by Harper Fox
“Did he say why?”
“Oh, it freaked him out, I suppose. We’ve never had a holiday together, and he’d have had to tell his family about us. They’re Catholics. So is he.”
“So why put him through it?”
For a second I was genuinely distracted. I hadn’t expected automatic sympathy, but… “What do you mean?”
“Well—did he want to come? Whose idea was it?”
“Mine. I…I thought it was about time.”
“Is that how you put it to him?”
No, of course not. I wanted to protest; to defend myself. Why, I didn’t know. I respected Art, and was properly grateful that he’d risked his life for me, but I’d only just met him. I didn’t have to fear his judgment, did I? I wished I couldn’t perceive the tiny change in the pressure of his arm around my shoulders—the difference between an embrace and a good medic’s duty of keeping me warm.
“Because if you’d said that to me, I’d have heard it as a make-or-break. An ultimatum.”
“No! I didn’t say that. I just invited him.” Come on, lover, was what I had said. Now or never. But that had been a joke… “For God’s sake!” I exploded, flinching away. “It’s been three years. He needs to grow up and get over it. It’s the twenty-first century, not 1950s rural Ireland.”
“Devout, is he?”
“Totally. That’s the problem.”
“And yet somehow for the past three years he’s been having an affair with you. Systematically violating his principles for you. Is he a hypocrite?”
“No!” The word had stung me like a whip. I could have punched Art for using it, even rhetorically. “Not Piers. He’s solid gold.”
“Yeah, I’d agree. He was making tough decisions every day, just to be with you. You sure he’s the one who needs to grow up?”
I scrambled away from him, as far as I could within the confines of the cave. To be challenged like this—in these circumstances—was absurd. I’d never considered my own behaviour in my relationship with Piers. Why should I? I’d been the one offering all the love. All he’d had to do was reach out and take it. “I don’t have to defend myself to you.”
“No. No, of course you don’t.”
The severity was gone from his tone. I noticed belatedly that he too was grazed and bleeding. That I was able to see him at all because he’d had the presence of mind to grab the lantern before we ran. I thought of how it would have been if he hadn’t, and my breath caught in my throat. “You don’t have to worry,” I told him hoarsely. “Piers saw the light. He’s marrying his girlfriend.”
“Shit. Okay. Gavin, come and sit back down here.”
“No. I’m all right. You’re right. I fucked it all up. I…”
“I mean it.” There was a new note in his voice. He just looked tired now. Tired and sad, and as if, deep down beneath the armour of his duty, he might be frightened too. “You need to conserve your strength. And—and your body warmth. Come here.”
He wasn’t a man who hesitated easily. As soon as I heard the gap, the thing he’d missed out or thought better of, my mind raced to fill it. The process didn’t take long. I was breathing hard again, and not from fear or rage. The effort of my lungs was doing me less good. “Are we running out of air?”
“No. And we won’t, as long as nobody runs around panting like an Alsatian. Do you understand?”
“Oh, perfectly. We’re screwed—just not yet.”
“Lance will find us long before we are. Come here, son.”
How could he sound so tender? He hardly knew me. He was holding out his hand.
“I don’t want to die in here.”
“Don’t be a drama queen. Nobody’s going to die.”
“You don’t get it.” I lurched upright and planted my palms on the crushing, malevolent, implacable rock an inch above my head. “I can’t be in here. I have to get out.”
“Oh, dear.” He got up and stood in front of me. He sounded dismayed but calm, as if this—my life-or-death panic—was all in a day’s work for him. Something he’d seen coming. I wanted to prove him wrong. Surely I was better. Braver. The next breath I took felt like I’d had to suck it through a sponge, and I saw sparks then flashing scarlet.
He caught me before I hit the wall. He knocked me off balance with a practised shove and dumped me down onto my belly. When I flipped over—ready to kill him, myself, anyone rather than endure an instant more of captivity—he landed on me, pinning me down. This time his slap was far from light. I lay in the wake of it, gasping. “Next time I’ll have to knock you out,” he warned. His face was a ferocious blank. “We are low on air. There’s more coming in from somewhere or we’d be dead by now, but it’s not much. Do you understand?”
