna be a one-way street, you know.”

“Let me tell you something. Slaves get fucked, John. Prisoners.”

“Mike, you—you
bastard
!”

The protest was rough with astonishment. Michael ignored it. Awkwardly in the cramped space, he unbuttoned and unzipped John’s jeans. He pressed a hard kiss to the side of his face and ignored the salt of his tears.

“Michael! Jesus Christ! Stop!”

“Be quiet.” Michael got a hand inside his pants. One good jerk down and he would be there, driving deep and hot into his flesh. Escaping, leaving all the pain behind…

The air left his lungs. His ribs contracted as if he’d been kicked in them, and he fell back. It took him a second to associate the sensation with the man on the hearth rug—on his hands and knees now, then his feet, quick and lithe as a cat, his face purged of everything but rage. That was the trouble with John’s combat moves. You never saw them coming. Michael had sparred with him in gym and dojo for years and never got the measure of him.