Catching Kit

by Kay Berrisford

  “My boy, contact me immediately. Government EB policy is unsound.

  Question everything.

  Now destroy this. I shouldn’t even have written this down, but I’m old enough to no longer care.”

  This last part of the letter alarmed Denny the least, because he could do something about it. After hurrying into the kitchen, he burned the paper over the metal sink and then headed back to the sofa. He squeezed the bridge of his nose, withering at the prospect of responding that night. He’d call Henry at the weekend. By this hour, his great-uncle might be getting ready for bed.

  On the TV, a player’s strike hit the goalpost and shot wide. He stared at the grimacing faces of the supporters at the Charlton football ground, a few miles across the city. They rubbed their hands and stamped their feet, wrapped up under scarves, hats, and coats.

  He thought of Kit in the garage.

  “Question everything.”

  Alarm bells pealed in the back of his mind, ones that had chimed uneasily from time to time ever since he’d taken the job. Why did so much he’d been told about EBs seem unreliable? And what if they did feel the cold? Kit would freeze in that metal box.

  Oh God.

  He got up, stepping over the weights and running magazines strewn across the carpet. Passing into the kitchen, which adjoined the lounge, he put the kettle on. “I’m going to have a cup of tea,” he told himself, “a nice hot bath, and go to bed.” Henry had retired sometime in the early 1980s. The “unsound” EB policies were probably from decades back.

  He’d finished his drink and half filled the bath before he turned off the taps, dressed again, and went back downstairs.

  “I’m really, really losing it,” he muttered as he pulled on his jacket. “It’s got no feelings. It doesn’t sense the cold. It talks rubbish and is fucking with my mind.”

  Silence filled the garage, which unsettled him further. If he’d heard Kit singing or bombarding him with more words, he might have realized how foolish he’d been and hurried back inside. Instead, when he opened the safe, he fought a surge of panic. Kit slumped on his side, huddled in a fetal position with his eyes shut.

  The pang in his heart, physically painful, bewildered him. He dragged Kit to the edge of the metal box, desperately seeking any vital signs. He held the back of his hand in front of Kit’s lips.

  Not a whisper of breath. He touched Kit’s cheek, finding him cold as an icicle, his complexion a metallic shade of gray. With a stab of dismay, Denny realized that below the elf, he could see the color of the safe, which appeared to glow through him. “Wake up…wake up… Oh fuck…fuck.”

  Kit was fading away, doing what elves did once their brief time plaguing human society ended. Denny didn’t take time to analyze why this upset him so, his heart surging until it seemed to pound in his throat. He hauled Kit into a sitting position, then patted his face. The elf’s head lolled sideways against his shoulder. Under the bleak garage light, Kit’s face and lips looked blue-pale and transparent. Denny could discern the black fabric of his T-shirt below.

  Not a glimmer of life.

  Denny slipped an arm under Kit’s knees, picked him up, and carried him into the house.

  Kit felt lighter than when Denny had handled him earlier, as if half his substance had already evaporated. By the time he laid him down on the sofa and turned to switch on the gas fire, tears pooled in Denny’s eyes.

  Why must he be such a bloody softy? He’d never had an elf as much as pass out on him before, and now he felt so responsible. After six flicks on the pilot switch, steely flames leaped, and the gas fire roared into action. He hurried upstairs and grabbed the duvet off the single bed in the spare room.

  Returning to the lounge, he wrapped the duvet around Kit and tried to convince himself the elf’s lips were not quite as blue and see-through as when he’d found him. They’d said it took forty-eight hours for an EB to disintegrate into thin air, and maybe he could reverse the process. But the notion Kit might vanish into nothingness revived his grating misery. Sinking onto the sofa, he pulled Kit back into his arms so the elf’s head rested against his chest.

  With a sigh, he stroked Kit’s hair. Silky blond strands tumbled across his brow. Once again Denny noticed the pointed tips of the elf’s ears. He drew breath sharply. Okay, that helped. Whatever his great-uncle’s reservations were, Kit wasn’t human. He was scarcely even real.

  And Denny fancied this thing?

  Kit looked beautiful even now, although he seemed unbearably fragile, and how good he might look in a thong became the last thing on Denny’s mind. Denny just wanted to feel him move or breathe—something, anything.

