by Josh Lanyon
Chapter Four
The whispered sound of the study door closing seemed to echo down the hall like the crack of doom.
In the kitchen, I heard Lena open the oven and noisily pull out a rack.
My upsurge of aggression drained away and I was left to wonder what the fucking hell was the matter with me? Of course Stephen had worried. His was the normal reaction.
I strode down the hall to his study, then hesitated. I seemed to be getting a fair number of doors closed in my face today, but I couldn’t remember Stephen ever shutting me out.
Maybe he meant it.
Forcing him to deal with me when he wasn’t ready could make everything that much worse. I’d negotiated enough deals in my time to know that better than anyone. But the idea of being shut out by Stephen was intolerable.
I opened the door.
He stood at the window staring out at the frozen lake and the magnolia trees with their snow blossoms. He didn’t turn, though he couldn’t have missed the door opening or Buck’s tail thumping in greeting.
“That wasn’t the right reaction,” I said.
Stephen continued to gaze out the window. “It was an honest one.”
“What I mean is, you put me on defense and I overreacted.”
“True. But that’s not the point, is it?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant. What was the point? For me the point was I shouldn’t have said what I said. “You were right. I was in the wrong. I apologize.”
He made a sound, a smothered sound, but of such pent up frustration that my heart froze. That level of irritation and exasperation wasn’t the result of one argument; it had built up over time. Was he ready to give up on us? Probably.
I said desperately, “I know I’m bad at this, Stephen.”
He turned then. He looked older, grimmer, as though he’d aged in the time it had taken to walk down the hall.
“Yes. You are. It’s not enough to acknowledge it, Mark. You have to make an effort to change.”
“I’m trying.”
“Are you? Is that what today was? You trying to turn over a new leaf?”
I hadn’t felt this panicked, this sick since the last time I’d returned from Afghanistan to realize that Stephen had stopped loving me, had moved on.
I tried to think of what to say, but I knew that anything I came up with would seem to him like I was trying to find excuses instead of taking responsibility. Or maybe taking responsibility was another thing that was beside the point. Not only did I not have the answer, I wasn’t sure of the question. What did he want? Whatever it was, I was more than willing to give it, if it was in my power. But it increasingly felt like trying to argue a court case in a language you had only the feeblest grasp of.
He continued to stare at me in that dark, measuring way.
I went on reviewing all the possible responses he might wish from me, but staring at his face, listening to that formidable silence, I was forced to conclude that it wasn’t a matter of what he wanted, it was a matter of what he expected. And what he expected was my agreement with the conclusion he had apparently already reached.
“I thought things were all right between us,” I tried.
He shook his head.
Wrong again, Mr. Hardwicke.
I said finally, dully, “It’s too much work, isn’t it?”
Since he hadn’t said a word to me in minutes, I didn’t see how the room could get any more hushed, but it did. Stephen didn’t move a muscle. The stillness surrounding him was absolute. As absolute as death. At last he said, “Is it?”
We were wavering on the edge of the world and the earth was crumbling out from under us. Nothing but black space and jagged stars below. It was surely too late, but instinctively I grabbed for whatever was left. “Not for me. Never for me. I know I keep fucking up, but surely…it can’t be as bad as it was in the beginning.”
He said carefully, as though he was a blind man feeling this way through strange surroundings, “What is it you think I’m saying to you?”
“You’ve had enough. Had all you can take.”
The life came back to his face. “Mark.” I couldn’t tell if that note in his voice was tenderness or pity, but he was coming to meet me and we held each other for a fierce moment as though we really had just missed plunging off the edge of the world. “Honey.”
He wasn’t much for endearments. Neither of us were.
Buck, curled in front of the fireplace, stirred his tail in approval.
Stephen’s voice was warm against my ear. “Mark, listen to me. We’re not going to separate because we get mad at each other and argue. Getting mad and arguing is part of being with someone. Even someone you love as much as I love you. Do you understand that?”
