Antidote (Don't) (12 page)

“Mom?”

“I, I’ve just got back from Italy.”

I offered a small chuckle. “Oh-kay. I kind of know. Dad told me. Good trip?”

“I was at your father’s and was supposed to go to the garage. Just go and meet my client and arrange for his car to be towed here. I was tired. Your dad asked me over for a coffee and I thought—”

“Mom.” She was rambling, sentences unfocused; not herself by a long shot.

“He got something for me in the post.”

I frowned. “Something to do with the divorce?” That would explain it.

“No.” Nothing else was given, and I rubbed at her shoulders, hating how she seemed to pull back a touch.

“Are you happy, Jack? With this Jan?” Black eyes rested on mine. “Your dad told me about him, and, well, are you happy?”

I gave her a smile. “Yeah. More than, Mom.”

“Then you—” This time she definitely pulled away. “You don’t need this now.”

I caught her arm. “What the fuck’s wrong, Mom?”

She was startled with that and I already regretted letting my mouth slip. Her lips had thinned, not quite angered, more fearing letting any words pass them. And she kept fidgeting with the damn carry case, running her fingers over the leather clasp, feeling the button. “I...” She finally pulled her bag open and reached inside. “He’d ordered me this CD for Christmas. Said he’d wanted to replace the one I’d lost.” She pulled out a brown wrapped package, certainly looking like a CD with the size and shape. Taking it from her, I saw that the end had been neatly sliced open. My old lady had a thing for letter openers. Not that I could blame her, so did I, only not in any sense she’d ever understand.

“
War of the Worlds
,” she said with a shrug. “I lost the Jeff Wayne version when I left, so he said he’d order me a new one.” There was a ghost of a smile. “Always trying to build bridges. This came today.”

Giving her a brief look, I reached inside the package and, yep, there it was, tripod aliens with big eyes on the cover. “I remember listening to this in the car on the way to school,” I said, snorting a smile. It had scared the hell out of me.

“Yes. There’s a key ring in there too. It has a light on it. And, Jack, there’s a message.”

After a slight frown, I opened up the DVD case and quickly caught the small purple key ring that fell out. I’d seen enough over the years; having certain car parts marked for theft prevention, you’d need one of these UV security lights to read the markings. And the message...

Don’t...

...Look at the CD, J.A.C.K.

For a moment I didn’t move, every letter of each little clause, all formatted in true Mark Shaw head-fuck style, it stalled everything bar the fall of the low afternoon sun catching the lettering.

“Jack.”

I looked over the disc itself, flicking the LED light over the alien landscape. On a slower sweep, a message came up under the gaze of the purple light. A website address, then:

Don’t...

...panic when watching the porn sites, Jack. Music... book... DVD.

I went over to my computer and started to type in the web address.

“Jack...”

“Shush.” I shouldn’t have looked, it wasn’t even down to any conduct disorder that I did, more a need to see. This was the internet. Public
fucking
domain.

Tacky and crude images showed a porn site banner, then:

Don’t...

...watch the
pup bound and fucked by Bear in woods
.

Life slipped off the clutch for a moment as images started playing on screen, then—“
Fuck you
!” All wires snapping, the monitor ended up on the floor when it refused to stop choking out the sick line on screen. “
Fuck... You
!”

“Jack
!” My old lady was over by me, trying to grab at my arm. “Please, not the computers! Your records.”

Stop. It had to fucking stop. Mark. The
fucking cunt
. He’d filmed Cutter’s first fuck with me. And there it was—my grass-stained ass on display on the smashed-up screen, taking over five hundred likes already. I kicked the shit out of it.

“
Jack
...” My old lady was tugging at my arm as Sam slammed the door open.

“What the—”

“
Jack
,” my old lady shouted through Sam’s words. “Stop. That man... He-he tied you up. Did he... hurt? You cried hurt. Did he—”

“You
saw
?” I groaned, hands going to my head. “You—” Life became very fucking small. CD? Book? DVD?