  He muttered a prayer and carefully rubbed Kit, feeling the shallow swell of his hips, the slenderness of his dancer’s torso. The elf’s ribs remained rigid beneath Denny’s touch. Denny clung to the hope his warmth might revive him, hugging him ever closer.

  That was the last thing he remembered before he dropped off to sleep.

  Chapter Three

  The smell of baked cheese and spices seeped first into his consciousness. Then Kit’s humming drew Denny from his shallow slumber.

  He flicked his eyes open. He lay alone on his sofa, his duvet tucked over him, his boots removed and paired beside him. The room had been transformed. The weights were rolled into the corner, his magazines stacked in neat piles. He squinted at his Christmas tree, decorated with tinsel, baubles, and dozens of little white lights.

  “What the hell? How…?” Christmas was still months off.

  The humming and pleasant odors drifted from his kitchen. Rubbing his brow, Denny sat up. His clock said nearly a quarter to eleven. Apprehension stiffened his sinews. He pushed himself to his feet and lurched through the open door.

  Kit stood at the metal sink, wearing a pair of yellow rubber gloves, washing up. He stopped humming and looked over his shoulder, offering an easy smile. He seemed solid enough now. The color had returned to his complexion, and he appeared every bit as dashing as when Denny had first seen him.

  “I thought you might be hungry.” Kit’s voice sounded chipper too. “I made a cheese and pasta bake. It was the best I could do using that single cookery book and the ingredients you’ve got about.”

  Denny ruffled his hair, wondering if he still dreamed.

  “Would you like some mulled wine?” asked Kit. “I made it myself from, you know, bits and bobs lying around.”

  Okay, so the elf wanted to convince him it was Christmas. That seemed like a cloyingly emotional and elfish thing to do. Denny would rip the decorations down again. In a bit. Right now he felt…confused.

  “You’re feeling better, then?”

  “Yes, thanks.”

  “Was playing dead on me some sort of trick?”

  “Not at all.” Kit turned to rinse a glass beneath the tap. “I woke up because you wanted me to. I really appreciate—”

  “I didn’t want you to fade before I could deliver you, that’s all. And you can’t just take free rein of my house.” Or escape to mind-fuck anybody else. Denny grimaced.

  How on earth had he let an EB into his house to mess it up? Or rather, tidy it up?

  Kit hurried to lift a saucepan, which was on the verge of boiling over on the rusty 1980s hob. He poured dark liquid from it into a mug. Denny reared up behind, prepared to grab him. Kit clunked down the saucepan and turned, shoving the warm drink at Denny, so he took it on reflex; otherwise it would have dropped.

  Denny gaped down at the steaming brew.

  Kit hurried back to the sink and the dishes. “I put up your pretty tree for you. Why do you keep it hidden under the stairs?”

  “Because it’s nearer Halloween than Christmas.” Denny flexed his shoulders and urged himself toward full wakefulness. Damn, he was relieved to see Kit was all right. The elf had taken off his tailcoat and covered his white shirt and black trousers with a stripy apron adorned with a cartoon cat. Denny’s mum had given this to him years ago as a joke present, and it had hung unworn from a h
ook on the back of the door ever since. On Kit, even the apron looked okay, the white ribbons dangling over his cute arse.

  “Would you like me to finish cleaning before we do anything else?” asked Kit.

  Denny slammed his mug down on the table so hard that half the contents splashed across the surface, narrowly missing scalding his hand. The table legs squeaked against the vinyl floor. Kit had read his mind again. He must get the elf back to the garage—with a blanket, hot water bottle, and convector heater in tow—before Kit did any more damage.

  Like completing the pile of dishes that had festered for a week.

  Denny grabbed a tea towel from the back of a chair to wipe up the spilled drink. He didn’t fancy going back out so soon after waking up, and a few more minutes couldn’t do much harm.

  “Okay, finish what you’re doing if that’s what you really want.”

  “Thank you. So I’ll call you Denny, seeing as that’s what it says on your mail, and you’ll please call me Kit.”

  Denny picked up his mug and took a sip of the remaining mulled wine. It seared like a flame on his tongue, spicy and faintly sweet. It was good. Damn good. He smoothed his lips together.

  “Elves don’t even have names,” he said.

  “Yes, we do. Although I suppose your sort would say I stole it.” Kit’s words grew garbled, as if he knew he played for time. “I…I borrowed it from a man I once met in a tavern, a very interesting man who used beautiful words and gave beautiful kisses, although he was a little…fierce sometimes. In, uh… I think the year was 1592.”

