Wild Summer (7 page)

“We don’t have to… do anything. I just want to feel you close,” Christopher said, running his fingers down Summer’s spine, causing him to arch, eyes closed, mouth open, against Christopher’s chest.

“Don’t talk,” Summer said, shaking his head. “Talking makes everything too real, and we’re not—we’re magical.”

They spent the morning getting closer but not actually getting each other off. Christopher went from being so hard his cock ached in his shorts to losing himself in kissing Summer and wishing they could carry on kissing all afternoon. He waited for Summer’s lead, as Summer was the one holding back, and he felt too inexperienced to take charge.

Finally Summer slipped Christopher’s shorts off and slid a warm hand between his thighs just shy of his balls.

“I’ve never…,” Christopher mumbled incoherently.

“You’ve never what? Been sucked off by a boy?” Summer asked with a wicked smile as he crouched between Christopher’s naked thighs and blew warm breath lower and lower down his stomach.

Christopher shook his head. Part of him wanted to close his eyes and throw his head back against the pillow. The other part needed to watch.

“I’m pretty good with my mouth,” Summer said, pausing to flick his tongue against the hollow of Christopher’s hip. “I’m gonna make you come so hard.”

I’m going to come before you even do anything,
Christopher thought helplessly.

The sight of Summer’s mouth—his perfect lips opening around Christopher’s swollen hard flesh—tipped him over. Summer guided Christopher’s dick deep into his mouth even as the come spurted out of it, his tongue licking him, his throat swallowing again and again, sucking him until he was soft, and Christopher could no longer take the sensation. Feeling blissful and weak, Christopher watched through slitted eyes as Summer knelt between his thighs and jerked himself off, coming so hard his spunk hit the pillow by Christopher’s head.

Christopher pulled him down and kissed him, already turned on again.

A
ROUND
LUNCHTIME
,
Summer went downstairs in search of some food. Christopher no longer felt like he needed sustenance. With Summer by his side, he felt as though he could survive on air.

When Summer came back, it was with Sky in tow, and the three of them ate together. After they’d finished, Sky disappeared and then returned carrying a lopsided pile of board games, which she shyly deposited at Christopher’s feet. They were old games with badly cellotaped boxes and missing pieces Summer said he had found left outside a charity shop in town.

From his own experience of being lonely, Christopher recognized Sky’s eagerness to play. He knew she would willingly lose every game on purpose, just so they would play with her again. It broke his heart a little and made him all the more determined to have fun.

“What do you want to play?” Sky asked Christopher, pushing the games in front of him, her eyes not quite willing to meet his.

He pointed at the ludo as it seemed the most intact game, from the outside at least. Christopher watched as Sky carefully laid out the game and all the pieces that were there and passed the dice to him for the first go.

Summer leaned his head against Christopher’s shoulder as they played and touched their hands together, as if he wanted to remain in physical contact at all times.

As the hours rolled past, Christopher knew he had never felt so at home anywhere before. He didn’t mind in the slightest that he was having to share the short amount of time he had left with Summer—he didn’t want to think about that at all—he just enjoyed Summer’s and Sky’s company. It occurred to him that this was what real families might do, what being part of a real family might feel like, and here they were, the three of them, having had such crap family experiences so far, now fitting in with each other as if this was how things were meant to be.

But as evening approached, Summer began to get tense.

Christopher had never felt this perceptive with anyone in his life before, but he could tell from the skittered glances and the uncertain but constant movement of Summer’s fingers that his anxiety was building.

When Sky went downstairs to get a drink, Christopher sensed this was the time they should be leaving.

“Wish I could keep you here in my room,” Summer said, plucking at the duvet he had just pulled up over his bed.

“Me too,” Christopher responded, hoping his voice wasn’t cracking the way his heart was.

When they had cleared away all the games from Summer’s floor, Summer drew him into a quick, tight hug.

When Summer pulled away, his head was down, his face a mask. “It’d be easier if you didn’t say good-bye to Sky,” he said.

