Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End (15 page)

"You grew up," Lindsay says. He untangles his fingers from Valentine's hair, but only so he can lean over to set his empty glass down on the coffee table. As soon as he's done that he's back again, slipping his arm behind Valentine's shoulders and back into his hair, crossing the other arm around to meet the first and hugging him hard to kill time while he tries to think of something to say. He can feel Valentine moving, twisting the cap back on the vodka bottle, then he's clinging back like he's drowning.

"You kept telling me to." "You were too young before. It never should have happened." "Do you regret it?" "Absolutely." "All of it?" "Everything."

"You're a fucking liar," Valentine says fiercely, and holds Lindsay's jaw to kiss him viciously hard, slimy with black lipstick. He breaks off for a moment to pull out his false pointy canines, then he's shoving Lindsay's head back against the top of the cushion and climbing into his lap to sit straddling him, kissing down the soft whiskers on his neck and under his chin. "You don't ever have to say I love you back, I don't care, I just wish I knew how to make it so you don't hate me, cos loving someone ain't the same as not hating them. Look at me and my dad."

"I don't hate you." "That's one of us, then."

"Philip," Lindsay says, trying to squirm away from his mouth for just a second. "Pip. Christ, all those names and I still don't know what to call you."

"Valentine."
"Valentine."
"What?" "Listen to me." "I'm listening."

"It's not my place to forgive anybody, but if it makes a difference you should know I do. If that helps." Eye contact is horrible, it's always been painful for him to look people in the eye when he's being sincere – people who matter, anyway. His mum. Ellie. Valentine especially. Lindsay's got his eyes fixed on a point somewhere near Valentine's nose, saying the words very quietly because they're embarrassing. He feels stupid saying them, so he does it very quietly and without looking him in the eye. "What did I tell you before? Either I get over it, or I don't get over it. I might have bad days when I bring it up just to be horrible because you're winning an argument or something, but if I don't get over it we're
both
in trouble because nobody else in the world is ever going to want to put up with either one of us."

"That's a fucking bleak view on our relationship, Lindsay." But he's smiling, his eyes are shining like a little girl at a boyband concert. He presses his face into Lindsay's neck again, breathing hotly against his skin. "You've got lipstick in your beard."

"Want to get lipstick somewhere else?" Lindsay suggests, and Valentine collapses in bright bursts of laughter. Lindsay pretends he can't feel the dampness on his neck and Valentine doesn't seem to realise, wiping his eyes with his fingertips in an absent sort of way like he doesn't know he's doing it.

"
I
think you should make good on your offer from earlier, since I never actually went to the gig."

 

Lindsay makes the split-second decision before forty-one years of repression can clamp down on his good sense. "Alright."

"...you ain't serious."
"As if I'd
joke
about this."

"Spose." Valentine sits back on Lindsay's knees to see him better, looking at him strangely. "Are you ill?"

"No."
"Will you do what I say?"
"Within reason."

"Will you wear my handcuffs?" Valentine says, smirking slowly and running his fingertip across the shiny silver buckle of the left one. "Will you tell Olly?"

 

"If you wear my handcuffs I ain't telling
no one
, that'll be my private wank fantasy for life."

 

"Fine. But don't expect me to enjoy myself."

 

"Yeah right. You'll be all like 'please sir, can I have some more?' when I'm done."

 

"Money where your mouth is, please."

"Fucking best night of my life!" Valentine says, pumping the air with invisible pompoms like a retarded cheerleader, then he stops and remembers. "Well. It's getting there, anyway."

Lindsay has to disagree, when he's naked on his back with his hands cuffed together around the centre bar of the bedstead. He squirms about, hot and sweating and uncomfortable while Valentine takes forever and a day in the bathroom cleaning the grey paint off his face. When he finally deems himself ready to be looked at, face cleaned but eyeliner reapplied and hair fluffed up into even more of a ridiculous birds' nest, he comes back into the room and stands at the foot of the bed with that asinine smirk still on his face.

