Rewind Boxed Set

by Rowan Shaw

  Her hand rose up my thigh to a dangerous territory. "It doesn't mean I want you any less."

  "Does Julien even know about me?" If things worked out between them, I didn't want to become the other guy.

  "Yes, he knows."

  "He doesn't care?"

  "He does. We're still working it out." Charlotte gave a small shrug. "So are you... you know?"

  "What?"

  "Are you going to fuck Adrien?"

  I choked on a cough. "What?"

  "He gave you head. Isn't the next step fucking? Did you blow him too?"

  "No, I didn't. And no, we won't."

  "Never say never." She flashed me a smile.

  I didn't tell her I'd avoided Adrien this morning because I was ashamed I'd let him suck my cock. Instead of having breakfast with him like I usually would, I'd left the apartment and gone to a café. I knew he was waiting for me. It was cowardly and selfish to leave him stranded, but I didn't know how I'd feel when I saw him. I had dreams of him fucking me all night long, and they'd felt so real, I'd woken up with a raging boner.

  I'd been lying to myself for too long, pretending I didn't want Adrien since day one, but all the signs were there from the start. He was fucking gorgeous, and now that I knew he gave head like a god, there was no turning back. I didn't know how long I'd be able to keep living in the same apartment as him. I wasn't sure I could deny him if he offered to suck me off again.

  Chapter 28

  ADRIEN

  Raphael acted weird for a week. Maybe he thought I couldn't tell, but he hadn't come to breakfast with me, though I'd been waiting with croissants every morning. He stayed in his room most nights when I came home from work, too.

  When I got tired of his little hiding games, I waited for him to move around the apartment and caught him in the kitchen before he got to sneak out. He was wearing nothing but his boxer briefs that molded his promising package. I tried not to stare as I greeted him, and he responded with a curt nod, making me click my tongue while he served himself some water, ready to leave.

  "You gonna avoid me like this for long?" I asked in a harsher tone than I'd intended.

  He turned to me and took a sip from his glass. "I'm not avoiding you."

  "You fucking kidding me? I haven't seen you once since I gave you that blowjob. It's not like the apartment is that big. It's not some damn mansion. If things are going to be weird between us, just forget it ever happened, okay? It was just a blowjob. Nothing I haven’t done before. Nothing I won't be doing again."

  He blinked at me. "I didn't mean to make things awkward."

  "Things are not awkward. It's just...your whole attitude is childish, Raphaël. Yes, I blew you. So what? It's just sex. Don't make me regret it."

  He swallowed hard and averted his eyes.

  "What?" I asked when he still wouldn't look at me. "Why are you acting like this?"

  "I'm not fond of you treating me like yet another blow job."

  So that was what this was all about? Him feeling bad he'd let an escort blow his dick? For fuck's sake!

  "Look, I never said you were like my clients, okay? I really enjoyed what we did. It was the first time in a very long time that I did something sexual because I wanted to, not because I had to."

  "I thought you loved your job. You're making it sound like a chore."

  "I do love my job. I can't think of a better job for me in this world. But it doesn't change the fact that it's always about pleasing other people and doing what they expect of me."

  "Wasn't the blowjob about pleasing me, too?" he asked and pressed his firm ass against the counter.

  "It was different."

  "How?"

  I looked him straight in the eyes. "Because you didn't pay me to do it."

  He nodded as if he understood, though I wasn't sure he did. He gulped down the rest of his water and left the glass in the washer. When he passed by me, I grabbed his wrist, stopping him at the door.

  "Our conversation isn't over, Raphaël. I need to know that we're cool with what happened."

  He looked at me over his shoulder. "We're cool. Want to watch a movie?"

  I gave a smirk.

  "Is your mind always in the gutter?" he asked, making a moue. "I meant an actual movie. Not porn."

  "Why d'you have to ruin my dreams like that?" My teasing actually triggered his hilarity this time, and when his body finally relaxed, I let go of his wrist. "Also, you should know that my mind is indeed always in the gutter."