Christopher nodded. He felt close to tears anyway. Saying good-bye would only make it worse, would only confirm he was meant to be saying good-bye to Summer too.

Two minutes later they were out the window and headed to the club to find Ren and retrieve Christopher’s possessions.

Now… (four years later)

C
RASH
WOKE
with a start. The air had cooled, the early-evening light slanting away from the cliff face, glittering on the surface of the sea. He pulled his phone out from his pocket—it was seven o’clock. He needed to book into a hotel. Rubbing his hands over his face a few times to wake up fully, he got up and with heavy limbs made his way back up to the top of the gorse-covered cliff.

After a quick Internet search on his phone, he discovered there was a Travelodge just north of the train station, and he booked and paid online for a room there for the night. The confirmation e-mail gave him a code for the entry door.

All Crash wanted to do now was go there, curl up on the lumpy mattress with its strange-smelling sheets, and sleep. But he had to go to Ren’s club to try and find Summer—he needed to do this with every fiber of his being. And if Summer wasn’t there, Crash wasn’t sure what his next move was going to be. He hadn’t even thought about what he might say if he did find him.

The room was small but clean—a double bed, a TV, a kettle, some sachets of tea and coffee, and a few little pots of milk. Crash shoved his bag by the side of the bed and gingerly took a tepid shower in the flimsy-looking shower cubicle in the bathroom.

Afterward, he texted Kay again and told her he loved her.

She was the best mum he’d ever had—and he’d had a few. He knew it was probably the tiredness more than anything, but he felt all at once dropped too low and wished she were here with him, sitting on the bed, telling him he was doing the right thing and not about to make a big mistake. He sensed this was the right thing, but sometimes a little bit of reassurance was necessary.

His phone flashed when the text came in.

Christopher, I love you too. If you need me, or anything, just ask.

He imagined Kay there beside him in one of her tie-dyed skirts, her hair pinned up in a messy bun, smiling kindly as she signed the words.

Wiping his eyes Crash took a deep breath. He put his phone away and headed out.

It was half past eight. If he was early, he would be noticeable, and the last thing he wanted was to stand out so that Ren would remember him. There was only so much wandering up and down the high street you could do, though.

At the mouth of the alley that led to the club, a boy in chef’s whites was smoking a cigarette.

Taking a deep breath, Crash approached him. “Do you work at the club?” he asked carefully.

The boy eyed him warily before answering. “Restaurant next door, but we serve them.” He shrugged.

There was a street kid’s air of distrust about him, and perhaps that was why Crash took a chance.

“I’m looking for Summer.”

“You are—” The boy put his head down as he took off his chef’s cap and ran a hand through his short sandy hair, so Crash couldn’t catch all his words.

“What?” Crash asked, then added self-consciously in explanation, “I… I… I’m deaf. I need to see your lips.”

The boy looked him up and down with a puzzled look on his face, and then he smiled, his whole face transforming. “Summer
told
me about you! You’re Christopher!”

Crash’s heart thumped. “Crash. I’m called Crash now. Is Summer here?” he asked, wondering what on earth Summer could have told this boy about him.

“He comes in at ten, usually. Come on.” The boy gestured to the alley, his wariness melting away. “I’ve got to get back, but I’ll take you in through the kitchens. You can get to the club through there. I’m Tom, by the way.” He held out a slim, hot hand. “Want me to tell him you’re here when he comes in?”

“No,” Crash replied quickly, shock and relief mingling sickly inside him.

Summer was here, or at least he was going to be. Crash willed himself to pull it together.

“Does he work in the kitchens with you?”

“No. He usually comes to find me on his breaks. I smoke. He talks.” Tom smiled. “Never met anyone who talks quite as much as Summer does,” he added wryly.

True to his word, Tom took Crash through the back door of the restaurant about fifty meters from the club’s main entrance, and led him down through the bright, busy kitchen and through a doorway into the main part of the club. Crash kept his head down the whole way, his eyes focused on the feet in front of him.

“Hope you’re here for the reason I think you are,” Tom said cryptically before they parted ways. He smiled a little sadly and pushed open the door, returning to the kitchen.

