“Felix, you need to go to a doctor.” Inside Leo wanted to find Axe and make him feel everything Felix was feeling.
It isn’t right that one human being should do something like this to another. Felix never hurt anyone.
“And tell them what?” Felix’s voice slowly dropped in volume. “I doubt they would care any more about a man getting raped by another man than the police would.”
“You don’t know that.” Leo hugged himself again to stop from trying to touch Felix. “If you’re still bleeding, you need medical care. Felix, you wouldn’t still be bleeding without major internal damage. How big was this fucker?”
“I don’t know. I blocked that out.” Felix sighed and stared at his shaking hands. “I just know it hurt and seemed to go on forever, until he got tired of it and left.”
“Wait a minute.” Leo straightened and watched his friend. “This happened at your apartment?”
Felix nodded slightly. “I’ve never had any problems bringing tricks home, but now this monster knows where I live.” He gulped. “I haven’t been home in days. I’m terrified that he might come back.”
Leo shook his head. “No. You’re not going home. You’re staying with me. You’ll be safe here.”
A sad, pleading look that was reminiscent of a lost puppy filled Felix’s eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Leo finally felt like there was something he could do for Felix
. I can make sure he feels safe.
“Come on, I’m your best friend. I’m not going to let you—what have you been doing, staying in a hotel?”
Felix nodded. “One of the cheap ones down on Nevada.”
That appalled Leo almost as much as Axe’s actions. “We need to go get your stuff from there.” Then he remembered picking Felix up from work the day before. “But you were at your apartment yesterday morning when I drove.”
“Yeah, I got there right before you did. I’m not safe there.”
“Okay. Come on, let’s retrieve your stuff from the hotel. If you need anything from your apartment, I can fetch it for you. Would that be better?”
“Yeah.” The tightness in Felix’s features slowly relaxed.
“Do you want me to drive?” Leo hoped to get Felix out from behind the wheel for a safer drive. “We can even take my car if you like.”
A heavy sigh, like a huge weight was lifting off his shoulders came out of Felix. “Yeah, that would probably be a good idea.”
Leo looked at Felix. “When you’re ready for a hug, I’m here for you. Anything you need, all you have to do is ask.”
“Okay.” Felix swallowed and the tears ran anew. “Leo, thank you. I thought I wanted to be alone right now, but I don’t. I really don’t.”
“I know, Felix. I’m here.” Leo stopped himself again from touching Felix.
If I ever find that monster, I’m taking his ass to the cops—after I beat the shit out of him. He’ll learn that geeky guys aren’t as easy to mess with as he thinks.
AUD STARED
at his phone where it lay on his desk next to his computer.
I wonder why Leo hasn’t called.
He sighed for the third time in as many minutes.
I’d call him, but I don’t want to come across as clingy or needy. We’re doing really well, even with the interruptions.
The computer chimed, indicating it had finished booting. He clicked on the button for his e-mail.
He normally calls me by now, so we can tell each other how our days went. I’ve never had anyone do that before. It’s kinda nice.
The few e-mails that had arrived since he’d left the gallery came up. He recognized most of them as spam and promptly deleted them. There was one from an address he didn’t recognize with no subject and an attachment. He frowned at it as he moved it to the junk e-mail file. He knew better than to open strange e-mails without them being in the junk file in case there was something in them that could prove dangerous to his system.
There was just a simple line of text: “Aud, see what I saw the other night.” The file was an AVI. Shaking his head, Aud deleted the e-mail. “Nope, not going to trash my system with something like that. I’m not stupid.”
He answered a few other e-mails that needed his attention, cleared his trash folder, then checked the news sites for anything interesting before finding a movie and plopping down in his chair to veg out.
THE DISTANT
ringing of a phone brought Aud out of his impromptu nap about halfway through his movie. Sleepily, he scrambled out of the chair and to the desk to get to the phone before it went to voice mail. “Hello.”
“Hey, Aud.” Leo sounded more tired than normal after a day at work.
“How are you?” Aud perked up hearing Leo’s voice.
“I’ve been better. So, am I calling too late?”