My old lady’s CD... A book, DVD.
Jan’s—Gray’s?

“
No
. For fuckssake,
no
.” I took the stairs, hearing my old lady’s calls, but losing them to my own as I shouted for Sam to move out of my fucking way.

It didn’t take me long to get to Gray’s, mostly because the journey was a blur, and I pushed on through to the Manor to hear a yelp come from behind the door. “Fucking move,” I snarled, seeing Ed jump back. UV security light in my hand, I started pulling at the mail on the table, tugging out drawers and looking for Jan’s books from this morning. “Where are they?”

Giving a disgruntled grunt, Ed started to pick up the rubbish I’d scattered on the floor. “What?”

“
Jan’s fucking books
.” The drawer shattered at Ed’s feet and he yelped as it caught his knuckle on the way down. “The DVD, the one Gray ordered. Monday, the DVD, the—”

“Jan has just taken his books through to the Marquis Gallery, East side, to start an art collection in there; the DVD—”

Gallery.

I bolted past the lounge plus four more rooms, through a long corridor, then came to a stop outside of another of Gray’s studios, one I usually avoided at all costs due to the amount of torture that went on in there.

“Jack?” A little startled, Jan looked up from the art he was unwrapping. His grin widened, then he was suddenly over, tugging at my arm. “A new art collection’s going in here.” He pulled me over to the huge brown painting he’d been unwrapping. “Gray and I didn’t have time to go to the museum this morning. Gray worked on this, giving us the first print, and, Jack...” he looked back at me, “you should see it.”

He pulled off the cover and the frame that came into view was stunning, all white and no doubt some expensive shit of Gray’s taste, and the black and white canvas....

Hands went to my head. Oh fuck, oh fuck. Not the collar.

I was used to Gray taking prints from different scenes I’d worked; pictures never really did anything for me. This one was from last night, all hands, knees, and paying homage on the floor, grey collar to boot.

“Fuck.”

“Stunning, isn’t it?” said Jan. “It’s you, and I mean you. See, the rope?” He outlined it from where we stood. “Arms are made to bend back, almost protectively over your head; everything that binds you internally, your disorders, it’s brought to the surface by the rope. And yet at the very point vulnerability seems to want to consume, you offer your body and mind with no complications, no judgments, just you: sensuous submission to life and disorder in soft light and shadows. Your history caught in erotica.”

Caught. “Where’s your books, Jan?”

“Hmmm?”

“
Your fucking books
?” He jerked at the cry as I started searching the gallery, pulling at the brown paper littering the floor. I found one sitting on a display case, the abstract book, and grabbed at it.

“Jack. What the hell?”

Using the UV light, I scanned the back page, the front, inside, then out. Nothing. I tossed it back at him. “The other one.”

“What?”

“
The fucking other book, Jan
. Where is it?”

“In the lounge, on the coffee table—”

I was gone before he could finish and made it into the lounge to see the second book isolated on the table in a protective cover. Giving a snarl, I pulled it free and checked the front cover with the UV light, then the back, the outside, then inside where—

The purple of the light caught something on the first page, another website address, this one a little different and
—

Don’t...

...make me laugh anymore, Jack. You’re killing me. Seriously. Take a breather before you do yourself some damage.

Love always, Mark.

Giving a cry, I tore the page in two, reducing it to shreds as Jan cried out, trying to tear it out of my hands. “
For godssake, Jack. Stop. Please. That’s
—”

“What the
fuck’s
going on?”

I glanced back and refused to groan. Gray was back by the lounge door, his attention half distracted and on Ed’s hand.

“
Bastard
.” I threw the book up the wall with such force it hit the fireplace, dislodging some fancy candles and sending them to the floor.

Gray was suddenly in my face, pushing me against the settee and I nearly stumbled onto it as he came in nose-to-nose. “What the fuck’s your problem, Jack?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“
Nothing
,” was growled through my teeth. I pushed him aside and shifted for his study. Ed brought his mail here, but it had been nearly a week ago. Gray would’ve opened it. Drawers were pulled out of the mahogany desk, then I started on his DVDs.