  “Fifteen-fucking-ninety-two?” Taking another sip, Denny glanced at the clock. It read 10:55 p.m. When the time reached eleven o’clock, he’d get rid of the elf.

  “Yes, that’s what they said. Well, not fifteen-fucking-ninety-two. The year of our Lord 1592 was a nobler choice of words. And the man from whom I borrowed my name—he was called Kit Marlowe.” The elf balanced a saucepan on the draining board and reached for a chipped Crystal Palace FC mug.

  Kit Marlowe.

  Wasn’t that Christopher Marlowe, some playwright, a bit like Shakespeare but less famous? And wasn’t he gay or something? And murdered? “Pull the other one. You can’t expect me to believe you were about in Shakespearean times.”

  “Oh, I had a ball back in my theater days, in the reign of good Queen Bess.”

  Theater? Kit hadn’t been leeching this crap off Denny. History wasn’t his subject, and neither was Shakespeare. The elf must have bugged some West End actor before he’d been caught.

  Denny scowled into his mug. The EB mustered a bright smile, took off the yellow gloves, and turned to spoon the pasta bake onto two plates. It was now 10:57 p.m.

  Nearly time to get Kit back to the garage, although Denny twitched with indecision.

  And his stomach grumbled.

  “You must be starving.” Kit placed one of the plates in front of Denny. Then he sat down opposite, pronged two tubes of pasta with his fork, and popped them into his mouth. He slowly licked white cheese sauce from his lips, and Denny fought a faint ache in his groin. “Yeah, elves do eat. At least we do when we need to. And this isn’t bad, is it? It’s better than gingerbread and those little sets of dried herbs. I ate those for a month. Oh, and boiled sweets.”

  And Kit still had such gleaming teeth? Okay, that had to be rubbish. Denny wouldn’t listen. But he was bloody hungry. They’d eat the pasta, and then he’d put Kit out.

  He couldn’t help but hear what Kit said as they dined. The elf claimed he’d materialized a month or so back in the bargain basement of a department store. He’d hidden out in a store room among leftover Christmas items, of which he’d grown fond.

  “So lovely to know Christmas is still going on,” said Kit. “That’s the thing with moving on all the time; sometimes customs just vanish. I miss St. Bartholomew’s Fair, you know.”

  Kit had grown so attached to the bright Christmas decorations that he’d wasted no time removing Denny’s tree from its box under the stairs to remind him of his most recent home. He’d remained in the store several weeks, chatting to staff and customers and reading his way through any books and newspapers he found lying about.

  “Working out how the world works these days and what all the new words mean. Like how tablets aren’t pills anymore, but those shiny things with touch screens.”

  Then his body grew solid enough to set off the alarms at night, and he’d had to leave. He’d spent his days and nights after that busking on the Underground network, as the great outdoors freaked him a bit at first.

  “After last time I was in London,” explained Kit, “with all the bombs.”

  “Right, that’s it.” Denny pushed his half-eaten meal away and got up. Swallowing a mouthful quickly, Kit rose too, turning to drop his plate in the sink behind him. Denny hurried about the table, grabbed him by the elbow, and spun him around. “Why do you keep going on about bombs?”

  Kit furrowed his brow, and that strange look glazed his eyes, whispering of memories. Shouting of pain. “I was here in 1941.”

  Denny shook him. “You’re telling me you were in London in the Blitz as well as in Shakespearean times? You must think I’m loopy.”

  Kit drilled his gaze into him and fluttered his long lashes. “No. I think you’re horribly messy. Apart from your underwear drawer. You keep that neat enough.”

  Denny froze. “You’ve been poking around my things?”

  “I loved your things. They were beautiful.”

  A hot flush spread from the base of Denny’s neck to his brow. The elf had been messing with his most intimate possessions.

  His best lingerie.

  Yet his humiliation burned out quickly. This elf had cut to the heart of his “disgusting habits,” and didn’t seem bothered at all.

  The elf arched a brow, overtly flirtatious. “I hope you don’t mind. I, uh, tried some on.”

  “You what?”

  “Your lace thong.” Kit dropped his voice to a sexy growl. “I’m wearing it now.”