  He shook his head, his short chuckle stopping when he turned serious. "There's more to life than sex, Adrien."

  "Really? Like what?"

  He shot me a concerned glance as I followed him into the living room and dropped on the couch by his side.

  "The two people in this whole world who were supposed to love me unconditionally betrayed me when they realized I wasn't what they'd hoped I would be," I said. "Sex actually saved my life."

  "What happened with them? Is that why you need meds?" He snatched the remote from the table, but he never turned the TV on. "I found the lithium on your nightstand table when you were drunk."

  That admission stabbed me in the guts. I always tried so hard to hide how I felt when I was down. His invasion of my privacy pissed me off. "You've been snooping around again?"

  "I didn't snoop around. It was right there on your nightstand table. I just told you."

  "Right." I stood. Forget about movie night.

  "You're not leaving," Raphaël interjected.

  "So you're my boss now?" I snapped.

  "I want to know what's wrong."

  "What's wrong?"

  "Why do you need meds?" he asked.

  His words made me angry for reasons I couldn't explain. Maybe it was the whole stigma around my mental condition, or how he kept pushing for the truth when it hurt so badly to speak the words out loud.

  "I just want to understand and know if I can help. What are your meds for?" he insisted.

  I held my chin between two fingers, pretending to ponder his question like I gave a fuck. "Gee, I don't know. Maybe the chemicals in my brain are fucking me up. Or maybe it's the fact that my parents are fucking assholes. I don't know. You tell me."

  "Your mom wants to talk to you. She said it right there in that email."

  I burst out laughing. "No, she doesn't."

  "That's not what the email said," he insisted.

  "The email was a lie, Raphaël."

  "You don't know that."

  I fucking lost my shit right then. "Oh really? You want to teach me life now? You've got parents who love you. Parents who raised you all the way through university. Don't fucking come here trying to teach me about parental love and all that shit. You don't know crap about real life!"

  Raphaël stood to face me, his finger pointed at my chest, his face hardening. "Why won't you educate me, then? Come on! Tell me why the email's a lie."

  I clenched my teeth. I didn't owe him shit. But since he wanted a taste of reality, I was going to give him one.

  "I receive the same email every fucking year. It's like she copies and pastes it or something. No originality whatsoever. The first time she sent the email, I was eighteen years old. I was foolish enough to think she really wanted to see me. It was the first news I'd gotten from her in two years. I emailed her back. We met. She asked me how I was doing. I told her things exactly as they were. I didn't lie. You should have seen the look of disgust on her face when she found out that her son was a damn whore."

  My voice rose against my will. Raphaël had pushed my buttons, and I couldn't calm down. "What did she expect, huh? What recourse did she think a teenage queer would have out there on the streets? She looked at me like I was trash. If someone's trash, it's her for rejecting her own son. I didn't fucking ask for life to begin with, okay? She brought me into this world, and when I didn't fit the mold she'd tried to force me into, she betrayed me. My own fucking mother."

  I was shouting at this point. "So yes, I know the email
is a fucking lie. No, I don't need to see her and have her act like I'm fucking garbage. Okay? I already know what she thinks of me. She made it real clear when I was only sixteen years old."

  Raphaël gulped and raised his hands. "Okay. Okay. It's okay. Calm down!"

  "It is not okay. Don't fucking tell me it's okay!" I mimicked his words almost maliciously, "'Why do you need meds, Adrien?' Gee, I don't know. Maybe because every day I wake up, I want to fucking die. Maybe because I shouldn't have been born to begin with. Maybe because burying my cock in someone else's flesh is the only way I feel alive and needed. Maybe because when I make my clients come, I finally feel like I'm serving some kind of purpose, and when I see how much they're willing to pay just to be with me, I finally feel wanted. Maybe because I feel fucking numb all the time. Maybe because all the sex in this world isn't even enough to compensate for what I lost, what should have been mine. Maybe because without the meds, I would have offed myself a long time ago already. There, is that what you wanted to hear, Raphaël?"

