Ben released him but swatted his hair. Nikolas pushed off the wall, feeling very happy with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen. “Come. We must go. I’m a quiver to know all Samuel’s secrets. God forbid I’m late for that.” He glanced down at the hold Ben had upon his shirt. Ben forced him to look back up.
“You’re not finished. I want to watch. Now.”
Nikolas’s blood ran cold. He turned his face away. “That’s not fair, Ben. Could you? Would you? Here, just like that?”
“If you wanted me to.”
“Well I don’t.”
“But
I do
. Fucking hell, Nikolas, him but not me!”
“You still don’t get it do you! I jerked off with him watching because it was as if he wasn’t there!” He took hold of Ben’s hand, twisted loose the grip on his shirt and brought the fingers to his lips. “Please.” He flicked his gaze up through long eyelashes—not a tactic he employed very often, as commanding and bullying Ben usually worked well enough and was more fun. “I’ve been putting on shows with my body for men since I was ten years old. Please. I’ve never had to for you. Do you understand how special that makes you to me?”
Nikolas watched as Ben’s anger melted—again. Ben was a hopeless sap for him—had been for eight years. Ben seized him and pulled him in for a tight hug. “Bloody hell. I’m so sorry, Nik. I’m
so
sorry.”
Nikolas swelled with pleasure in the tight, loving hug, but murmured dryly, “Told you I could beat the cannibal story.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Nikolas rarely watched TV, and if he did, it was usually a documentary or occasionally some violent movie Ben liked that involved a great deal of unlikely and unnecessary explosions. He read a great deal but always nonfiction. When Samuel began to tell him his story, therefore, he actually found it quite interesting, as he hadn’t surfeited on reality shows with minor Z-list celebrities discussing their most intimate thoughts. Discovering you were gay when you were eight? This fascinated Nikolas—when he was eight he hadn’t even known what gay was—he hadn’t even known the facts of life between men and women, having been raised by a single mother whose one taste of the opposite sex had put her off all men for life. Being kicked out by your father at fifteen when he discovered you in your bedroom
not
doing homework with your best friend? Why had Samuel not turned around and beaten his father to submission? By the time he was that age, Nikolas had taught his father who controlled their relationship, who answered to whom. When you turn a child into a monster, you’ve no one to blame but yourself when you wake up one day sleeping with your worst enemy.
Samuel was outrageously out. This particularly piqued Nikolas’s interest, as he’d never met a gay man before, other than Tim, and Tim could hardly be called flamboyant. He was interested to hear how Samuel lived his life, the friends he had, the places he went, and the sex—that was extremely interesting to have recounted, as it reassured Nikolas there wasn’t one thing this young man who thought he was so liberated and experimental had done that Nikolas hadn’t done by the time he was eleven, except perhaps having sex dressed as a woman for the prettiest girl contest at a local club. Who needed to be gay to have great sex? Nikolas was certainly glad he didn’t.
It was then much more difficult to engage for the rest of the time they had left to get to know each other. He had to maintain his fiction of being Nigel, and Nigel, Nikolas was fairly sure, hadn’t been raped at ten by his father. He was pretty sure Nigel had never been in prison—especially not a Soviet gulag. He’d not been in Special Forces—all these things making up the person Nikolas was—and, of course, he wasn’t actually
Nikolas
Mikkelsen anyway.
He didn’t like talking about anything
gay
, even in his cover as Nigel. He made the effort though, and before long Samuel was quizzing him on Justin. Nikolas smiled privately. He’d have done the same thing had their positions been reversed. If he’d spotted Ben in a room and not known who he was, he’d have wanted to get to know him very well, too—just like this young gay man did.
Nikolas had in fact spotted Ben in a room once and not known who he was. Ben had been naked, blindfolded and bleeding, but he had laughed at his captors’ attempts to make him talk. He’d been telling jokes and ignoring the humiliations being heaped upon him—he wasn’t being too badly brutalized because, after all, these were his friends and colleagues interrogating him. Nikolas had watched this unknown SAS soldier, studied his body, listened to his voice and, when the blindfold had been removed, stared into his eyes from behind his one-way glass protection. Nikolas had then fallen off the top of the very high wall he’d erected around himself to keep all emotion at bay. A traitor, a murderer, a very evil man living the life of his dead brother, that wall had been very high indeed, but seeing Benjamin Rider that day had started a descent chasing a flawless beauty that in some ways was still continuing.