I nodded. The panic was ebbing from my limbs, leaving something worse in its wake. Despair was one of the deadly sins, Piers had told me. Desperare, in good Church Latin—to lose hope; come to the conclusion that no-one—not even God—could aid you. I had thought it bloody harsh, to call that a sin. People got to that stage every day.
Exactly. We’re such frail things, Gav. So easy to knock the trust and hope out of us. There has to be something to make us fight.
I agreed, but I didn’t see why it had to be a punitive religious law. I wondered what it was for Art, now straddling me, gazing down at me sternly. “Lance will find us,” he repeated, and I got my answer.
“Is he your partner?”
“Yes. For many years.”
“I mean your lover.”
“That too. Can I let you go now?”
“Yes. Please don’t, though. Oh God, Art. Please don’t.”
He lifted me carefully into his arms. My mouth found his and he pushed me back for a second, then groaned and sought me for himself. I buried my hand in his hair’s rough silk. Shuddering, he kissed me, his fingers clenching on the collar of my shirt. He laid us down on the debris-strewn floor. Dust and small stones were still falling—seeing this by lamplight, I choked in terror, but he hushed me. “No. Look at me. Just look at me.”
His clear grey eyes, his smile, were enough to stop the roof from caving in. They would hold up the sky. I imagined him as Orion, or Bootes, the shepherd-god who bore his namesake star Arcturus, stretched out across the starry night, and I seized him. I was good at short, sweet sex. I’d never known anything but, having come a virgin to Piers’ embrace, not that I’d ever had the grace to admit it, letting him think the brusqueness and lack of technique were all down to him. “Piers!”
“That’s right. Think of him.”
“I want to see him again.”
“You will.”
“In this world, not some convenient bloody afterlife!”
“Yes.” Art gave a rumble of laughter and covered me with his body, pressing me down warm and tight. “In this world, if you don’t have a heart attack. Hold on to me.”
“How does…” My numbed fingers slipped on toggles and zips. “How does this jumpsuit undo?”
“Would take a week to show you. Let me.”
He was blessedly quick and efficient about it. One zip then another, then he turned his attentions to my less complicated clothing and I arched up hungrily, lifting my hips. My cock stiffened straight into his hand when he closed it on me. Need shot through me, hard as bones, bright and cold as diamonds. I wanted to feel him, to know he was turned on by this too, not just giving me some desperate last-ditch comfort. I knocked his grasp away and took hold of his muscled backside. Oh, I shouldn’t have doubted. His shaft drove hard against mine and he began to thrust at me, slowly at first, building up quick into a powerful grind. He buried his face against my neck. He whispered a name—not mine, and that didn’t matter. I could offer the same escape back to him. For these few hot seconds I could be his Lance.
He came, shuddering, and the crushing heat-flash brought me over too. I rode the wave as hard and long as I could, keeping him with me, wrapping my legs round his thighs.
Afterward I only wanted sleep. There would come
a moment—I could feel it near me, an unseen door—when exhaustion would let me go. The air in the cave was very bad now, dead and depleted of oxygen. I fought the tide. I didn’t want to leave Art here alone.
“No,” he whispered, brushing the fringe back from my brow. “It’s okay. You let go and sleep now. Lance will find us. Lance will come.”
Chapter Four
And so he did. Like the chorus in a ballad or a fairytale prince he did, like a knight completing his quest at the appointed time. My next waking breath was sweet and cold. I opened my eyes onto starlight. If I’d dared imagine rescue, I might have expected something different—paramedics, flashing lights, the throb of a helicopter—but the night was still and silent. There was only this one man, patiently lifting rocks from the roof of the tomb. Art was on his feet and helping from below, stone by stone. After a moment Lance stopped and looked at me. I could just make out his features in the lantern’s uncertain gold. His expression was grave and intent, but lit from within by joy. “Art,” he said. “I think your sleeping beauty’s coming round.”
