“It’s unlikely he’ll get in despite being a very bright young man. What about Durham or Glasgow? They’re both excellent.”
Disappointment flooding him, Kael’s fists clenched involuntarily. “Right, I’ll have to think more about this.”
“Why not let him take a gap year and put things in perspective. It will give you both a whole year to plan.”
“That’s what I think too,” Angel said.
First Conran and now this idiot telling him what his boy should do: supporting Angel’s ideas about joining SIS and taking gap years. The urge to kill someone was frighteningly strong. “There will be no gap year,” Kael said without margin. “I’ll look into other universities and let you know what I decide, but we will be applying to Cambridge.”
The headmaster began to tap his fingertips on the desk, looking decidedly nervous. “Good. I’ll be happy to write letters of recommendation either this year or next. Just let me know.” Kael stood up, bringing the headmaster around his desk with his hand out to shake and a look of relief on his face. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Mr. Saunders. Angel is a lovely young man. You’ve done very well by him.”
With a brief handshake, Kael left the office, directing Angel out in front of him. They didn’t say a word until they were outside. “I parked in the school car park,” Kael said, striding across the forecourt toward his small, unobtrusive car.
“You’re disappointed in me because I’m not a genius like you,” Angel called after him.
Kael stopped and turned around. “That’s not true.” But he was disappointed. He wanted Angel to follow in his footsteps.
“Yes, you are. I could see it in your face when you were talking to the headmaster. You wanted to kill him just because he said I should take a gap year and then go to some no-name university instead of the esteemed halls of fucking Cambridge.”
“I did not want to kill him.” He
did
want to kill him. He would have happily killed anyone who looked at him at that moment.
Not moving from the spot, an angry look on his face, Angel said, “I’m just an ordinary boy with an ex-stripper for a mother. I’ll never measure up to you,
Kael
.”
“If you call me Kael again, I’m going to slap your arse right here in front of the school. Now come on!” When Angel failed to follow quickly enough, he turned round impatiently. “Get a move on.”
At the car, Kael got in while Angel stood with his hands in his pockets kicking at stones. After starting the car, Kael wound the window down. “Get in. We’re going to get your hair cut. You look like a frigging girl.”
“I’m going for walk.”
Before Kael could protest, Angel had walked between cars and out into the street. Furious, Kael whipped the car through the car park and onto the street until he came up beside Angel. Double-parking, he jumped out and went after him. “Get in the car.”
“I don’t want my hair cut.”
“Get in the fucking car.” To control a target out on the street, he would grab the left wrist with his left hand, twisting it backward in such a way that it forced even a big person to follow the movement for fear the wrist would break. Following the prescribed formula and wrapping his right arm around Angel’s waist, he steered him back to the car.
“You’re going to break my fucking arm!” Angel protested.
“No, I’m not, and don’t say ‘fuck’ when you’re talking to me.”
“Fuck!” Angel screamed. “You say it!”
Kael forced him into the car and ran around to get in the driver’s seat. By the time he was in, Angel was outside on the street again. Running. “Shit, shit, shit!” Kael screamed, banging the steering wheel.
A beep at his waist had him scrambling to grab his phone. “Angel?” he said a second before he realized it was his secure line.
“Saunders, is everything all right?”
“Fuck off!” He threw the phone at the windscreen.
* * * *
Hurt and angry, Angel ran, tears pricking his eyes. There was nothing he hated more than disappointing Daddy. He already knew Mr. Staynton was not going to recommend him to Cambridge. On a couple of occasions over the past few weeks when they had spoken in passing about his plans, the headmaster had asked him if he preferred Durham over Leeds. He just didn’t have the heart to tell Daddy. Daddy was so smart and so sure of himself. Nothing scared him.
I want to be like him. I want to be perfect for him.
Angry and hurt, he didn’t want to go home to face Daddy’s anger at his disobedience and failure. Taking out his iPhone, he called Jack.
It was after eight o’clock when he met Jack outside Barcode in Soho. He’d never been there before because Daddy said it was for lightweights, meaning it wasn’t in his league, heavy leather and BDSM. It wasn’t terribly busy, and they had no trouble getting to the bar for beers or finding a couple of stools by the wall to sit down.
