A pair of short stories featuring couple Phin and Adam ~
Previously published separately and also as part of the anthology -‘The Corridor and Other Stories’ Revised in this edition.
Fabian Black
Copyright © Fabian Black 2013
Smashwords Edition
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Gay romance stories with a D/s theme -
Fiction for lovers of M/M and spanking romance stories
Chastise Books
Note: this book has been formatted using U.K. English - please check the default language on your reading device and adjust accordingly.
The flowers were numerous and beautiful, but somehow threatening. The combined scents hung in the air like a prophecy of things to come. Sitting on the edge of his chair, hands tightly clasped between his knees, Adam stared hard at the floor concentrating on keeping his thoughts from racing too far ahead. He needed to get through this difficult day before other days and their awful possibilities could be taken into account.
The room was crowded with friends and relatives of his father, come to pay their last respects, but there was no sound. A few attempts at conversation had been made and abandoned. Silence reigned, silence and the sad sickly stench of funeral flowers.
Adam’s tie felt like a tourniquet around his neck. His fingers reached impulsively to drag the knot loose, but a hand intercepted his hand and pushed it back to his lap. He gave a ghost of a smile. When it came to ties and knots it was usually his hand doing the intercepting. His partner Phin loathed wearing a tie.
A voice shattered the tense silence.
“They’re here, Adam. It’s time.”
The sombre atmosphere deepened further as two dark-suited men from the funeral directors stepped into the lounge, bringing an air of finality. One began to gather up the tributes to take out to the hearse. The other looked to Adam for permission to place the lid on his father’s open coffin He managed a nod and then sat mesmerised as the oak lid with its brief inscription was positioned and screwed down. He felt a chill sweep over him, as if he’d been doused in iced water. Tremors racked his body. This was it, the last stage.
People began filing out of the room. They gathered outside the vicarage to wait for the coffin to be brought out and for the solemn procession from the vicarage to the church to begin.
A hand under his elbow helped raise Adam to a standing position. His knees were shaking so much he didn’t think they could support him. “I can’t,” he whispered, his voice hoarse with emotion. “Phin, I can’t. Let the undertakers do it. I can’t.”
“You can, of course you can,” Phineas gently squeezed his partner’s arm, “and you will, because you loved him and you owe him this last respect.”
Adam nodded, forcing back a desire to fling himself into Phin’s arms and sob like a child, to ask for all responsibility to be removed from him in this matter. Phin was right. He had to play his part for his own peace of mind as much as anything else.
He stood up straighter as the undertakers approached to ask if he were ready. Again he nodded. He then braced himself for the saddest, most unwelcome and yet most honourable tribute a son can pay a father - to be his chief mourner and pallbearer.
He knew a little of what to expect. They’d had a practice run with an empty coffin the day before, though the undertaker had warned him it would be much heavier once his father’s remains were interred within. The path to be walked bearing this sad burden was a fair length.
The almond trees shading the route were in full blossom. Their pale petals fell as tears on the funeral procession making its way from the vicarage to the ancient country church Adam’s cleric father had served for thirty-two years. It had been his dying wish to make one last journey down the leafy track he’d loved so much, and which he had travelled every day of those years.
Adam remembered running down the lane as a child in the springtime, laughing and trying to catch the myriad petals as they drifted on the sun spangled air, and again in winter, his hand held snugly in his father’s, never imagining that one day he would be walking it in circumstances such as this. A child’s mind carries no spectre of death. Adam knew that forever after the almond blossom would be tinged with sorrow for him.
He did his duty as one of his father’s pallbearers strengthened by Phin’s presence beside him. He managed the readings in church and delivered a eulogy without breaking down, something he’d dreaded. He shook countless hands, thanked people for their respects and condolences and listened to their reminiscences, while keeping his own emotions at bay.
In the crematorium he watched the dark green velvet curtains begin to draw around the coffin of the father he’d loved. Their relationship had not always been ideal, not once Adam had come out anyway. His father hadn’t felt able to accept his homosexuality. He didn’t know how to square it with the tenets of his faith and his calling. In the eyes of the church he served his son was a sinner destined for damnation. He shut Adam out of his life for almost ten years. There were no letters, no phone calls, and no visits. Then out of the blue reconciliation had been sought. Forgiveness was asked, and given.
Long painful months had followed, as Adam and his father struggled to rebuild a relationship and come to terms with each other again. Those months had been hard, not just for Adam, but also for Phineas who had to put up with the outpourings, the agonising, and the shedding of bitterness. He did so with patience, though he was always endearingly willing to point out when soul searching and peace seeking had crossed the line into self-pity or unfair assessment.
Just as Adam and his father were reaching a stage of ease with each other, at times almost bordering the happy relationship of childhood, his father had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and six short weeks later he was gone.
The curtains drew together shielding the coffin from view and for a single second Adam felt like the whole world had stopped turning. A thorn of truth pierced him to the bone. He would never see his father again, all that had been left unsaid between them, would remain unsaid. A sound issued from his throat and his grief became public. Tears he would have preferred to keep private spilled down his face.
Phin’s arms immediately came around him, holding and comforting him. “You had your moments with your dad,” he said quietly. “He said he loved you. You said you loved him. Hold onto those words. They’re more than some people ever say.”
Afterwards, while speaking with some of his father’s parishioners and thanking them for attending the funeral, Adam spotted Phin reviewing the floral tributes spread on trestle tables outside the crematorium chapel. There was a look on his face that made Adam’s stomach turn over. It tinged his grief for his father with guilt for indulging his emotions, and something else, fear, which he ruthlessly crushed. It was time to start taking those other days into account and dealing with whatever possibilities they contained.
Walking over to Phin he took his hand. “It’s okay.” He made his voice sound confident. “It’s going to be okay, love. I know it.”
“You reckon?”
“Didn’t you hear what I said, I know it. I’m never wrong.”
“So modest.” Phin smiled, then sobered. “I’ll be fine, as long as you’re with me.”
Adam squeezed his hand. “I’ll be with you, darling, all the way.”
One Week Earlier
“Cold beer, hot pizza and Saturday night.” Phin gave a happy sigh. “My favourite combination.” He drained the bottle he was drinking from and stood up. “Another beer, Ad?”
“Not yet, and you should slow down. Why do you have to do everything at top speed? You’re two slices of pizza ahead of me as it is.”
“Drink it cold, eat it hot, and do it fast is my motto in life.”
The television saved Adam from making a pithy reply. The picture suddenly cut out.
“Shit.” Phin stared at the blank screen. “What happened there?”
“I bet the local transmitter has been hit by lightening again. I thought I saw a flicker of it in the sky when I was paying the pizza guy. It’s been threatening to storm all day.” Adam plucked the remote from the coffee table and aimed it at the set, flicking from channel to channel, getting ghostly figures and crackling static on some and nothing at all on others.
“As good a time as any to go to the loo I suppose. I’ll get a beer on the way back. Are you sure you don’t want one?”
“Later.”
Phin went to the bathroom leaving Adam flicking through TV channels.
Walking up the hall on his return from the kitchen, beer in hand, Phin grinned as he heard Adam’s voice filter from the living room.
“What a bloody fool! Honestly, some people.”
There were other sounds too. The TV was obviously working again.
“Who’s a bloody fool?” Phin walked into the room, taking a swig of his beer.
“That berk on the motorbike.” Adam jabbed an irritable finger at the telly screen. “How irresponsible idiots like him get deemed fit to drive in the first place is beyond me. He’s been clocked going over one hundred and forty miles an hour. According to the commentator it’s taken the traffic police more than twenty minutes to get him to pull over. I hope they throw the book at him.”
Phin turned to look at the screen and froze, his blood running colder than the Czech beer he was drinking when he saw the traffic cop reality show Adam was watching. The TV camera was panning in on the bike and its owner as well as the arresting officer walking towards him. He spoke quickly. “Why are you watching this?” He set his beer down on the table. “You hate these programmes. They send your blood pressure up. Turn it off. Where’s the remote.” He scanned around for it, but couldn’t see it.
“It’s the only channel working. It’s this or nothing.” Adam reached for a slice of pizza from the box on the coffee table. He didn’t pick it up. His hand paused in midair. “Good God.” He moved to the edge of the sofa. “That bike, it…”
“I’ll turn it off.” Phin moved in front of the television set, trying to block Adam’s view prior to switching it off manually. It was too late.
“MOVE!” Adam barked the order in his best Dom’s voice.
Phin reluctantly obeyed.
Adam, a look of pure shock on his face, leaned closer towards the television set as the biker on the TV removed his crash helmet. The look of shock intensified. His jaw dropped open.
Closing his eyes Phineas silently beseeched Jesus to intercede for him with God. He prayed for the television transmitter to be struck again, so as to put an end to the sensationalist documentary that had Adam riveted to the screen.
It didn’t happen. His church attendance record clearly lacked the points necessary for prayer granting. The floor also failed to oblige him by swallowing him whole. Adam, his face set in lines the Chinese might call inscrutable extracted the remote from the side of the cushion he was sitting on. He turned off the TV set and stood up.
Phin was a bare inch taller than his partner, but at that moment he felt a good deal smaller. Adam seemed to tower over him. Panic set in. Snatching up the pizza box he thrust it under Adam’s nose, gabbling. “Eat it before it goes cold. It would be a shame for it to waste, especially as it’s your favourite ham and mushroom. Are you ready for another beer yet, and how about some ice cream as well? I’ll get them. You stay here.”
Taking the box from Phin’s hands, Adam closed the lid and dropped it back on the coffee table. “Sit.”
Phin sat down, testing out an ingratiating smile as he did so, but it was like offering a starving polar bear a stale sardine in the hope it would choose to make a sandwich with it instead of ripping out your throat for fresh meat.
“Tell me, Phineas.” Adam’s voice was smooth. “Have I just experienced some kind of hallucination, or was it really you taking a starring role in that ghastly programme?”
Gulping back a desire to start screaming, Phin hazarded, “I must admit he did look rather like me, but I’m not as tall. He looked much taller than me, don’t you think, love, and his hair was longer.”
“He had the same bike with the same licence plate. He had your features. He spoke with your voice, but I know it can’t have been you, because,” Adam gave a cut glass smile, “you would never behave in such a moronic way. And I know that even if you had, you would never withhold it from me, nor fail to tell me about the four hundred pounds fine such behaviour incurred, not to mention the points on your licence.” The smile snapped off. “WOULD you, Phineas?”
Phin pulled his gaze away from the eyes that were burning holes in his face. He picked at a spot of pizza sauce on the knee of his jeans. “I was going to tell you. At the right moment.”
“When? When were you going to tell me? On your deathbed, as a last confession, was that the right moment you were thinking of?”
“Sorry, okay, I’m sorry.”
“No, it is not okay.” Adam paced across the room and back again. “It is not okay at all. I can’t believe you did this, and you didn’t tell me.”
Standing up, Phin shoved his hands in the pocket of his jeans, figuring the weekend could only get better and nothing worse could happen. After all, what could be worse than having your past sins aired on primetime TV in front of not only the nation, but the partner you’d kind of not confessed the sin to in the first place.
In fact, Phin admitted the truth to himself, the partner he’d gone to considerable lengths to conceal it from, knowing fine well what his reaction was likely to be. He thought he’d gotten away with it. Heaven knows he’d done his best to forget about it.
At the time of the crime he’d been so high from having pushed his powerful new bike to a record breaking, as well as law breaking, one hundred and seventy miles an hour that he hadn’t noticed that the traffic cop who halted his joyride had a salivating documentary film crew in tow.
The policeman, who had a nice arse, had politely asked him if he was aware he’d hit speeds in excess of one hundred and forty mph on a busy motorway where the limit was seventy mph?
Phin, grinning cockily at the camera, had informed PC Nice Arse that in fact he’d peaked at one hundred and seventy. He had to admit after seeing it played back on film he didn’t look much like the hero he’d felt at the time. He looked more like a brainless tosser. Still, he tried to excuse himself.