I wished I’d been awake to see their moment of reunion. At the same time I was glad I’d slept through it; I’d stolen enough from them already. From Lance. “Oh, good,” Art said. He moved one last rock and turned to me smiling. “I told you so, didn’t I? We were only a few feet down. Gavin Lowden, Lance Whitley, Northumberland’s finest rescue man. Can you stand up?”
I could, with his help. Lance was holding down a hand for me, a greeting that became a cable tow as soon as he had a grip on me. Art hoisted me from below, and between them they lifted me up through the ragged hole in the hillside, over the stones and soil and into the beautiful night.
I knelt in the snow. I couldn’t get any farther. The whole Tyne valley lay before me, carved out by stupendous glacial floods, peaceful now in the coils of its silver snaking misfit river. The moon had set but the skies were so clear I could see every farmhouse, every drystone wall and snow-burdened hawthorn, by the diamond light of the stars. My breath came and went shallowly.
A hand brushed my hair. A blanket, thick and warm, dropped around my shoulders. Art said gently, “We sometimes call them newborns, the people we’ve rescued. Don’t worry. Soon it’ll all look ordinary to you again.”
I didn’t think so. I didn’t want it to, though I’d be grateful when it all stopped spinning. I’d been taking so much for granted. Distractedly I listened to Lance and Art packing up their gear, the low murmur of their conversation. Some of it was technical, facts and figures. Some of it was lovers’ shorthand, peaceful and contented. Art said, “Let me see your watch. Oh, yeah, I thought so. Happy Christmas.”
“Is it that time of year again?”
They were kissing. I didn’t have to look to know that. Lance chuckled—amused, remonstrating—and I guessed they didn’t often let themselves show so much in front of their newborns. “It’s okay,” Art whispered. “Bats for our team, this one.”
“He never does. Is that why you dragged him out?”
“Yeah, I’d have left him to rot down there otherwise, balance things up a bit. Oh, Lannie…”
I let them fade out. There was a car parked at the bottom of the hill. I didn’t know why I’d just noticed it or how long it had been there. Its headlights were on, mutely questioning the night. I didn’t recognise it. I did recognise the tall, lean figure getting out to stand in the road.
I staggered upright. I started walking, then I ran, stumbling and plunging thigh-deep in the snow. Piers remained motionless by the car. He made no move to intercept me, and my heart almost failed me until I got close enough to see the tears on his face. That was a first. I’d never seen him cry, not in our darkest hours. Not in our fights about religion. Not even when—what had Arthur said?—when I’d given him my ultimatum. I ran and ran, and crashed to a halt at the bottom of the hill a few yards away from him. “Piers!”
“Jesus Christ, Gav. Are you all right?”
That was a new one, as well. He never took anyone’s name in vain. Perhaps this time it counted as a prayer. Love and rage collided in my chest, snarling, competing for space with my heaving lungs. He’d dumped me. But here he was at one o’clock on Christmas morning, the remains of mortal fear still plain to be seen on his beautiful face. He put out a hand. Oh, whatever the hell had gone wrong between us, he couldn’t be lost to me! I wouldn’t allow it. I got ready to jump into his arms.
For some reason I noticed he was standing by the car’s passenger side. He didn’t like to drive, I knew. He could do it, and very well, but hated the pressure, the potential for doing harm. It was something else we’d fought about. Abilities were there to be used. I’d told him he should toughen up.
And I did recognise the damn car. A green vintage Morris. I’d seen a lot of it three years ago, while Gwen had been weaving back and forth between her own flat and Piers’, negotiating the painful end of their relationship. She’d done it quietly. Neither of us had wanted to upset Piers with scenes or stridency. Nevertheless I’d been pleased to see her taillights receding in the rain on the day she’d come to pick up the last of her things. I’d taken Piers’ sensitive, large-knuckled hand in mine, and he’d returned my grip with bonecrushing force.
There she was behind the wheel. It would have been easier if she’d looked at all smug or triumphant. But I’d spared her any kind of victory dance, and her face was grimly set, her gaze focused off down the road as if she’d rather not have been there at all.