“You look miserable,” Jack said.
“Yeah well, Staynton just broke the news to Daddy that I’m not Cambridge material.”
“Fuck Cambridge. My parents didn’t go there, and they’ve done all right. Don’t take a gap year and we’ll go to Durham together next September. We’ll have a great time. I’m not staying in halls. I’m getting a room in a house with other students. I can’t wait to be out from under my parents’ thumbs.”
“I’m not allowed to take a gap year or do anything except what I’m told.”
Jack shrugged. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? A daddy to tell you what to do.”
It was true. That was exactly what he wanted. Maybe he wasn’t a good slave after all. “I guess.” He chugged his beer and got a couple more. The bar was starting to get busy, and when they got up to dance, Angel was unsteady on his feet. “Did somebody put something in your drink? “Jack asked when Angel stumbled into him.
“I haven’t eaten anything since lunch, and then I chugged two beers in quick succession.”
Jack took his arm. “We should get out of here and get you some food. There’s a kebab shop down the street.”
“He was so mad. He was so disappointed in me.”
Casting up his eyes, Jack said, “Are you going on about Big Daddy again? Forget him for a while. Come on, let’s go.”
“Let’s get another beer first.” At the bar, they ordered two more beers. Jack held his while Angel chugged half of his in one go, looking around at the mixed crowd, mostly men, but among the younger set, their own age, there were girls as well.
“Have you ever thought about going with a girl?” Jack leaned forward to scream in his ear. With the increasing crowd, the volume of both conversation and music had elevated.
“Are you kidding?” Angel said. “I’m gay, for Christ’s sake.”
“Sometimes I think I could go for one of those really boyish girls.”
“Not me.” Angel finished the remaining beer.
“Can I get you another one of those, mate?” The man was in his forties or possibly fifties. Partly because Angel was drunk and partly because he had a hard time telling how old older people were, he wasn’t sure. The dude was definitely older than Daddy.
“Oh yeah? What do I have to give you?” He made himself sound deliberately cocky, like he’d done this a million times before.
“Anything you feel like giving.” The man ordered more beer and gave one to Jack as well, who looked a bit uneasy about taking it. When the man was distracted, he whispered in Angel’s ear. “I don’t like older blokes. They make me nervous. Your daddy makes me nervous. Let’s go before he expects anything back.”
Angel tipped his head back and drank most the bottle.
“Take this with it,” the man said. He handed Angel a pill and gave another to Jack.
Angel popped the pill, washing it down with the remaining beer.
The flashing lights on the dance floor, which Angel usually loved, were scrambling his brain in his drunken state. He couldn’t think, and he was very uncoordinated, which was kind of good and kind of scary at the same time. He didn’t want to think about Daddy because Daddy was upset with him, and he didn’t want to think about his future because it was too complicated. Being drunk was a relief, but he’d better not do anything he would regret later.
At first he thought the hand on his arm was Jack, and they were halfway across the dance floor when he realized it was the dude who had bought him the beer. Now he was steering him down the passage and into the washroom. “I have to go home.” Even to Angel, his voice sounded strange and slurred.
“Yeah, you can go home afterward, kid.”
“After what?”
Two men already in the washroom left when they entered. The flashing light was replaced by a harsh fluorescent light that blinded Angel’s sensitive eyes momentarily. The pounding music was muted by the closed door. Suddenly he was alone with a man stronger than himself, and he was too drunk to use his self-defense moves. The reality of what he was doing began to set in.
“I made a mistake. I want to go,” he said. The man pushed open a cubicle door and shoved him inside, locking the door behind him. “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to lead you on. I really just want to go home. I’m actually in a relationship.”
“With your little friend at the bar?” The man was unfastening his fly as he spoke.
Jack! Where was Jack? How could he let the guy drag him off like this knowing he was out of his mind drunk? And what the hell was that pill he had taken? He must have been nuts swallowing an unknown substance. Daddy would be so mad with him. The man had his pants down around his hips and was unfastening Angel’s fly. Angel had worn the jeans with the buttons at the fly, and they were stiff. The dude was having trouble getting them open, especially with Angel shoving his hands away.
