Another Man's Treasure

by J. A. Rock

  Ilia’s breath caught. “Dad, come on.”

  Louis swiped to the next photo. “You look happy.”

  “I was.” His throat ached.

  Louis set the phone aside at last. “I was so fucking scared, Eli. So scared going into his apartment. I thought I’d find you dead.”

  “Mikhail never hurt me,” Ilia whispered.

  “If you hadn’t gone to him, none of this would have happened.”

  Ilia snatched his phone back. “He never hurt me!”

  Louis shook his head and stood. He left the room, closing the door with a soft click.

  Ilia cradled his phone to his aching chest as tears slid down his face.

  XIII

  Ilia hadn’t worn earrings in a long time. He’d removed his favorite pair at some point during his captivity, afraid that if he didn’t, Nick would rip them out.

  Today he put some in—long, with sharp-looking pendants. Stared at himself. He was very pale. He used to want it that way, but now he thought he looked like a ghost.

  He didn’t have any eyeliner or mascara. He crept out of his bedroom and across the hall to his parents’ room. Pushed the door open.

  He hadn’t been in here since that night. He’d tortured himself sometimes by standing in the hall and sneaking glimpses of the room, but he’d never been able to cross the threshold. One night, he’d stood in the hall while his parents slept. Like he had as a child after a nightmare, hesitant to go in because he feared his dad’s censure as deeply as he craved his mother’s comfort.

  “Don’t let him in the bed, Jess. Make him go back to his own room. He’s got to learn how to handle it.”

  But eventually Ilia had learned the pleasure of winning. Of climbing into bed beside his mother and knowing that his father was stewing because he’d lost. That she’d sided with Ilia. Ilia might have been weak, sniveling over a bad dream—but at least he’d gotten his way. Had some small measure of power.

  He went into his parents’ bathroom and opened drawers until he found his mother’s makeup. He used her eyeliner and mascara.

  That was better.

  Later, when Louis came home, Ilia saw him take in Ilia’s earrings, his eyes.

  Then he turned away.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I

  An office in downtown Bethesda that needed a receptionist called Ilia to schedule an interview. He’d forgotten he’d applied.

  He listened to the voicemail twice, then deleted it, his heart pounding. No office would hire him anyway. Pierced, tattooed. Makeup.

  II

  Ilia was putting on eyeliner in his parents’ bathroom when his mother came in.

  They both started.

  “I didn’t know you were in here,” she said.

  Ilia put down the pencil. He only had one eye done. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to…”

  “Would you like to keep that?” She nodded at the eyeliner. “I have another.”

  “Um...” Ilia’s legs felt weak, and his stomach hurt. “Sorry,” he said again. A reflexive response. He just kept saying he was sorry, and he wasn’t even sure what for.

  He stepped forward suddenly and put his arms around his mother. The first time he’d initiated physical contact with anyone since they night he’d distracted Nick while Patrick fixed dinner. She hugged him back—gently at first, then tighter when he didn’t protest.

  “Come on,” she whispered.

  He followed her out of the bathroom, and they both sat on the bed.

  “How are you doing?” she asked.

  He shrugged.

  “Are the appointments going okay?”

  “I don’t go,” he admitted. “Usually.”

  She placed her hand over his. Rubbed his knuckles with her thumb.

  “I should find a place to live,” he said. “You don’t want me here forever.”

  She looked at him steadily. “You stay as long as you need. I’m glad to have you back.”

  Why?

  “I worry about you,” she said.

  He stared at his shoes. “Do you hate me?”

  She squeezed his hand. “I never could.”

  “P-pointed a gun at him.”

  “Neither of us hates you. Your father has seen what people do in—in unimaginable circumstances. They aren’t themselves.”

  What if that was me? What if I was myself?

  “If I hadn’t loved Mikhail, none of this would have happened,” he said.

  She stayed quiet a long time, but didn’t take her hand off of his.

