Nikolas sighed and began to stroke Ben’s thigh with his thumb, staring down at this small joining and not at Ben. “I don’t think so. I…” He lifted his eyes as if to gauge the likely response to his next words then sighed again and seemed resigned to nothing he added being well received. “I had a unique and unfortunate introduction to sex, Ben—as you know. I don’t think my thoughts on any of this are relevant.”
Ben licked his lips. “So you only sleep with me because you were raped when you were a child. Is that what you’re saying?”
His words fell like glass to the hardwood floor and broke apart between them. Ben reckoned if anyone was listening to this conversation, they might not understand the Danish, but they’d be a fool if they missed the resonance of those words.
Nikolas only took hold of Ben’s face once more, ignoring the slight pull away, holding even tighter. “I meant exactly the opposite, and if you didn’t understand that, then I’m sorry. I meant after everything,
everything
—and there’s still much I haven’t told you about my life with Sergei and after in the prisons—after everything I chose
you
. There are six billion people on this planet, and the only one I want is you. And that’s nothing to do with you being a man. It’s just
you
.”
“And I’m a…man.”
Nikolas frowned. “Well, yes, obviously. What has that to do with being gay?”
The thought flickered across Ben’s mind that in all these years when he’d been in awe of Nikolas’s intellect and apparent self-awareness, he had in fact been sleeping with a total idiot. His stomach rumbled loudly. They both looked down, and the moment to confront Nikolas was lost.
They swiftly made use of the showers and joined the rest of the men back downstairs for food, Nikolas probably still believing his total fixation with Ben and Ben’s body was akin to his addiction to nicotine—a direct result of his unfortunate childhood—and Ben only glad to tell himself that, as they slept together, if Nikolas wasn’t gay then he couldn’t possibly be either.
§ § §
They learnt more about Doctor Fergus Atwell that night, for he joined them for dinner. Nikolas was surprised no one else seemed to find this incongruous, given he’d set them up for a beating. He reckoned the insidious process of redefining the enemy was working. Fergus was now seen as one of them—a good guy—versus the bad guys…everyone else. For the first time, the psychologist told them more of his story—of his partner, Will.
Will hadn’t been murdered for being gay, which Nikolas was half-expecting to hear, but his wife had divorced him, and he had no access to his three children—because he was gay, Fergus claimed. Will had also been passed over for promotion—because he was gay, Fergus again claimed. Nikolas wondered whether he could blame a recent nosedive in the price of gold on Will being gay, because it had seriously inconvenienced
him
. Nikolas had little sympathy for people finding excuses for things not being how they wanted them to be. You made your own destiny in life. But Fergus’s story sparked a number of other similar tales from the men in the group: bitterness at how life had treated them because of their difference. Ben, Nikolas noticed, kept quiet. He appeared thoughtful, and Nikolas wondered what Ben might be thinking he’d missed out on in life because of his preferences in bed. Nikolas hadn’t forgotten the moment Ben had seen a picture of himself as a little boy and declared that if he had a son he would look just like that. He pressed his knee to Ben’s, his brows raised questioningly, and Ben murmured in Danish, “Notice the group is dividing?”
Nikolas frowned. He hadn’t. He’d been too focused on Ben—as usual, he reflected with some amusement. Ben nodded subtly to demonstrate this division. “See, John and Mark aren’t joining in complaining. Neither is Samuel.”
“So?”
“Well, don’t you think it’s utterly incongruous after what we’ve seen all day? Complaining about someone being rude on your Facebook page? Being passed over for promotion? Come on! It’s hardly being stoned to death, is it?”
“You think this is another test?”
“Damn right I do. I don’t think Will even exists. He’s a construct to test commitment. I don’t want shallow, weak people who make excuses for their lives. I want men who…” He trailed off and studied a small thread on his jeans for a moment then raised his eyes to Nikolas. “Did I just say that?”
“Just exactly what do you see this army of yours doing? Fighting injustice with flowing capes—rainbow coloured, of course?”
“Don’t make fun of it—of me.”
“I’m not. I was being serious. That’s what we’re being pushed into believing—that wrongs can be righted. That when good men stand up to be counted, evil is overcome. Has it ever occurred to you that maybe this is just the way things are? The way they’ll
always
be.”