  Kit grabbed Denny’s wrist and pushed Denny’s hand down the back of those scruffy black trousers. Next thing Denny knew, he was grasping one of Kit’s buttocks. Smooth flesh yielded to muscles hard as nutshells beneath. Then Kit steered Denny so his fingertips slid up the elf’s crack. He felt the delicate thread of lace spreading Kit’s arse, slicing down that warm, vulnerable cleft between.

  Denny had never sprung into full erection so quickly in his life. He yanked his hand away.

  “You had no right to mess with my stuff.” Although that particular thong had always been a bit small for him and didn’t quite suit. It felt hot on Kit. It must look hot on Kit. “Y-you’re going straight back to the safe.” He grasped the elf’s shoulders as if they’d been fused together, acutely aware of Kit’s breathing, hot against his neck. Of the hard line of his hip brushing intimately close to Denny’s groin.

  “What are you waiting for?” murmured Kit.

  Denny had no idea. The tap dripped, water smacking against metal the only interruption to the buzzing of the light and the relentless pounding of Denny’s blood.

  He felt as unsteady as he felt horny. The deeper he scrutinized Kit’s face, the more emotions he seemed to read there. Every trace of mirth on the elf’s lips died, replaced by a firmly set line, a smoldering sincerity. His eyes spoke of joy, hope, desperation.

  And raw hunger.

  Kit rose onto tiptoes, lifted his chin, and it seemed electricity arced between them. Delicately he brushed Denny’s mouth with his own. The elf tasted of wine, cheese sauce, and something heady and enticing that might have been the spices. Or might just have been Kit. Whatever it was, Denny needed more.

  He grabbed Kit by the collar and kissed him hard.

  The plates on the drainer behind them chinked. Kit parted his lips and slid his tongue into Denny’s mouth, deepening the kiss, apparently relishing the scrub of Denny’s stubble against his. In perfect rhythm, the elf rubbed his groin against Denny’s thigh unt
il Denny felt the ultimate proof that elves were sexual beings. Kit’s raging erection told Denny they were both equally aroused.

  And the elf read his every need like a book.

  Through Denny’s tight T-shirt, Kit toyed with his nipple, flicking the ring, pressing the cool metal into his sweat-flecked skin. Currents of molten pleasure coursed from Denny’s chest to his cock.

  Denny broke the kiss. “This is so bloody wrong.”

  “Really?” Without warning, Kit shoved the tips of his fingers down the back of Denny’s trousers and tugged the waistband of the leather briefs. The elf yelped with delight. “Is it any more wrong than a gorgeous great alpha like you wearing these to go out arresting folk in?”

  Denny bit back a laugh. His current underpants were fairly restrained, by his standards. It would feel incorrect wearing anything more interesting to work. “You like ’em?”

  “I love ’em.” Kit emphasized his words with a feral snarl. “God, I adore a man in leather. So…nnnng. So damn sexy.”

  Kit stroked Denny’s arse cheeks, pressing harder with every lust-ridden syllable and making his cock throb like hell. After a final squeeze of Denny’s backside, Kit threw his arms around Denny’s neck and leaped at him.

  As Denny caught him, the crockery clunked even louder. Kit wrapped his legs around Denny’s hips, stretching the seams of those scruffy trousers to the limit. Denny cradled Kit’s arse in his hands, pressing his lips to the elf’s once more. He’d been mind-fucked, and he no longer cared. He needed to get laid, right here, right now, with this EB.

  He carried Kit up the stairs, the two of them still tangled as one. Kit kissed like no partner Denny had ever been with before. He worked Denny’s lips and tongue with neat precision, sweeping every inch of his mouth, inciting Denny to do the same. Caught up in his passion, Denny fumbled to find his way to his bedroom. In his haste, he whacked his elbow against the banister, but he hardly felt the pain. From the corner of his eye, he saw Kit clip a poster frame with his toe, setting it askew.

  He kicked the door open, hurried across his darkened room to the bed, and lowered Kit to the duvet. As soon as the mattress took the elf’s weight, Kit slid his hand to the back of Denny’s hair, intensifying the kiss. Denny’s lips tingled amid the onslaught, and he skimmed his teeth against tender flesh. He stretched on top of Kit, and they intertwined their legs, taut bodies fitting together as if designed for the task. The elf worked his knee between Denny’s thighs and began once more to rub.