Stockholm Syndrome [01] - Stockholm Syndrome (13 page)

"You're not
listening
! Why's nobody ever
listen
to me?"

Valentine shoves his shoulders hard and gets up from his lap, and Lindsay doesn't know what to do. The sudden change of mood is like a kick in the teeth. He pulls his trousers back up and just watches the kid storm about the room collecting his jeans and boots.

"You know what, fuck you, forget I said anything, I thought maybe you'd help but if you don't wanna do it that's fine, dunno why I even bother trying any more, no one's ever gave a fuck what I think or feel or
nothing
."

"Oh, grow up, you nasty fucking brat."

"Yeah, and now you sound like my dad."

"Where are you going?"

"Bed. You can come with and finish, or I can have a wank on your side and you can sleep on the couch."

He slams every door on the way to the bedroom and Lindsay leaves it a while before following, just long enough for the itch in his fingers to subside.

When the urge to break the kid's neck passes, he heads upstairs.

When Lindsay opens the door the kid's just coming out of the bathroom, wiping toothpaste from the corner of his lips, and they stare each other down across the room for a minute. There's still something angry and defiant about the way Valentine's looking at him, even though he's naked from the waist down. He looks ridiculous, and at any other time Lindsay would laugh, but he's far from laughing now. The kid's just staring at him with his mouth set in an almost-sneer,

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like he's saying
come on, then, let's have it, tell me what you think of me
without actually speaking.

Lindsay closes the door behind him. Very quietly he says, "I won't have tantrums. I put up with you before because circumstances were different, but if you come to me of your own accord expecting help and a place to stay, I will
not
have tantrums, is that clear?"

For a second he thinks Valentine's going to drop his eyes and answer yes, and this odd electric tension in the air is going to fizzle into nothing, but it doesn't happen. The kid just leans against the bathroom doorframe and folds his arms, sulking, glaring.

"Right," Lindsay says. "Right." He crosses the room to sit on the bed, and it feels like a dream, or a nightmare, where time stretches out like warm toffee into strange, unnatural shapes. It seems to take far longer to get there than it should. Anger is warping things, he's so furious he feels he's losing his hold on reality. Usually when he feels like this he shoots something or hurls crockery at the walls or rakes his fingernails up the inside of his arm until he snaps back to himself. This time there's somebody to blame.

"Come here," he says, and the kid kind of scoffs at him, rolling his eyes infuriatingly and slouching there in the doorway.

"You've got to be kidding."

"You think so? Honestly? Do I
look
like I'm kidding?"

Here's the first chink in the kid's armour, an uncertain sort of shift in his eyes before he jolts back into sullen-teenager mode.

"Fuck off, I ain't playing your games tonight."

"Shut your dirty mouth and come here. I won't ask you again." Still nothing. He takes a slow, shaky breath. "One. Two. Three. Four." Just before he gets to five, Valentine unfolds his arms and takes a couple of grudging steps, then when Lindsay doesn't break their blazing eye contact his shoulders slump slightly and he comes the rest of the way across the room, until he's standing in 105

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front of Lindsay exactly as he had been downstairs.

"Alright. What do you want?"

"I want to know what you've got to say for yourself."

"Nothing," he mutters. He goes to fold his arms again, then hesitates when Lindsay pointedly clears his throat and drops his hands back to his sides again.

"That's disappointing. You know, let's just get this clear from the beginning, if you think you're staying – this is
my
house, okay? And my rules. If you're going to behave like a naughty, nasty little brat then you're going to be treated like one. "

There's that flicker of uncertainty in the kid's green eyes again. He's starting to flush, shame or anger or a little bit of both staining his face pink. "Oh, really?" he says, fighting for that casual, arrogant defiance again, but this time there's a wobble in his voice.

"Really. Now are you going to lie over my knee on your own or am I going to have to make you?"