“I’m sorry, Adam, really I am. It happened over six months ago. I didn’t see any reason to bother you with it at the time.”
“I bet you didn’t.” Adam’s dark brows registered disgust, coming together in a critical frown. “For your information, when it happened is immaterial. The fact it happened at all is the only cogent point here.”
Phin’s weekend suddenly took a further downturn.
“Go and get your bike keys.”
Phin’s mouth went into smart mode. “I’ve had a few beers, Adam. I’m in no condition to take us out for a nice bike ride. There’s laws about drink-driving you know, maybe tomorrow, if you behave yourself.”
His weekend hit the earth’s surface like a meteorite, burrowing itself several miles deep and dragging his heart with it, as Adam countered. “Forget the keys for the time being. We’ll take this discussion upstairs.”
“It was six months ago for Christ’s sake. Six fucking months!”
“For you it might have happened six months ago. For me it happened less than five minutes ago. Anyway, do you really imagine it being six months in the past makes it any the less wrong, or any the less punishable?”
“I was punished. I was fined and point penalised.”
“In my opinion your licence should have been revoked altogether after that disgusting display. You’re not fit to be allowed the privilege of driving. You ought to be bloody ashamed.”
Stung by the words Phin allowed his smart mouth to exercise again. “Well, we all know you make Judge Dredd look like a bleeding heart liberal. You’d bring back hanging for litter offences and dog fouling if you could.”
Ignoring the remarks, Adam said coldly, “the law might have seen fit to deal with you leniently, but don’t expect the same from me. How dare you withhold something of this magnitude from me? We’re partners. We’re not supposed to have dirty little secrets.”
Phin tried to keep the whine out of his voice, but it crept in anyway. “You would have disciplined me if I’d told you.”
“Do you think you deserved to be disciplined?”
“Then, maybe, but not now, not six months later. It isn’t fair. It’s done with.”
“Not as far as I’m concerned. Do you think it’s fair you broke your promise to confine your fetish for speed to the track, where it’s permissible? Do you think it's fair I’ve discovered this in the way I have? Most of the people in my office watch this ghastly programme. I can guarantee who’s going to be the subject of gossip and sniggers come Monday morning.”
Adam raked his fingers through his hair. “Christ! I hate that you do that kind of thing on a track designed for it, but to drive like that on a public road is beyond the pale, and what the HELL were you thinking, Phineas, giving permission for them to show your face on camera without pixelating it?”
Phin shrugged, folded his arms and stared at the floor.
“Most of the idiots on shows like this can at least garner enough common sense to demand anonymity. Not you though. I bet you were so stuffed full of cocky adrenaline after the chase, so proud of yourself - Phin the speed king - that you didn’t even think about withholding your permission.”
It was too near the truth for comfort. Phin rubbed a hand across his mouth, but couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Then Adam said the words he hated more than anything.
“I’m so disappointed in you. You know how I felt about you getting that machine in the first place. I needed to believe you’d act responsibly when riding it.”
“I’m sorry.”
“So you’ve said.” Adam seized hold of Phin’s upper arm. “It isn’t good enough.”
Phin gave a gasp, jutting his hips forward as Adam’s right hand slammed hard against his buttocks. Six thunderous slaps later his arm was released. Punishment was by no means over. His stomach churned as Adam rapped an order.
“Get upstairs and take off your jeans.”
Phin strode out of the room and up the stairs, conscious of Adam at his heels. In the bedroom he stripped down to boxers and t-shirt. Despite the warmth in his nether region he shivered and rubbed at his arms, watching as Adam pulled open the drawer on the bedside cabinet. He withdrew a certain hateful object and used it to point at a portion of the bedroom wall.
“Brace your hands against the wall, push your backside well out.”
Phin’s heart sank. The position indicated discipline would be severe. He complied with the instruction, dropping his head between his outstretched arms. He flinched as Adam yanked down his boxer shorts and made him step out of them, before resting the long leather paddle again his tingling buttocks. The spanking doled out downstairs had obviously been the warm up. Now Adam intended on getting straight to business, no messing.
“Why are you being punished, Phineas?”
“For breaking the law.”
“The law exacted a penalty from you in that regard albeit too leniently.” Adam raised the paddle. “However, I can’t honestly say I’m pleased about it or the fact you concealed it from me.”
Oh God in heaven, or wherever he resided in these secular times. Phin pushed hard against the wall holding his breath as the thick paddle struck his bare bottom for the first time. It was a hard stroke delivered full force. He let the breath out slowly as the paddle lifted and then sucked it straight back in as leather struck his buttocks again and stayed there.
“Showing a lack of regard and respect for your own safety is bad enough. I won’t tolerate it. I certainly won’t tolerate you showing the same lack of respect and regard for the safety of others, especially not for the sake of a selfish speed fix. It is not acceptable behaviour. Count out twelve.”
Phin stiffened his legs and braced his arms. It took all his willpower to maintain his position and to count as the paddle burned across his backside twelve times in rapid succession before resting once more against his throbbing cheeks. The involuntary semi-erection that had been in evidence before the hiding got underway shrank into his balls, indicating dismay at punishment received and that yet to come.
“What else?”
“I broke my word to behave responsibly with the bike, which amounts to lying. Lying is unacceptable because it undermines trust and trust is a vital component of our relationship. I didn’t intend to,” Phin looked back over his shoulder. “I really didn’t.”
Adam gave a nod of acknowledgement before hooking his left arm around Phin’s waist to anchor him. He then proceeded to administer the mother and father of all spankings, raising the paddle high and bringing it down hard. He stopped only when Phin began to cry and it became a struggle to hold him in place and support his weight, as he instinctively fought against the source of pain.
“Get to bed.”
Weeping, Phin obeyed.
Adam put the paddle away and then climbed into bed beside Phin, gathering him into his arms and holding him as he struggled to quell his tears.
“That was a vicious paddling.” Phin finally managed to bring his emotions under a semblance of control, mumbling into Adam’s damp shirtfront. “Bloody vicious. You’ve just about blistered my arse.”
“You deserved a damn good hiding, so don’t start whining. You let me down. Have you any idea how I felt when I realised the idiot on the screen was you? Your shoulder and knee were just about brushing the tarmac as you turned into bends. It’s a miracle you kept control of the machine. What the hell were you thinking?”
“I don’t know,” said Phin miserably. “I was hyped about picking up the bike that day. It was so beautiful. The moment I turned the key in the ignition and heard the roar of the engine I wanted to see what it could do, what I could do. I knew it was stupid and wrong, but...” he trailed off.
“You let your excitement rule over common sense.”
“Yeah, as usual. When I heard the police siren, something flipped. It was like I became a character in a computer game where the objective was to beat the law. I thought I could lose him easily. I almost did. Then I had to drop my speed because of an accident that had caused a build up of traffic. Suddenly it was game over.” He raised his head from Adam’s chest. “Am I forgiven?”
“Forgiven, yes, excused, no. I lost my mother and brother in a car crash and now my dad’s dying. I don’t want to lose you because of this bloody obsession you have with speed, nor do I want anyone else losing a loved one because of it. It isn’t a game to be taken lightly, Phin, not on the track, and certainly not on the open road. If you’d crashed at the speed you were going they would have had to hose what was left of you from the road surface.”
Phin grimaced as an unpleasant mental image flashed across his mind’s eye. “Sorry, and sorry for not telling you about it after it happened. First of all I didn’t want a paddling.” He rubbed a hand over his tender backside, saying ruefully, “that didn’t quite pan out, and second I didn’t...” he hesitated.
Adam stroked his hair. “You didn’t want to burden me when I was so preoccupied with the situation with my father. I’m sorry you felt that way. I obviously wasn’t giving you the attention you needed, though it doesn’t excuse anything. Whatever my apparent state of distraction you tell me what I need to know. I’ll make sure it gets listened to.”
Snuggling into Adam’s arms, Phin thought the worst was over. His conscience was cleared. The weekend might yet be salvaged after all.
“Your bike is totally off limits until I say otherwise.”
“I’ll have to have it back by next weekend though. I’ve got trials.”
“Not anymore you haven’t.”
Phin’s heart beat rapid dismay. “I’ll be letting my team mates down. What the hell am I going to tell them?”
“I’m sure you’ll think of something. You could even use that programme as evidence of how fast you and your bike can travel. I’m sure you’ll be a real hero.”
“Please let me do the trials. You can...”
“No.”
“Adam, please, don’t do this to me, can’t we come to a compromise of some kind?”
“No.”
“You’re so ruddy pedantic.” Phin tried to pull out of Adam’s arms, but was firmly held.
“I didn’t break the law, or your trust. I didn’t endanger myself or conceal anything from you.”
“You’ve almost thrashed the skin off my backside. It’s punishment enough.”
“I’ll decide what is punishment enough. I’ll tell you something else. When I do give you back the privilege of riding your bike it’ll be with terms and conditions.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if you ever speed like that again on a public road the ban will be permanent. You’ll sell the bike.”
“Bastard!” Phin almost burst into fresh tears as the enormity of the threat registered. “You are such a bastard. You’ve been looking for an excuse to make me get rid of my bike.”
“I’ve never disguised the fact I dislike motorbikes. I love you and I worry about you, with good reason. I don’t think that’s a crime. All you have to do is behave responsibly and your bike is safe. However, if you ever do anything like I witnessed on television tonight your involvement with bikes is over for good, for the public’s safety as much as yours.”
“Go away.” Phin rolled onto his side, presenting his back. “Go on. Piss off. I don’t want you near me.”
“Try to get some sleep.” Kissing Phin on the shoulder Adam got up. He left the room closing the door behind him.
Phin didn’t want to sleep. He wanted to lie awake and brood and be angry, but a heavy discipline session always tired him. It sapped his energy on both a physical and emotional level. He slept solidly, not even stirring when the storm that had threatened all day finally broke and thunder and rain rattled the windowpanes.
When he awoke on Sunday morning some of the rawness he felt at having to miss the trials had dissipated. The optimist within him was convinced that maybe, just maybe, Adam might change his mind. So what if experience told him it was a vain hope, a grasping at the proverbial straw. There was always a first time for everything.
He rolled onto his back, stretching out his legs, giving a little groan as his tender backside rubbed the mattress.
“Morning, love. How are you feeling?”
“Sore.” Phin turned his head, looking into Adam’s dark chocolate brown eyes. “You did a real number on me last night.”
“You deserved it.”
“I know.” Phin directed his gaze at the ceiling. “Sorry. I was a bloody idiot.”
“It’s done with. You’ve been punished. Okay?”
Phin nodded.
“Isn’t it time you shaved off this chin tuft?” Adam rubbed his fingers over the bristles on Phin’s chin, a teasing note in his voice. “It’s never going to grow into a goatee.”
“It will, in time.”
“It’s been two weeks and you still haven’t got enough for a kid never mind a goat.”
“Oh ha-ha.” Phin turned to face Adam, draping an arm over him. “Do you love me again?”
“I never stopped loving you. Shut up and let me kiss you.”
Phin accepted Adam’s kisses with happy enthusiasm, giving a sigh of deep pleasure as they travelled from his mouth down his throat and shoulders to his chest. He moaned, arching his back, as a practiced mouth began to suck his nipples.
Adam knew every inch of his lover’s body, every contour, and the lump beneath the dark aureole of Phin’s left nipple was not a familiar part of the territory. His tongue suspected it first as it circled the nipple teasing and cajoling it to a stiff peak, and then his finger confirmed it. He sat up, all desire for sex gone.
“You’re making a big fuss about nothing.” Phin gazed down at the area of concern, probing it with his own fingers.
“All the same I’d like you to make a doctor’s appointment first thing tomorrow morning.”
“Oh come on, Ad.” Phin got out of bed. “So I’ve got a slight swelling under my nipple. You probably nibbled it too hard or something.” He grinned. “It’s not as if I’m likely to have breast cancer seeing as I haven’t got breasts, well,” he squeezed his pecs and pouted seductively, “none that would get me a slot on page three of The Sun.”
