“Something about your mother?”
“The way she died. I didn’t come back and find her. She was alive when I got home. And…men were with her, three or four of them.”
“Jesus. They hurt her? Why?”
“They weren’t after her. It was me. She-she got in their way, and they just…”
He faded out. John remembered the easy, almost flippant way he’d related her death to him before. “What did they do?”
“I don’t know. Something that didn’t leave any marks. But I fucking hated them so much. It was like my brain caught fire. They came for me, and I put the fire in my hands. And then I reached out and put it in them. I’m aware, by the way, that I sound like a total nut job here.”
To John he sounded newly and completely sane. But he nodded agreement, brushing a kiss to his cheek. “Yes. But go on.”
“I’ve lost months of my memory after that. Years, maybe. I think my granddad just picked up the pieces and carried on as best he could. I do recall him”—he paused and gave a brief, unexpected smile—“standing on the doorstep, giving what-for to some social worker who’d come to try and take me into care. I don’t think there was much of a police investigation, but this afternoon, standing in the bloody cereal aisle at Sainsbury’s, I suddenly remembered the name of the guy who carried it out. Jim Ford, our village bobby. Retired years ago, but I knew where he lived, so…”
“Was he there? Did you see him?”
“Yeah. He’s old, but he’s still pretty sharp. His missus gave me tea and about five of the most horrendous home-baked cupcakes. Anyway, Jim said they looked into my mother’s death as far as they could, but once the coroner’s report came back, there was no reason to go on. He said there was only one other weird thing about that day. The ambulance crew who were checking my mum over got suddenly called away. There’d been a crash on the Drove Road. You know the long straight stretch where you like to see if a car can fly…”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“No. I am. God, I can’t believe you sold her. I’ll buy you a new one, I promise, something even stupider—”
“
Ssh
. Don’t be daft. Go on.”
“Okay. It was one car, no other vehicle involved. No marks of a skid. More like they’d just pulled over, you know? But the car was on fire. It was so fierce and hot they couldn’t get near it, and when it finally died back, there was nothing left. Bones and teeth. Jim said they could just about tell there’d been three male passengers. There were no matching dental records, and the numbers were burned off the car chassis. It was like they’d dropped out of the sky.”
John held him. The night was warm, but even so he’d felt waves of fever heat coming off him as he’d unfolded his story. His T-shirt was damp. “What happened?”
“They gave it up eventually. There was nothing to connect it to my mother. But Jim said he’d always felt uneasy about it, as if there
was
something, some link. He said the Drove is the road he’d take if…”
“If he wanted to get away from here as fast as possible.”
“Right. If he was running for his life.”
“And you think what happened to them was something to do with you?”
“Tell me it sounds crazy.”
All right, if that’s what you need
. John closed his eyes. He dismissed the visions that instantly leaped up of the impossibilities surrounding the last few weeks of his life—and further back than that, if he dared to look. “Okay,” he said. “You were just a little kid, and you were in shock. Kids imagine all sorts of things.”
“Oh, John.” Mike turned in his arms. There were tears on his face, but he was smiling, as if he very much appreciated John’s effort, or appreciated something about him. “Thank you. Nice try.”
“You’re welcome. It’s good practice for all the other stuff I’m gonna have to explain away before I feel like I’m living on planet Earth again.”
“I know. I’ll help you, unless we go completely nuts and decide to tell each other—oh my God. Look.”
John jerked round in the direction of his gaze. Webb hadn’t asked either of them to turn in their weapons—a final courtesy, perhaps an adjustment of the playing field—and his PPK was within a short sharp reach. As for Mike, he might not have worn his harness for a shopping trip, but he’d be tooled up somewhere. They both would be, for the rest of their lives.
But it was just the moon. John grabbed a breath in shock just as Mike had done. She’d sprung up in sudden completeness, huge and honey-gold, her lower arc poised impossibly on the crest of Teal hill. “I know it’s just refraction or something makes her look so big on the horizon like that, but…”
“Yeah. Or I heard it’s because you can see trees and things right next to her, so you get an idea of the scale for once. I reckon we could explain away all our disasters and miracles if we wanted.”
“I don’t want.” John swallowed. His throat hurt. “I want us to tell each other the truth, even if it’s crazy. Even if it sucks.”