The tone of Leo’s voice worried Aud. “No, not at all. What’s going on?”
“I’m at the ER with Felix. Julie just got here so I felt safe leaving him alone to call you.”
Turning the TV to mute, Aud returned to his chair. “What happened? Is he going to be okay?” He didn’t know Felix well, but he was Leo’s best friend.
A heavy sigh escaped Leo. “I think so, but it’s going to take a while.” He dropped his voice, sounding like he was afraid to be overheard. “Felix has been acting weird all week, and I finally got him to tell me what was going on. He was raped this weekend. He’s still torn up pretty bad and although he didn’t want to come, I finally got him to the hospital. They’re trying to assess the damage now.”
“Damn. That’s bad. Do you need me to come down there?” Aud wanted to do what he could to be there for Leo while Leo was supporting Felix.
“No.” There was a slight pause. “But thanks for offering. It means a lot to me that you care enough to want to be here. I don’t think having a bunch of people around is going to work for Felix right now. I’ve already called us both out for tomorrow at work.”
“Okay. Is there anything I can do to help?”
“I don’t think so at the moment. Felix is really jumpy and scared right now. I’ve talked him into staying with me for a few days as he sorts through this whole thing. I don’t know if I’m going to be able to make our trip this weekend.”
A cloud settled over Aud. He’d been really looking forward to getting Leo away from the city, somewhere they didn’t have to worry about a stalker interfering, for at least a little while. “We can reschedule. That’s no big problem.”
“Thanks for being understanding.” For the first time, there was a hint of a smile in Leo’s voice.
“I realize that things come up. You never know. Next time it might be something on my side. Are you sure you don’t need or want anything? If you haven’t had dinner, I can go get you something and bring it to you.”
“That’s very sweet. I’ll be fine. Julie brought up sandwiches when she came. Just a second.” Leo’s voice grew muffled. Then he was back. “Hey, Aud, I need to go. I’ll call you in the next couple of days, and maybe we can go grab something to eat.” This time his sigh sounded frustrated. “I don’t know. We’ll talk soon.”
“Definitely. I can’t wait to see you again. Tell Felix I hope he feels better real soon.” Even as he said the only words he could think of, they sounded lame.
How do you tell someone who’s been raped to feel better soon? Even if they can repair the bodily damage, the emotional pain will be there for a long time, or at least that’s what they always say on TV and in the movies.
“Thanks. I’ll call you as soon as I can.” Then Leo was gone.
Aud stared at the slowly darkening screen of his smart phone. He shook his head and sighed as he bent forward to set it on the coffee table.
What kind of world do we live in when I’ve got a stalker, even if it is most likely Randal, and guys like Felix can get raped? Felix is a great guy. What kind of monster would force him?
He stood and walked into the kitchen to pour a glass of wine, hoping it would help him relax. As he came back toward the still-playing movie that flashed silently on his huge flat screen, he spotted his drawing tablet sitting on the table. He’d been so busy he hadn’t touched the sketch of Leo since their first date.
Picking up the tablet, he flipped through the minor things he’d worked on over the past year until he reached the sketch he was looking for. Leo smiled back at him from the white paper, a nearly perfect rendition in shades of gray graphite. There were little things missing, like the light laugh lines at the corners of his expressive eyes.
For a second Aud thought about sitting down and trying to finish the sketch.
I know Leo wants to see it. It would be wonderful to have it done the next time we get together.
He smiled, thinking of how Leo’s face would light up at the sight of the picture.
From the coffee table, his phone rang. Carefully closing the tablet, Aud laid it back on the table and hurried the few steps to the living room.
It was Heather. He swiped the phone to answer the call. “Hey, what’s up?”
There was silence for a moment. “What’s wrong?”
The question confused Aud. “What do you mean? There’s nothing wrong.”
“Bullshit. I’ve known you for several years. Your voice is off. Something’s wrong.”
“My voice?” He settled back into his chair. “I just got off the phone with Leo.”
“And is everything okay there?”
“With Leo, yes; with his friend Felix, no. But Leo’s going to help him through it.”
It’s not my place to tell her about Felix getting raped.
