This Other Country (12 page)

The man grinned again nodding. “Fuck fuck fucking fucky fuck.” He spoke more slowly then. “Fucky fuck in pub. Ask here. I tell water house.”

“What? What’s—?” There were voices in the corridor. Ben slid behind the door, finger to lips.

The man waited a moment and then tipped the entire tray of cups onto the floor. It fell with a vast smash of breaking china. Two men in dark suits ran in, and as they made their way over to the mess, Ben slipped silent and unseen into the corridor.

When he arrived back in the room, he thought everyone was dead for a moment, but Nikolas cranked open one eye and confessed drolly, “We’re meditating. Nice eyes, by the way.” Someone had fetched Nikolas a T-shirt, which was too small for him and consequently tight across his muscles. He looked edible in it.

Ben leant close to his ear. “Do you speak Urdu?”

Nik wobbled his hand. “Some. Why?”

“Guy in the kitchen reckoned Squeezy spoke to him in the pub. We need to ask him more. I think he’ll bring the coffee in.”

“Okay. Are you sure it was Squeezy?”

Ben only snorted.

He was in an agony of impatience now. Meditating was the last thing he wanted to do, but he surprised himself by finding it quite easy.

Nikolas had to wake him up.

§ § §

When the doctor returned, he appeared strained. He waited until everyone was focused on him. “Congratulations, gentlemen. You’ve made significant strides towards filling in that pathway to your destination.” Nikolas could have laughed at Lincoln’s expression, but then Lester was sitting with Samuel, making a new journey, apparently. “Yesterday this room was covered in a coating of ice. I spoke of an icebreaker metaphorically, but last night proved the ice between us was more than that—it was tangible. Do you feel it’s gone now? I feel warmth, a sense of closeness. We’re going to build on that. I want each of you to think of a secret. Something your partner doesn’t know about you—something you’ve deliberately kept from them.” How Nikolas resisted turning to Ben he didn’t know. “Think of this secret and ponder why you’ve kept it. Then you’re going to tell it to us all here in this very special, safe room. Those of you without a partner, you’ll be telling yourself this secret as much as us. Think about why you keep this self-knowledge buried so deeply. I’ll give you all a few moments to prepare.”

There was a universal flicking of eyes between couples and some very nervous laughs. The doctor consulted his clipboard. “Nigel, would you like to share first?”

No, he wouldn’t
.

“Nigel?”

Nikolas looked up and around the room and began to address them but then twisted around to Ben as he spoke. “Do you remember my friend Gregory?” Ben’s eyes narrowed. His face paled slightly, probably not noticeable to anyone else—but Nikolas saw it. “Do you remember we went on holiday together?” Ben nodded, completely silent. “I promised you I wouldn’t fuck him…”

Ben began to rise automatically: fight or flight apparently kicking in before he could stop himself.

Nikolas laid a hand on his arm. “I kept my promise. I swear to you I kept my promise, and I didn’t let him touch me the whole time we were away.” He licked his lips a little but held Ben’s gaze. “But I let him watch me when I…I don’t think that broke our agreement at all, but I feel bad about it, because I don’t let you watch—but then he was old and dying and you’re not.”

§ § §

The silence was thick, almost painful, like the pressure before the tsunami. Fergus didn’t need to call on Ben to respond with his secret, because Ben, keeping Nikolas’s gaze, replied deceptively evenly, “Do you remember Natasha?” All eyebrows shot up at that. “Well coke wasn’t the only thing I let her blow.”

The silence was broken by the sound of one or two jaws dropping.

Ben was impressed that not a flicker of reaction passed across Nikolas’s face. The temperature in the room had plummeted, but apparently he was the only one who felt this.

Fergus coughed lightly. “Okay…Well, err…hold that thought. Um…John?”

John shook himself. “Oh, yes, I was going to tell you, Mark, I sometimes don’t rinse the plates before I put them in the dishwasher, even though you nag me to…”

“God, yes, I was going to tell you I forgot to take your library books back for three months and kept lying to you saying I had…”

The chorus of confessions continued in a similar vein, each man sounding relieved and embarrassed in equal measure that their sins were so trivial, so domestic. One even confessed to secretly owning an original series Star Trek tricorder. They were all clearly ignoring the thunderclouds over the couple sitting with folded arms and stony expressions in their midst.