  He was standing there, horrified. I'd managed to repulse even my new roommate, but to my surprise, he didn't leave. He stood there, then sat back down and patted the space next to him.

  I stared.

  "Please sit down."

  I sighed and did as he said, though I wanted to leave so badly, it took all my mental strength to stay. My jaw was twitching and my hands shaking. I was a mess. When he grabbed my fingers to soothe me, I jerked back.

  "I'm sorry. Okay?" he started. "I didn't know all that. You've only showed me glimpses of your life. I knew something was off about your family, but not the details. I'm...I know I barely know you and all, but if it means anything to you, I want you to know that you matter to me. I really like you. You're an awesome guy. You're a great roommate. It's been a lot of fun living here with you. Even when you're grumpy as hell or when we fight over stupid shit."

  I made a face.

  "I mean it." He shifted in his seat. "But as selfish as it might sound, I need to know what happened to you. I can only see half the picture, and I want the whole panorama. I can't help you if you won't let me understand."

  I looked at him, unwilling to talk. I didn't owe him an explanation. Not when it ripped through my guts just to think about my past. And I sure as fuck didn't need his help. I'd survived on my own until now. He wasn't some fucking superhero who could just swing by and fix my life.

  Sighing, he ran his tongue over his lips. "Have I ever told you about my best friend back home? When we were both eighteen, his parents threw him out of their house. He ended up on the streets. By the time I found him, it'd been two weeks of him living out there. He was hungry, dirty. He would have died if I hadn't found him. His level of dehydration was such that he required hospitalization. And he had pneumonia too."

  "You're the real puppy rescuer, aren't you?" I let out sarcastically.

  "I didn't rescue you, Adrien. You did that yourself. You're strong. You and him, you're the strongest people I've ever met."

  "Strong? You're funny."

  "I'm not kidding."

  I tsked and inhaled deeply, then chewed on my lip. His hand was mere inches from mine as if he was tempted to grab mine. "The difference is I wasn't thrown out of my parents’ house, Raphaël. I'm the one who left. I disowned my own family. And I sure didn't rescue myself. Daniel did."

  "What?"

  I raised my eyes to meet his. "Daniel found me when I was living under the Pont d'Iena. I'd been out there for over a year. He offered me lodging. He took me to the doctor. He fed me. And then he offered me a job that would pay me more than anything I could ever dream of."

  Raphaël froze. "How old were you? You said you hadn't seen your mom in a while, and you were only—"

  "I left home at sixteen."

  Raphaël froze, the horror in his eyes growing with each word.

  "You started this job at sixteen?" he croaked.

  I nodded.

  "You weren't even legal."

  "Age of consent is sixteen in France."

  "I can't believe that asshole Daniel put you on the job when you were only sixteen. Fucking pedo! How can you even work for him?"

  "I never said he did." I didn't care much for the judgment in his voice. He still didn't quite get it, and I was tired of having to repeat myself. "I left my parents' house at sixteen, but Daniel didn't find me until a year and a half after that. He actually refused to put me on the job until I turned eighteen. Even if the legal age is sixteen, Daniel doesn't approve of that law. And to be honest, neither do I."

  Raphaël screwed up his face like he had a hard time believing that. "You said you started your job at sixteen. You keep changing your story on me."

  "I did start offering sex for money at sixteen. But at the time, I wasn't working for Daniel. I was on my own, on the streets, a hungry kid who had no other way to survive. The job was illegal, unsafe, and often terrifying. Daniel saved my life."

  "Like fuck he did! He exploited you. You were just a kid."

  I shook my head. "Like it or not, I would have died out there, Raphaël. The job I do now... I get tested regularly, much more often than anyone out there who has casual sex. I'm on PrEP and have full access to condoms. When I was on the street, I had none of those things, and I was so hungry that condoms were sometimes optional. I would take a dick raw as long as it meant I could finally eat by the end of the night. I got lucky I never caught anything. It's almost a miracle. I was so unsafe, it gives me chills just to think about it. But I didn't have a choice."