“So what’s up with you?”
“Oh, so you’re just a bit sad that you’re not going to see Leo tonight. Well, as long as everything’s fine on that front.”
She sounded like she was babbling. “Okay, Heather. Why did you call?” He tried to not sound overly irritated.
“Oh yeah. Have you checked your e-mail?”
“Yeah. There wasn’t a whole lot in there. I’ve already taken care of everything.”
There was a heavy pause. “Did you get a video?”
“A video? From who?” As he asked, he thought about the AVI from the unknown account.
“Don’t know. The account appears to be anonymous. There wasn’t much in the e-mail—”
“Just a simple single line?” Interrupting her, he tried to remember what it said.
“Yeah. It was directed to you.”
“So how did you get it?”
“It came through the gallery’s account. Remember we’ve got that one set up to not clear off the server just because we download the files. I went to clean things off from the past month, like I do all the time.”
“Right.” Aud slumped in his chair. “So what was in the video? I deleted it as opposed to risk opening the file.”
“I ran the file through a scrubber before opening it.” She sounded pleased with herself. “But you’re not going to be happy. I didn’t watch the whole thing, but it sure looked like someone stood outside your window and got a video of you and Leo having sex.”
Aud dropped his wine glass on the carpet. “What?”
“You heard me. That sure looks like Leo, and unless I miss my guess, you’re behind him, coming in and out of focus.”
A wave of nausea flooded Aud as he bent over to set his glass upright in an attempt to reduce the size of the spill he’d need to clean up. There was still a little left in the curve of the glass. “Oh. My. God.” His heart pounded so hard that he grew light-headed.
“That’s one way to put it,” Heather said. “I think you need to get this file to the cops. See if their people can figure out where this e-mail came from and find your stalker.”
“Yeah.” The room spun around him.
Someone had been filming Leo and me having sex. What kind of pervert does something like that and then sends me a copy in an e-mail?
“I’ll forward a copy to your personal account. When I get off the phone, you need to call the police and find out if they want you to send them the file, or if they’ll come get it from you. I think it’s time for all of us to start taking this stalker thing a lot more seriously. Aud, you’ve got someone watching you. If they’re willing to take video and send it to you, they might get dangerous.”
“I know,” he replied weakly.
“I still think it’s that Randal fool. Even if it’s not, he’s a place to start. Make sure the cops have him on the top of the list of most likely suspects.”
“I will.” Aud finally forced himself to stand and go into the kitchen for something to clean up the spilled wine.
“Good. Now, I’m going to get off here. You call the cops. This shit just got real.”
“I will,” he repeated as he pulled a dish towel from a drawer.
“Good. See you in the morning. If you need anything, call me.”
“Okay.”
She hung up as Aud returned to the living room. He dropped the phone on the coffee table and got on his knees to clean up the spilled wine.
What is happening around me right now? Just as I find someone I really like, things get stranger than they’ve ever been before. I can’t believe someone’s stalking me, actually taking video of us. Are either of us even safe?
He was thankful for a moment that the wine was white and didn’t stain the cream-colored carpet.
I have to let Leo know about this. We can only hope this person doesn’t know where he lives.
He glanced at the phone.
He’s trying to help Felix right now. He doesn’t need this on top of that. I’ll get the cops to deal with it. Hopefully they can find the guy quickly and get it over with.
PACING SEEMED
like the logical thing to do, but Leo’s apartment didn’t really have room for it.
“Would you sit down?” Julie hissed from the couch where she sat petting Sofi.
Leo shook his head. “I can’t.” He paused and stared at the brown cat curled up in Julie’s lap. He knew if he sat down, she’d come over to him to demand attention and her purrs would help him relax, but he didn’t feel like sitting.
Julie glanced over the back of the couch toward the closed bedroom door. “Do you think he’ll get any sleep?”
“I hope so.”
“I can’t believe we missed the signs this badly.” Julie had been as distraught as Leo when she reached the hospital. On the outside, Felix hadn’t been real happy to see her, but Leo could tell that her showing up helped him remember he had people who cared for him, and he wasn’t alone.