Ben didn’t seem convinced, or happy at this suggestion.
Another movie was starting. Everyone was being ushered away from the table. They couldn’t continue their discussion.
In this one everyone died of AIDS.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Even knowing he was being manipulated didn’t make Nikolas any less susceptible to the final day of the course. He was willing to allow himself to be carried along with the general consensus. Although he suspected Nikolas Mikkelsen wouldn’t be recruited for whatever was to come, he wanted Nigel Stannis to be. It was the whole point of them being there.
They were woken very early—just what he was expecting and what he’d have done with new recruits. They were given a good breakfast, but a buffet where they had to mingle and talk as they ate—again, an obvious tactic.
And then they were brought out of darkness.
It was simple as that.
It was palpable, the shift in the mood of the group from anger and despair to something like hope. For the next two hours, they were shown the positive benefits of being different. They marvelled at the art of Michelangelo; listened to the poetry of Walt Whitman; discovered why Alexander was called the Great; found out about Leonard Matlovich. Nikolas half expected the good doctor to get them to stand up and sing a gay anthem (was there a gay anthem?).
Nikolas had once sung to an unbreakable union of freeborn republics.
The irony of it all almost made him laugh.
Instead of singing, they did colouring. The doctor handed them back their pictures they’d drawn on the first day. Nikolas assumed they were to fill in the route they’d found to take them from where they were now to their desired end state. He was going to draw a top-end model Range Rover sport. Rather like the one Benjamin Rider had left unlocked in a bus station in Taunton. It still niggled Nikolas that some oaf in Somerset was driving around in his hundred thousand pound car.
The doctor, however, didn’t want them to complete their drawings; he wanted them to reassess them in the light of what they’d learnt about themselves on the course. Did they really see a nest as where they wanted to be? A new boyfriend? Flying free? More sex—that had been one of the threesome. Nikolas had thought the man had drawn a visit to the doctor, but apparently it hadn’t been a doctor’s couch he’d drawn. Nor a proctologist come to that. Weren’t all their desires narrow and selfish and only about themselves?
Apparently no one did want what they’d initially thought they’d wanted. Even Ben. He was scribbling furiously, and when Nikolas finally snuck a look, he saw a vast swarm of stick figures assaulting a wall. He frowned and whispered, “You want a zombie apocalypse?”
Ben mirrored his frown. “No. It’s my army. We’re taking over.”
Nikolas raised his brows. “A gay coup?”
“Why not? Why shouldn’t we run things for once—say how things are going to be?”
“Would you make sodomy compulsory?”
Ben suddenly laughed out loud. He hung his head and was Ben once more. He pouted ruefully and added a few lumps to his drawing.
Nikolas tilted his head to one side, considering. “Breasts?”
Ben gave him a very familiar, derisory look. “They’re hillocks, where you can go for respite if you’re
not
gay.”
Nikolas nodded his head sagely. “Uh-huh. Oh, look. That’s me, scrambling desperately up the side.”
Ben grinned evilly. “That one actually is a breast.”
Nikolas shuddered and returned to his own drawing. He’d left it too late. They were out of time. He chuckled to himself and very quickly turned the nest with happy little stick people into the scene of a huge explosion. Happy gay families could be made to look like bomb victims very easily, he discovered. All it took was the application of red crayon.
§ § §
They watched another movie after coffee. This one actually had a happy, life-affirming ending, which rather negated the doctor’s assertion the day before that there was a conspiracy against such outcomes. John, being a teacher, called the doctor on this, and Doctor Fergus proudly told them that this indie film had not been made in Hollywood—that it was a British production and that he’d been an executive producer. Nikolas reckoned they’d just watched some of their friends from the pub. The way he and Ben had left them looking, they could make a gay war movie next.
Despite John’s interruption, the film set the tone for the rest of the day in which they discovered, if they didn’t already know, some of the very positive benefits of liking men. They weren’t just leaving darkness behind, they were
celebrating
the light—it was pride, sweet and simple: pride in the male body, the male strength, the male way of seeing the world…the male way of fucking.
No excuses, no apologies, no regrets.