  “Your nana died when you were a year old,” she said. “I used to think sometimes—if I hadn’t fallen in love with your father, it wouldn’t have happened. I would have been closer to her. Would have been able to see something was wrong in plenty of time for the doctors to help her. She wouldn’t have felt abandoned, and she might have fought harder to live.” A pause. “But it doesn’t work like that?” She said it almost as though it were a question. “I think it’s true that when you’re younger, you don’t always know…. You’re guided a bit more by emotion than reason.”

  “Not always,” Ilia said. “And not just when you’re young.”

  “You’re right. But most people, as they age, they do get more of a sense of what they want.”

  “You’re saying what I felt for Mikhail was—what? A crush I would have outgrown?” Ilia demanded.

  “I’m saying I loved your father a lot more blindly when I was your age. I overlooked faults that might be deal breakers now. I never learned to stand up to him, only how to stand by him. And as a result, I brought you into an environment where you always felt threatened.”

  He couldn’t believe she was admitting this. And he wondered why he felt angry instead of validated.

  “I was never afraid of dad,” he snapped, the temptation to bite the offered hand too strong. “He was a bastard, that’s all.”

  She gazed at him. He hated the way people kept staring. They were judging him, but he never knew what conclusions they reached.

  “Your feelings change,” she said. “People surprise you. I didn’t know Mikhail. Maybe he… What I’m saying is, it’s too late to go back and not feel what you felt for him. There are consequences to our love. And it took me a long time to understand that those consequences aren’t judgment. They’re not…what we deserve. They just are.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Do you think you can believe that?” she asked.

  I don’t know.

  I don’t fucking know.

  III

  The doorbell rang. Charlie barked.

  Ilia lay in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  His mother called up to him. “Eli? You have a visitor.”

  What the fuck?

  IV

  Patrick’s frame was fuller than the last time Ilia had seen him. Ilia noticed the definition in his arms when he leaned down to pet Charlie. Ilia’s mother hovered for a moment, then went to the kitchen.

  “Sorry to bother you,” Patrick said. “If this is a bad time. Or if you didn’t want to see me. I just—I needed to see you.”

  Not a single thought Ilia could make sense of. He didn’t even know if he was glad or upset that Patrick was here.

  “You wanna come up to my room?” Ilia flushed as soon as he said it, but his bedroom was the only place in the house that felt remotely private.

  Patrick followed Ilia upstairs. Ilia closed the door behind them and sat on the bed. He knew it was rude to leave Patrick standing, but he couldn’t make himself say anything. How simple would it be, to tell Patrick he could sit in the desk chair?

  Patrick kept his hands rigid at his sides. His face was still gentle, but warier.

  “I’ve been worried about you,” he said. “I just kept thinking I had to know how you were doing. And when you didn’t answer my letter…”

  “Sorry,” Ilia said. He needed a new line. But it made people happy, didn’t it? To get an apology? To know they were right, and someone else was wrong?
r />   “Is it just too painful to talk to me, or what? Does it remind you of…?”

  “I don’t know what to say, is all.”

  Patrick shifted. “Is it getting easier? Being back.”

  Ilia shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  Patrick leaned against the desk. “I’ve been working out more.” He smiled bitterly. “Want to feel stronger, I guess. I’m such a cliche.”

  “Yeah,” Ilia said. “I’m like... All the symptoms on the pamphlets in therapy? You know? I’m just like everyone else who’s had bad shit happen to them.”

  Patrick didn’t answer.

  Ilia stared at the bedspread. Same one he’d had since he was eleven. Black and blue plaid. “Feels like it should be bigger than that. Just, like, there shouldn’t be words for how I am now. What I think about. But the pamphlets have names for everything.”

  “Yeah,” Patrick said quietly.

  Ilia looked up. “Where are you staying?”

  “I’m moving into a new place. A friend’s moving in with me. To help out.”

  “Oh.” Fuck you too.

  “I’m back at work.”