  "How old was Daniel when he put you on the job?"

  "Why does it matter? I was eighteen by that time."

  "Because it does matter."

  "No, it doesn't!"

  "How old was he?" he snarled.

  "Daniel was twenty-nine."

  "Fucking prick! I knew there was something wrong with him."

  My hand balled into a fist. "I was of age, Raphaël."

  "That's just wrong."

  "And what the fuck should I have done, huh?" I snapped. "You come in here with your little stories about your friend, but do you personally know what it's like to live out there on the streets, huh? To have to sleep on fucking rocks and concrete every night? D'you know the relief I felt whenever one of those guys—anyone really—asked me to spend the night at a hotel for once instead of me just sucking their dicks in some dark alley before they would ditch me to spend yet another night under that bridge? Do you have any fucking idea?"

  Raphaël's jaw was set so tightly, I thought he might break a tooth.

  "I didn't mean there was a problem with you," he replied. "But Daniel is a creep."

  "And that creep saved my life."

  "By selling you for sex." Raphaël glowered, his hazel eyes raging.

  "You know what? Fuck you!" I snapped and stood. "No one is selling me for sex. Okay? I do what I want. When I started, Daniel didn't force me. He was willing to let me live at his place for free. He found me on the street one night I was letting some dickhead do me raw. Daniel actually walked in on us fucking. When he saw what was going on, I thought he was going to beat the shit out of that guy. And then, he took me in.

  "He wanted me to go back to school. I'm the one who refused. There was no way the other kids could even understand what I'd been through. Daniel was straightforward from the start. He told me what he was doing for a living. He said it was much safer than what I was doing out there on the streets.

  “I asked him if I could work for him. At first, he didn't want me to. He forced me to wait until I was eighteen. I didn't have many clients when I started a few weeks after my birthday. His company has a reputation; it's not for those who covet really young men. But then I worked my way to the top gradually. By the time I was twenty-two, I had a full clientele lined up for my services. Do you get it now?"

  Raphaël blinked at me again. What the hell was up with him blinking all the time?

  "Were you a virgin when you started?"

  "No, I wasn'
t. And even if I were, it wouldn't matter."

  When he didn't ask anything else, I added, "The first time I had sex, I was fifteen. It was with a girl. We did it a couple of times. A year later, I left home."

  "Why did you leave? Surely life with your parents couldn't be worse than unprotected sex with strangers."

  "You want the long or the abridged version?"

  "I want the truth."

  Chapter 29

  RAPHAËL

  I kept listening to the words pouring out of Adrien's mouth, each of them gutting me more than I wanted to show.

  "After my girlfriend and I had sex a few times, she told me she thought she liked girls only, so we stopped. No hard feelings. Then an old friend of mine came back in town. He'd been living in the US for three years. I hadn't seen him since we were thirteen. He was gay, and I already knew I was bi at that point. When we started the new school year, he told me his high school in the US had a gay-straight alliance club. I'd never heard of anything like that before. I thought the idea was genius.

  "He came up with this idea that we should start our own club. We went to the principal, but he didn't want to hear about it, so we went to the vice-principal next and asked her to help us. She was all for it. The club started a month later. It was going great, but then some parents got wind of what was going on, and they demanded that the school let all the parents know who was a member."

  I paused, staring at him. "They wanted to out kids to their parents?"

  "Yes. The principal didn't need much convincing either. He got his hands on the entire list and called every parent on it."

  "What the hell?"

  "Some kids went home that night and didn't come back the next day. One of them had a dad who was an alcoholic—the violent kind. When the kid finally returned the following week, his face was bruised, and he was limping. His dad had beaten the shit out of him because he thought his kid was queer. That kid was actually straight as a stick. He was participating in the club as an ally."