CopyCat (7 page)

“Damn it, Gavin, that’s stupid. What’s the matter with you? Are you
crazy?
” he said and immediately seemed to realize what he’d said and who he’d said it to. “I didn’t mean that to come out like that, Gavin. Not like it sounded.”

But it was too late. The words were there between us like the broken glass, sharp and hurtful. They had cut to the bone.
I shrugged, trying not to show how much I cared.

“Then you agree with the judge. He said I misperceived reality and found me not guilty because of it. No
mens rea—
no guilty mind.” I looked up at him. “Just crazy.” I handed him back his beer bottle and turned to go back to the living room.

He caught my arm and pulled me back around. “Damn it! Listen to me. Santiago took advantage of you! He knew it was wrong, but he manipulated you anyway, Gavin. Don’t you see?”

Suddenly, I was really worn out and aching all over. I tried to smile. “I see. You’re saying that because you think I’m not—right in the head—he was able to fool me into helping him. Into doing those paintings for him. I know—that’s what my lawyer thinks too. And my psychiatrist. Luckily the judge agreed with them and that’s why I’m not in prison. Or dead in a prison cell like Miguel.” Gently, I disengaged his hand from my arm. “I’m pretty tired now, Connor. I have to ask you to excuse me.”

He looked as if he wanted to argue with me, but in the end, he nodded and closed up his notebook, shoving it back in his pocket. He pulled out a card and pressed it in my hand. “Call me if you think of anything…if you need anything. I still have some questions for you, if you’ll talk to me again.”

“Yes, all right. Maybe tomorrow.” I slipped the card in my pocket and walked with him to the door. He looked back down at me, hesitating a little, but I guess there really wasn’t anything left to say. He nodded once more and closed the door behind him.

Chapter Three

The house was quiet as I got ready for bed—almost too quiet, like it was listening again, or waiting for something. I could hear it even over the grunts and loud breathing on the DVD I was watching, another porn classic from Miguel’s stash. He’d brought a bunch of them over one night when he was staying at my house while I finished some paintings, working long into the night to get them finished in time for an already scheduled exhibition. He’d told me he had buyers who were most anxious to get their hands on the paintings—a collection of oils by a relatively new artist from southern California.

Usually, I could use the porn to jack off and relieve the stress and tension I was feeling, but not tonight. I kept remembering that morning in the shower when Connor Todd held me against him, his hard cock rubbing against my crease, while his soft lips pressed against mine. I couldn’t get him out of my mind. That, combined with my bruises and the ache in my shoulders from painting all day, had me feeling like I was tied up in knots.

Deciding to get a bath to help me relax, I went into the adjoining bathroom and filled the tub with steaming water, as hot as I could stand it. I planned to soak away the aches and pains along with some of the bad feelings churning around inside me if I could. I poured in some herbal bath salts and inhaled the fragrant steam coming off the water as I stripped off my clothes.

I popped open one of the beers Connor Todd left on the coffee table in my living room and went to soak in the tub while I drank it. Lying back in the water, I relaxed and let it seep into my aching muscles, trying to clear my mind. Much later, I dragged my pleasantly limp, relaxed body from the tub and pulled back the covers on the bed. I stretched out on my back, and maybe it was from watching the porn Miguel left behind, or maybe it was from talking about him earlier in the evening, but his image sprang up unbidden in my mind.

That’s how I always thought of him—Miguel—just the one name like some movie or TV stars went by. Larger than life, magnetic and appealing. So dominant and so vivid he only ever needed the one name. I could close my eyes and still clearly see his tawny, olive skin, his glossy black hair and those soft pink lips. He’d seduced me easily that first night at the party in his honor. I’d never met anyone more charming, more charismatic. It was Miguel’s birthday and Steven Oswald had convinced me to go to the party with him.

“You never get out anymore since your grandfather passed away, Gavin, and I know he wouldn’t want you to sit around and brood over him.”

“I’m not brooding over him. I just don’t like big crowds of people.”