“It does happen apparently. Men have breast tissue that can develop cancers in the same way as for women. I once read an article about it in the dentist’s waiting room. You’ll arrange to have it checked.”
“No way.” Phin inspected his tender bottom in the wardrobe mirror. It was still reddened with some dark bruising on the lower cheeks and upper thighs. It had been a bloody harsh paddling, the worst he’d had in a long time. Sitting was going to be uncomfortable for a good few days. He got a pair of light loose boxers out of his underwear drawer and pulled them on. “I’m not having some strange man handling my nips. It’s embarrassing.”
“He’s a doctor. He’s handled worse than nipples.”
“Exactly.” Phin dragged a clean t-shirt on. “There’s no telling where he’s had his hands. He’s not clamping them to my chest.”
“It’s probably nothing, but I want to know it’s nothing, so you’re going.”
“No. I’ll feel stupid if I go to the doctors about it.”
Adam shook his head. “I don’t understand your logic. Going to consult a doctor makes you feel stupid, while riding a motorbike at breakneck speed makes you feel what - intellectual?”
“I thought you said that subject was done with.” Phin scowled. “I’m not going to the doctors. I don’t want to.”
“Keep in mind the time you refused to see the doctor for what you termed a strained wrist, which turned out to be fractured.”
“There’s no chance on earth that my nipple could be fractured. I’m not exposing it to the chilly mitts of the medical profession.”
“You have no choice.” Adam got out of bed. “As head of the house I’m ruling in this matter. You’ll obey me. End of story.” He headed for the bathroom.
Phin punched a frustrated fist into a pillow. Sometimes he hated the authoritarian structure of the relationship he shared with Adam, fucking hated it.
His mood soured further when he went downstairs to the kitchen. His bike keys were missing from their usual place - hanging from the stainless steel banana tree. Confiscated. Damn it! Fuck knows when he’d get them back. Adam was strict. It could be weeks. His early morning optimism faded. There wasn’t a chance in hell of him doing the speed trials.
Making a mug of coffee he carried it through to the living room, setting it down on the coffee table. The letterbox rattled and he went to retrieve the Sunday newspapers from the doormat. Settling down on the sofa he sipped his coffee while flicking through the newssheets, not taking in a word written on them. He heard Adam descending the stairs.
“Have you eaten yet?”
Phin shook his head, not bothering to look up from the paper.
“I’ll make breakfast. Bacon sandwich sound good?”
“Not for me.” Phin turned the page.
Adam leaned against the living room doorjamb, surveying Phin for a few moments before speaking again. “Is this sulk to do with last night or this morning, or a combination of both?”
“Piss off, Adam.”
“If you can’t speak to me civilly it might be best if you don’t speak to me at all. I’m going to make some breakfast. Try and sort yourself out.”
Adam grilled several rashers of bacon and made sandwiches. He took them into the living room along with a mug of tea. “Sure you don’t want one?” He offered the plate to Phin, who gave a cold little shake of his head.
Adam settled in an armchair, resting his right foot on his left knee and balancing his plate on his ankle, as was his habit. “What do you fancy doing today, love?”
Phin rustled the paper he was reading, but otherwise made no reply.
Adam soldiered on. “I suppose we should do some gardening, don’t you think? The lawns need mowing and the hedge at the back is looking a bit tatty.”
“I believe, and correct me if I’m wrong,” said Phin haughtily, “that you told me not to speak if I couldn’t be civil.” He glared at Adam. “I don’t feel civil, so don’t expect me to speak.”
Adam tut-tutted, gave a sad shake of his head and got on with eating his breakfast. Afterwards he washed up and then called the hospital to ask how his father was. He’d been admitted with a chest infection the week before. His cancer-ravaged body was finding it hard to fight off the infection. The doctor he’d spoken to the previous day seemed optimistic that a corner had been turned. He spoke to a ward nurse who said his father had had a good night and was still asleep.
By the time he got off the phone Phin had gotten the lawn mower out and was cutting the grass at the back of the house. Adam hoped it indicated a thaw in mood. It didn’t. Phin enquired how his dad was, evaded a kiss and then silently got on with the mowing.
Adam didn’t press. Sometimes Phin, stubborn man, was best left alone to stew his moods out. Getting the garden shears he put his own energies into trimming the hedge.
Silence was broken at lunchtime when Phin made a belligerent announcement. He couldn’t be arsed dredging up a meal. He was lunching at the pub down the road instead. Adam joined him, despite the lack of an invitation.
***
“I think you’ve had enough now.” Adam spoke in prim disapproval as Phin returned from a supposed visit to the loo, setting a second pint of beer down on the table. He’d obviously returned via the bar. “You’ll be drunk before your meal arrives.”
Phin’s hackles rose. He was getting pissed off with being pulled up.
“You know what your trouble is don’t you, Adam?”
“Do tell.”
“You’re a right naggy old woman, one who thinks too much and knows too little. I know when I’ve had enough because I vomit and fall over. Am I vomiting, am I horizontal?”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. His patience was close to expiry where his stroppy partner was concerned. “If you don’t watch your mouth, Phin, you’ll be horizontal in a way you won’t like, over my knee with your pants down.”
“In a public place. I doubt it.” Phin took a long gulp of beer. “So,” he wiped froth from his upper lip, “let’s take a moment to recap here. I have to watch my speed, watch my mouth and let someone else watch my tits. It’s a shame my cock isn’t detachable. It would save you the bother of emasculating me in person. I could just gift wrap it and hand it over for you to use as a dildo on me as and when you fancied. You could even suck it while fucking me. It would give a whole new slant to double penetration.”
“Pork and lamb?” The waitress made a timely appearance.
“I’m the lamb,” smiled Phin sweetly. “The pig is over there.”
Adam waited until the waitress was out of earshot before leaning across the table and presenting a finger to Phin’s face. “I’m sending you to bed for the rest of the day when we get home. You’re behaving like a brat so I might as well treat you like one.”
“Suits me, love. Drinking on an afternoon always makes me sleepy and I intend to drink a bit more yet, so bed will be very welcome. I appreciate your consideration. Cheers!” Phin reached for his pint, but his hand closed around air as Adam got to it before him.
“You’re done drinking for today. In fact for the next week.” Adam poured the beer into the pot of the unidentified plant decorating their alcove.
“You do realise you’ve just vandalised an artificial plant don’t you?”
“Shut up, Phineas.”
“Is that an order?”
“Yes.”
“Good. I don’t want to talk to you anyway. I didn’t ask you to come with me. I wanted to lunch on my own in peace, without being nagged, and I want my fucking bike keys back you arrogant bastard.”
“When we get home...”
“I know. You’re going to send me to bed. You’ve already said. Repetition is a sign of mental deterioration. Perhaps you ought to see a doctor. Ask him to grope your tits while you’re on, see how you like it.”
“Sometimes.” Adam stabbed his fork into a roast potato. “I’m afraid to answer the front door at home in case it’s the police come to arrest me for paedophilia.”
“Adam, if you want to call me childish then come right out and say it. There’s no need to be coy and go all round the houses.”
“Enough, Phineas. Do you understand me?”
The look accompanying the quietly spoken words made Phin’s stomach clench. He’d pushed far enough. He wisely turned his attentions to his food.
The pretty blonde waitress beamed a bright smile as she gathered their empty plates. “Everything okay, gents?”
“Lovely, thank you,” they chorused in true English fashion, even though Adam’s pork had turned out to be turkey and the lamb to be beef and both to be tough.
“Would you like a dessert, tea, coffee? We’ve got some gorgeous coffee cake, or chocolate fudge.”
Phin reached for the dessert menu propped between the salt and pepper pots, but didn’t get a chance to open it.
“We’re fine thank you.” Adam politely declined the waitress’s tempting invitation.
“I wanted coffee and a pudding.” Phin glared across the table as the waitress departed.
“I’ll make you coffee when we get home.” Adam stood up unhooking his jacket from the back of the chair. “If you’re very good I’ll let you have a biscuit with it.”
Picking up and putting on the leather cowboy hat that had been a favourite Christmas gift from Adam, Phin snarled, “I thought you were flexing your head of domicile muscles and sending me to bed when we got home?”
“You can have coffee before you go to bed.”
“Gee, you’re all heart.”
Phin slapped a handful of loose change on the table as a tip for the waitress. Snatching his leather jacket from the spare chair he strode towards the exit and out onto the street. Adam had to work hard to keep pace. Powered by angry resentment Phin’s extra inch in height made all the difference to his stride.
He caught his arm as soon as they got home and indoors, preventing him from going upstairs. “You have no right to be this angry. No right at all, not about anything. If you won’t see to your own safety then I’ll see to it for you. You need the lump checking out, and as for last night, what I saw on the television. You can’t seriously have imagined I’d let it pass?”
“I accept I deserved a walloping for my behaviour. I should never have tried to conceal things from you. I was a first class prick. I even accept you confiscating my bike keys for a while, but the trials, Adam, please.” Phin cupped a hand to his partner’s face, pleading. “Let me do the speed trials?”
“No.”
“I’ll go to the doctor and let him feel me up.”
“You’ll go anyway, and the answer is still no.”
“Fucks SAKE!” Phin turned away from Adam, quelling an urge to deck him. He slammed his hands against the wall instead. “Can’t you take a fucking Dom’s day off, just this once? You know how much these trials mean to me.”
“Yes.” Adam grasped Phin’s arm, roughly jerking him around to face him. “I do know how much they mean and that’s exactly why I’m not allowing you to do them. All else is mere inconvenience and annoyance to you, having to rely on me, or a taxi or bus to get you to and from work, but those trials matter, they really matter and not letting you do them is the best way I can think of to get my point across. I’m not going to stand idly by while you write off your life. If anything happens to you, it’s not just your life that’s lost. It’s mine. So don’t ask me again. Tell your mates you can’t sit on a bike because your arse is too sore. Show them the marks as proof. If you want I’ll use my belt to add a few more for authenticity. Tell them anything, but resign yourself to being out of the trials.”
Phin took off his hat kneading the brim with his fingers. “What if I say no? What if I refuse to cooperate with your decision on this?”
Adam spoke without hesitation. “You won’t refuse, because to do so would be to question the basis of our relationship and my authority within it. I know you love and respect me enough, along with what we have together, not to want to do that. You also know there would be repercussions you’d like even less than the present situation. I can and I will make life very hard for you.”
“I love you, Adam, I do, but there are times when I could cheerfully punch your fucking teeth out.”
“I’m sure.” Adam briskly slapped Phin’s bottom, making him yelp. “Stop bellyaching or I’ll spank you properly. Do you still want coffee?”
Phin nodded.
“Then let’s go get some.”
They drank strong coffee in the kitchen, polishing off a packet of plain chocolate digestives between them in the process. Phin then rose taking the empty mugs across to the sink to rinse, handing them to Adam to dry and hang back on the mug stand. He dried his hands on the sides of his jeans. “Do you really think I’ve got breast cancer?” His voice wavered.
“No.” Adam wrapped both arms about Phin’s waist, pulling him into a hug. “You still need to know what’s causing the lump. Most lumps have nothing to do with cancer, but they need investigating. It’s probably a cyst of some kind.”
“I’ll make the appointment first thing in the morning.”
“Thank you. Now give me a kiss, you sexy man, and that’s an order.”
“Yes, sir.” Phin slipped his arms around Adam’s neck and kissed him enjoying the scent and taste of coffee and chocolate, which still lingered on his breath. He broke the kiss. “You mentioned sending me to bed earlier, is that still on?”
“Oh yeah.” Adam rolled the palms of his hands over Phin’s buttocks then brought his right hand round to cup and knead his balls through his jeans. “You’re going to bed all right.”
Phin gave a seductive purr, fluttering his lush lashes, “because I’m a bad, bad boy?”
