Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (8 page)

"No." It's even less comfortable than before, hanging halfway off the sofa and already getting a sore back from having to bend it in ways it doesn't want to go. It's sort of worth it even so, if a bit predictable. Valentine's playing that old game again, stroking and kissing and loving Lindsay's cock like a precious toy or pet. He hated it before, the shamelessness of it all was excruciatingly embarrassing, but there's no point caring any more because nothing's ever going to change. He just watches, breathless and still so sleepy it feels like a dream, as Valentine seals his lips around and starts sucking, humming gentle words of pleasure and praise.

"You're disgusting," Lindsay says. He touches Valentine's hair, and Valentine presses against his hand like a kitten eager for fuss.

"If you want."
"I didn't say you could stop. No more talking."

"Sorry." He talks again after a minute anyway; he can't keep his mouth shut for long, even when there's supposed to be something corking it like a bottle. "I meant it just now," he says softly, glancing up at Lindsay for a moment before turning his attention back to where his hand is, nuzzling his face gently against Lindsay's cock and leaving a shiny smeared little patch of wet on his cheek. "Talk nerdy to me. Read me your lecture. I'll get you off
and
learn something, everybody wins."

"It's not written yet. I've been... distracted."
"What by?"

"Your tongue right now." That makes Valentine smile. He starts licking again in long, wet stripes, and Lindsay curls his fingers around a cushion until they hurt, his body prickling all over with a flare of goosebumps.

"Oh right, and whose tongue you been distracted by when I was out, then?"

 

"Nobody's. Just thinking." Mouth suddenly too full for words, Valentine just hums a question. "Mmm?"

"I want something," Lindsay gasps, bringing the clutched cushion up onto his chest and hugging it to himself, needing something to hold on to while Valentine works his lips, tongue, throat.

"Anything you want, I said I'll do anything," he says when he pulls away for breath, then swallows deep again. Lindsay makes a choking sound into his cushion, straining without meaning to against Valentine's tight hold on his hips.

"Not from you, I want... I want... I
can't stop thinking about it
," he bursts out. His hair's falling into his eyes, and he manages to uncramp one hand from the cushion to push it impatiently out of the way. Valentine's looking up at him again and that question is in his eyes now, not his voice. His eyes are streaming with trying not to gag, but he's doing it. "There's...
things
in this collection I've been working on, rooms full of things and I want them, and that's easy enough because his wife doesn't know what's there, I could keep what I want and nobody's ever going to know, but... in the library, there's... Christ, don't stop, what are you doing?"

"You wanna steal a book." It's not a question, just a flat, vaguely disdainful statement. "All the fucking beautiful things in the world and you wanna steal a
book
."

"Don't stop. You did say talk nerdy to you."
"Yeah, for a
game
, but you're an
actual
nerd."

"Sweetheart," he tries; even though terms of endearment always feel clumsy and sour in his mouth, Valentine seems to like to hear them and maybe this'll work. "Darling. Love... oh I swear to god, Philip, don't you dare stop now or-"

"Yeah, I fucking knew it, you're rubbish at being nice to me," Valentine says, pushing his bottom lip out and looking mournful, though his eyes are glinting wickedly.

Trump card time. "There's some William Blake drawings I could forget to mention if you behave yourself."

In just seconds he's smothering himself in the cushion, shouting desperate incoherences out into the feathers and dimly aware of Valentine purring encouragement as the last splash hits his cheek. It's still there when Valentine steals the cushion again and climbs into Lindsay's lap to kiss him, damp heat smearing into his beard. "If you just said that so I'd make you come I'm gonna shit on you in your sleep."

"There's an unfinished one, looks like it might be an early version of his Midsummer Night's Dream thing but the composition's not the same. Some Divine Comedy watercolours. A whole sketchbook. A pencil drawing of some old woman called Kate."

"You're kidding, you wanker." Valentine's gone very pale. "No."

"Is there a date on it? The... Kate, Catherine, that might be his wife, is there a date?"

 

"I can't remember. Eighteen-twenty-something, six, I think, or seven."

 

"Where is it, is it here, can I see?" "It's still in Joan's house, don't piss yourself. It's only a drawing, not a very good one either."