Who knew there were so many men in the world with names like Zac and Zeb, Tory and Troy? Three thousand pounds was a lot of money to pay for porn when you could download it for free, Nikolas reflected. He hadn’t watched porn in a room full of other men for years. It was…uncomfortable…especially as they were all dressed and sitting behind school desks. Mixed messages.
He was pretty sure Ben wasn’t enjoying this experience either. He appeared to be trying to keep his eyes averted from the screen, in protest, perhaps, that this could in any way be part of the purity of his new cause, tarnish the perfection of the shiny new medals he was planning to earn in his mind. Appeared to be…Nikolas noticed with a very amused smirk that Ben’s eyes stayed longer on the screen than his.
Nikolas suddenly had an evil thought and whispered to Ben, “Did you have a pet as a child?” Ben, concentrating on not staring at Zac—or was it Zeb and did it really matter from that angle?—frowned in reply, “No.”
“Later? In the army?”
“No! A snail. Does that count?”
A snail? Sheesh
. “What did you call it?”
“Bear.”
“Bear? A snail? Seriously?”
Ben pouted sheepishly. “After Bear Grylls. He was my mentor...”
Nikolas pondered this for a while. When Ben’s mother had run away from her home in Devon, she’d gone to a small village on the edge of the Saddleworth Moors. To a council estate. Number six, Beck Side.
He began to laugh and eventually had to leave the room.
He’d just worked out Ben Rider-Mikkelsen’s porn name.
§ § §
The manipulation was working on all the men in the room.
When Nikolas finally returned, he could feel a palpable sense of belonging amongst them now, the knowledge they were part of history, part of a unique tribe—a nation. They were now a group who might be very willing to fight for their country—this other country. Is this what had led Michael’s young nephew to shoot Islamist students at his university? Had that been his rite of passage? For, of course, what did any group want of its initiatives but proof of their commitment, their new belonging? It wanted
sacrifice
. Colour it any way you wanted—suicide bomb, Christening, circumcision, pledge, forfeit, tithe—a group is a powerful force and powerful forces need feeding.
At lunchtime, Ben announced he wanted a cigarette.
Nikolas was practically dragged to the garage. He was bundled in, pushed to the back wall and then his commitment to leaving the darkness was tested very thoroughly.
Nikolas couldn’t deny he was more than willing to commit any way Ben wanted. His response to Zac (or Zeb—or Troy, come to that) was prominent, hard, barely concealed by the tails of his shirt, which he’d pulled discretely out of his jeans on returning to the classroom. Ben’s tests were always thorough, Nikolas reflected, as he was fucked face first against the rough cement. He ignored Ben’s anger about his hypocrisy and childishness, letting it all wash over him in the exquisite delight of being brought to orgasm with such a vicious pounding.
He actually had a huge graze on his face when they were finished, speckles of blood and grit embedded in the red lines. Ben was then contrite and apologetic and furious with himself for being so easily manipulated and…jealous.
Ben Rider-Mikkelsen clearly didn’t like his boyfriend watching porn with anyone else but him.
Apologetic was always good though. Nikolas made Ben apologise on his knees, mouth around his cock, dyed blond hair scrunched in his fingers, holding him on.
Nikolas reckoned they did their bit for gay pride that lunchtime.
Who needed suicide bombs to show commitment?
§ § §
No one paid any attention to the florist Nigel Stannis standing for the first part of the afternoon. They may have wondered about his face, but probably assumed he’d fallen over…smoking. Perhaps that was why, when he did sit, he eased down cautiously and with a wince of pain. They were all busy writing. Their journeys—what they’d learnt about themselves over the week and where they wanted to go now. Nikolas dutifully penned his desire to see justice prevail and to right wrongs—historical, contemporary or otherwise. He left out he wanted a cape, too. He was trying to be more serious for Ben’s sake.
When they were all done, it was time for the final event before departure—individual interviews with the doctor. While each man was being seen, the others were free to return to their rooms and pack. In his mind, Nikolas was picturing two doors exiting from the doctor’s office—one marked return to normal life, and the other marked…what? Radicals only? Would-be jihadists this way? Perhaps they’d be issued a copy of
Jihad for Dummies
.