I drew away. Of course I understood intellectually what he was saying. I told myself the same thing when we rowed. The problem was we didn’t argue much and when we did it was inevitably something serious. Maybe it was a shame we didn’t bicker like a lot of other couples, because I’d have more practice and wouldn’t take it so seriously.
“For better, for worse,” I said.
“Right. Our commitment to each other is a…a safety net. It allows us to be honest, even if we’re honestly angry, without fearing we’re going to tear apart.” He was as earnest and careful as someone explaining the rules of conduct to someone from another land.
The earnestness made me smile. Stephen sighed, but his eyes were amused. “What’s funny?”
I shook my head. “Just relieved. I know we’ve had this talk before, but I keep expecting you to give up and hit me over the head with the nearest blunt object.”
“That’s not going to happen. The giving up, I mean. No guarantees about the blunt object.”
We kissed again.
Catastrophe averted. Stephen didn’t ask me what I had been doing while I was out and I didn’t volunteer. The entire subject was dropped. He would find out soon enough that I had visited Bryce, and he would not be pleased. We would argue, but now I understood that we would not break up over it.
It was a wonderful feeling, a feeling of great freedom. Until now I had tried to ensure that every argument was our last, certain that lack of conflict was the best, maybe the only way to guarantee the survival of our relationship. But at last I understood that Stephen did not expect our relationship to be free of conflict, and that our commitment to each other was mutually shared.
Given the fact that I still had no idea who had tried to kill me, I was curiously happy that evening. My heart felt as light as a snowflake.
The closest I came to addressing anything perilous was as we were finishing dinner. “Did Donleavy call while I was out?”
“No.” Stephen hesitated. “Were you able to get hold of Holohan?”
“Not yet.”
Stephen nodded and refilled my wine glass. “Dessert?”
“Mm. What if we had it upstairs?”
He smiled. “Great idea.”
First, though, he insisted that we go downstairs to his examining room so he could check that my shoulder and head were healing properly.
“Only the good die young,” I teased after he reluctantly pronounced that I was on the mend.
“You do realize how lucky you were?”
“Every day.”
He sighed and turned away to wash his hands at the little sink. I unpeeled myself from the tissue on the examining table and got off the table to hug him. I wanted to reassure him yet again that I wasn’t involved in anything dangerous, but I knew he realized by now that I wouldn’t be poking around and asking questions if I were yet engaged in skullduggery.
From upstairs came the slow, somber chime of the grandfather clock.
“Eight o’clock. All’s well. Come to bed,” I said.
* * * * *
Stephen needed to take the lead that night, and I was glad to let him. Glad to let him feel in control, glad to let him take comfort in my compliance, glad to let him know he was not alone, that everything he
felt, I felt, too.
Every day, every hour, every minute with him mattered to me. I never wanted to take one instant of our time together for granted.
He used his weight to hold me down, pushing me into the mattress, covering me with heat and muscle. My body quivered with tense anticipation. Stephen’s hand gripped my hip, and I reached to cover his big hand with my own, encouraging him. Stephen’s free hand cupped my chin. He plundered my panting mouth.
I opened to his kiss, and Stephen’s mouth was sweet and hot, going from needy to passionate to voracious. “Whatever you want,” I whispered. “Anything you want.”
He growled deep in his throat. I laughed, but it made my stomach flip, too. I loved his aggression. I felt for his free hand, lacing my fingers with his. “I love your hands,” I told him. Strong hands. Gentle hands. The gentleness of true strength. Healing hands. They had healed me. Not just my body, my spirit.
“I love touching you,” Stephen replied. He slid his leg between mine, rubbed his hot, hard thigh against my balls, pressing his knee into the sensitive strip of flesh between sac and opening. I moaned. It takes a lot of trust to let another bloke put his knee in your crotch. I spread myself wider.
Stephen groaned in echo. We both started to laugh. He shook his head. “God. What you do to me.” His hand slowly kneaded its way up my flank, my waist, ribs and chest, exploring in massaging strokes that changed from firm to gentle and back again.