“Miguel specifically asked me to bring you, Gavin. I think he really likes you, and he could help you make contacts. He’s having the party at his gallery and all the right people will be there. It could help your career immensely.”

I snorted. “What career? I copy paintings, Steven Oswald—it’s just a hobby. An avocation, like my grandfather wanted me to have. You’ve kept me busy these last few weeks since his death and I appreciate it, but I don’t really need the money. Between my parents’ estate and what my grandfather left me, I’m really fine. I don’t
have
to work at all.”

“I know,” he said, his kind eyes searching my face. “But you enjoy working, don’t you? It’s been a good distraction for you since your granddad’s passing. You know he asked me to look after you for him, once he’d gone. He was afraid you’d spend too much time alone here in the house and not go out and cultivate friendships, find some real happiness.”

I smiled at him. “You sound just like him. I’m fine—really!”

“Humor me, then. Go with me to Miguel’s party and have a good time.”

So I let myself be talked into going and that was the beginning. Miguel came up to me the minute we walked into the room. He was charming, kind and very attentive all evening, hardly leaving my side. It was exciting to be with him, but as it grew later and the crowd got thinner, I looked for Steven Oswald to take me home. It was then Miguel pulled me close and murmured in my ear.

“I told him I’d see you safely home, Gavin. I hope that’s all right with you.”

“Oh, but…you can’t leave your party just yet, can you?”

He looked around him and lifted one shoulder elegantly. “Maybe just a few more minutes. Can you wait that long? Let’s sit over here by the window, shall we, and have another glass of champagne.”

We had another glass or two and when Miguel was called away by one of his friends, he made his apologies and said he’d be right back to take me home. The champagne and the unaccustomed late hour had made me sleepy, so I put my head back on the sofa to wait for him.

It must have been hours later that I awoke to find myself alone in the huge, now-empty gallery, the other partygoers having gone home. I stood up, swaying a little from too much champagne and Miguel came up behind me, taking my arm. “My apologies, dear, but I was called away to deal with a minor emergency outside, and when I returned you were sleeping. You looked so peaceful I was trying to decide whether to wake you up or let you rest.”

I put a shaky hand to my head. “I really need to get home.” I stood up, intending to head for the door. “I can get a cab if you’re not ready to leave yet.”

“Are you sure?” He came up beside me and slid one hand down to my lower back, causing me to shiver. “Wouldn’t you like to stay until morning?” Sexual need curled tightly through my belly. It had been too long since I’d visited the hotel bar, and this man’s sexy brown skin and his graze brushing against my back made me hard almost at once. Still, a warning bell in the back of my head was telling me to go while I still could. I pulled away from his embrace and took a step toward the door when I was seized and thrown roughly on my back on the sofa.

I remember struggling, but the champagne and shock slowed my reactions. Miguel was bigger than I was, too. He flipped me over to my stomach with ease, and soon he had my hands twisted up painfully behind me, my wrists held in a bruising grip. His hot breath danced across the side of my face, and I could smell the warm scent of his skin—a clean smell like the ocean, under laid with the slightly sour tang of sweat. I could feel the hard press of his cock on my ass.

I made a little sound of surprise, and an amused chuckle sounded in my ear. “Come, darling, you must have known how much I wanted this ass all evening.” A shift of his hip and he was pressing harder into the crease of my jeans. “You want this too.”

“No,” I said. “Let me go. I don’t want
anything
like this.”

“Now you’re lying,
pequeño
. I know you want me as much as I want you.” His teeth sank down in my neck, and I felt a trickle of blood. “That’s right,
niño
, don’t fight me.”

He yanked my jeans down around my ankles and then picked me up and hauled me over on my back. I tried to get away but he captured my wrists in his hands again and smiled down at me, his teeth shining in the soft light. He let go of me long enough to tug my jeans down over my feet and throw them on the floor. “Now, sweet one. You’re going to give me what I want.” He picked me up as easily as if I’d been a child and sat down with me, pulling me on top of him. Still holding my numb wrists captive in his hand, he fumbled in his pocket for something and came out with a tiny tube of lubricant.