  Ilia couldn’t respond for a moment. “Of course you are,” he said at last, unable to keep the resentment from his tone. He could feel Patrick’s gaze on him. But he didn’t meet it.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You’re back at work. You made it.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  Ilia’s voice rose. “You never lost yourself. You always knew what to do. You fought him, just like you were supposed to. And now you’re back at work, and you’re getting a place with your friend, and you probably go to all of your counseling appointments, and you process what happened. Right?”

  “Shut up.” Patrick’s voice was still soft, but Ilia could hear the anger in it.

  “You’re gonna be fine! I’m always gonna be fucked.”

  You’ll be fine, you and your dumb videos and some fucking kid singing you a song. Good with people; your parents met in a flower shop; you always know what to say. And I’ve never been anything like that. I’ve never been anything.

  “You must never really think about me at all,” Patrick said, straightening. “Never think about what I’m actually going through. If you did, you’d know how hard it is. You’d know I feel just as guilty as you do. Just as fucking lost.”

  “What do you have to feel guilty about?” Ilia demanded.

  “Did you ever think about me?” Patrick stepped forward. “After the hospital? Did you ever wonder if I was okay? Or did you just assume that even though I went through the same things you did, even though I was there, I couldn’t possibly understand what it means to be scarred?”

  Ilia felt the familiar tightness in his throat, the tension in the pit of his stomach. He looked at Patrick and nodded frantically, blinking back tears. Little princess. Stupid bitch. Feeling sorry for yourself when he suffered just as much—because of you. “I wondered. All the—the time.”

  “I’m sorry. Oh God, I’m sorry. Don’t cry.”

  Ilia managed a smile as Patrick stepped closer. “You’re the one who told me it was okay to cry.”

  “Yeah.” Patrick smiled too, anxious. He was standing right in front of Ilia now.

  “You can sit,” Ilia said, trying not to let his voice break.

  Patrick didn’t. His hand twitched slightly at his side. Ilia stared at it for a moment, then took it. Leaned forward and kissed it. Looked up at Patrick and did it again, flicking his tongue against Patrick’s skin.

  “I don’t know if this is a good idea.”

  “Please?” Ilia asked.

  He’d been eight when the planes hit the World Trade Center. The news on all the time, full of scared people. But then the anger, the rally: The terrorists have won if we stop going to work. If we stop buying ourselves shit we don’t need. If we stop watching the Superbowl. If we stop fucking or having children or taking them to Disneyland.

  This holiday season, all cars on our lot are 20 percent off! Don’t let the terrorists win.

  Patrick shook his head. “I like you too much to…if it’s gonna drag up anything bad.”

  “It won’t,” Ilia promised, absurdly, as though that was a guarantee he could make. He tugged on the front of Patrick’s shirt. “Please?”

  Patrick placed his hands on Ilia’s shoulders. Stroked down Ilia’s arms. Ilia let his eyes fall shut for a moment. “We’re okay in here?” Patrick asked.

  Ilia nodded. His mom probably wouldn’t come upstairs. If she did, too bad.

  Patrick eased himself onto the edge of the bed beside Ilia, and they kissed. All that gentleness and wariness was there. The promise that they could have something that was theirs, that no one owned or watched or punished them for. They fell back on the mattress. Undressed wordlessly.

  No bruises on Patrick’s body. No scars. Ilia didn’t know what he’d expected. He just knew things shifted sometimes—memory didn’t always come in jolts. Sometimes the present slipped into the past like liquid in a tilted bowl, and Ilia was back in his apartment, and Patrick was covered in bruises. A second could slow itself into a frozen spot of timelessness where Patrick’s lips became Nick’s, became Mikhail’s.

  Ilia stroked Patrick’s chest. “You look good.”

  Patrick laughed. “Thanks.”

  “You seem nervous, though.”

  “I guess I am.”

  Ilia pulled his legs out from between Patrick’s. Got on all fours. “Can I…?” He didn’t know how to finish.

  Patrick waited.

  Ilia tilted his head. Ran his hand from Patrick’s chest down to just above his swelling cock. “I won’t hurt you,” Ilia said. “I promise.”