“Jack! Where the fuck are you?”
“Shut your mouth and don’t shout. You wanted this, you little tart.”
“I don’t. Please!” A flash of Dudek making Angel suck his cock in his car in Paris last year flashed into his head. He wanted to throw up. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
The hand came out of nowhere, striking him a head-rattling blow across the ear. Angel’s head shot back, slamming into the metal partition. It was like in a cartoon when someone gets smacked and sees stars. Everything whirled around him. He could taste blood in his mouth. “Let me go, please.” The last thing Angel expected was to start crying.
With his jeans finally unbuttoned, the man turned him round to face the metal partition. Angel didn’t even try to fight him anymore. His head hurt like hell, his lip was bleeding where he’d bitten it, and there was so much beer in his stomach he wanted to vomit. Snot ran down his face. Mucus filled his throat. He thought he was going to choke, but he couldn’t stop sobbing.
The man laughed suddenly. “You’ve got slave printed on your arse. Right now you can be my slave.”
Someone tried the latch and, when the door did not open, began to kick it.
“What are you fucking doing?” the stranger said. “Fuck off. I’m busy.”
A shadow fell over them as someone climbed with scary agility over the partition and dropped down into the tight space. Angel looked around and saw Daddy throw his fist into the man’s face. A second later, they were outside the cubicle. Daddy landed his fist several more times in the man’s stomach, only stopping when the man crumpled to the floor. Then he kicked him a couple of times.
Outside the washroom, Jack waited, looking terrified. “Hang on, Mr. Saunders. Let me pull his jeans up.”
With a strong arm around Angel’s waist, Daddy half walked, half carried him outside with Jack following. In the cold evening air, Angel bent at the waist and vomited profusely on the sidewalk. “Jack, the car’s across the street. Get the door open,” Daddy said. Vaguely Angel heard a beep when Daddy pressed the remote door opener. Jack legged it across the street while Daddy hauled Angel to his feet by the arms. “As for you, if you throw up in my car, you won’t sit down for a week.”
Angel must have passed out, because when he opened his eyes again, they were dropping Jack off at his house and he heard Daddy say, “Thank you, Jack. You did a very smart thing by phoning me. Good lad.”
“No problem, sir. He’s my best mate.”
The next time Angel came to consciousness, he was leaning over a garbage can in the underground parking lot of their building. He’d never felt so ill in his life. He couldn’t support his weight sufficiently to stand up, and after bringing up again, he slid to the ground and lay on his back looking up at Daddy. Anger was etched into every feature of Daddy’s face. His mouth was hard, his eyes narrowed. Leaning down, he lifted Angel off the ground, none too gently, and carried him across his arms. It must have been the drugs because the picture that filled his head was of the
Pietà
in St. Peter’s Basilica. When they had gone to Rome, Daddy had stood for a long time looking at it. Angel saw himself as Jesus and Daddy as Mother Mary. He remembered thinking the proportions were wrong and that Mary must have been huge to hold Jesus like that.
“It is the emotion, the serenity induced by ascension that matters. We can all achieve that in different ways,”
Daddy had said.
Now as he floated along in Daddy’s arms, he felt like Jesus ascending.
A jarring fall brought him out of his vision, and the nausea came back. Daddy had tossed him onto the bed, and knowing he was going to vomit again, Angel rolled off onto the floor. Drifting back over the evening, he was in the headmaster’s office with Daddy clenching his fists against his knees every time Mr. Staynton suggested Glasgow or Leeds. He was in the cubicle in the men’s washroom at Barcode with that old dude ready to ream his ass while his cheek was pressed against the cold metal partition. Blood spurted from the dude’s nose when Daddy punched him. The car ride. Daddy thanking Jack for calling him. What a good friend Jack was.
Jumbled thoughts grabbed at him. With both hands, Angel started to hit his head because the pictures that were filling it now were awful. He was back in the foster homes. He started crying. Rolling onto his back, he opened his eyes and only then knew he had rolled into his vomit. It was all over his hair.
“Are you awake?” Lying naked on the very edge of the bed looking down at him was Daddy.
“Yeah.”
“You need to get in the shower. You’ve got vomit in your hair, and you’ve pissed yourself.”