“I certainly do hope so, darling. Bad and dirty.” Adam reached for the zip on Phin’s jeans, while Phin’s hands gripped the hem of his t-shirt.
The shrill ringing of the telephone in the kitchen interrupted their passionate struggle to be the first to fully undress the other.
“Leave it.” Phin bit a kiss onto Adam’s bare shoulder. “I want you.”
“I’d better get it. It might be the hospital.” Adam re-zipped his jeans. “I’m sure your lust can hold out for a minute or two.”
He answered the phone. “Hello…yes, speaking.”
Phin watched the colour drain from Adam’s face as he listened to a voice at the other end of the receiver. Something was wrong.
“Thank you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” Adam replaced the receiver in the cradle, staring at it.
“Your dad,” asked Phin gently. “Has he taken a turn for the worse? I thought he was on the up?”
“Dead.” Whispered Adam. He rubbed his forehead. “He’s dead. They think he died in his sleep a short while ago. One of the nurses discovered him when she took his lunch in. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t there for my dad in his last moments. He died all alone in a hospital room.”
“Not your fault, love. It’s not your fault.” Phin snatched up his top from the floor. He dragged it back on, and then picked up Adam’s, helping him into it before sitting down on a kitchen chair and pulling him onto his lap. He wrapped his arms tight around him. “You can’t foretell these things. You were with him yesterday afternoon. You have nothing to reproach yourself for. You phoned the hospital this morning. They told you he was fine. He was expected to live a while longer than this.”
“No one should die alone. I wanted to be there for him, Phin. I wanted him to know I was close by and that I loved him.”
Phin cuddled him harder. “I know you did, and your father knew it too.” Kisses begun in passion turned to kisses of comfort.
Two Weeks After The Funeral
Cancer. The word dropped into the room like a brick. Phin felt the world slip away from him. Cancer. The word reverberated around, pounding inside his brain. He had breast cancer. Of all the other words spoken by the Consultant, only one more penetrated the wall of shock in his mind, rare, serving to make the first seem even more terrifying.
The funeral of Adam’s father came back to his mind. He could smell the sickly scent of the flowers and feel the taut emotions. He remembered the hard press of an oak coffin on his shoulders, as he shared the rituals of death with the man he adored above all others. Thoughts whirled around in his skull. Who would help Adam bear him shoulder high he wondered, who would help him grieve and give him comfort? He experienced a surreal crazy moment of jealously because Adam would surely find a new lover in time. He hated the thought of him being with another man.
Cancer. The word caused Adam’s heart to pound with sick dismay. He watched the colour drain from Phin’s face, watched him slip into a dimension of shock and fear. His strength asserted itself ahead of his own grief. He began to ask questions and gather information, feeling the burden of terror lighten as he listened to the Consultant’s answers.
The walk back to the hospital car park was silent, as was the drive home, each of them busy with their own thoughts.
Phin was first out of the car and first into the house and would have been first back out again if he hadn’t slammed into Adam.
“Give me those bike keys, Phin.” Adam threw the front door closed and held out his hand. “You had no business getting them out of my desk drawer.”
“I’m going out for a ride.”
“You’re not going anywhere, certainly not in this mood. We need to talk.”
“What’s to talk about? I’m going to die. I might as well go out in style.”
“Keys.” Adam snapped his fingers impatiently. “Hand them over now. I won’t tell you again.”
“No. I’m going out on my bike. I mean it, Adam. Don’t get in my way.”
“I’m already in your way. If you want to go out you’ll have to go through me.”
“Fair enough.” Phin made a move, trying to shove Adam aside so he could open the door.
The struggle was brief, but intense, leaving the table in the hall overturned on the floor amid a heap of plant compost. Adam won. Twisting Phin’s left arm up behind his back he marched him into the living room and forced him over the back of the leather sofa.
No words were spoken. Harsh slaps and hard grunts made up for conversation, as Adam put all his energy into walloping sense into Phin via his backside and Phin put all his energy into resisting, even though he knew the only way of stopping the spanking was to submit to it.
Phin’s grunts gave way to louder more frantic cries as his buttocks flamed beneath their covering of denim. The pain became unbearable. He gave in, dissolving into tears.
“I should have bared your stubborn arse.” Adam heaved Phin upright, sticking the palm of his right hand under his nose. “Look at that. I’ve got a blood blister thanks to spanking you over your jeans.”
“Good.” Phin wiped his snotty nose with his shirtsleeve. “You deserve it, you twat. I hope it infects. This is all your fault. I didn’t want to see a doctor in the first fucking place.”
“Not seeing the doctor wouldn’t have made things any different.” Adam picked up the set of bike keys from the sofa cushion and pocketed them. “It would have made them worse. Not knowing doesn’t stop the disease progressing. Aw, baby.” He opened his arms as Phin reached for him with fresh tears streaming down his face.
“I’m scared, Adam. I don’t want to die.”
Adam sat down on the sofa pulling Phin onto his lap and cuddling him until the tears abated. “Let’s get one thing straight. You are not going to die. I forbid it.” He tenderly stroked the tear washed face. “You’re the man I want to grow old with.”
“It isn’t going to happen. I’ve got a rare form of cancer, didn’t you hear the Consultant?”
“Yes, I heard, and better than you obviously did. The form of cancer you have is rare in men because it’s of a type almost always curable, particularly when caught at an early stage, like yours.”
“Really?” A light of hope sprang to Phin’s frightened blue eyes. “I was in shock. I don’t think I heard much after the word cancer. It’s all a blur. Tell me.”
“The prognosis is excellent. The only treatment you’re likely to need is surgery, but that will be confirmed once they’ve removed the tumour and some lymph nodes from under your arm. They want to make sure it’s as contained as they think it is.”
Still cold with shock Phin huddled as close as he could to Adam, seeking warmth from his body. “Now I know exactly how my poor aunt Nina must have felt when they told her she had breast cancer.”
“And look at her. She’s fine now. She got through it and so will you.”
“What if surgery isn’t enough? What if it isn’t contained, Adam, what then?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Adam kissed him gently on the lips, “and we’ll cross it together.”
“I’m scared, Adam. I’m so scared.”
“Of course you are, love. Who wouldn’t be? We’re going to get through this. I promise.”
***
The flowers were numerous and beautiful. Their fragrance hung in the air like a promise of long summer evenings in the garden.
“You must have bought the entire florists.” Phin stared in wonder around the flower-bedecked living room.
“I wanted everything to be nice for you. Besides, they’re not all from me. Some are from Nina and Avril and some are from your workmates. I told them to send them here instead of the hospital because they’d last longer and you’d get to appreciate them more.”
“What about the lads at the track, didn’t they send anything? The tight bastards.”
Adam solemnly pointed out a carnation and beer bottle arrangement in a bike tyre.
“Classy.” Phin grinned.
Adam steered him towards the sofa. “It’s so good to have you home. I’ve missed you.”
“I was only in two nights and you visited.”
“Felt like years to me and visiting is no compensation for having you beside me in bed. I hate sleeping alone. Sit down.”
“Adam, I...”
“Sit. You need to take things easy. You’ve had an operation.”
Phin sat. It was no use arguing when Adam was set on something, and anyway it was nice to be bossed about again. Comforting. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, more tired than he wanted to admit. To his dismay tears crept down his cheeks.
“Stressful times we’ve had lately.” Adam sat beside Phin, gently wiping his tears away with his thumbs, “but thank God you’re okay. Everything is clear.”
Phin opened his eyes. Reaching for Adam’s hand he held it tight. “Thank you, Ad, for helping me through this. I think I’d have gone under without you.”
“You have more strength than you give yourself credit for. You’d have managed on your own. The point is you didn’t have to. Burdens are for sharing, Phin. That’s what relationships are about. Being there for each other. I’ll always be here for you, just as you are for me. I love you.”
“Even when I drive you nuts by doing something dumbass?”
“Especially then.” Adam smiled. Taking Phin in his arms he kissed him.
Phin makes an error of judgment that has serious repercussions. Adam has to decide if discipline is warranted under the circumstances. The story is told in titled sections.
Like the previous story this was also published separately and as part of the anthology ‘The Corridor and Other Stories.’ The latter is no longer available.
1. Reckless Fruit
Nutritionists claimed fruit to be good for you. Sitting in a police station on an uncomfortable plastic chair Phineas was prepared to call the entire concept into question. It hadn’t proven good for him, nor had it proven good for the other person involved in the incident leading him to be sitting on an uncomfortable plastic chair in the police station. He gazed around the grim interior of the interview room, his guts churning with sick nerves. He never thought he’d be in this position again.
He wouldn’t have minded so much, but the fruit in question, an orange, wasn’t even his. A person unknown had left it on the driver’s seat of the car he had been driving. He hadn’t noticed it when he got into the car. He was in too much of a state. Its presence had dawned on him gradually as the journey progressed, becoming a growing discomfort in the region of his lower back. On discovering the source of his coccyx pain his simmering temper had boiled over.
Phin groaned. Leaning forwards over the desk he pressed trembling hands to his face. On reflection it would have been healthier and wiser to eat the bloody orange rather than doing what he did with it. Cold sweat trickled down his back as the incident replayed in his mind. “Fucking idiot.” He cursed himself aloud. “You fucking, fucking idiot. Moron. Cretin. Wanker.” He sat up straight, folding his arms, taking deep breaths in an effort to ward off nausea.
He shouldn’t have been driving at all. Long weeks of emotional stress and a night of dossing down on a grubby bedsit floor had taken a toll on him. He was a strung out wreck with the reflexes of a blancmange. He wasn’t fit to pilot a pushbike, let alone be behind the wheel of a potentially lethal weapon, a stolen one at that. As well as not owning the orange, he didn’t own the car it came partnered with either.
Oh dear God in heaven! Phin leaned forward yet again covering his face with his hands, his hair flopping forwards. What had he done? What had he done? His heart pounded echoing a throbbing refrain in his skull. This was an all time low even for him. He wasn’t a kid any more for Christ’s sake. He was supposed to know better. He was supposed to think before acting.
Andy Blakelock. The name popped into Phin’s mind. Andy fucking Blakelock! This whole thing was his fault, the treacherous bastard. If only he hadn’t met up with him. If only he’d gone home yesterday instead of going to Andy’s place and staying over.
After waking up late and shaking off the remnants of a heavy night on the booze, Phin discovered he’d been robbed. His so-called friend had pissed off with his mobile phone, his wallet and credit cards, and that wasn’t the worst of it. Andy had also taken his beautiful state of the art (ransomed his soul to pay for it) motorbike.
Being robbed by Andy was bad enough, but the icing on the toxic cake was yet to come. The scumbag forgot to mention that the rent on his grotty little bedsit was overdue by some six months, and the landlord had scheduled to call and collect that very morning. In lieu of the preferred hard cash he was prepared to take payment in blood, apparently regardless of whether or not it belonged to Andy. In the landlord’s view Phin being in the flat was tantamount to a contract of residency between them, and no one lived rent-free on his premises.
Phin had opted to take his chances on the rusty life-endangering fire escape rather than try and reason with the terrifying landlord and his Neanderthal mates. He was streetwise enough to know that men who were using homemade weapons to break down a door were unlikely to be in the mood for calm discussion. They wanted money or blood. He didn’t have money, but he had plenty of blood. He didn’t fancy losing a few pints of it.
He made a hasty exit, finding himself on the street with nothing but a headache to call his own. He hadn’t even had time to shove his feet into his trainers, another reason why driving was inadvisable, but by then his common sense had gone on a long holiday abroad, leaving no contact address.
The car was there, parked on the road in front of him. The next thing he knew he was inside it and performing a trick he hadn’t performed in some considerable time. Like riding a bike hot-wiring a car is something that once learned is never forgotten. Once a twocker always a twocker. Phin performed the deed with frightening ease and speed. Perhaps even more frightening - he got a kick out of doing it. Despite the circumstances he had experienced a full-scale adrenaline fix. Even the memory of it brought a flicker of renewed excitement, a pleasurable tightening in his balls and a sense of triumph.