I squirmed. “Oi! Tickles!”
“Does it?”
“Bastard.”
Stephen was still laughing as he kissed me again. I loved the taste of his laughter. Loved when he sealed our mouths together once again, claiming me with a fierce possessive strength that made my heart hammer against his rib cage. My cock thrust up, throbbing, leaking, aching for release.
Stephen’s face quivered with emotion; I think, somehow, it surprised him that I needed him as much—probably more—than he needed me. He met my urgency with his own controlled hunger, probing at my lips until I opened to his tongue. We kissed deeply, passionately, then Stephen withdrew to press the corner of my mouth in tiny chaste touches, teasing the nerves in thin skin, trailing his lips to my nose, grazing my eyelids with delicate, ghostly touches.
There had been a time in my life when kissing—if it happened at all—had merely been prelude to the performance. The means to an end. Now it was an end in itself, and one of the loveliest improvisations in the world.
Though the succeeding movements were nothing to complain about. I rolled over, burying my face in my arm. Stephen took great time and care in his preparation before at last accommodating my desire and his own, parting my arse cheeks with a sort of tactful proficiency and pushing in deep.
I responded with needy grunts, writhing on my belly, hands twisted in the pale flannel sheets. Stephen gripped my hips, taking charge, thrusting possessively into me in long, smooth strokes.
“Yes. Jesus, yes….Stephen….”
The slick heat of him sliding in and out of my body…I pushed up to receive the hard, rhythmic thrusts Stephen delivered. I wanted to take him in deeper still, shivering with that instinctive blazing clutch of muscle and nerves. That ingrained human need for union, to couple, to be one, even if only for a short while.
“You. Are. So. Sweet,” Stephen panted, each word punctuated by a hard, quick stroke.
Stephen changed his hold, angled his thrusts to hit the swollen nub inside my tensed body. Helpless desperate sound came rolling up from my guts to spill out in inarticulate noise, something between pleas and praise. Amazing. Bewildering. To feel so much. So much it didn’t seem my heart could hold it all. Fire blazed at the core of my abdomen, an electric buzz of slow building, blissful ecstasy, all bright lights behind my eyelids and constricted muscles in my chest and belly as orgasm crept up my spine.
Stephen arched and stiffened, changing to short strokes, plunging his cock frantically, fiercely into my taut body. He was coming too; I was aware of it in the wake of the fireworks exploding in my head. Roman candles and Chinese rockets and bells ringing out. Christmas and New Year all rolled into one. I was dimly aware of the pulsing beats of Stephen’s emptying cock. The wounded, winded sounds he was making in my ear as we collapsed together, clutching each other, hot and wet and sticky, into a welcoming darkness.
Soft light behind my eyelids.
Music was playing downstairs. Bing Crosby. Very traditional. I smiled. The floorboard squeaked and I opened my eyes to soft light and smells of Irish coffee and warm gingerbread.
Stephen, naked beneath his navy dressing gown, set the tray on the bed and crawled in beside me once more.
“You’re spoiling me.”
“Lena is spoiling us both.” He broke off a piece of gingerbread and held it out to me as though he were feeding me wedding cake. I raised my head, nibbled the gingerbread, licked his fingers when I’d taken the last bite. He closed his eyes and gave a twitchy smile. I kissed his fingertips and let my head fall back in the pillows.
“Favorite Christmas carol?” I asked.
“Modern or traditional?”
“Both.”
“‘Silent Night.’ ‘Please Come Home for Christmas.’ You?” He offered another bite of gingerbread.
I took a bite. Swallowed. “This year? ‘I’ll be Home for Christmas.’”
He smiled, understanding. “Traditional?”
“Not really a carol. The Christmas section of Handel’s Messiah.”
“I should have guessed that. My turn. Favorite Christmas movie?”
“Mister Magoo’s Christmas Carol.”
Stephen laughed.