“
Jack
!”

Gray’s shout didn’t stop me, just heated life, and added to me tearing up his study. “
Where the fuck did you put it
?”

“What?” said Gray, now standing back, arms folded, a dangerous sign within itself.

“The DVD.” I slammed a drawer shut but didn’t even glare back. “Where did Ed put that fucking DVD you ordered?”

“This one?” Ed stood by the door holding a DVD case, and I stopped. “Gray ordered me a copy of
Downton Abbey.
I’m useless with technology, and—”

Giving a snarl, I started to shift for him, but Gray, grabbing my coverall collar as I passed, shoved me up against the wall with a thud. His gaze fell on my hand, on the UV security light, and—“Gray,” I said quietly, “Don’t, please. You can’t... don’t see that.”

A look at me, Jan, he took the UV light and headed for Ed.

“Ah. Don’t—” Hands went through my hair. “Please....” Gray flicked a look at me as he reached Ed. “Don’t watch that, Gray, please....”

Holding the DVD in one hand, Gray opened it up and ran the light over the inside. A glance up at me, and he headed out of his study.

I waited, listened, not daring to move, to breathe—not even when Jan turned away and headed out after Gray too.

Jan

Something was seriously wrong. Something out of that book had Jack climbing up the walls, enough to tear up over fifteen grand’s worth of art history. Part of me didn’t want to know, another part of me
had
to know.

Noise came from the living room, the kind of grunts and groans off a TV you’d turn down at night time so no one else would hear you, and I slowed my pace.

Side-on to me, Gray was standing by his laptop with his arms folded, his face giving nothing away. I frowned, but couldn’t quite bring myself to go over. “DVD?” I said quietly, resting against the doorframe, but Gray shook his head.

“Porn site.”

My heart fell. Amongst the recently posted, there was a screen shot of a painfully young-looking Jack. Gray homed in on the title for a moment, enough for me to read it from here. It was the same intro found on most sites, yet somehow very much in a class of its own.

Don’t...

...love the Cub in slap-kink with Bear.

I rested my head against the frame, just hugging my stomach, and watched as Gray clicked on the play button.

A simple master bedroom came on screen. It allowed room for a bed with a brass frame and headboard, made up with crisp white duvet covers and soft pillows. Each side had a bedside unit, and a lamp was on one, but barely added much light to the cream-coloured room.

Three men heated life up in there. Well, two men and a young boy just touching eighteen. One man sat in the corner, watching what was going on in the bed, a smile plastering his face as he stroked his hard-on. He was naked, but then so were the two people writhing on the bed.

Cutter was an easy spot. Mark Shaw had him bang to rights as a thug who loved to cut up young men: a skinhead, three times bigger than Jack, and most of the muscle looking as hard and as up for it as what went on between his thighs. He had a tattooed scalp, some political racist slur that ran down his neck, and Jack, he was the naked teen struggling underneath him.

Jack’s hair was longer, wilder, his body youthfully thinner, still deeply tanned and coated in a thin sheen of sweat. Cutter had just flipped him onto all fours, his arm snaking roughly around Jack’s neck, his free hand pulling at Jack’s hair to twist his head and get access to his mouth. He kissed hard, rutting just as rough, pausing from his kiss only to grin at the youth he held.

“Want it, boy?”

“Not tonight, luv,” said Jack, smiling, “got a headache.” A growl, Cutter shifted, tossing Jack onto his back, and Jack’s dick came into full view. My heart sank, because for all of the fight Jack offered, he wanted it. He wore nothing but this black rope necklace with a black cross sleeping on a bigger silver one. Tiny sterling-silver balls, three one side, three on the other, gave it that youthful look, a little expensive too. I didn’t look below that necklace again. Jack looked young, way too fucking young for me to focus on anything lower than that necklace.