Phin chewed his lower lip, ashamed of his reaction. He’d thought he was a different person these days, but he wasn’t. He was the same dickhead he’d always been. He might have learned to moderate certain aspects of his behaviour, but he hadn’t conquered the impulses behind them. It proved the old adage about leopards not being able to change their spots. At best they can camouflage them under heavy makeup, but in the end nature will out.
His main plan had been to escape from Ugg and friends. Other than that he had no real idea of destination. Some vague notion of finding Andy was flitting through the reactive grey matter posing as his brain, but he had no clue as to where he might be. Where he should have gone was home, to Adam, to talk things out. It would have been the adult thing to do.
However, being an adult doesn’t necessarily mean you make the right choices in every given situation. Making choices suggests being involved in some sort of rational cognitive process. Phin wasn’t. Rational thought was about as far from his brain as the moon from earth. He was in the grip of a chain reaction situation, driven not by reasoned thought, but by pure emotion. He wasn’t thinking in any sense of the word. He was in deep crisis and acting on impulse. He’d been in crisis for weeks. It had peaked the day before when he ran out on Adam after telling him he hated him.
Phin pushed a dirty hand through his dirty hair. It had been a shitty thing to say and do, especially in the circumstances.
Andy was the first person he’d encountered in the aftermath. His offer of a few beers at his place and a sympathetic shoulder to metaphorically cry on had seemed like providence at the time. It had been providence all right, but not in a good way. Andy had never been good news. All he had ever gotten from associations with him was grief. Accepting his offer had been another step in the pattern of self-destructive behaviour he’d slipped into with frightening ease. It was his nature - once a dickhead always a dickhead.
Phin blinked away tears. He could see the situation for what it was now, a test of personal strength. He’d failed. His chest tightened and he suddenly felt as if he were floundering in the deep end of the baths without a handrail in sight and the lifeguard on a coffee break. He was drowning, not waving.
The grey haired policeman who was in the process of interviewing him came back into the room. Putting the brakes on escalating self-pity, Phin stood up. He cleared his throat. “How is he? Is he badly injured?”
2. Outcome
“Sit down, son.” The policeman put his notebook on the table. There’ll be plenty of time to stand on ceremony, but this isn’t one of them.”
Phin stubbornly remained standing. “Please, tell me how he is? How bad are his injuries?”
“Let’s just say you’re a most fortunate man. The outcome could have been much worse.” The policeman, his face grim, folded his arms and looked at Phin. “You realise you might well have been facing manslaughter charges today?”
Phin swallowed hard, truly appalled by the consequences of his thoughtless, bad tempered action. “Yes, believe me, I’m so very sorry. I didn’t mean it to happen. It was a terrible accident. Tell me how is he, please? Is he going to be all right?”
The policeman’s expression changed, becoming a modicum less grim in the face of what he recognised as genuine remorse. The young man before him looked to be on the verge of tears and was visibly shaking. He imparted what information he knew.
“The hospital said he won’t be chewing toffees for a while, certainly not until he gets a new set of dentures. And he probably won’t want to watch many sitcoms, not with a cracked rib and a split lip. The consequences of laughing will be too painful. Apart from that he’s shaken and bruised. All in all he’s a remarkably lucky man. He’ll be sent home later today.”
Phin sat down, relief flooding his body, turning his knees to water. He leaned his elbows on the table and rested his head in his hands. What the fucking hell had possessed him to chuck an orange out of the window of a car travelling at forty-five miles per hour, thereby upgrading its status from harmless fruit to deadly missile. Some poor old guy on a moped, happily tootling along minding his own business had copped it full in the face. The old guy’s scooter speed combined with Phin’s car speed meant the orange hit him like a demolition ball, lifting him from his bike and sending him skidding along the road surface.
God was smiling on the moped rider. The car travelling a respectable distance behind him had a driver with good reflexes and sound brakes.
Phin had been so horrified by the scene unfolding in his rear view mirror that he lost control of his borrowed car and ended up in a roadside ditch. Trembling with shock he had scrambled free just seconds before the bloody thing exploded and erupted into flames. A rueful thought crept into his mind. He’d never managed to nick a half-decent roadworthy car, though in this case perhaps it was all to the good. Despite his best efforts he hadn’t managed to push the vehicle beyond forty-five miles an hour. If he had the orange would have been empowered with even greater velocity. It didn’t bear thinking about.
He had flung himself down beside the dazed moped rider, babbling heartfelt apologies, as the other motorist used his mobile to alert the emergency services. The old guy’s half visor helmet had offered scant protection to his lower jaw. There was blood pouring from his mouth where the orange had hit him.
It gave Phin no pleasure to realise he’d reversed all medical opinion as to the health giving properties of vitamin C, by reckless use of a citrus fruit.
The police officer got down to the business of investigating why Phin had taken a vehicle without the consent of its owner and driven it barefoot before causing an accident and a roadside conflagration with it.
He gazed at Phin, saying sternly. “I’ve heard of burning rubber, son, but burning the entire ruddy car as well a farmer’s hedge and several yards of municipal tarmac is taking things a bit too far in my view.” He suddenly paused, cocking his head to one side, studying Phin thoughtfully. “Haven’t I seen you before, on the telly?”
Phin quickly shook his head, unwilling to lower the officer’s opinion of him still further by admitting to being the local lunatic filmed breaking the speed limit in a TV documentary that seemed to be repeated more often than episodes of Only Fools And Horses. Instead he uttered his millionth apology of the day. He couldn’t help adding that it seemed a bit unfair to be made responsible for the fact that underneath its shiny exterior the car he’d pinched was a heap of scrap yard junk.
“That, sir,” said the policeman severely, “is quite beside the point.”
“Yes. Sorry.” Phin flushed and lapsed into a guilty silence. He had never intended to keep the car. He had planned to return it with a note of apology and any damage done by his unorthodox starting methods put right, just as soon as he had caught up with Andy and got his money, bike and credit cards back. He explained as much to the policeman, and got short shrift.
“Listen, son. Stealing someone else’s property because someone had stolen yours doesn’t make anything right. The circumstances are immaterial. You did wrong, plain and simple.”
Phin knew a vicar’s son who would share the policeman’s view. He suddenly wanted him so much it hurt. “May I make a phone call, please?” He gazed an appeal at his interrogator. “I need to contact my partner. I didn’t go home last night. He’ll be worried about me.”
The policeman nodded. “There’s a phone in the check in area. I’ll escort you.”
***
“Ad.” Phin moistened his lips, speaking huskily into the mouthpiece of the phone. “It’s me.”
“Phin, baby, where the hell are you?”
The relief in Adam’s voice was so tangible that Phin was wracked with even deeper guilt. He’d been a self-centred, thoughtless shit, so engrossed with his own pathetic feelings that he hadn’t given a moment of consideration to Adam’s. He almost burst into tears, but managed to keep control by being abrupt. He gave the cold, bare outline of where he was, and why. A part of him almost expected Adam to hang up on him in disgust. He didn’t.
“I’m on my way, love.”
Phin put the phone down and was escorted back to the interview room. When questioning was over he was put in a holding cell to await news of whether the victim intended to press assault charges against him.
Lying down on the cell’s narrow bunk, Phin closed his eyes, while wishing he could also close his ears to shut out the racket from the bloke in the next cell along. He was demanding his human rights be recognised and a chocolate doughnut be brought with the cup of tea he had humanely laid claim to moments earlier. Curling on his side he allowed his mind to reflect on the events of the day before.
3. Riding With The Wind
It was a perfect day with a high blue sky. The early autumn sun was mellow, casting a creamy magnolia glow as if gradually turning down in preparation for winter. The wind was light, pushing gently through weather dry grasses.
The music struck up and taking a deep breath Phin began to sing a ballad version of a Jimi Hendrix song called ‘Little Wing.’ Keeping his voice steady he sang about fairy tales and moonbeams and about a girl who only ever thought about riding with the wind.
All went well until he reached a point in the song where the girl in question, a girl of a thousand smiles, says it’s all right you can take anything you ever want from me. That had been Nina, generous and giving. His voice had almost broken, but somehow he kept control. With eyes tight closed he lifted his chin and sang on. The words floated on the breeze, which only moments earlier had borne away the cremated remains of a woman he had loved.
He didn’t want to sing. He wanted to shout his rage, hurt and guilt, but he sang for Nina, collecting from the tangled mass of emotions besieging him all the love he felt for her, even though he was bitter to the point of sickness. He sang the closing line of the song and fell silent, letting the musicians finish their job.
The beautiful lyrics of the Hendrix song held a kind of truth with regard to Nina. She had lived for what she called riding with the wind. At every opportunity she and her partner Avril would launch themselves from the top of St. Leonard’s Hill, indulging their shared passion for paragliding and hang gliding with the club they were members of. When they were in the air they said they felt free and unburdened. Phin understood. He felt the same when he was speeding along on his bike with the wind rushing joyfully past his ears.
The last notes of music died away leaving only the hum of the wind and a soft sigh of tears from the assembled gathering of Nina and Avril’s many friends. Phin’s tears remained unshed. It was perhaps selfish, but he had no desire to share them with anyone. They were his alone.
“Thank you. Thank you for singing ‘Little Wing’ so beautifully. Nina loved it so much and she loved to hear you sing.” Avril, her face white and strained, reached out a hand to touch Phin’s face. “She...”
Phin backed away from the touch, shaking his head, pleading. “No, Avril. Don’t say anything more. Don’t tell me she’s in a better place, or that she’s at peace. I don’t want to hear it. All I know is she’s gone. I’ll never see her again, or hear her voice. I hate her for going where I can never reach her.” His voice cracked on the childish declaration, but he still managed to keep the dam holding back his grief intact.
“Let it go, Phin,” said a soft voice. “It’s all right.”
“No. Get off me.” Phin struck angrily at Adam’s hands, determined not to let him comfort him, not after what he’d done. “It’s not all right. Nothing is right. Nina dying isn’t right.” He caught a movement from the corner of his eye. Whirling around he shouted. “HER being here. It’s not right. Fuck off, Adam! Leave me alone. I hate you.”
St. Leonard’s Hill was high and steep, but Phin ran down it without effort, fuelled by resentment and choking grief. The breeze wrapped around him as if trying to hold him back, but he refused to be restrained by it. He refused to be controlled by anything but anger.
4. Grasping Nettles
Yes. Turning over on the bunk, Phin stared at the cold blue wall of the cell. Nina had died, his beloved aunt Nina who had always told him life was there to be grasped, even though sometimes all you got was a handful of nettles. She would then give a smiling shrug, saying, ‘but we all have to hurt a little sometimes, my love. No one gets through life without a few stings and scratches.’
Nina had grasped her own particular handful of nettles with enormous courage and dignity. In her case their final sting was a vengeful return of the cancer she thought she had beaten some years earlier. Six weeks after breaking the news of its return she was dead. He was still struggling to take it in, not least because he had recently been given the all clear from a cancer similar to that which had taken her. He was wracked with guilt at surviving when she hadn’t, and terrified in case his returned to claim him in similar fashion. His doctors had assured him it was highly unlikely. Doctors were not always right.
Poor Nina. She had loved life so much, and now she was dead.
Thoughts of Nina inevitably lead to thoughts of his parents, especially his mother. Phin scowled at the cell wall, his anger bubbling up yet again. He had loved Nina more than he would ever again love the woman who called herself his mother. She, along with his father, had rejected him when he inconvenienced them by being a difficult teenager. Coming out as gay had eased his spirit, or at least it should have done. It was the final straw for his parents.
“Gay!”
His father had spat the G word from his mouth like bitter aloes.
“I don’t want this getting out. It could undermine my position in the Company.”
The curl of his father’s lip, the contempt in his eyes and the shocked dismay in his mother’s eyes would remain with Phin until the end of his time on earth. It killed all sense of self-worth in him.