  Patrick swallowed. “I know.”

  Ilia dragged his fingertips down each of Patrick’s thighs in turn. Patrick spread his legs a little.

  Ilia touched him carefully. Everywhere. Just like his fantasies. Patrick, his face pinkening with embarrassment, with pleasure. A red-haired kid, shy and hesitant, but opening up as Ilia gentled him. Breathing harshly, pushing his hips up in a silent plea for what he needed.

  Ilia leaned down and kissed him as he stroked his cock. They didn’t hurry. Didn’t have to. Patrick’s balls tightened, and Ilia pushed his thumb over them. Felt warmth and wetness coat his hand. Patrick lay there for a moment, eyes shut. Then he opened them and looked at Ilia. Pulled himself up and tipped Ilia onto his back. Rubbed down Ilia’s sides, and whispered, “This is how I would have done it, that day. If it had just been us.”

  He stretched himself over Ilia and licked from Ilia’s chest to his stomach, and finally into the hair over Ilia’s cock. Moved his tongue around the base of the shaft, then up, so that Ilia inhaled sharply and jerked. Patrick’s mouth closed around him, and Ilia tilted his head back, trying not to remember the terror in Patrick’s eyes the day he’d sucked Ilia off while Ilia held the hammer.

  Ilia didn’t deserve what was happening now. But he let it continue and lost himself in the warmth and pleasure of it until he couldn’t hold back anymore. Then he gently pulled Patrick’s head up. Gave himself a couple of quick strokes and turned to the side, so that he came on the sheet and not on Patrick.

  Patrick rested his chin on Ilia’s hip. They stayed like that a few minutes before Patrick crawled back up the bed and curled around Ilia.

  “You gonna go to Wisconsin?” Ilia asked after a while.

  “Right now?” Patrick asked.

  Ilia snorted. “To stay with your family. Like your letter said.”

  “I don’t know. That was the plan, but then I stayed. Lily’s moving in with me, so living here’s not as bad as I maybe thought.”

  “Wait. Your friend’s a girl?”

  “What’d you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Ilia admitted, embarrassed.

  “Were you jealous?”

  “No, I just…”

  Patrick laughed.

  “Shut up,” Ilia muttered
.

  “You thought I had a boyfriend?”

  “How was I supposed to know?”

  “And what business would it be of yours if I had?”

  That hurt. Deep, even though it was only a tease. “Shut up,” Ilia said again.

  “I don’t think I’m ready for that yet,” Patrick said softly.

  And that hurt worse, somehow.

  Patrick ran a finger along the back of Ilia’s neck. “I wanted to leave. I’m still scared that one of Nick’s guys will...whatever.”

  Ilia nodded. Felt guilty, like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He’d pushed that fear of Kysna away. Had tried to forget. But it had been a long time now. If Kysna was going to act, he’d had plenty of opportunity already. Maybe he’d gotten scared, after what had happened to Nick. Kysna had always been a coward, a follower. But Ilia tensed all the same, remembering Kysna pointing his finger at him. “Bang.”

  “I’d rather stay in town,” Patrick said. “It’s my home.”

  Ilia refused to be stupid enough to think Patrick might have stayed for him.

  “I don’t know where I’ll go.” Ilia’s voice was barely audible.

  “If I’m here a while,” Patrick said hesitantly, “could I come around sometimes? Or would you...I mean, could we meet up?”

  Ilia sighed, relief and joy so violent in him that he lost all sense of anything else. “Yes.”

  “Good.” Patrick tightened his arms around Ilia. Kissed him.

  Ilia froze.

  Thought about the consequences that just were.

  What would be the consequences for loving Patrick? For letting go of Mikhail?

  And how did he know if what he felt for Patrick was anything more than a desire to have someone who understood him?

  You promised you wouldn’t leave me behind.

  Fuck you; I don’t even know if I love you.

  I just know you promised.

  V

  The look Ilia’s mother gave Patrick as he was leaving was dark.