Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red (16 page)
Read Stockholm Syndrome 2- 17 Black and 29 Red Online
Authors: Richard Rider
That makes him laugh, though he's not sure anybody else would be able to tell the difference because it's lost there in his hysterical gulping sobs. "Sorry."
"No but I never did nothing else either, I
swear
." That's not exactly the truth but it's too late now, he swore. "I mean," he adds hastily as if that's going to cancel out the fib, "we... he started it. I told him no. Me and him ain't healthy, I don't wanna live like that again. I don't love him no more, I love
you
." Funny, the other lie sounded so genuine but this one's flat and hollow like a bad actor reading bad lines.
"What did he start?" Olly says after a little pause.
"I always fancied him a bit." He smiles, more like a smirk, and glances down at Pip as if he's waiting for a reaction. Pip's too surprised to give one at all for second, then he bursts out laughing through his tears. Mostly from shock.
"A little bit. Maybe it weren't proper fancying, I never thought about him bumming me or nothing. He's just like... cool. But not cool at all but that's why he's cool. Bit dangerous. And when he smiles it's like a slap in the face cos he don't do it enough, he always looked so serious til you always said something stupid and made him laugh."
"Maybe I was jealous too. Cos every time you and him come over here I always saw him looking at you like you was his, like he could kill anyone who took you off him for too long even just chatting, he always looked like he was even gonna follow you in the toilets to make sure you never got set on by nobody. He would've had you on reins like a toddler if you let him. And any time I talked to him he was like 'Oh yeah, Valentine says this' or 'This one time Valentine did that' and I always liked him cos he made you happy but then sometimes when he said stuff like that I hated him too cos who the fuck is Valentine? He thought he knew you, he don't know you, he weren't there when you was trying to jump off the roof, he never had to hold your tissues on your nose when it wouldn't stop bleeding cos you was shaking too hard to do it yourself."
"He started it like this," Pip says suddenly, because there's something sharp and twisting up inside him and he can't bear to listen any more. He swings his leg over both of Olly's, straddling him and threading his fingers through the shorter strands of hair at the back of his head. With the other hand he finds Olly's and brings it down behind him to rest low on his back, just above where his waistband and the curve of his arse starts. "Both hands. Kiss me here." He touches his own neck with his fingertips until Olly starts kissing him there on the quickening pulse. "It was my tats first, he was reading my arm, then he kissed me there, then other places. He took my shirt off. I kissed him here, and here, and here-" He breaks off between words to kiss Olly's cheek and nose and forehead, and reaches a hand down between them to press his palm against the front of Olly's drainpipes, the growing hardness behind the zip. "I did this but I never properly kissed him and I never fucked him, I just... sat on him and he got hard. And then it stopped."
When Olly kisses him it's like nothing even happened. It's not slow and sweet and silent like it often has to be early in the morning or late at night when they're in bed and grabbing the opportunity while the kids are sleeping; it's more like the times the kids are all at school or with their various mothers and the house is empty so it doesn't matter how much they lose it - hard, wet, forceful, but more so than ever. It doesn't feel like playing any more. Olly bites down hard on Pip's lower lip and Pip makes an odd little hungry sound into his mouth, slipping both hands round to cup his face, his high cheekbones and the carefully-trimmed stubble on his jaw. "You like that," Olly says, and Pip can't do anything but mumble something incoherent and pull him back again for more rough kisses. He can taste metal in his mouth, not blood but that strange tang you get from a blister. His mouth is throbbing where Olly bit him and he kisses harder harder harder so he can feel it better, shifting in place where he is so he can feel Olly's cock beneath him, so he can grab Olly's hand and bring it between them to press against his own.
"I'm sorry, last time I checked
I
was the only one living in my brain." He tries to kiss Olly again, as if that's going to fix everything like a button or a magic spell, but Olly twists away and now he's got that agonising lump in his throat again and the helpless burn of tears in his nose because everything's about to change. He can feel it. "We're okay, right? I never did nothing, I never even kissed him, I wanna be with
you
." No reaction. Panicky now, he whispers, "Do you love me?" His voice doesn't crack until the very last word, and then Olly drops his head back against the cushion and mutters
oh my god
very quietly with his eyes closed. Pip's got no idea what that's supposed to mean, but it should have been a yes and wasn't.