Mike closed his hands on John’s shoulders. His grip was uncertain, clumsy with hesitation, but he turned him back to face him, and John went willingly, aware of the change in the dynamic of their touch—that, suddenly, he wasn’t the one doing the comforting. Mike had touched him so often like that before all this shit had hit the fan—strong, reassuring, and John, who had looked after himself for so long he’d forgotten how to do anything else, had melted in silence beneath his caress. God, he’d missed it! “Okay,” Mike said softly, drawing him close. “The truth. Where do you want me to start?”
You know where
. “That first time—that first fuck. Was that just your programming kicking in?”
Mike flinched. He put a hand round the back of John’s skull as if he could shield him from the past as well as the future. “It was part of it. I’d seen Piotr, and things were coming apart. But it started because I thought I’d lost you.”
“Okay.” John could take that. It was bitter, but it was clean. “So it would’ve happened anyway, but—”
“It would’ve been different. It would’ve been so different, love.”
Mike drew his hand from the hair at John’s nape and placed it on his jaw, gently lifting. John obeyed the encouraging move and met his kiss halfway. Memories of the wrong place where they’d started—that open-mouthed thrusting—boiled up in him, generating heat and appalling shyness. He broke away, laughing. “Sorry. Give me a second.”
“You’re scared.”
“No, I just—”
“First time we tried this I threw you down and screwed you over a table. Time after that I tried to rape you.”
“Don’t say that!” John grabbed him as if he could shove the word into a box and slam the lid on it. He bore him down onto the turf. “Don’t. Not you.”
“Griff, I did.”
“Well, don’t. Don’t
cry
over it, love, not now. It’s forgiven.”
“How can it be?”
“Listen. That time I belted you in the face, if you recall. I can handle you. And the time before that”—he kissed the salt off Michael’s face—“time before that, you made me come like holy hell. Twice.”
“Twice?”
“Yeah. You just didn’t notice the first one. You’re remembering all this stuff now, aren’t you?”
“What? I did before. I’m not gonna take refuge in amnesia—”
“I mean remembering properly. Like you were there, not just…”
“Not just watching. Yes. Oh God. Makes me want to die.”
John leaned over him. The aching place in his heart—the hollow where the word
rape
had banged around for him, as well—was closing, its pain washing out in Mike’s tears. “Don’t die, handsome. Not now.”
“Why not? I can’t think of a better time, before you work out what a git I am. John, stop that. I don’t deserve—”
John captured and silenced the protest. He covered Mike’s mouth with his own. Both went briefly still, earthquake victims braced for the next shock, the impulse of violence that had come hard on the heels of their previous attempts at a kiss. Then Mike moaned. A shiver ran through his whole body. His lips parted under John’s. He put an arm round John’s neck and pulled him down, the gesture at once tender and urgent. The three weeks just past closed up in John’s head and vanished. They were at the beginning of their time together, he and Mike, exchanging the kiss they should have done. “Can we?” Mike gasped, as if hearing the thought. He snatched another kiss, heated and velvety, tongue brushing tongue. “Can we start it again?”
Fire and water cleans this slate
. “Yes. I will if you will.”
“Lie down. Let me touch you. Let me show you what I should’ve done before.”
John thudded down onto the turf. His dignity was gone, but he didn’t give a stuff. The full moon lurched off the horizon and shone straight down into his eyes, her ancient pockmarked face amused. “Yes,” he said, reaching to grab whichever parts of Mike came to hand first. “Show me.”
“I want to take it back to the start. Kiss you, roll around in the grass, do everything we missed—”
“Well, are you going to show me? Or…” Delicious laughter rippled through John, twin sensation to the lift of his cock. He’d been so thrown by Michael’s silence the first time around. “Or just
tell
me about it, because…”
“Oh. Sorry. God, now we’ve come this far, I hardly know where to start…”
“Here.” John guided his hand to the top button of his shirt. He arched in pleasure as Mike deftly undid it, pushing the fabric aside to expose one hardening nipple. “Yes. And here…” He fell back gasping. Mike had the idea now. His tongue was trailing a line of sweet fire up John’s breastbone, his hand on an exploratory mission round the waistband of his jeans. His mouth closed hotly on one nipple then the other, bestowing tongue-flicker blessings. At the same instant, he found his zip. John surged up into the moment of his release. “Mike, yes!”