Then he starts taking off his clothes.
"Don't look anywhere except at me," he says quietly, as if Lindsay
could
look away. Being naked seems to be his favourite state, but this is something else. He unfastens the twelve buckles down the side of each boot, working them slowly one at a time, then steps out of them and starts peeling himself out of his silky zippered trousers, taking his pants and socks with them. He's half-hard already and stroking himself harder, watching Lindsay's face for a reaction he really doesn't want to give. Lindsay's trying so hard to keep his face blank, but it's impossible; whatever doesn't show there is obvious from the way his cock is laying heavy and aching against the crease his thigh makes when it meets his body and hardening by the second. Even worse, or maybe better, Valentine moves his hand away from his flushed cock and starts
putting his boots back on
. He turns round, utterly shameless, and bends over to start refastening the twenty-four buckles from the instep up, and Lindsay's mouth goes dry like cotton wool.

"What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Did I say you could speak?"
"You never said I needed permission."

"Consider it said." He's smiling, though, pink-cheeked and looking at Lindsay though his long black eyelashes, much more coy than dom. He's crap at taking charge. "These boots weren't made for
walking
."

"You're ridiculous."

"And
you're
not doing what you're told." He leaps on the bed suddenly, making the mattress bounce up and down squeakily, and throws one leg over Lindsay's hips so he's sitting just above his cock, maddeningly close but not quite touching. He slaps Lindsay on the cheek very lightly and whispers, "One more sound out of you that ain't just 'yes' and you're getting gagged with Ophelia's knickers, is that clear?"

Lindsay sighs, mainly because he thinks it's expected of him, and says, "Yes."

"Good," Valentine murmurs through that curling evil smile, and moves down the bed to press a kiss against the ancient tattoo on Lindsay's ankle. That's as close as he ever dares to get to anybody's feet, with his ludicrous phobia, but he's got no qualms about working
up
. Lindsay watches the red lights of his digital alarm clock change seventeen times, gritting his teeth and twisting his hands uselessly in the black leather cuffs as Valentine ghosts his lips over every available inch of skin except the parts that really matter.

He cracks eventually. "Do you
want
me to say please so you've got an excuse to shove your knickers in my mouth?" he blurts out, and Valentine laughs breathlessly.

"
Now
you're getting it."

He returns from his underwear drawer with a pair of repulsive hot pink frilly French knickers he's never actually worn, thank god, and an ivory pair he said he wore when he was Tess's bridesmaid. This set he pushes into Lindsay's hands; the pink pair go into his mouth, not quite enough to make him retch. They hang half out between his lips like magenta cotton puke.

"I won't hear you saying stop. If you can't breathe or you ain't having fun just drop them other knickers and I'll stop, alright? Nod or shake."

Lindsay nods his head, feeling sick with embarrassment and even sicker at the rolling surge of heat in the pit of his stomach. The safety talk was always the fucking
worst
. He remembers that day forever ago, seven years ago, when they talked about rules and safewords and boundaries and it felt like it almost killed him.

"Good. Now be quiet and let me play."

It doesn't seem fair. 'Play' in Valentine's language appears to mean 'cut off your circulation by sitting on you and masturbating'. Still, it's sort of hypnotic. It could be worse. Valentine is such a disgusting little exhibitionist, at least he's putting on a hell of a show: spitting in his cupped hand, moaning gently as he's stroking himself, closing his eyes and tipping his head back like Lindsay isn't there, like he's utterly alone and having the time of his life, then the next second hunching forward with that filthy smile curling up the corners of his lips, staring Lindsay in the eye and laughing when he squirms. He's still got his ripped fishnet shirt on, he keeps hooking his fingers in the holes and twisting the fabric back on itself. He always needed something to hold on to while he was getting off. Lindsay's name is very visible under the black mesh, bold and new, stark against Valentine's skin, and he keeps his eyes fixed there, watching the shift of Valentine's muscles and the way he's gently thrusting his hips up and down to meet the movement of his fist. The buttery soft leather of Valentine's boots is pressed close against Lindsay's thighs and once that fact breaks through all the other sensations it's the only one he can focus on.