He fled the house that day and never went back. He sought refuge with another outcast, the Voldermort in the family cupboard, a fellow deviant whose name was never to be spoken.
His aunt Nina had lived openly with her partner Avril for almost fifteen years. Despite knowing Phin only as a rumour down the family grapevine (they were still waiting for the birth confirmation and invite to the christening to arrive) they took him in. They gave him more warmth and understanding than the respectable, cold-hearted, closed-minded people who had borne him. He had been grateful and grew to love them both.
They stuck by him through the turbulent years it took to come fully to terms with his sexuality and with his parents’ rejection of it, and of him.
He and Nina grew especially close. They didn’t always see eye to eye. They were both volatile and impulsive. They had rows and disagreements, but there was never a hint she would ever turn her back on him, even when he fucked up big time, as he often did in those days. He was off the rails more often than on them.
He would never have met Adam if it hadn’t been for Nina and Avril. He was a close friend of theirs, often spoken about, but not actually met until he returned from a period abroad to work and live in England again. He’d taken up a post in Norway as a means of escaping a painful situation at home. He returned when he realised distance had done nothing to ease the pain.
The source of Adam’s pain turned out to be similar to Phin’s. Parental rejection. Adam’s father was a vicar. Adam’s revelation about his sexuality had threatened deeply held religious beliefs. He couldn’t cope and had turned his back on Adam.
Apart from the shared experience of rejection they had nothing in common. Adam was five years older than him and much more conservative in attitude, perhaps the result of being a vicar’s son. He didn’t share his passion for fast bikes and racing. He didn’t approve of what he termed Phin’s reckless infatuation with speed. It was understandable. Adam’s mother and young brother had been killed in a car accident. His mum had been late for an appointment. Her hurry to get there meant they never got there.
Adam wasn’t shy about expressing disapproval on any subject. During a dinner party conversation Avril let slip that Phin had served a period of probation for twocking offences when he was a teenager. He had grinned, fancying Adam would view him as a young rebel, a bit of an urban hero. He was disappointed, and embarrassed, feeling more like a naughty little boy than an urban rebel. Adam saw no glamour in such activity and said so in plain terms.
Despite their different natures an attraction developed. Phin thought he’d died and gone to heaven when Adam finally asked him out on a date. It wasn’t a plain sailing romance. They seemed to spend most of their time together disagreeing about things.
The romance limped along for a few months as they tried to balance physical attraction with their different personalities. Then something happened that seemed certain to end the relationship.
Nina and Avril were away on holiday. He had arranged to meet Adam for lunch. He didn’t make it. He was stopped for speeding on his motorbike. He tried to laugh the incident off, but Adam saw no humour in the situation. Phin would never forget the look of disappointment on his face. Losing the respect of the man he had come to admire hurt him more than he ever imagined. He went on the defensive.
He accused Adam of being uptight, prudish and judgemental because of what had happened to his mother and brother. They rowed furiously over it. They parted company with harsh words followed by a day of mobile silence. No calls, no messages.
Phin was convinced their romance was over. He’d fucked up and lost out. He took his misery to visit an old mate. Andy Blakelock.
Andy suggested it might be a bit of a laugh to take his motor for a joyride around the local industrial park ‘for old times sake.’ Phin proved, not for the first time, that being a grown up doesn’t always coincide with maturity and wise decision-making. He agreed, and lived to regret it.
Andy’s motor turned out to belong to someone else. Nina and Avril, happily leaping off mountainsides somewhere in the Italian Alps were in no position to bail him out of the subsequent trouble. Not knowing whom else to turn to he turned to Adam. It was the best move of his life.
Adam told him he was glad he had turned to him and in the future he always could turn to him. He’d be there and he’d always listen and try to understand, because he loved him.
Phin was given no time to savour this first declaration of love. It wasn’t followed by kisses or cuddles or sex, though the latter looked to be a certainty when Adam made a grab for him and forcibly took down his jeans and underwear. Uncontrollable lust was not the motivation.
To Phin’s utter shock and humiliation, Adam had turned him over his knee and given him the longest, hardest spanking of his entire life, in fact at that point the only spanking of his life.
Phin was truly astounded by how much it hurt to be smacked on the bare bottom. The humiliation factor was soon overridden by the pain factor. Adam was a strong man and he had a hard hand. He didn’t hold back. Phin had howled and bucked and protested, but Adam held him fast across his knee until he was satisfied he had been sufficiently punished for his irresponsible behaviour.
Adam had lectured as he spanked, telling Phin he could take understanding and forgiveness for granted, but that didn’t for a moment equate with a lack of consequences. He made it clear he was not going to stand by and watch Phin take himself to hell. He was taking him in hand before he injured himself or someone else.
Once the fright and pain had subsided and his tears had dried, Phin found to his surprise that he liked the notion of consequences. He liked the thought of being taken in hand, by Adam at least. It offered a kind of security he had never before experienced. It also offered something else, a startling insight into an aspect of his personality hitherto unimagined. He enjoyed being challenged by someone who was strong enough to follow through and dominate him, physically if necessary. It excited him.
The spanking fully ignited the spark between them. A long discussion followed and so began their relationship proper. With Adam’s support, and sometimes his discipline, Phin began to sort himself out. He began to grow up and even to like who he was a little better.
Abandoning his blind study of the cell wall Phin turned onto his back, staring up at the grey ceiling. Now Nina was gone and he didn’t like himself anymore, not one bit. He was disgusted, disappointed and frightened to discover he was still an irresponsible idiot with absolutely no impulse control.
From the adjacent cell the rumpus continued. The irate duty sergeant at the end of his tether finally erupted.
“I’ve told you a dozen times, Mickey, we haven’t got any doughnuts. It’s a custard cream or nowt. This is a police station not a flaming three star hotel!”
“My solicitor will be hearing about this. I need sugar at regular intervals I do. I’m borderline hipposeamic. I’ve got my rights!”
“You mean hypoglycaemic, and somehow I doubt it. You’re full blown greedy more like. It’s a shame you don’t pay such close attention to other folks’ rights as you do to your own. Now do us all a favour and shove that biscuit in your gob. Give us all some PEACE!”
There was a clang as the observation flap on the door was closed.
“You all right in there, mate?” The flap on Phin’s cell door dropped down and the duty sergeant’s lean, harassed face hovered in the opening.
Phin nodded.
“You’ll be glad to know the old boy doesn’t want to press criminal charges. He recognised you meant no malice towards him. He’s putting it down to a freak accident and he’ll take it through insurance.”
“It’s decent of him,” said Phin, immensely relieved and grateful for the generosity of a man whose day he had thoroughly ruined.
“We’re sorting out some paperwork for you to sign and then you can go.”
“Thank you.”
“One more thing.” The sergeant’s pale blue eyes crinkled at the corners. “We traced the owner of the car you nicked. It was registered in the name of one Andrew Blakelock, tax defunct. Now I’m not saying you won’t still be called to account by the law. You’ll still likely be obliged to appear at a magistrate’s court, but I somehow doubt he’ll be pressing any personal charges against you. I’d say this was a lucky day for you, all things considered.”
“Doesn’t feel like it.” Phin was too weary to even find some small pleasurable irony in having pinched and fired Andy’s car, and one that actually belonged to him for a change.
“Do you want a cup of tea and a biscuit, lad? It’s been a long day for you.”
Phin gave a faint smile, shaking his head, his eyes stinging with tears at kindness he didn’t deserve.
“I’ll have his biscuit if he doesn’t want it. I’m faint with hunger in here!”
“You’ve had all the biscuits you’re entitled to, so go ahead and faint. It’ll give our lug holes a rest.” The flap on Phin’s door clanged shut, as the sergeant turned his attentions back to his obstreperous neighbour.
Another quarter hour passed and then the cell door opened. Phin was told he was free to leave. After signing the appropriate forms he put the pen down and concentrated on trying to thread his belt back through the loops of his jeans with fingers that were uncooperative. He irritably wondered why they had insisted on taking the damn thing from him in the first place. What did they think he was going to do with it, flog himself to death? Fortunately his lack of footwear meant he didn’t have to re-lace trainers.
“I’ll do it.”
A familiar voice made him start and set his heart thumping. He glanced up to see Adam, looking tired, but calm. It took all his willpower not to fling his arms around his neck and cling to him. He felt so ashamed he couldn’t look at him. He was frightened in case he saw the contempt he felt for himself mirrored in Adam’s eyes. If Adam rejected him there would be nothing worth living for.
5. Here Speaks A True Vicar’s Son
Adam concludes the story in his own words
“Phin, baby, where the hell are you?” I let out a long shaky sigh of relief the moment I heard his voice, my grip tightening on my phone. I’d been worried to death about him. As I listened to his abrupt no frills explanation of how he came to be where he was, it would seem not without good reason.
“I’m on my way, love.”
Andy Blakelock. My upper lip curled of its own volition, as I put the phone down. No wonder Phin hadn’t supplied the name of the ‘friend’ he was staying with in the brusque little text message he had left the previous evening. It informed me he’d had too much to drink to be able to drive and was staying over at a pal’s place. The pal wasn’t named.
Before receiving his message I had called everyone I could think of, our mutual friends and his mates from the track. Calling Andy Blakelock, the devious little maggot, had never entered my head. My lips pressed together. I didn’t even know he was back in the area, or that Phin was associating with him again. His friends of course are his own affair, but still, respect demanded he should at least have told me he had taken up with him again. Forewarned is forearmed, especially in Blakelock’s case. Trouble was never far behind him.
Grabbing my jacket and car keys I left the house.
***
Phin didn’t notice me walk into the police station. He was engrossed in trying to rethread his belt through the loops of his jeans. His hands were trembling too much to be useful. My stomach twisted at the sight of him. He looked dreadful. His unshaven face beneath smuts of smoky dirt was pale and drawn. I could tell by the rapid blink of his eyes and the sinewy tautness of his jaw that he was fighting tears. He’d been fighting them for too long. He was too damn stubborn to allow himself any kind of emotional release in case it lessened the anger he was determined to hang onto.
Phin seems like a man who can handle himself. He’s tall and athletic with a confident devil-may-care attitude. It’s a front. From the moment I met him I sensed an innate vulnerability. The more I got to know him the more I realised he was someone who needed to be cared for. He had no real sense of self-worth and therefore no real desire to take care of himself. He threw himself at danger. It provoked a powerful protective response in me. I wanted to be the man who cared for him. I also suspected he had need of a strong hand. I took a gamble early in our relationship by supplying it. Born bossy, as Phin says. The gamble paid off. It saved a relationship that might otherwise have floundered.
On viewing his struggle with both his belt and his emotions I experienced two powerful impulses. The first was to take him in my arms, to hold and kiss him and tell him I loved him and assure him everything was going to be all right. My second impulse was to avail myself of the nearest chair, turn him over my knee and soundly spank his backside for bailing out on me the way he had the day before.
Neither were appropriate actions for the reception area of a police station.
“I’ll do it.” I walked over to him, pushing his hands away from his belt, threading and re-buckling it before straightening his shirt. The latter was a telling document of stains and odours: stale alcohol, fast food grease, oily soot and sweat. “Is the victim pressing assault charges, have you heard yet?”
He shook his head, keeping his eyes averted from mine. “He’s accepted it as an accident. He’s taking it through insurance.”
“That’s something anyway.” I suddenly noticed his feet were bare. After staring at them for a moment I brought my eyes to rest on his face. “Well, you coming out without a coat or jacket doesn’t surprise me in the least, but leaving without socks and shoes?”
“I left in a bit of a hurry.”
He sounded defensive, as well he might, but his eyes brimmed and for a second I thought they were going to shed the load they carried. They didn’t. He looked away from me.
I shook my head. “You seem to be making a habit of leaving places abruptly without thinking of the consequences. I’ve been worried sick since you took off yesterday afternoon, and what about poor Avril? Don’t you think she was in enough pain without fretting about you?”
“I know.” He continued to avoid my gaze. “I’m sorry. I’ll call her later to apologise.”