“Quite serious. It’s one of your classics, yes? I loved that razzleberry dressing and woofle jelly cake.”
“You do enjoy your food. I’m not sure where you put it.” He stroked my ribcage.
I sucked in my stomach. “Yours?”
“It’s a Wonderful Life.”
I said, “You’ve made a difference in a lot of people’s lives. A good difference.”
His green gaze was grave. Sometimes he saw too much. “Best Christmas memory?” he asked.
“This,” I said. “Tonight.”
* * * * *
The Old Man had retired.
It took me half the following day to discover that piece of intelligence—ours was one of the most hush hush of organizations in British intelligence—and another couple of hours to track him down.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the Ghost of Christmas Past,” John Holohan acidly greeted me when I finally managed to locate him at his country house in County Mayo. “Happy Christmas, Mr. Hardwicke.”
I’d forgotten it was already Christmas Day, there. No wonder it had taken forever to negotiate the halls of power—or, more correctly, the channels of officiousness.
“Happy Christmas, sir.”
“To be sure. You’ve no doubt heard the news the bastards’ve put me out to pasture. That’s the lump of coal I found in my Christmas stocking. Forced retirement. ‘In the public interest.’”
“I’m sorry, sir. They’re bloody fools.”
He cleared his throat. I could see him in my mind’s eye. Tall and rawboned, a shock of white hair and a beaky, fierce face like a bird of prey. Though he was in his late sixties he’d always had the strength and vitality of men half his age. I imagined it was no different now and knew how bitter a pill this redundancy must be to swallow.
“Indisputably. So you see, if you’ve thought better of your unwise decision to retire—”
“No. I’m happy where I am.”
“You were always an odd lad.”
“The issue is whether someone else might not be as happy about my retirement?”
“I don’t follow you.” He sounded genuinely bemused.
“Someone tried to take me out a couple of nights ago.”
The silence seemed to echo across the cold, gray Atlantic.
“Whatever have you got yourself involved in, Mr. Hardwicke?” the Old M
an asked softly.
“Nothing that I know of. That’s why I wondered—”
“Whether Her Majesty had sent someone to twep you?”
He needn’t have sounded quite so entertained by the notion.
“No?”
“No one even remembers you, Mr. Hardwicke. Let alone is interested enough to fill in the forms required to remove you from this mortal coil. No, whoever you’ve annoyed to the point of homicide isn’t being paid for the privilege of sending you to meet your maker.”
“What about Istakhbarat? They came after me once.”
He made a dismissive noise. “Mullah Arsullah came after you. He’s dead. Istakhbarat is gone. Look to your own doorstep, Mr. Hardwicke. If someone does want you dead, they’re hiding in your backyard.”
As the gloom and shadow thickened behind him, in that place where it had been gathering so darkly, it took, by slow degrees, - or out of it there came, by some unreal, unsubstantial process - not to be traced by any human sense, - an awful likeness of himself!
“Maybe Holohan’s not in the loop anymore,” Stephen’s reflection interrupted my reading. We were sitting on the sofa before the fireplace. Or rather Stephen was sitting. I was stretched out with my head in his lap. He was listening to music and scratching my head. I was reading The Haunted Man—I take turns reading one of Dickens’ Christmas stories every year—in between dozing. Nothing puts me to sleep like having my head rubbed. That light, knowledgeable touch sent exquisite tingles over my scalp and down my spine. “Maybe he doesn’t know, but he doesn’t want to admit it.”
“He’d know,” I said sleepily.
“He’d like you to think so. It might not be true.”
I blinked up at him. “They’ve only just shoved him out the door. Besides, he’s right. I’m no threat to anyone. I’m not even a person of interest anymore.”
Stephen’s mouth tugged into a wry curve. “You’re of interest to me.”
I smiled. “I like to think so.”
“So what now?”
Apparently we were going to have this discussion whether I was awake or not. It would be better to be awake. I shook off my pleasant lethargy. “Maybe it was an accident. Maybe I was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