He does it on his own, after a few more moments of wavering; he jerks and tries to pull away when Lindsay lands the first hard smack on his bare bottom, but Lindsay puts his other hand on Valentine's back, in the middle of his t-shirt. It wouldn't be enough pressure to hold him if he
really
tried to get up, but it's a warning and he appears to take it because he lies still after that, or as still as he can. His fists clench convulsively in the bedcovers with every blow, and his shoulders are shaking with hitched breaths and sobs.

"It hurts, you're hurting, please..."

"It's
supposed
to hurt," Lindsay says, more roughly than he intends to as he smacks him for the fifth, sixth, seventh time. "You'll remember it, won't you?

Won't
you?" he prompts, with a smack that makes his palm sting, and Valentine can't do anything except clutch the covers and nod with his face pressed against his hand, smearing it with tears and eyeliner.

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Twelve's a nice round number to finish on, he thinks, and makes the smack a good hard one, then changes his mind and decides to make it a baker's dozen, and then one more because he's superstitious.

"Have you had enough?"

The kid's sniffling and gulping, breathing in stutters, and he manages to gasp a yes.

"Stand up. Listen to me. Stop crying.
Stop
it or you'll get more, are you listening?" He waits for Valentine to stammer another shaky yes and try to pull himself together. He's like a child when he
really
cries, scrubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes and looking at the carpet and the walls and the bed, anywhere except at Lindsay. "Good. Now, I want you to go into the spare room. You're going to take the rest of your clothes off, and you're going to get into bed, and you're going to think about your ridiculous behaviour until I feel you're ready to come back in here. Understood?"

Valentine's half-hard; whether it's from their interrupted sex earlier or the spanking, Lindsay's not sure. The urge to reach for his hips and pull him forward and slip his mouth down over the kid's beautiful cock
burns
in him, like a drug or the sun, but he can't give in to it, he tells himself, he
can't
. Things have gone this far. They have to finish. If it doesn't finish properly then it's worthless.

"And don't you dare touch yourself," he says. "Don't you
dare
, or I'll give you such a hiding you'll feel my hand until Christmas. Go."

He closes his eyes because he thinks the sight of Valentine's bare backside burning red from his hand is going to undo him completely, like it's the one little twist that unravels an entire knotted ball of wool. He waits for the door to open and close, and then, down the hall, another door opening and closing, then heads for the bathroom and turns the cold tap on until the stream running over his hand is like Baltic winter and his bones feel like they're splintering.

Only then does he push the rubber plug home and fill the sink to the overflow hole, and he plunges his face in until his lungs scream for air. It's not helping the pressure in his trousers, not even a little bit. He drags himself out of the water 107

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and leans there against the porcelain edge, gasping and dripping down the side of the sink, kneading his cock through his clothes and willing it down.

A cool shower does the trick, just about, and then he spends ten minutes in a towel, trying to decide what's the right thing to wear when he goes to confront the kid, like a teenage girl going to a big party. He laughs at himself, feeling stupid, and avoids his reflection in the mirror. T-shirt and boxers, in the end. He's too tired to think. He's not angry any more, he just feels tired.

Valentine sits up in bed, when Lindsay pushes the door open, and they look at each other for a minute in a silence that's all questions and answers.

Lindsay clears his throat and speaks, just to make sure.

"Is there something you want to say?"

"Yeah," he says, quietly and sincerely. "It ain't fair, taking my shit mood out on you when you ain't done nothing except look after me. I don't mean it. I'm really sorry."

He's still in bed, like he's waiting for permission to get up, and Lindsay feels a delicious little thrill at that – this beautiful docility isn't going to last, he's got no self-deluding expectations about that, but it's okay. He's pretty sure he knows how he's going to handle it from here on.

"You can come back now."

He heads back to his room. Valentine doesn't follow straight away.

"Where have you been?" he asks when the kid finally comes in and softly closes the door behind him.

"Making the bed," he says, like it's the most obvious thing in the world.

He hesitates, as if he still isn't sure what he's allowed to do, until Lindsay smiles and holds a hand out, then he's smiling back and crossing the room to stand in front of him where he's sitting on the bed. He runs his fingers through Lindsay's damp hair, and Lindsay slides his arms around the kid's waist and pulls him in closer, pressing a kiss on his bare tummy like it's a seal on the forgiveness.