So, Nikolas talking about Ben was very easy indeed, and by the end of their allotted time, he’d woven a fiction that so closely resembled his own life living with Ben he’d almost convinced himself he was in a gay relationship with Benjamin Rider-Mikkelsen.
He was profoundly grateful when coffee arrived. It had been delayed, Fergus explained, because of a small incident in the kitchen. Nothing to worry about.
Unfortunately, the young Pakistani man Ben had spoken with was not in evidence. Two young women brought in the trays, and neither Nikolas nor Ben could find an opportunity to question them.
§ § §
Ben wondered briefly whether the young man
was
the small incident in the kitchen that had caused the delay, but he didn’t give it too much thought. He was totally distracted, because he’d realised there was only one biscuit each. He’d been relying on there being platefuls. He hadn’t eaten (other than two small portions of bread roll which obviously didn’t count as food) since the buffet the night before, where, as he’d confessed to Nikolas, he’d been dainty, and in his role as Justin—a picky chef who might critique food rather than eat it—quite sure he’d survive one night before, hopefully, a huge English breakfast came his way. Things were going very badly wrong as far as Ben was concerned. He’d never in the whole time he’d known Nikolas loved him more, therefore, than when Nikolas, with a small smile, handed him his own biscuit. And Nikolas had saved him from being buried alive in a coffin. He’d bought him a house worth so many millions Ben got slightly sick every time he thought about the cost. There were so many things Nikolas had done for him that should elicit his gratitude and love more, but the handing over of that chocolate digestive topped them all. He knew even Nikolas must be very hungry now. He felt awful, guilty—but stuffed the gift in very quickly before his saviour could change his mind.
§ § §
Nikolas could sense a shift in the atmosphere now. The group had enjoyed their little triumph of surviving the night and the high that had brought to their mood first thing. They’d had a chance to relax all morning with nothing more stressful than having to talk to someone. Now the rigours of the night were telling on them. They were hungry and very tired, dirty, and wanting to eat, shave, and sleep. He could see the signs of resistance lowering. If he’d been the doctor, he’d have been pressing home his advantage now, getting the answers—then he stopped short and shook himself. They weren’t being interrogated. This was therapy, apparently. So why had it resembled the early stages of interrogation?
He was preparing to take his seat again when the doors burst open and six men poured in shouting—screaming—at them to get on the floor. That they were waving guns at them made the other men drop like sprayed flies. Ben got down next to Nikolas, his eyes raised in surprise. He didn’t need to point out the BB pistols seemed very real when you didn’t know. Four of the men they recognised from run-ins with the security staff already, the other two were new.
The shouting men went around the room, sorting the group into two, dragging half to one side of the room and forcing them to their feet. They were then marched out at gunpoint. It didn’t take much effort to work out the group had been split according to the partners they’d been talking to all morning. Samuel and James had both been taken to the other room. Nikolas and Ben were left with John and Mark and Lester. Finally, they were allowed to stand and then they were told to sit down facing a large monitor. When it was switched on there was a hushed intake of breath. Even Nikolas and Ben allowed themselves a small glance of puzzlement and disbelief.
Samuel was strapped to a chair in a brightly lit room. He was clearly terrified. His ankles were tied to the legs of the chair, his hands strapped down to the arms. Just visible was a table with a selection of unpleasant-looking objects upon it.
Suddenly, the sound came on and Nigel’s name was being called. Nikolas sat up and nodded, frowning, replying yes he was Nigel Stannis. The disembodied voice then asked him a series of questions about Samuel. It was ludicrous. They were actually expecting him to believe if he got the answers wrong—if he hadn’t been listening sufficiently—Samuel would be tortured. It was clear by Samuel’s terrified expression that he did believe it. Fortunately for him, Nikolas was a very good listener and questioner (for various reasons completely unrelated to floristry), and he’d learnt a great deal about Samuel whilst they’d been talking together.