“You’re so hard. Do I do that to you?”
“The
thought
of you does that. Touch me.”
Mike did. He drew John’s rigid shaft from its trap of underwear and jeans, blindly shoving clothes out of the way. John cried out as his grip closed, loudly enough to make sheep scatter in the darkness downhill. “Sorry!”
“What the hell for?”
“I should be quiet. We should be careful. We should listen out for—”
“
Ssh
. Nothing can hurt you when I’m with you.”
Briefly John considered this large claim. Nothing felt wrong about it. The warm earth under him seemed to confirm it, the vibrant light of sunset singing to the moon. Then he couldn’t think about that or anything else anymore. Mike was jerking him off, his movements tentative but strong. “Oh, that’s it. Please. Harder.”
“Do I do it right for you?”
“Perfect. Bloody beautiful. But, I tell you what, love. Come here.”
“What is it?”
“You’ve been to hell and back. In Russia and with Anzhel. I want you here in my arms when this happens. Right here.”
Mike made a faint sound, as if he’d been hit in the lungs. “I’m okay. I can do this. I want to…I want to suck you off, make it good for you.”
“You will. Mike, this is
you
. You can look at me sideways and make it good for me. This time, though… Just come here.”
He thought Mike wouldn’t obey him. His movements were stiff, reluctant, as if he’d lost the links between sex and everyday affection. Nonetheless John took his chances, deftly undoing his jeans before easing him down to lie beside him. Poor bastard had only been half-erect for all the talk, anxiety rolling off him in waves. John slid his hands down over his backside, pulling him close, and suddenly Mike gave it up and fell against him, struggling into his embrace. “That’s it,” John whispered. “Can feel you now. Get hard all the way for me. Oh, there you are.” They grappled and thrust in the firelight, finding the beat, the deep perfect rhythm at last. John rolled on top, Mike’s grasp closing on him to hoist him there. He rose up strongly, bracing on his arms. Mike’s shaft drove hard into the space between his thighs, and he writhed to accommodate him. “Are you gonna come for me?”
“Yes. So hard. Griff…”
“Yes. I’m there. Let go, let go!”
* * *
In the night’s deepest stillness, Mike sat watching strange lights over Glastonbury Tor. John was stretched out beside him. In deference to his phobia concerning ticks, Mike had spread out a blanket for him, and he was profoundly asleep.
Out cold and smiling, but he stirred immediately at Mike’s gentlest caress of his hair. His eyes opened wide. “Is everything all right?”
“Yeah. I didn’t mean to wake you. Look at these, though.”
John rolled onto his stomach. He propped himself on his elbows and watched the display for a while. “I didn’t think you ever saw those.”
“No, I…I saw them. My life felt weird enough without going looking for trouble, that’s all.”
Pulsating sapphire globes, melting and reforming, flickering impossibly fast from one side of the Tor to the other. “What do you think they are?”
“Interactions of human consciousness with the earth’s magnetic field, changing according to shifting cultural perceptions?” Mike caught the glimmer of his partner’s incredulous glance and smiled. “Or marsh gas. Aliens.”
“You’re a bloody alien,” John accused him comfortably, and they settled back down on the blanket together, leaving the mysteries of the universe to their own devices. “You all right, then?”
“Never better. You hit me like a beautiful truck. I slept like the dead.” Mike pillowed John’s head on his shoulder, holding him close to keep off the dewfall chill. “That first time…”
“More you talk about it, the less of a bugbear it’ll be.”
“I’m not sure about that, but God, you just wiped me out. That first time, how the hell did I make you come twice?”
John chuckled. “No one else ever managed, not two on the trot like that. I was pretty excited, I suppose. And I’d wanted you forever.”
“You’ll think I’m stupid. I didn’t know.”
“Well, I wasn’t parading it.”
“No. All those boyfriends! I sometimes thought, the way you looked at me or… Then I told myself no one as gorgeous as you could—”
“Oh please.” John waved a deprecating hand and shifted in the firelight, doing nothing to diminish Mike’s impression of his beauty. “Anyway, if we’re talking about gorgeous, don’t you ever look in a mirror?