The doctor nodded when the final confession was done. “Now, reflect on why you kept those little…well, why you held those things inside. How do you feel now?”

No one glanced in the direction they likely all wanted to.

“All right. I want to move on now. I think that might be best…Predictably, when I tell you all you’re going to get a sumptuous dinner tonight—there you go, exactly, you always all cheer…but this is going to be a dinner with a difference. You have to pair off for an intimate dining experience but not,” he held them all riveted with a gleeful, expectant pause, “with your own partners. Now, I know you’re going to find choosing very hard—”

“I’ll take James.”

“I’ll take Samuel.”

Nikolas and Ben had made the exchange and dragged their chairs over to their new places before the others had time to process the interruption. Arms were folded again and stony expressions resumed.

“Oh, well, in that case perhaps the rest of you would like to…” Nervous shuffling, like children in a school playground desperate not to be left to last, ensured even the most reluctant to pair off eventually did.

“Right, the aim of this exercise is to imagine you are complete strangers but tonight you’ll be on a first date. How do you strike up a conversation? What do you say? What do you tell a stranger about yourself? Right, you have half an hour to plan your conversation on your own, then we’ll have coffee, and then two hours to learn as much as you can about your new partner and
then
, with all this new knowledge, you must introduce your new partner to the group. I’ll give you a little clue, gentlemen: the key to this exercise is listening. There’s a reason we evolved with two ears but only one mouth.”

Each new couple pulled their chairs out of the group to sit together and work through the exercise. It afforded the opportunity for Ben to drag a chair behind Nikolas. Nikolas was staring at the carpet, lips pursed. Samuel was thinking deeply, making vague notes on the paper he’d been issued.

Ben hissed in Danish, not really caring anymore if anyone questioned their shared knowledge of this slightly obscure language. “Not once you’ve let me watch. Not fucking
once
.”

“So you’re not upset I let
him
but that I don’t let
you
?”

“Yes! Fucking hell, yes. Was he that much more special to you?”

“Ack, how can you…?” Nikolas twisted around in his seat, straddling it, back to Samuel. Ben did the same, much to James’s obvious consternation. Their foreheads were almost touching “I— Damn it. It’s not that he meant more to me—the opposite. I want
you
to respect me. I want
you
to look up to me. I didn’t care what Gregory thought of me, because he’d already seen me at my very worst.” He glanced up through lowered lashes. “When he found me, I was eating someone. I’m sorry. I didn’t particularly want to tell you that either.”

Ben lowered his head. If it appeared that he was praying to Nikolas, he didn’t care. Perhaps he was. He whispered to the floor, “How do you do this to me every time?” He raised his eyes. “All your bullshit, all your lies…and then there it is, the tiny moment of honesty…that second when you’re vulnerable…” He lifted his face fully. “I didn’t think I could love you more, but I do right now.”

Nikolas’s eyes widened. “I should have maybe tried a little honesty before this. Do you…feel in need of a cigarette? Please say yes.”

Ben smirked and glanced back at Fergus who was observing Mark with Lester. “Do you think he’ll let us?”

“What? Are we in kindergarten? Come.”

§ § §

Obviously, Nikolas hadn’t forgotten Natasha. He was just currently more concentrated on Ben’s confession that he loved him, and wanted to take full advantage of it before Ben’s imagination dwelt too much on the details of just how and when he’d let Gregory watch him—and from how close up, come to that. They headed straight back to the garage, shut the door, fastening it as best they could, and before Ben could speak, Nikolas had him pressed, back to the wall, indulging in his second favourite occupation with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. Then, when he’d kissed him thoroughly, he turned him face to the wall and indulged his first.