I glanced around the police station. I thought such places were behind him. I never imagined I’d have to pick him up from one again. “Honestly, Phin. What were you thinking, or more to the point not thinking? Nina...” I broke off, biting at my lip as a sudden swell of emotion overcame me. Nina had been one of my closest friends. I would miss her. I had loved her just as much as Phin had loved her, perhaps for different reasons and in a different way, but no matter. Love has many faces.
“Nina would be disappointed. I know, Adam. I know how disappointed you are too. I’m a selfish scumbag and a waste of fucking space. You don’t have to tell me.”
After completing my unfinished sentence in a way detrimental to himself he strode towards the exit, casting words over his shoulder.
“I didn’t want, or intend for this to happen. I’m more sorry than I can ever say.”
I followed him outside, seeing him shiver as the air wrapped itself around him. The mellow warmth of the day before had vanished. It was a reminder that as well as being a cousin of summer, autumn is also a cousin of winter. There was a definite hint of the latter’s kinship on its breath along with a threat of rain.
Shedding my jacket I draped it around his shoulders. “What I was going to say before you rudely interrupted me was that Nina was of the opinion you were always more loyal to Andy than he ever was to you. It’s your undoing where he’s concerned. She detested him.” I moistened my lips. It probably wasn’t the best time to say it, but I felt the need to say it anyway. “I detest him too. He’s a viper. I would have preferred some honesty about you socialising with him again.”
He spoke in a rush. “No, Adam. It isn’t what you think. I haven’t been seeing him behind your back. I promise. Until I bumped into him yesterday I hadn’t seen him for over eighteen months. It was a fluke. He was coming out of The Golden Lion as I was going in. We got talking. He could see I was upset and offered me a drink at his place. Like the dickhead I am I thought it was because he cared about me as a friend, not because he saw me as a source of easy cash. Christ Jesus!” He ran his hands through his already untidy hair. “I need my head examining. If I hadn’t been such a simpleton, thinking he was at last going to show I meant something to him, none of this would have happened today. I never learn. I never get it right where he’s concerned. What is it going to take before I finally get the message?”
“Stop it, Phineas.” I spoke sharply, recognising the mood he was working up. “Stop the self-abuse. It serves no purpose. We all make mistakes. It doesn’t make us failures or fools it just makes us human. Andy is the loser. He has no notion of loyalty or true friendship. He’s only ever served himself.” I reached for his hand. “Come on, love. You look exhausted. Let’s go home. We’ll talk properly then, after you’ve had a hot shower and something to eat.
“No.” He shrugged me off along with my jacket, letting it drop to the ground.
Thrusting his hands into his pockets he gave me one of the obstinate glares that made me want to shake him.
“You go home. I’ve got to see a man about a dog first, or rather a bastard about a bike.”
With that he launched himself purposefully across the car park, as if he had a plan and a way of carrying it out, only to crash and burn as his bare foot came into contact with something sharp. He let out a bellow of pain, followed by a tirade of shocking bad language while hopping up and down on the spot. He’d end up getting re-arrested for public obscenity if he didn’t tone it down.
Hurrying over to him I halted his war dance taking hold of his arm. “Shut up, Phin, now, before you get into even more trouble. Do you want to do jail time? Sit down.”
He did as he was bidden, sitting down on the ground with a bump. Kneeling beside him I took his right foot, cradling it on my lap to examine it. A tide of thick blood soaked into my jeans. I cringed. There was a long, amber shaded sliver of glass protruding from the wound. I extracted it as gently as I could. “Looks like a piece of car headlamp. You’d expect to see less of this kind of thing in a police station car park.”
“I don’t know why,” he snapped. “Everyone knows the fucking police are the shittest drivers around. Only they get away with it. The rest of us have to abide by the law while they piss all over it.”
I ignored the comment. It was pure spleen. “The cut looks deep, Phin. It needs hospital treatment. There might still be glass in it. Stay there a minute, don’t dare move.” I got up, running quickly to my car, rummaging around in the glove compartment for the first aid kit.
“I don’t want to go to hospital. I hate hospitals. I’ll be fine. I’ve had worse.” He pushed my hand away, trying to prod at the cut as I tried to wrap a bandage around it to stem the flow of blood. “I can’t feel any glass in it. Stop fussing, Adam. I want to find my bike. I want to find Andy so I can kill the slimy little cunt.”
“I’m not the least bit interested in what you want or don’t want. You haven’t got a clue where Andy is, so there’s no point looking until you do. He’s probably in another county by now.”
“I’ll find him somehow.”
“Stop it.” I slapped his hand away from his foot. “You need to have this looked at and properly treated.” I got up trying to take his hands prior to helping him get up.
He shoved me away, scrambling to his knees. “I’ll manage thanks.” He tried to stand, but his foot obviously hurt too much to put weight on it. He ended up kneeling back on the ground looking distinctly green about the gills.
My pretence of calm evaporated. I’d had enough of being pushed away. It was time to get tough. I’d been giving him too much leeway out of sympathy for his distress. It hadn’t helped matters one jot.
Throwing myself down beside him in the dust and dirt I took his face firmly between my hands. “I understand why you’re angry, but you can’t go on pushing me away because of it. I won’t let you. I did what I was morally obliged to do and that’s an end to it. You’re going to do as you’re told and get in the car. We’re going to go to the hospital to have your foot looked at and then we’re going home where we’ll discuss things calmly. If you so much as think about defying me, I promise you, Phineas, public place or not, I’ll pull down your jeans and pants and I’ll flay the backside off you here and now. I don’t care if I get arrested in the process. I mean it. I’ll take off my belt and I’ll blister your bare arse with it.”
It was the most uncompromising I’d been with him in weeks. It was how he needed me to be.
The floodgates opened. He released the tears he’d been holding back for too long. He reached for me, clinging to my neck, sobbing disjointed apologies.
“I’m sorry, Ad. I’m a despicable shit for running out on you and Avril yesterday. I’m sorry for leaving you in the lurch. I’m sorry for what I’ve done today. I hurt an old man. I’ll never forgive myself, not ever. I don’t know how you stand me. I’m a fucking millstone. All I ever do is cause you worry and stress. I wouldn’t blame you for walking out on me.”
Such words were typical of Phin in crisis. He was always looking for the point of rejection. I hugged him fiercely. “I’ll never walk out on you, so you can score it off your list of things to torture yourself with.”
There was a rumble of thunder and then the sky came out in sympathy with him. Opening its portals it drenched us both, even as he drenched me with the tears he’d been keeping back.
“It’s all right, baby.” I murmured into his ear, my heart aching for him. “It’s not the end of the world. Yes, you made a mistake today, but you’ll get through it, if you don’t drown that is. Come on. Let’s get you to the car.”
I got him settled in the passenger seat, retrieved my wet jacket and climbed into the car, patting his leg. “Hospital. No arguments.”
***
I was right to be concerned about the cut on his foot. An x-ray revealed a point of glass deeply embedded in the wound. It had to be extracted before it was cleaned and stitched.
I almost laughed at the expression on his face when the attending doctor also prescribed a tetanus booster shot. He looked like he wanted to nominate her for sainthood. I knew what he was thinking. He was thinking I would never paddle his bottom when he’d just had an injection in it. He was right. I wouldn’t. Besides, discipline was the last thing on my mind. Phin had other more pressing needs. Being a Dominant is about more than doling out punishment. You have to protect and care for your submissive when they’re vulnerable and too stressed to care for themselves.
As soon as we got home from the hospital I insisted he go straight to bed. God knows he looked like a week of early nights would do him the world of good. He could count on getting them. He was worn out by the events of the past weeks. His weight had dropped by a good few pounds. It didn’t suit him, or me. I liked to cuddle something more than bones.
Looping his arm around my neck and my arm around his waist I helped him upstairs, trying to keep weight off his injured foot. He leaned hard against me, showing his willingness to be supported again.
There was no way he could shower, not with his foot bandaged. I helped into our bedroom and seated him on the bed before fetching a basin of warm water, a flannel, soap and towel. I undressed him and washed him down, wiping grime and sweat from his face and body.
I felt a stirring of arousal as I administered to him, my cock hardening. There’s something intensely erotic about taking care of your partner’s most basic needs. It’s power wielded through nurture. I experienced a sudden selfish and wholly inappropriate desire to reaffirm my authority by bending him over the bed and fucking him good and hard. I suppressed it. He needed a gentler affirmation of my authority, for the time being anyway.
After getting him into fresh boxers and a vest top I tucked him between the sheets. “I’m going to make you something to eat.”
“Not hungry.” He slumped back against the pillows.
“Just something light for nourishment.” I kissed his forehead. “I won’t be long.”
I heated soup, his favourite cream of tomato, adding a good dollop of HP sauce. It’s how he likes it. It’s one of many quite disgusting little food quirks he has, such as marmite and scrambled egg sandwiches and, I grimaced as a particularly nasty mixture came to mind, sugar on bacon.
I took the soup up to him, but his hands were still shaking too much to control the bowl and spoon. I took them from him and proceeded to feed him. He took a few spoonfuls and then shook his head. “No more, Adam. I feel sick. I’ll try later, okay?”
I nodded and set the soup bowl down on the bedside cabinet.
He lay back against the pillows. “I’m sorry, Adam, so sorry.”
“For what?”
“For dismissing that Nina meant as much to you as she did to me and for not taking into account that the way she died must have reminded you of your dad’s death. The awful speed of it.” His beautiful blue eyes clouded with grief. “I’m a selfish bastard. Forgive me?”
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
“Yes there is.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth. “I don’t know why I did it. Why I took the car I mean, or why I threw the orange out of the window. It all just happened. I never meant to hurt the poor man. I might have killed him. I could have taken a man’s life with one stupid, thoughtless action. I would never harm anyone on purpose, never. You do believe me don’t you?”
“Yes.” I spoke without hesitation, touching a hand to his face. “It was an accident, Phin, a terrible accident. It wasn’t done with evil intent.”
“I want to send him flowers, and a letter. Do you think it will be possible? Will the police give me his address? I want him to know how sorry I am and how bad I feel for injuring him. Maybe I can meet him and apologise to his face.”
“Calm down, Phin.” I rubbed his cheek. “We’ll find out later. You need to rest now.”
“Are you very angry with me?”
“No. I think you’re angry enough with yourself, so what possible purpose would my anger serve? I think sadness and regret best sum up my feelings. I wish I’d caught up with you yesterday before you met up with that bastard Blakelock. However, what’s done is done and neither anger nor sadness or regret will change it. What we have to be thankful for is that nobody did get killed or more seriously injured.”
I took my hand away from his face and gazed at him. “There is something I am angry about though, but it concerns yesterday rather than today.”
“The car? I’m sorry, but I had to get away.” He gave an imitation of a smile. “I was in no mood to wait for a bus.”
I shook my head. “I can’t say I appreciated you taking the car and leaving Avril and I dependent on the goodwill of others to get home, but what really upset and angered me was getting home to find you’d dumped the car and gone off on your bike, in that state, wearing nothing but the clothes you were standing up in. You didn’t put on so much as a pair of leather gloves, never mind trousers and jacket. That hurt me. I suspect you meant it to. It was your way of punishing me for carrying out Nina’s request. For God’s sake, Phin, jeans and a shirt would hardly have cushioned you in the event of an accident. My mind was running riot until I got your message. All I kept seeing was you as a pulpy piece of road kill.”
“I wanted to get on the bike as quickly as I could. I wanted to feel free and forget everything.”
“I don’t care what you wanted to feel. You don’t discard safety. When you ride that bike you put full leathers on. No excuses. How fast did you go, Phin? Tell me the truth. Over the limit?”
“A mile or so maybe, but nothing like you saw on telly that time. I promise. Cross my heart.”
“Given the way you were dressed, regardless of speed, if you’d crashed you would have been badly injured if not killed. You say you met Andy as you were going into The Golden Lion. Why were you going into a pub at all when you were driving?”
