Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (9 page)

"You're like one of those brats from Fame." "Nah, I weren't ever good enough to do something with it. Fun, though. I just like showing off."

 

"I never noticed."

 

"Do you think I'm pretty there?" Valentine says suddenly, pressing himself against Lindsay's side again and speaking softly in his ear. "If you like jailbait, maybe."

 

"Sixteen's legal. I really
was
a sixteen-year-old virgin there, that was Christmas in Year Twelve. 2004."

Christmas 2004, Lindsay remembers against his will, was when his addiction peaked the first time and his mother dragged him back to his senses. He twists his face up at the memory. "When you were a sixteenyear-old virgin I was a thirty-one-year-old smackhead."

"Ah, well. We both got cured soon enough."
"I still feel like a dirty old man."

"Yeah, but you're
my
dirty old man." He looks like he's gearing up for something wicked, he's got that look in his eye and his hand starts wandering down south, but before it gets where it's going the phone rings and Valentine swears and dives across Lindsay's lap to grab the handset off the table beside him before the shrill noise wakes Dory. "Hello? Alright, Mum? Was the flight okay? Cool, it's pissing down rain here. I mean it was earlier, it's alright now. Yeah, Lindsay's here." He squirms round a bit to look up at Lindsay, seemingly only just realising how he's positioned because he breaks out in a brilliant smirking smile and wriggles in place like he's setting a dare:
I just dare you to do something about it when my mum's listening
. Meaningless smalltalk on the phone, prancing swordfights on the television screen, and all Lindsay can suddenly hear is the weight of Valentine's breathing.

He cups his hand around the curve of Valentine's arse, following its contours until he's got his fingers slipped down between his legs, pressing against the seam on his jeans. Valentine's good at this, his voice doesn't change at all as he's rattling on about something hilarious the dog did yesterday. Alright, onto step two. He starts rubbing slowly, putting careful pressure on and watching Valentine for a reaction. Still nothing much, just a slight breathy laugh. It's not like he can see much anyway, Valentine's resting his head on his hand on the sofa arm and it's hiding his face.

"...but if they go on strike you'll have to walk back. You'll have to
swim
back, you'll have to see Dad in his Speedos and you'll die. Well yeah, I know, but at least you can go back in the hotel, right? If you're swimming up the Atlantic with his arse in your face..."

He wriggles again saying 'arse' and Lindsay gives him a vicious pinch on the right cheek. That's the first thing to get a result, a quiet intake of breath and a jerking twitch of the hips. "Don't move," Lindsay murmurs, quiet enough not to be overheard on the phone. "If you move again I'll make you so sorry."

Valentine laughs again. Lindsay can't tell if it's because of what he said or something Valentine's mum said, but either way his breathing is going crazy. Lindsay pinches him again to get him up on his hands and knees, quickly pulling the button and zip free and pushing him to make him lie back down. His jeans are too tight to pull down easily. Nothing new there, but it never stops being frustrating. He yanks hard, peeling the denim inside-out and taking Valentine's neon orange pants with it, just enough to expose his pale backside. There are two red marks from the pinches, like fading speech marks.

"...it's his own fault if he gets sunburnt, he knows he burns easy, if he thinks it's too faggy wearing suncream he fucking deserves it, don't he? Don't fuss over him, he's old enough to look after himself, if he wants to turn himself into a bacon Frazzle on day one that ain't your problem..."

He's behaving himself, he's not moving at all, even though Lindsay can feel his stomach muscles thrumming with the effort. He starts the stroking again, much gentler than before, just the ghost of a touch on the soft skin of his balls, repeating it ceaselessly until Valentine whines against his hand, turning it into a cough to disguise it, and rams his hardening cock hard against Lindsay's thigh. "Didn't I tell you not to move?" Lindsay says, barely audible. The contrast in sounds makes the slap seem even louder, a harsh crack so loud it almost seems to echo. Valentine drops the handset and scrambles to pick it back up, moving straight back to where he was told to stay when he's retrieved it.