Valentine knows. How the fuck does he know? "You like my boots?" he says sweetly, like he's talking about kittens or fairy cakes and not platform heeled buckle boots that come right up above his knees. Lindsay shakes his head, but something gives him away. His skin is shining with sweat, it's sticking his hair to his forehead, and his cock is wet and flushed dark, aching and ignored.
Please
he tries to say, but the revolting gag turns it into an incoherent strangled throat noise that just makes Valentine laugh and apparently take pity on him because he gets up off the bed then, though he makes sure to carefully drag the full length of his boot across Lindsay's thigh until all his skin feels on fire. He stands up beside the bed and fights free from his fishnet top, throwing it to drape across the lamp in the corner and sliding open the top drawer to find lube and condoms. Lindsay steals the opportunity to get a proper look at him. It's not like he doesn't get to see him wandering round the house naked
all the damn time
whether it's appropriate or not, but there's something thrillingly different about his manner tonight. He's always so casual and comfortable; tonight, he seems
very
aware of himself, but not in the way Lindsay always feels, as if he's embarrassed or he feels like he doesn't belong in his own skin. It's a new kind of confidence, a sort of look-at-me bravado, but he's making an effort to hold his belly taut and it seems like every single movement is carefully calculated to show off his best side – the back – and provoke the biggest reaction in a way that doesn't seem entirely comfortable. The heels make his arse look magnificent, as much as Lindsay always takes the piss about his insane choice of footwear. He must know this, shifting his weight from foot to foot to make the most of it, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure Lindsay is hungrily watching the way it makes his flesh bounce.

"Dirty old man," he says cheerfully, rolling the johnny down easily. He does it so naturally, he's not even looking what he's doing. He never had to before, he never had a reason to wear one and the one time he got to top they never bothered. Now Lindsay can't stop running awful pictures through his mind: Valentine with Olly's legs wrapped round his waist or up over his shoulders, Olly bent face-first over some piece of furniture or a car seat and Valentine draped over his back and sheathing himself up Olly's arse like a sword. He doesn't realise he's yanking angrily on the handcuffs until Valentine's giving him an amused, indulgent sort of look and telling him to calm down.

How can I calm down?
he wants to shout until his throat cracks and bleeds.
How the hell can I calm down when Ellie's all the way in Montreal where you never have to see her but the person you've been living with is in fucking Shoreditch and constantly in my house?
Once after that time in Donington, off their faces on pills, when Ellie sucked one off the end of Lindsay's finger and Ty tried to take his face off for it, Danny sagely told him that
jealousy's a terminal illness, mate. There's tricks to make you feel better but nobody's getting over that shit.
A rare moment of cod profundity from the computer game nerd who still got his mother to do his washing in his mid-thirties.

He tries to calm himself. Feeling like this gets them nowhere except into endless spiralling arguments about trust and blame-slinging. Valentine doesn't seem to notice there's anything wrong, blithely crawling back onto the bed wearing nothing now but his boots, silver necklaces and that cursed condom. He's holding a pump-top bottle of lube and he does his favourite thing with it now, the thing he always does when Lindsay's the one on top because he says it feels nicer when it's all slidey for both of them, not just the one doing the actual ramming: he pumps out a big goopy mess of lube all over Lindsay's body, between his navel and where his hair gets thicker at the base of his snail trail, scooping some up on his fingers and leaving the rest where it is. "Alright?" he says, raising his eyebrows with the question and waggling his slippery fingers like he's waving hello, and Lindsay can't do anything but helplessly nod his head. He makes the most pathetic noise of his life at the first touch of Valentine's fingertips, part whingey protest and part encouragement because it actually feels good, he's determined to
let
it feel good this time – it's not like he's got the problem of worrying whether his friends are listening in any more. It's just strange and hardly real, tied to the bed with somebody's fingers twisting up his arse when he's only ever had anything up there once before in his life and that doesn't count because he didn't come. He squeezes his eyes shut and tries to steady his breathing, then he decides that's stupid. He's come this far, he's
handcuffed to the bed
, he's about to let a tattooed part-time drag queen in thigh-high leather boots fuck him. What's the point of trying for self-control?