He's crying again when he slithers down off the couch onto his knees between Olly's legs and unzips his jeans. Olly's not trying to stop him but he's not being very helpful either, he just doesn't react either way. Pip gets Olly's clothes down, bunched around his ankles in a pile of black denim, but it's incredibly difficult to focus on what might be a relationship-saving blowjob when you're sobbing like a little girl. He can't help it. It only gets worse the more he tries to stop it. It's horrible, it's
embarrassing
- the kids don't even cry this much unless there's something
really
wrong. But maybe that's it. What could be wronger than this?
"Sorry." He can hardly even talk, it's ridiculous. "I want to. I can make it good, I swear." He tries to focus, to break it all down and really
focus
on everything because maybe that'll calm him down. The taste of him, the way he still smells faintly of soap from the shower he had just before work, the familiar feel of his cock in Pip's mouth, but every time Pip thinks he's over it and ready to stop acting like such a tit a fresh wave of guilty terror crashes over him and it starts all over again.
"No, please, I promise I can do it." He can't, he's shaking too hard. He rests his head against Olly's thigh instead, sniffling miserably and stroking him firm and steady. "You can... if you want. I don't mind. You can come on my face, you want to?"
"If you ain't done nothing wrong how come you're acting on like you need... punishing, or something?" Olly says the word like the taste of it makes him feel ill, even though he's breathing shakily and his fingers are clenched white-knuckled around the edges of the cushions.
"I don't wanna be your best mate, I wanna be your boyfriend." Pip keeps his hand moving, somehow in control of what he's doing there even if he can't make his breath stop hitching. Olly's close, they've been together long enough he can always tell. He suddenly realises with a jolt to the stomach that he's been with Olly longer than he was with Lindsay. "I promised you I'm never walking out on you like all them stupid bitch women."
"I don't wanna be nowhere, just here with you
oh
," he exhales when Olly grits his teeth and comes with hardly a sound. The splash of it hitting his cheek and the bridge of his nose is hot, cooling almost straight away as it drips down the slope of his face. He's got his eyes closed and there's some caught there on his eyelid as well, it's in his hair and there's a drop pooling at the corner of his mouth. He feels sick and dizzy like he's been spun too fast on the waltzers - filthy, disgusting, ashamed. And better. He's finally stopped snivelling.
just
horrible. He was nice too. He looked after me."
need
looking after, you been looking after yourself just fine since you come back."
Pip doesn't know what to say to that. It's true. He wipes his face with the palm of his hand to waste some time but it doesn't help much, it just smears the streaks of come onto all the parts that had stayed clean. "I'm tired," he manages, very quiet and finally calm.
Olly stands suddenly, yanking his pants and jeans up. He doesn't slam the door on his way out but there's that same finality in it anyway, so obvious that it's
hours
before Pip wakes up from his uncomfortable nap on the couch and dares to go upstairs. Olly's asleep, curled up on his side of the bed like it's habit even though there's all that space. Pip sits down carefully on the edge of the mattress, trying not to disturb him, but he's become such a light sleeper since the kids were born and he rolls over onto his other side, rubbing his eyes and blinking up at Pip blearily.
"Gone four. I want you to not hate me even though you should cos if I'm sick in the head already I don't know what I'm gonna do if you don't wanna talk to me no more."
possible
for me to hate you I would've kicked your face in years ago."
"Shut up." He reaches his hand over the empty bit of bed to touch Pip's back lightly, very low down just where the waistband of his pants is showing above his jeans, the bare patch of skin where he was always threatening to get an ironic tramp stamp but never did because it made Olly scowl remembering how all his babies' mothers had them
without
trying to be funny. "Saves me the trouble of chucking you, anyway. I miss shagging people with tits. I ain't even saying that to save face, I been thinking it for ages."
Strange how that doesn't make him want to kill himself any more, like he thinks it would have done only a few hours ago. He just slips his shirt and jeans off and gets into bed, falling asleep with his fingers tracing idle heart shapes on Olly's bare chest because he doesn't know what words are right to use any more.
hey i duno wot 2 say but i dint want u 2 fink im ignorin u cos im not. r we ok?
Valentine is easy to see even though the park is fairly busy. He's wearing a black t-shirt sequinned in blue and red, glinting in a million sharp shards of reflected sunlight, and he's got those stupid red skinny jeans on. Maybe they're a new pair, surely he won't have had the same pair for all these years. They look the same, though. It's just one more reminder of the past. He's so engrossed in knitting something small and bright yellow on five clicking needles that he doesn't notice Lindsay until he sits down on the pink tartan blanket next to him - then he jumps and drops some stitches and mutters swears under his breath while he picks them back up again.