I forced my breath into rhythm. I shoved my hands into my pockets, and after a moment Piers retracted the grasp he’d been holding out to me. “It’s okay,” I said. “She doesn’t have to hide in there.”
“She isn’t hiding. It’s cold. She’s been waiting.”
Ignoring him, I leaned to glance through the windshield. “Hi, Gwen.”
She got out briskly and came to stand beside Piers in the snow, frowning, not returning my gaze. She was as neat and well scrubbed as ever. No, that wasn’t fair. She was very pretty, pretty enough not to need makeup, and I could hardly hate her for being clean. We’d never hated each other at all. We’d even had some fun, shopping together for Piers, who left to his own devices would never darken the doorway of a clothing store, until she worked out that my intimate knowledge of his tastes and measurements came from more than friendly observation. And even after that she’d stayed polite. I had to manage at least as much myself. “I understand congratulations are in order.”
Her blue eyes came up flashing. “Oh, for God’s sake, Gavin. I didn’t come here to—”
“Wow. Listen to you two, blaspheming away here tonight. Do you get time off at Christmas? Bit of a special dispensation?”
“You’d make a bloody saint swear. Piers thought you were lost. Dead!”
“Well, I’m not, as you can see. Really, Gwen, I’m pleased for you. I keep forgetting—are you the Durham archdeacon’s great-niece or granddaughter? Because I always felt bad breaking that up, you know—Northumberland’s most prominent Catholic family uniting with the Anglican Leon-Graingers. Like Montagues and Capulets, only minus the bloodshed—”
“Gavin, don’t be a bitch.”
I blinked. I doubted she’d ever used the word outside a veterinary surgery. That was the trouble with people who seldom swore—the impact took the wind from your sails. And bitch was harsh, wasn’t it? I played back my last few lines to see if they qualified. Well, maybe, from her point of view. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“You damn well should be. Do you know what you’ve put Piers through? He didn’t deserve that. And no matter what he’s told you, we’re not—”
“Gwen,” Piers said suddenly. “Be quiet. Get back into the car.”
We both turned and stared at him. If anything was less likely than strong language from Gwen, it was an order from my gentle theologian. A serious one, too. Thunderclouds had gathered on his brow. There was a light in his eyes I’d never seen before. Clearly it was new to Gwen, too: she swallowed whateve
r her reply would have been and turned away.
Piers waited till she’d closed the car door after her. Then he reached out, silently fastened a bone-bruising grip on my arm, and marched me off through the snow. There was a gate in the drystone wall a few yards away. He pushed me up against it then let me go, stonily disregarding my effort to steady myself. “Don’t speak to her like that again.”
“Hey, she called me the bitch, not—”
“Gavin, I am absolutely serious. Did anyone ever speak like that to you?”
“What, during the time of your custodianship? No, they didn’t. You wouldn’t have let them. I get it, lover—all rights and protection transferred. You’re going to marry her.” I heard myself. It was like a kick in the lungs. “My God, Piers! How… How the hell has this happened? Why?”
“You want one reason?”
“It would be a start, yeah.”
“Because I am what I am.”
I fought a smile. He was perhaps the only man left on the planet who could still deliver that line in total sobriety. Not that he hadn’t loved La Cage, in his own quiet way: his eyes briefly kindled at the memory, then darkened again. “I don’t mean gay,” he said tiredly. “I mean Catholic. I’m not going to change in my beliefs.”
“Oh, Piers. I don’t see how you can reconcile it.”
“Because a gay Catholic isn’t a Catholic at all? That’s right. I’ve heard it a thousand times. From my family, from priests, from the Bible. And you know what?” He folded his arms over his chest. I noticed belatedly that he was in his smart shirt and dinner jacket, with a coat thrown over the top, as if he had dropped everything and run. “I was dealing with it. Not very fast, but I was getting there. The thing that broke my heart was hearing it—over and over and over again—from you.”
“What?” There was a tangle of barbed wire round the gatepost. When I tried to straighten up—to go to him, put my hand over his mouth, make him swallow his last words back into oblivion—I caught my wrist on it and lapsed into stillness, bloody stupid ram in the thicket that I was. “Piers. No.”