“I was thirsty. I was going to get a soft drink. I wasn’t going to drink alcohol and drive. I’m not that big an idiot.”
“To be truthful.” I said grimly. “I hope the police never find that damn machine of yours. I hate it. Even if they do find it, let me tell you, Phineas, my man, there’s not a snowball in hell’s chance of you riding it for a good while. You’re on a tight rein and grounded until further notice. You don’t go anywhere without my permission. Are we clear about that?”
“Yes, Adam, we’re clear.” He clasped my hand. “Are you going to physically punish me as well as grounding me? I deserve it.”
“I’ll decide what you deserve. Enough now. We’ll discuss the whole thing in more detail when you’re feeling better.”
“Okay.” He raised my hand to his face, pressing his cheek against it. “I missed you last night. Even when I was sleeping in the spare room I at least knew you were around.”
“I missed you too. I lay awake most of the night hoping the phone would ring and you’d tell me where you were so I could come and get you.”
“I didn’t mean what I said about hating you.”
“I know, love. You don’t have to tell me.”
“Does it get easier, Ad? Do you ever stop missing someone, does it ever stop hurting?”
I tried to be honest, using my own experiences of loss. “No, you never stop missing them, not as such. You learn to adapt to their absence. Eventually the pain gives way to an ache. Sometimes you don’t notice it and sometimes it consumes you. I adapted to the absence of my mother and brother. I’m still adapting to the loss of my father. In time I’ll adjust to Nina’s absence, and so will you, pet.”
“I won’t.” His body convulsed once more with sobs.
I reached for him, holding him in my arms, rocking and comforting him without speaking. Words would have been meaningless flotsam and swept away in such an outpouring of grief. All he needed was for me to be there, to ride the storm with him.
Outside, the rain echoed his emotions. It fell heavily, striking hard against the roof and windows, making serious demands on guttering and drainpipes. It eventually gave way to a calmer pace, along with his tears. I eased us both down in the bed so he was curled against my side, his head resting on my chest, my arms around him. It was good to have him by my side again.
Soon the only sound in the bedroom was the steady rise and fall of his breathing as he slipped into a deep and much needed sleep. I would have liked to join him, but my mind was buzzing with all that had happened.
Poor Phin. Little wonder he was exhausted. He’d had weeks of hell ever since Nina had calmly broken the news she was terminally ill. Her breast cancer had returned and spread. She and Avril had known for a while, but had held off telling us until Phin got through his cancer ordeal and was given the all clear.
There would be no all clear for her. She had been given no hope of cure or remission. Her life was numbered in weeks rather than years.
Typical Nina, she had shrugged and smiled, saying she was glad in a way to be given a timescale. It meant she could tell all the people she loved, how much she loved them. She could tell them how much they meant to her, and how they had enriched her life. As a consequence she wouldn’t die with words in her heart left unspoken.
Then she dropped another bombshell. She had been in touch with her estranged sister, Joyce, Phin’s mother. They had finally broken a silence of decades. Phin had been almost as shattered by this revelation as by the news that Nina was dying. He couldn’t get his head around it.
Nina tried to explain how she couldn’t die without trying to make peace with someone she was inextricably linked to via a shared parentage and childhood.
She met with Joyce only three times before passing away, but she said the meetings gave her a deep sense of peace and completion. It was a link back to her beginnings and to her childhood days with the only family member left alive to remember them.
Joyce was a girl she had played with, fought with, laughed with, held hands and ran with in the uncomplicated days before adolescence brought changes and they struggled with their emerging adult selves.
The meetings also made Nina realise that every closed door has two sides. It had shocked and saddened her to realise that she, as much as her sister, had kept the door between them shut tight for so many years. The breach between sisters was bad enough, but the one between a mother and son was even worse. Nina felt wracked with guilt for not having tried sooner to resolve the breach between her nephew and sister.
Phin’s mother had been eager for news and to see photos of the son she had last laid eyes on when he was a youth of fifteen. She wanted reconciliation. She wanted her son back.
Phin wasn’t interested. He refused to listen to any details of the meetings, not understanding why Nina had needed to make contact with someone who had rejected her, who had rejected him. He saw her actions almost as a betrayal of their relationship, a relationship that had its roots in this mutual rejection. It confused him.
In the last conscious hours of her life Nina begged him to remember that when he was small he had loved his mother and somewhere in time that love still existed. She also expressed a sincere wish for her death to be used as an olive branch between the two of them. Phin promised her he would think about it, so she at least died with hope in her heart.
He did think about it, and rejected it. Deep down inside he was still an angry teenager, conscious only of his own pain. He was unwilling to consider his mother’s pain. Teenagers tend to only ever see one side of an argument, their own. I knew so from sad experience. I had been the same with my father, refusing to see his hurt and confusion.
At Nina and Avril’s request I agreed in the event of her passing to act as the bearer of bad news. I would contact all their friends and relatives to make the announcement and to give details of the funeral and then later the ceremony to scatter her ashes as she had wished.
The sad day came when I had to carry out my duty. Phin ordered me not to contact his mother Joyce. He said she had no right to be informed and no right to attend the funeral or the ceremony. He didn’t want her at either. I argued against him. She had the right because Nina had granted it to her. I was carrying out her last wishes.
I reminded him, perhaps harshly, that it wasn’t about what he wanted. It was about what Nina wanted. He was furious, but I could not in good conscience omit to do something I considered a sacred duty, not even to placate the person I love most in the world.
From the moment I made the call, all of Phin’s mixed emotions compressed into one. Anger. It was directed at me - Adam the despot, Adam the unyielding and uptight.
As things turned out Joyce didn’t attend Nina’s funeral. She spoke to Avril and said she didn’t think it appropriate. She wanted to give Phin space to grieve without distraction.
He was much relieved. I was too. Her absence meant he allowed me to support and comfort him through Nina’s funeral, as he had supported and comforted me through my father’s. It was a short reprieve.
Joyce made known her intention to attend the ashes ceremony. She wanted, needed, to say goodbye to her sister. Avril was more than happy for her to be there, but not Phin. He demanded I tell her to stay away. I refused. I also forbade him to tell her. I made clear I thought he was being selfish. His anger deepened. He barely spoke to me in the days before the ceremony. He slept in the guest room. They were hard days. With hindsight I should have taken him in hand then.
Of course it wasn’t really me he was angry with. It was an old anger reaching back through the years. I realised as much when I saw the look on his face after he’d sung at the ashes ceremony and his mother had made a move to speak to him.
It wasn’t a man who took flight from St. Leonard’s Hill. It was a boy of fifteen. It was a confused youth struggling to make the transition to adulthood in a way that left him true to himself and who felt betrayed because the parents who should have helped him with the transition had failed him.
After leaving home he went all out to be the black sheep and to heap disgrace and embarrassment on the parents who had hurt him with their lack of understanding. Taking up with the likes of Andy Blakelock, stealing and wrecking cars, developing a passion for bikes, danger and speed were the devices he had employed to divert his pain.
He murmured, shifting in my arms. I gazed at him. Even in sleep he looked troubled. His eyelids flickered as his mind chased images. He had loved Nina so much. She had been a mix of surrogate mother and best friend. After meeting his real mother I could see where some of his attachment probably stemmed from. For one painful moment I felt as if I were seeing Nina alive again. The physical likeness was extraordinary. The difference between the women lay in nature and attitude.
Phin’s mother possessed none of the impetuous vivacity that had marked her sister. She lived life by a different set of values. Phin’s emerging adult persona couldn’t thrive under those values. Whatever connection had once existed between mother and infant was lost, just as it had been lost between the sisters as they matured and took different paths.
In Nina, Phin had found someone who bore a similar outward form to the mother he had loved in his baby days combined with someone who understood his adolescent restlessness and his sexual nature. She had given him permission to go with it instead of trying to force him to resist it.
Maybe one day Phin and his parents will reconcile and find a point of peace, as Nina did with her sister and I did with my father. I hope so. There is no hurt more acute than unresolved emotional pain. To find peace we have to be at peace with our origins. We have to learn to judge kindly, not only the forces that shaped us, but also the forces that shaped the people who bore us. It doesn’t mean excusing the wrongs done to us, but it does mean forgiving them and moving on - and there, as Phin would say while rolling his eyes, pontificates a true vicar’s son.
I’m glad I had reconciliation with my father. It lifted a weight from me I hadn’t even realised I was carrying until it was gone. My dad said it had taken him years to realise he had been serving the bricks and mortar of his church and cold doctrine over and above serving God. God loved all his creation, not just a select few.
Phin shifted again, mumbling unhappily in his sleep, speaking my name.
“I’m here, love, sleep. I’ll take care of you. You’re all right now.” I soothed him, stroking his dark brown hair. It needed washing. It was greasy as a result of wearing his crash helmet the day before. At least he’d worn it. I was thankful. In the mood he was in he could easily have left it behind along with his leathers.
I sighed. There was so much pain and sadness behind what had happened today. It led me to question whether it was a situation demanding discipline? What would I be punishing him for? He hadn’t meant to cause injury when he threw the orange out of the car window. There had been no malice aforethought. It was the outcome of poor choices he’d made while under the influence of powerful emotions. Was it right to penalise him for reverting to old mechanisms under extreme stress?
From the moment he ran he was reacting to old impulses. The sad truth about the negative urges that drive us is that they can never be totally eradicated. There’s no magic cure for them. They remain lurking in the background of our personality, waiting for an opportunity to trip us up again.
Phin had not only tripped he’d fallen headlong and he despised himself for doing so. He would cogitate, condemn and crucify himself over and over again for what had happened. Perhaps for that reason alone the situation did demand discipline.
Any physical punishment I meted out would be less harsh than the continuous mental torture he would heap upon himself. Part of the way things work between us is that I bring closure to situations he might drag out indefinitely.
What we all have to learn is that not every trip ends in a fall and even if it does not every fall is a full-scale disaster that can’t be recovered from. The way we move forward is not by agonising over the setback and becoming grid locked by it, but by learning from it and hoping the next time we trip we can catch ourselves before we actually fall.
And there again speaks the vicar’s son. I’ll be following in my father’s footsteps and taking up the cloth next.
I made my decision. It would be wrong to pretend Phin’s actions were somehow defensible because of the emotional forces driving them. It wasn’t a case of there being no other available choices. There had been less reckless alternatives to the decisions he had made. I think he was probably aware of them, but rejected them, because he was determined to prove how angry he was. Actions speak louder than words.
Him going out on his bike without donning protective leathers was a shouted ‘fuck you, Adam’ if ever there was one. He deserved a paddling if not a good caning for that omission alone. All else had followed from that one action.
He then made sure I couldn’t help or intervene in any way by turning off his phone. Meeting up with Andy had been unfortunate. In fact it had been cruel bad luck, but he didn’t have to go back to his place with him. He knows what Andy is like, even if he would prefer not to admit it. The man has never done anything other than fail him.
Andy may have stolen his mobile and wallet, but rather than resorting to car theft, he could and should have called me from a payphone this morning. He had loose change in his jeans. I found it when I undressed him. It turning out to have been Andy’s car he had stolen and wrecked didn’t make any of it right.
Punishment would draw a line under the events of the past few days. It would give him the release he wouldn’t permit himself. It would also help serve as a deterrent should a similar situation arise in the future. It would encourage him to at least try and break the emotional momentum and look for less reckless, and more legal, alternatives.
Kissing the top of Phin’s head, I settled him more comfortably against my side and closed my eyes, listening to the comforting sound of rain pattering afresh against the windowpanes. He would look to me to give him consequences for his actions. It was an expectation I’d allowed him to develop. It was also an essential aspect of our relationship dynamic. I wouldn’t fail him.
In due course, I gently rubbed the portion of his buttock where the injection had been given, I would give him what he deserved and needed.
When punishment is over and done with, we’ll move on with our lives. No matter what else the wind might blow at us we’ll ride it out together.
The End
# Author Website: http://www.fabianblackromance.com/