Give Yourself Away

by Barbara Elsborg

  “Didn’t matter. There was no money for it, no time. Ironic that I had plenty of time to practice when I was with Liam. He encouraged me because it kept my body slim and young. He even bought me a dancer’s belt, a sort of padded thong, because he said I looked… Yeah, well. How did you get out of the house?”

  March clasped Caleb’s hand. “Let’s go into my room and lie down while we talk.”

  Caleb allowed himself to be pulled up and March tugged him across the landing.

  Is it different now? Does he still want me? What’s he thinking?

  Now Caleb was recovering from the shock, he wondered if this was his reward for all that had happened. He’d wanted Baxter so much back then, and here he was, more than a friend, exactly what he’d dreamed of.

  They lay face to face on March’s bed, with March clutching his hand.

  March took a deep breath. “After Liam dragged you downstairs then went looking for me, I couldn’t find a way out of the house. Once I’d spoken to you in the cellar, I heard him coming back and I ran upstairs and hid in the attic. There was a small door into the eaves and I crawled behind a chimney breast. I heard him walk into the room on the other side of the plasterboard. The next thing I heard was the sound of liquid sloshing.

  “When he left, I crawled out. He’d thrown petrol everywhere. If he’d lit it then, I’d have died, but he started the fire on the ground floor. Even so, by the time I reached the next floor down, the stairs were in flames. I bolted from one bedroom to another. Too high to jump from a window, but I had no choice.

  “I stood on the sill and threw myself at a pine tree. I tumbled through the branches as I fell and they slowed my fall. I hit the ground hard and was cut and bruised. I couldn’t believe I was alive.

  “The house was an inferno. Smoke and flames pouring from the doors and windows, and the sound…it was like a beast roaring. I tried to drag away everything he’d stacked against that cellar window, but some of it was too heavy. Stone slabs I couldn’t shift. And it was so hot. Smoke spiraled through the gaps and I knew if you were in there, you were probably unconscious. I ran around screaming for you until I had no voice left.” He took a deep breath.

  “Then I backed away, and sat and watched the house burn. That was the worst moment of my life, thinking you were in there and I couldn’t do a thing. I thought I’d killed you because I ran and left you behind.”

  Caleb took his hand. “He’d put tape on my mouth, tied me up and stuffed me inside a sleeping bag in his van. I heard a roaring sound as he drove away, but I had no idea he’d set fire to the house until he showed me the newspaper cutting. Until then, I thought you’d gotten away, that you’d rescue me.” He smiled. “I had to wait a long time until you swam into that cave.”

  March wanted to wrap himself around Caleb and never let him out of his sight. If he hadn’t leapt from the tree, if he hadn’t leapt from the boat… It was as if the reason for his innate recklessness had just been revealed.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t see Liam for what he was,” March said. “I could only think about those fucking fishing rods, and you didn’t even like fishing.”

  Caleb squeezed his fingers. “Liam taking us was not your fault.”

  “I’m three years older than you. I should have known better. I’m sorry I got you into that mess, sorry I couldn’t get you out of it.” The guilt that had gnawed at him all these years had somehow just grown worse.

  “I wouldn’t rather have been dead. Especially now we’ve found each other.”

  March groaned. “Where did he take you?”

  “To somewhere he’d been preparing when he wasn’t with us. Big room with a bathroom. No windows but more comfortable. Heating. A disused part of a Somerset boarding school. Seems strange now to think that not so far away there were boys my own age living normal lives while I danced and Liam—”

  “And you stayed there all that time?”

  Caleb nodded.

  “Twelve fucking years? Did he never let you out?”

  “In the last few months I was held, yes, but only after he’d drugged me.”

  “The food.”

  Caleb nodded. “He didn’t dope the food much when I was younger. There was no need. But as I grew older and stronger, he gave me sedatives before he—” He pulled at his hair. “How did my parents handle my disappearance? I know my dad died in a car crash. I know my mum killed herself. Was it because of me?”

  “I don’t know.” March chewed his lip. “She didn’t cope well without your dad. Ah shit. Maybe you don’t know all of it.”

  “What?”

  “Your mum and dad didn’t like all the media attention. I think they…they thought you were dead, that Liam had assaulted you and killed you because it was too risky to keep you alive.”

  “Great,” Caleb muttered.

  “In a way it was easier to think you were dead because the alternative…” March swallowed hard. “But when your dad died, he was with my father. They were looking for you and there was an accident.”

  Caleb groaned. “Was my dad driving?”

  March nodded.

  “Oh God.”

  “It was my fault,” March whispered. “My parents were out when I answered a call from a reporter who said there’d been a sighting of you in Bridgwater. I wanted to find you myself, wanted to be the fucking hero, wanted my face to be the first one you saw. I called your dad and asked if he’d take me to the town and he said yes.