"Yeah, well shut up about stuff you don't even know about cos what if that's the last drawing he ever did in his whole life when he was dying in bed and he knew it and he says to his wife like 'Kate just stay right there and let me draw you one last time cos you was always an angel to me' then fucking
died
and nobody ever knew where the picture went and people thought that cunt Tatham might've burnt it like he burnt other stuff he didn't like cos it was too rude or blasphemy or some shit, yeah?"

Lindsay's brain never runs fast enough to keep up with Valentine when he's excited over something, and he's never ever going to get used to him liking anything slightly more impressive than old Nintendo platform games. He's starting to get a headache. "Calm down. How many times do you think he drew his wife?"

"Yeah, but maybe not in the year he
died
, you mong, he was too busy jizzing in his paintbox over Dante, doing all them illustrations." He shuts up for an impatient few seconds while Lindsay wipes a smudge of semen off the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then grabs Lindsay's wrist and sucks the thumb into his mouth. "Can I have it?" His mouth is hot, tongue sliding across the nail and teeth pinching very gently at the skin. "Please," he says, in his best wheedling voice, slurring around the thumb in his mouth. "I want it. Please can I have it."

"Now who's being nerdy?"

 

"You're a nerd. I'm just an enthusiast. I want it. I don't want nobody else looking at it, I want it, you have to let me keep it." "Do I."

"Yeah, cos I want it." Amazing how quickly all his new I'll-doit-myself principles go zooming out the window when there's something he can't quite reach. He's acting like he did six or seven years ago, all his same old sly tricks to get his way, twining his arms around Lindsay's neck and making his eyes go big and innocent, slipping into a way of talking that makes him sound very young. It's revolting really how shamelessly manipulative he can be – though whose fault is that? Lindsay's for always indulging him, of course. He still can't say no, though maybe that's partly to do with how Valentine's still sucking gently on his thumb, all flushed cheeks and pink lips and wide makeup-smudged eyes. "I did say please," he murmurs. "I'll be good forever. Can I have it?"

"Give me back my thumb." He wipes it dry on his shirt. He's too tired for this dreadful sick familiar feeling of disturbingly wrong lust to make as much of an impact as it always used to, which has got to be a good thing. "Let's see how well you can behave between now and your birthday, shall we?"

"That's like five months away!" He looks horrified and injured by the idea, and this time it doesn't seem like it's for play. "
More
than five months. I need it
now
."

"You need a slap, that's what you need. Don't be such a brat. I could make a whole career out of these things and I'm giving them to you, don't you understand? I don't think you realise how important all this crazy old man's hoarded junk is."

Valentine looks sulky and hateful for a moment longer, but then his face smooths out and morphs into a barely-contained grin. "I know how important
your
old man junk is," he says, and Lindsay slaps him hard on the thigh and pushes him away so he can stand up and rush to the bathroom before Valentine sees him laughing.

7.

It's so difficult matching up what he knows of the Valentines now with what he thought he knew before.
Like Wayne and Waynetta off Harry Enfield
, Valentine – Pip – used to insist stubbornly. Thuggish unfeeling chavs who never really wanted him, that's how he put them across. Now, in their house, that's hard to believe. There are photos everywhere, school portraits and holiday snaps and baby pictures and all sorts. Lindsay's looking at them all in turn when Valentine comes back into the room from putting Dory to bed.

"You know what I look like."
"Not when you're fourteen."
"Pervert."

That doesn't deserve a response, so it doesn't get one. Lindsay hears Valentine throw himself down onto the sofa with all his customary gracelessness, but the television doesn't flick into life like he expected. He can feel Valentine watching him. It's weirdly off-putting but he keeps on just to prove some vague point, studying each of the photos on the mantelpiece, the big portrait above the fireplace of Valentine and Dory laughing on swings in a snowy park, moving on to some framed snapshots and a school newspaper clipping standing on one of the shelves in the bookcase.

"That's when I was Caliban in The Tempest," Valentine says from behind him. Lindsay bites down hard on his bottom lip so he won't laugh at the idea of Valentine doing Shakespeare, but something gives it away because Valentine makes an indignant noise and storms over to where he's standing. "Shut your face, don't take the piss cos I done acting for
years
and I got A in my theatre A level so fuck off, I done loads of Shakespeare."