"Sorry. Nothing, Lindsay just dropped something, he made me jump. You sadsack, you're clearing that up," he says, raising his voice like he's calling across the room. He twists back to look at Lindsay again, laughing with his eyes and biting down hard on his red bottom lip. "Okay, listen, I should go and help him. Send us a postcard, alright? Yeah. Okay, bye." Then: "Lindsay, you
wanker
, I never thought you'd actually
do
it!"

"If you're going to keep on moving after I told you not to then you've got to put up with the consequences." It's too difficult to play this game when Valentine's so bright-eyed and exhilarated, laughing helplessly and hard as a rock. Lindsay can't keep a straight face, he tucks his chin down against his chest to try and hide how he's smiling but it's so obvious.

"You don't have to stop."
"Why don't you have any shame?"
"Wasted it all on being a Hanson fan."

"I see." He lands another thunderous slap with no more warning, and Valentine muffles a wonderful hungry noise behind his closed lips. "I thought you wanted to watch your Shakespeare."

"With an alternative like this? Don't think so."

It's disturbingly thrilling doing this again. They're more used to each other now, they're getting comfortable again, and it's easier to fall back into the old ways – but a version of them that doesn't genuinely involve Valentine doing what he's told. Everything's changed. Before, Lindsay always had issues doing it and meaning it and doing it for fun, the exact same action but different moods and reasons for it. Something of that is gone now. It's easier. Valentine is alight with want and happiness, shivering and desperate and
loving it
.

"I'll never understand you," Lindsay mutters, and slaps him hard again.

"You don't have to understand it, just accept it. Like I don't understand why a handsome man like you wants to ruin it wearing brown cords but I never say nothing."

Slap. "What the hell are you talking about? You bring it up seventeen times a day at least."

 

"For your own good."

 

Slap, slap, slap. "I'm not taking fashion tips from a man who wears neon orange underpants."

 

"I love it when you talk down to me."

"Good." Another savage slap. His hand is tingling hot now. He rubs his palm slowly over Valentine's warm skin to soothe the itch, and Valentine lets his breath out in a long shuddering sigh.

"I'll come."

 

"Isn't that the idea?"

 

"I bet you could make me come just spanking me and nothing else."

"Don't say spank, it's horrible." "Not so horrible you won't do it, though."

"That's true. Shush, now." He doesn't stop this time, hard slow smacks with long pauses in between, stroking the flat of his hand over Valentine's flushing skin. Valentine's curling his fingers tight around handfuls of the throw cushion he's resting on, breathing in whimpers and starting to sweat lightly.

"Can we go upstairs?"
"No, I'm having a nice time."

"Yeah, I noticed," Valentine says breathlessly, shifting his hips to better press against Lindsay's cock. "Please, I wanna go to bed." "No. Here."

Valentine struggles over onto his back, grinning like a madman. "If it's cos you wanna leer at me being sixteen I already died ages ago." It's awkward with his legs trapped together by his jeans, but he slips down onto his knees on the thick carpet and manages to get Lindsay's trousers open in two seconds flat; it barely takes any longer than that to bring him off, which is so sad and embarrassing that Lindsay wrenches Valentine away and comes in his hair instead, streaking white into the black and smearing it in deeper with his fingers. He feels better then, more in control. Valentine goes very still and closes his eyes, but he doesn't seem bothered. "You're so gross. You're like an animal marking your territory."

"Be quiet. Stand up." Lindsay's still catching his breath, he can't find any strength. He hauls himself up to sit on the edge of the cushion and slips his mouth down around Valentine's cock, swallowing him deep and holding him at the hips, guiding him to move and do all the work. Valentine laughs, like he knows. He tangles his fingers through Lindsay's hair, whining and swearing under his breath until he goes very still and comes in a hot surge down his throat.

"You wanker, I need to wash my hair again now." "Go on, then."
"Why, you ready for round two?"
"Might be. Just take your time, I'm an old man."

Valentine disappears upstairs, waddling like a penguin because he's not bothered pulling his jeans back up. Lindsay goes to wash his hands and have a cigarette out the back door, stepping quietly so he doesn't disturb the dreaming dog asleep in the kitchen. He's just settled back in his seat, exhausted and flicking mindlessly through the Sky channels, when Dory starts crying upstairs. Not even crying, but screaming and sobbing like she's been set on fire. Lindsay jumps to his feet automatically, suddenly remembers he's not playing dad to his dead best friend's children any more, and sits back down. The instinct took him by surprise, and now he feels kind of sick.