They hadn’t had sex for what seemed like weeks. It always did when they’d missed even one day. Nikolas took his time relishing the sight of Ben utterly dishevelled, hovering uneasily between his two personas. Ben’s eyes again now, Justin’s hair, Ben’s stubble, Justin’s blond beard—and the tattoo, which was as much Ben as Justin. But lower down, he was
all Ben
. His backside—hard, tanned, smooth—was entirely Benjamin. Parted, what lay between was entirely
his,
though, and Nikolas entered with a sense of coming home, of finding himself, of being entirely broken down into his base ingredients. He watched as his cock slid slowly through the accepting ring of tight flesh, pausing to savour the sound of Ben’s discomfort, which they both enjoyed, for it heralded the coming of pleasure. Standing was always good because the angle was so perfect, their fit so right, the illicitness of fucking a man like this from behind still so seductive, even after all these years. He wrapped his arms tightly around Ben’s chest, feeling his heartbeat strong and vital beneath his grubby shirt. He slid his hands in under the material to slide on the warm, muscular torso, fastening onto Ben’s nipples and twisting them for him, making Ben fling his head back from the intensity of the stabbing sensation.

So in tune were they Nikolas knew the moment the head would come back, and he dodged it, fastening his lips onto Ben’s stretched neck, sucking the salty skin, biting him, adding another tiny source of pain. Nikolas was close now. He needed Ben to come with him, wanted that affirmation. Ben braced himself on the wall, bending, spreading his legs. Nikolas swore softly at the position and in his mind began to frisk Ben, seeing it play out—an illegal stop and search, orders given over the barrel of a gun, a vicious rape which was asked for and welcomed—illicit contradiction that could exist only in the imagination…His hands strayed to Ben’s hair before he remembered there was nothing to hold. He grabbed his shoulders instead and rode hard into the offered hole. He heard Ben grunt, knew what it meant and forced himself to the top of the long climb. The freefall after that was exquisite. It was the only time in Nikolas’s existence when he was entirely vulnerable. Even in sleep, he was more able to defend himself than at the moments when he orgasmed inside Ben.

He didn’t want to rouse from this blissful moment of peace. He was exhausted and grubby and deep inside his favourite place—but they were snatching happiness when they had a job to do. The temptation to close his eyes and rest on Ben’s back, stay embedded, was almost beyond his power to resist. But defy it he did. He stood up, wincing at the usual consequences of sex in clothes during the day. Ben was doing the same, and with a private, shared smile they attempted to tidy each other. Ben sighed and glanced at the lowered door. “We should go. Half an hour must be up. I want to speak with this coffee man about Squeezy.”

Nikolas snagged Ben’s shirt. Just a tiny pinch of cloth, but it was enough to hold him prisoner. “Natasha?”

Ben closed his eyes. “How upset are you going to be about this?”

“How upset do I need to be?”

“It was once, Nik. I was drunk. I passed out. When I came round, she was sucking me off.”

“And you let her?”

“What would you have done?”

Nikolas narrowed his eyes. It was a fair point. He pulled Ben closer with a tug on his shirt. Ben came slightly reluctantly. Suddenly, Nikolas pushed him against the wall, his hand around Ben’s throat. He lowered his face closer and kissed him slowly. Ben was frozen, neither responding nor rejecting. When Nikolas had made Ben’s lips red and swollen from his rough stubble and grinding kiss, he pulled away. “Take it as an indication of just how much you mean to me that I let this go.”

Ben swallowed then very pointedly broke Nikolas’s hold, swinging his arm up, batting his hand away. Before Nikolas could process this audacity, Ben had him backed to the wall and his forearm lying over Nikolas’s throat—a far more powerful and effective restraint. “I don’t think you’re entirely getting with the programme here, Nikolas. I was drunk. I didn’t initiate it. You did the
one
thing I trusted you not to do.”

Nikolas’s thoughts were entirely veiled, but he countered carefully, “You said you forgave me…”

Ben nodded. “I have. That’s my point. You don’t get to hold my mistake over me. You don’t get to say you let it go as if you were some magnanimous ruler. You either forgive me and forget it, or you and Gregory are going to be a real problem for me. I’ll
unforgive
you.”

“That’s not a real word.”

“Who didn’t have to learn his English, Nikolas? Who speaks it naturally? Me—so shut the fuck up.”

“Don’t—”

Ben laid his finger across Nikolas’s lips, pressing harder with his forearm. “So, Natasha?”

Nikolas blinked then pouted a little. Ben shook his head. “Not working. Sympathy vote all used up with your horrible cannibal story. I can’t see you beating that for a while.”

“I bet I could.”

Ben apparently tried not to smile, but he failed miserably.

Nikolas smirked. “All right. I’m sorry. I forgive you—although obviously you did nothing that needs forgiving. There, have I covered all bases?”