"Did you wear tights?"

"Shut up! I done him and Claudius in Hamlet and Sebastian and Don Adriano-" That's when Lindsay's composure cracks and he laughs out loud. It's even worse because he's been trying not to and that just makes it louder and accidentally crueller.

"What about Titania?"
"Puck, actually. Please don't have a coronary, what's so funny?" "You hate Shakespeare."

"Yeah, so? The isle is full of noises, sounds, and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not. You know this? I know this whole shitty play word perfect even other people's lines cos our teacher was Hitler. Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments will hum about mine ears, and sometime voices that if I then had waked after long sleep will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming the clouds methought would open and show riches ready to drop upon me, that when I waked I cried to dream again. When that shit gets scarred on your brain it's there for
life
, I don't have to like it to be any good at it."

It's a bit hilarious hearing those words in that voice. For the millionth time since the day they met, Lindsay feels awful for being surprised that Valentine's not a total idiot – although that doesn't make it any less funny, and nor does his fury at being laughed at.

"Alright, cuntface, sit down and watch." Lindsay half expects Valentine to start acting out a one-man adaptation of Hamlet for him, but he finally stops sniggering when Valentine puts a DVD in the player and comes over to slap him lightly round the head. "I
said
shut up and watch."

"I think you said sit down and watch, you didn't tell me I wasn't allowed to jeer."

"I got all my school plays I ever did right from year one nativity. My mum got them all transferred to discs when she thought I was dead, I dunno if she wanted to make up a drinking game or what."

"You shouldn't talk about your mother like that. She sounds alright."

"She sounds alright now she's sobered up, yeah. You wanna see how shaky some of this camerawork is, though. OH my god, look, I forgot this was on this disc, it's Hair..." He skips through another few chapters then leaves the film playing, some crap song by a load of teenage theatre brats with Valentine as their king. "I wanted Claude but this other wanker sung better than me, I'm always second best. Still, I got to snog him on stage, he weren't so smug when he found
that
out."

"I really couldn't possibly care
any
less about your school plays."

 

"What if I tell you we all get our kit off and stand there willies and tits hanging out?"

"I'd call you a fucking liar." But he's watching anyway, he can't
not
watch; Valentine on the television screen looks almost exactly the same as that day Lindsay grabbed him round the waist and rammed the barrel of a gun in his ear. His hair and clothes are even more stupid, which Lindsay didn't know was possible, but there he is, young and twig-thin and shockingly beautiful. "How old were you?"

Valentine's kneeling on the sofa cushion beside him, playing his fingers through Lindsay's hair and singing along with his younger self right into Lindsay's ear. It's too quiet to be singing, really, it's more a breathy moaning murmur: "Once upon a looking-for-Donna-time there was a sixteen year old virgin, oh Donna, oh oh Donna, oh oh oh..."

"Sixteen?"

Valentine laughs then, kissing him on the whiskery cheek. "Eighteen. And I weren't a virgin." He finds the remote again and skips the disc on until he finds something else. Same theatre but no singing now, no nudity or teenage boys kissing. "Oh yeah, look, I'm Mercutio! Oh Romeo. I well fancied him, I got off with him at a party one time cos he got unlucky in truth or dare, highlight of my life. This bit's good, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy's butt-shaft. Always made me crack up, that line, I kept getting in trouble for laughing. Mercutio's alright, I like him cos he just takes the piss out of everyone, he's like them drunken bellends you see falling out of clubs at five in the morning and pissing up shop windows."

"A gentleman that loves to hear himself talk and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to in a month, that's about right. Can't you shut up for more than two seconds at a time?"

He does, smiling slightly like he's pleased and amused that Lindsay's actually interested. It's so strange watching him do
Shakespeare
, knowing that his favourite things in the world include Pingu and fart jokes. He's doing it well, too. That shouldn't be a surprise – he was always good at mimicking people, and his French accent was as perfect as somebody who'd been born there long before he could hold a stilted clumsy conversation, so it makes sense that he'd be alright on stage. It's still unreal.