Half a minute passes. He stares at his hands and wills her to shut up, but she doesn't. He can hear the shower still running upstairs, obviously beating down too noisily for Valentine to have heard or he'd have been in there with her the second she made a sound. Alice could howl like this for hours on end if she was left to it, he found that out the hard way.

Another half a minute and she's wailing so loud he can't stand it. He's dug his fingernail so hard into the side of his thumbnail he's made it bleed. Wishing death by freak shower drowning accident on Valentine with all the force he can muster, Lindsay takes the stairs two at a time and heads for Dory's room. The door's open just a crack and the noise she's making is unbelievable. Tiny people shouldn't be able to make noise like that; it seems to go against all the laws of nature that miniature lungs can have enough power in them to split your eardrums, but that's not too far off what she's doing.

She's sitting up in bed when Lindsay goes in, curled up with her knees under her chin and streaming with snot and tears. A good thing in a way, because it means she's genuinely upset and not just being a shrieking brat who doesn't agree with bedtime. She chokes on a sob when she sees him in the doorway, curling even tighter into herself and staring at him like she's still not sure what to think of him. Good, says the voice in Lindsay's head, that's the first thing you've got in common. Let's work with this.

He goes over to sit on the edge of her bed. He's got no plan, this is all desperate improvisation. "Did you have a bad dream?"

It takes several tries to get the words out. She's tired, she keeps rubbing her eyes with her fat little hands, but she'll never go back to sleep in this state. "It's dark I need a wee someone's took my rabbit," she manages, helpless despair distilled into a single wet shuddering breath. Clearly this whole fucking family is cursed and none of them should ever be allowed anywhere near a stuffed toy because it makes them mental. He feels like a bastard then. You're not allowed to think things like that about a kid who's not even in full-time school yet.

"Nobody's taken your rabbit. There's nobody here except me and Philip."

 

"I want my mum."

 

Oh shit. "She'll be back next week, that's not very long to wait, is it?"

 

"I want her
now
."

She's gone hysterical again, hyperventilating and sobbing and dripping snot all down herself. That instinct resurfaces, far too strong to ignore now he has to look at her as well as hear her – he does it almost without thinking or realising he's moving, he picks her up like he used to hold Alice when she had nightmares and woke the whole house up with her terrified screaming. She's trembling all over, radiating heat like a tiny little sun he's managed to catch like a butterfly, and her horrific bed hair is sticking up in all directions just like Valentine's, thick with sleep sweat and damp with tears. This is the final stage of it, if she's anything like Alice – relief that something's being done and she's getting some attention, even if it's not from her first choice. There's nothing left to do now but wait for her to get bored, so he waits. He walks her around the bedroom for something to do, murmuring soothing nonsense things at her, stroking her wild hair away from her hot face.

"You shouldn't be scared of the dark. Look at this." He carries her over to the front window and pulls the pointless gauzy green curtain out of the way. The road is still and empty like a picture book; this is the kind of area where people actually use their garages for their cars. There's the noise of night-time traffic from the nearby Hampstead High Street, but the thick double glazing dulls it right down to a hum so there's barely any sound at all, just Dory's crying and sniffles as she finally starts to settle down. "There's a cat there, can you see him? He just jumped off that wall over the road, did you see?"

"That's Muggle-Wump."
"That's a funny name for a cat."

She looks at him like she doesn't quite trust him, but she's calming. "Miss Farley said he wants a name so I called him after my book Pip was reading me cos his face looks like a monkey."

"Whose face, Pip's?" She almost giggles at that but doesn't quite make it, as if she's aware she's supposed to be upset and doesn't want to cave in to being comforted this soon. "You shouldn't be afraid of the dark, look how pretty everything is. Look at the streetlights. See that house down there, see in their window. They've got a fish tank all lit up. You wouldn't notice that in the daylight, would you?"

"I don't like fish. They're slimy."

 

"That's because they live in water. It's good for them, it's like wearing a coat."