Finally it was over. The monitor switched, and now it was James in a chair and Ben answering questions. At one point, he appeared to get one wrong. He was asked what James’s favourite colour was. Nikolas had the immediate suspicion that Ben hadn’t even thought to ask such a thing, being far more fascinated probably in discussing interesting things like what James liked doing in bed.
Ben hazarded a guess and ventured blue. This was wrong, apparently, and suddenly James flinched and cried out as a disembodied hand slapped his face. If it was mocked, it was bloody realistic. But Nikolas had watched men being tortured with electric sanders and not been overly affected. One little slap wasn’t going to get him excited.
He looked over and was glad he was not the one to have hit James. He could feel anger pouring off Ben. You didn’t want to make Ben feel guilty and responsible for an innocent getting hurt; he was funny like that. Ben genuinely believed in good and evil and saw a distinction between the two. This fallacy confused and amused Nikolas in equal measures.
Sometimes, Nikolas wondered how Ben had become the good man he was—developed his conscience. It certainly wasn’t due to a loving, supportive childhood. Nikolas feared for him sometimes. Ben took on too much of the world’s woes, was too eager to make a difference, make things right. Better to go through life as he did—without scruples. Free of regret.
§ § §
It was to Ben’s profound relief the question and answer session for the one group had taken so long that their group’s turn in the chair had to be delayed. It wasn’t that he was concerned for himself. He was worried for the doctor and his goons. There was no way Nikolas would allow himself to be strapped down and hit. Cover or not, that would provoke a reaction difficult to explain away. As it was, they were hustled out of the teaching rooms to their bedrooms where they were told they had half an hour to shower and dress for a night out on the town.
There was only one shower, and they were all still in clothes they’d worn since the previous day, so there were some good-natured slanging matches and ribald teasing as they shared and made the best of the time available. Ben couldn’t help but think once more that as unconventional as the therapy seemed to be, it was working. They were a tight-knit, bonded group, and the doctors and the men in suits were now the acknowledged enemy.
It was only when he dressed in the outfit that had been selected for him from his still missing bag that he noticed his wallet was now also absent. Queuing to climb into the two minibuses driving them into town, he discovered Nikolas was in the same predicament. It seemed an odd way to start a night out. Neither he nor Nikolas had spent less than five hundred pounds on a meal and a night out for a very long time, and heading out in jeans and T-shirts with no money seemed like a blast from a past now so long ago that Ben realised just how far he’d come in the last few years. If this was part of the therapy—making him appreciate Nikolas Mikkelsen’s wealth—then it was working just fine.
§ § §
Doctor Fergus appeared as the two groups were sorting themselves out for the bus. He had his clipboard with him, which never boded well. He informed them that all expenses had been covered—a tab set up behind the bar of the pub they were going to first and then another in the restaurant. They had a simple mission: to go on a date with their “new” partner and have an enjoyable evening. He handed out the lists for the buses and left.
Nikolas studied the list. He was in one group, and Ben was in the other.
Yeah. Not.
He glanced around, grabbed Lester’s arm and suggested quickly, “You want to go out with Lincoln, yes? You look as if you need some time together.” Lester appeared shocked someone could so blatantly break the rules, but Nikolas noted his surprise quickly turned to relief. He nodded. Nikolas pushed him towards the other group and grabbed Ben’s arm, dragging him into his minibus.
As soon as the other men saw what he’d done there was a silent, stealthy, furtive chaos of changing buses. Nikolas and Ben, therefore, ended up with James, John, who, being a teacher, had refused to break the rules, Samuel, and one of the threesome, who they discovered was called Mathew. It was like a Bible convention.
Nikolas was too tired to care who he went on a date with. He had Ben sitting alongside him and the prospect of some food, and that was enough. Ben, he noticed, had shaved—entirely removing the blond goatee and the black stubble. He hadn’t replaced his blue contacts either, so other than the blond hair and tattoo he was once more like the Ben Rider-Mikkelsen he woke up to every morning. Except for an air of worry and distraction, which Nikolas didn’t like marring the perfection. He nudged him. “Don’t worry,
min skat
, I’ll feed you as soon as I can.”