After trying and failing to find a response, Crash stood rooted to the spot, his insides twisting up. Maybe Tom just meant he was glad Crash was here to see Summer. But he suspected that wasn’t what Tom meant at all.

He looked around and took a deep breath. The club was exactly as he remembered it from that night four years ago. The dim lighting, the red flock wallpaper, the sticky dark flooring that might have been carpet, but that Crash wasn’t going to touch to find out. It wasn’t busy yet.

Then again, it was early, and Crash had an hour and a half to waste until ten. He saw an empty table in a corner and sat down so he had a good view of the entrance and the bar and anywhere else Summer might appear from. He hoped the bartenders didn’t notice him sitting there empty-handed—he’d go and get a drink when it was a little busier and people were less likely to want to chat.

Beneath his feet, the floor was vibrating with a rhythmic pulse. The vibration was hard and fast—he guessed it was dance music. Out on the streets, Sophie had tried to describe this sort of music to him one night when they were outside a club. She’d placed his hands against the wall and told him the beat he felt vibrating through him was like the pulse of arousal—he’d not worked out yet that she fancied him—and now every time he felt a similar vibration, he thought of her description and felt vaguely uncomfortable.

At nine the first dancer came on. The club was still quite empty—a couple of guys at a far table, one in the middle. The dancer was pretty but wore too much makeup, so much it all but obliterated her features rather than enhanced them. She was dressed in a gaudy plastic miniskirt and shiny mile-high shoes. Her act would be tame, just stripping most probably, but Crash knew the later it got, the more extreme things would become. At fifteen, he’d had little idea what kind of club it was, and Ren’s treatment of Summer had shocked him. But he wasn’t a kid any longer.

Crash got up to get a drink, hoping no one would take his table.

Two more acts came and went before ten. Both strippers. The last one didn’t smile or look as though he was enjoying himself out there at all. He had a leather collar fastened around his neck, and Crash wondered absently if his night was over or if he would be back with the more hard-core acts later. Crash didn’t want to be around for them. It wasn’t even because that sort of stuff didn’t turn him on—he didn’t know if it turned him on or not, really—it just reminded him of that awful night he came here with Summer, and Ren showed him how much Summer belonged to him.

Ten o’clock came and went. Nursing a now near-empty glass, Crash kept looking back at the bar, wondering if Summer would appear there. He had no idea what kind of work Ren would have him doing at the club.

The vibration of the music seemed to have become more intense. One of the men at a nearby table kept trying to catch his eye, but Crash looked away, hoping he was giving off the air of someone who wanted to be alone. It wasn’t something he was very good at doing, though.

“Hey.”

Crash could see the word lingering on the stranger’s lips as he eased himself into the empty chair opposite. The man was in his forties at least. Not unattractive, but Crash was not here to be picked up. As far as hookups went, he’d rather be the one doing the picking.

He sighed and pointed to his ears. Maybe the man would give up when he found out Crash was deaf. Most of them did.

But the man shook his head bemusedly, not understanding.

“I’m Lou,” he said. “Are you waiting for someone?”

“No. I’m deaf,” Crash said, feeling the vibration of his voice being swallowed by the vibration of the music.

With a frown, Lou shrugged. “That make you exempt from being chatted up?”

“Mostly,” Crash said, deciding to be blunt. He didn’t want to miss his chance to talk to Summer because of some stranger.

Lou was not to be deterred. “You can lip-read pretty well. What are you here for? Fairy boy? Or hard-core?”

Crash shook his head. Neither.

“You been here before?”

“Yeah, once.” But he was trying not to think about that. And he didn’t want to be rude, but the conversation was taking his attention away from the room. He’d rather be alone with his thoughts.

Thankfully, at that moment the lights around the stage flashed once, and the room went dark. Everyone, including Lou, turned to look at the stage. The vibration of the music became heavier, slower, the pulse of it making Crash’s head swim a little, his focus blur. He downed the dregs of his drink, regretting that he’d not just bought an orange juice. Alcohol seemed to affect his vision more than anything.