“A good thing for you I carry this with me,
pequeño
. You’re very tight, I think.” He quickly freed his cock from his pants. His hard hands pulled me up onto his lap, and he used one hand to squirt lube on his big dick. Then he picked me up and pushed me down on top of him and laughed as I screamed out my pain and distress, trying to pull away—“You’re not going anywhere until I say you can, beautiful boy. Not until I finish with you…”

That was the beginning of it all. The madness that had continued for the next two years, a never-ending cycle of sex and debasement. He was my master in every way. I was too frightened, too intimidated by him to ask anyone for help. He convinced me that no one would believe me anyway. It would be my word against his. Besides, by that time I was already in his thrall, and I wasn’t sure anymore if I wanted to get away.

It was around that time that Miguel asked me to create the paintings and I’d agreed. I was happy to do whatever it took to please him by then, and Miguel explained to me that I was doing the right thing. He helped me understand how it wasn’t wrong to create the copies, and as soon as I finished a painting, Miguel came and took it away. I never asked where he took them—didn’t care, really. The painting filled my days so Miguel could fill my nights.

I did things with Miguel that I’d hardly even heard of, things that disgusted me in the light of day, but at nightfall I crawled back for more. And Miguel had a never-ending supply to give. I did whatever Miguel required me to do, whenever, wherever he wanted it, no matter how it made me feel, and I’d hated Miguel almost as much as I craved his touch. The passion for his arms around me, his cock burning in my ass, consumed me from the inside out, leaving only an empty husk.

He was careful never to draw blood and to leave only an occasional outward mark that faded in a few days’ time.

When it got to be too much, or if the pain was too great, I’d retreat to my house and my studio until Miguel came for me again, oozing charisma and corruption in almost equal measures, explaining to me that I wanted the pain and that I’d goaded him until he had no choice but to give it to me. No matter how many times I promised myself I wouldn’t, I’d always go back. I began to think there really was such a thing as the devil.

****

I wasn’t sure what woke me up, but when I glanced over at the clock, I saw that it was three o’clock in the morning. I saw an article online once that claimed three o’clock in the morning was the devil’s hour. According to this article, occult beliefs hold that turning something upside down corrupts and perverts it. Since legend has it that Jesus Christ died at three pm, the opposite of the time would be three in the morning.

In the light of day that never made much sense to me, because of the different time zones between America and Jerusalem or wherever. Not to even mention daylight savings time and all. But in the dead of night, things don’t have to make sense. They just have to
be
, and your mind takes over from there. My mind was plenty active as I glanced around at the shadows in my room. It was then I heard a soft sound from downstairs.

I sat up, not turning on a light and listened in the darkness. There it was again, a surreptitious sound like a footfall coming slowly up the stairs. Easing from the bed, I looked wildly around the room for a weapon of some kind, but found nothing. My room was at the head of the stairway, so if someone was on his way up, I had only seconds before he came into the room. Casting my gaze desperately around, I spotted a heavy glass vase by the dresser and grabbed it on my way to the door. Standing behind the door, I raised the vase over my head, intending to smash it down on anyone who opened it, but the soft footsteps reached the top of the landing and moved stealthily past my room and down the hallway.

Barely breathing, I strained to listen and heard what sounded like the door to my grandfather’s old room softly opening and then closing back. The room was unchanged in some ways from when my grandfather still occupied it, since I’d never had the heart to clear away the items littering his dressers. There was nothing of any great value left, simply some flotsam from his travels as a Merchant Marine, and various family photos and trinkets. His clothes and various personal effects had been given to the away to charity shortly after his death, and the few valuable items he’d owned like his watch and wedding ring were locked up in a safety deposit box. Steven Oswald had handled all those details for me.

I opened the door to my room and stole softly down the hall. I thought I could still hear quiet sounds coming from inside the room and paused outside to press my ear to the door. Almost immediately I heard a series of soft bumps and clicks and then silence. Gathering all my courage I threw open the door to the room, flipping on the light switch at the same time—and found the room empty. I looked in the entirely barren closet and even under the bed, but found nothing at all. Could I have imagined the whole thing?