"Good boy," he murmurs, and he can almost feel the prickle of

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goosebumps rising on the kid's skin under his lips and fingers – at least for a moment, until Valentine sinks to his knees and pushes Lindsay's legs apart so he can nuzzle up his thigh and against his boxers.

"Can I take them off?" he says softly, looking up at Lindsay with huge, luminous eyes. "Please. I want to suck your cock. I'll make it good, I swear, I'll make you come so hard you see stars. You can come on my face if you like, I don't mind, I want you to. Let me, please? You tell me when you're ready, I'll take it on my face, yeah?"

Lindsay's starting to feel a bit headspinny and surreal again. "You'll...?"

"It's okay, I know how it works, after... after. You know. It's part of the punishment, innit?"

"What? Fuck..."

"What?"

"You're a mess, little man," he says quietly, gently stroking the kid's cheek with the backs of his fingers.

Valentine almost-smiles, and sits back on his heels, twisting his fingers in his lap like he's not sure what to do with them now they've stopped plucking at the waistband of Lindsay's boxers. "Yeah, I know. You don't want me to suck you off, then?"

"Just... come to bed, okay? You've had a hell of a day. You should sleep."

He does as he's told without another word, crawling naked under the covers when Lindsay pulls them back for him, and tangling his fingers in Lindsay's hair when he settles beside him, like he can't get him close enough.

"I need to... I have to ask you something," Lindsay says, feeling awkward and hellish and compelled to do it anyway. "Your father. Did he...?"

"What? Have a go at me with his cock as well as his fists?" The kid gives him a twisted sort of smile. "Nah. Someone else. Two someone elses.

There was my mate, when we were sixteen, Olly. He always knew I don't like 109

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girls cos, y'know, he was my best mate, and he was always okay with it til this one time I ended up sucking him off and he decked me after cos he was embarrassed or something, I dunno. Maybe I was shit, it was my first time.

Then... I got this job in Topshop and my boss took a bit of a shine to me cos I kept going back even when he threw me around. I had to, I didn't wanna lose my job, I got a good discount." Unbelievable, Lindsay thinks – even now he's throwing up glib lines and jokes, with a cheeky smile on his mouth and a haunted look in his eyes like chalk and cheese. "It weren't that bad. He still made me come every time, I don't mind. If I was just a punchbag I wouldn't've kept going back. I'm thick, yeah, but I ain't
that
thick. And now there's you. Third time lucky, yeah?" He reaches over to turn off the lamp, and snuggles down in Lindsay's arms. "I must have 'wallop me' written on my face or something, seems like everybody wants to. My dad never touched me like that, though, he ain't into that kind of thing. He just likes making me cry. Bit like you, then," he adds, very quietly and much too lightly.

"I'm not – I'm
not
him, I'm not like him."

Valentine almost laughs, but it's more like a sigh. "You're not," he agrees. He curls in as close as he possibly can and tucks his face into Lindsay's neck. "I love you, for one."

He slides his hand down Valentine's back, down to rest against his bottom. It still seems roasting hot, although he doesn't think it can be. He can't stop seeing the colour of it in his mind, gorgeously blushed and almost glowing, and the way the muscles in his thighs thrummed as he fought himself to keep still and take his punishment bravely.

"You did well," he says, feeling suddenly wretched and well out of his depth. "You were good."

Valentine murmurs something against his pulse. He's already half-asleep, so Lindsay eases him the rest of the way, with one hand on his bottom and the other gently stroking through his soft hair.

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***

When he wakes up, the French doors are open and he can see Valentine out on the balcony, sitting on the stone wall with his legs dangling down the side of the house. He's smoking Lindsay's cigarettes, just staring out over the bay, and there's something so uncharacteristically
still
about him, Lindsay doesn't want to disturb the peace. It's warm for October, but the morning breeze is cool and sea-scented. The kid's wearing jeans and one of his pyjama shirts. It's ludicrously big on him and slipping down over one pale shoulder, like he's a child playing dress-up.