  “But my dad came home before your dad arrived, and though I pleaded, my dad wouldn’t let me go. Instead, to make me happy, he went. They were speeding; the car flipped and was hit by a truck. They both died at the scene.”

  “Oh God, your lovely father. Shit. Had my dad been drinking?”

  March nodded. “A blood test said so, but he didn’t seem drunk when I saw him. It was still my fault. If I hadn’t pleaded with him, he—”

  “Not your fault,” Caleb said. “No one’s to blame for any of this except Liam and my dad for being a drunken idiot.”

  “But—”

  Caleb put his finger on March’s lips. “I didn’t mind as much as I thought I would about my parents. It made it easier somehow to start all over again, but I minded about you.”

  March released a shaky breath. “How come you didn’t know any of this? You could have looked on the Internet.”

  “I didn’t even know what the Internet was.”

  “But you learned.”

  “Yes.”

  March knew there was something Caleb wasn’t telling him. “How did you get away from Liam? Did the police find you? How did you manage to keep it out of the papers?”

  “The police don’t know I’m free.”

  March pulled back, his eyes wide with shock. “What do you mean?”

  “I didn’t want to be in the papers or gawked at on TV. I didn’t want to be known as ‘the boy in the cellar’ or whatever stupid name they’d come up with. I didn’t want people speculating on what Liam did, whether I enjoyed it, bonded with him, loved him. I worried what people would say. I wanted an ordinary life, to get a job, find someone to love and just…live. So I reinvented myself and started over again. A new name, and new eyes for a new world.”

  March knew he wasn’t hearing everything, but he was scared to push too hard, too soon. “Twelve years and you just started again?”

  “What choice did I have?”

  The bleakness in Caleb’s voice bit into his gut. Would Caleb tell him everything? Do I want him to? He couldn’t believe Caleb hadn’t gone to the police.

  “Is Liam the one who attacked the guys you’ve been with?”

  “He’s dead.”

  Thank fuck for that. But… “Sure?”

  Caleb’s hesitation worried him. “I saw his body. It’s not him behind the attacks.”

  “Did you kill him?” Marc
h asked, unsure what he wanted Caleb’s answer to be, if he wanted to know the truth.

  “In a way.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Before March could ask Caleb what he meant by “in a way”, Caleb kissed him. He hadn’t expected it and March’s slight flinch sent Caleb skittering from the bed. March leapt after him and pinned him against the wall, his forearms resting on either side of Caleb’s head.

  “Sorry.” Caleb kept his gaze down.

  “No,” March said. “You do not apologize to me.”

  Caleb slowly raised his head. “It’s okay if you don’t want me now. Anyone would find it hard to accept the things I did…was forced to do.”

  March gaped at him. “Why wouldn’t I want you? Christ, I wanted you when you were eleven years old, though I’d never have touched you. Seeing you, having you here is like all my Christmases and birthdays have come at once. I am so…happy I could fucking burst. Except guilt is eating me up.”

  The raw need in Caleb’s eyes almost broke March’s heart.

  “You wanted me when I was eleven?” Caleb asked. “Then how could you not know you’re gay now?”

  March exhaled. “I did know. You got the wrong end of the stick and I let you. I was in denial. I think it was guilt. I felt guilty for thinking about you in that way when I was fourteen, more guilt piled on because you’d stayed and I’d escaped. The weight of it grew when I finally accepted I wasn’t going to find you, that if I didn’t stop looking I was going to drive myself mad. I feel pathetic saying it fucked me up when I know you had to deal with far worse, but it did. My life had turned upside down. If you weren’t there, I didn’t want anyone, not even as a friend.”

  “But everyone liked you.”

  “But I no longer liked them. I didn’t want friends anymore. I didn’t want anyone. If I had feelings about a guy, I suppressed them. But once I saw you…maybe my subconscious made the connection that I couldn’t. You were the trigger to make me accept what I am. I was floundering and you saved me. If I hadn’t been the one to pull you from the water, if I hadn’t been on call…Christ. This is the way it should be. Me and you. Together finally.” And if I have my way, forever.

  “I’m broken,” Caleb whispered.

  “No you’re not. You’re brave and strong.”

  Caleb gave a half laugh. “I think you might be confusing me with you.”

  March shook his head. “I’m not sure I could have survived what you did. I nearly didn’t survive anyway.” He lifted one arm from the wall and turned his wrist to show Caleb.

  Shivers ran riot over his skin as he remembered that night. “My mother found me lying on the bathroom floor in a pool of blood. My dad was dead. Something else that was my fault. If you were dead, then I wanted to be dead too. Apparently you have to slice down your arm to make sure. Just as well I didn’t know.”

  “Oh shit.” Caleb rubbed the scar with his thumb then kissed it.

  “Did you ever try to kill yourself?”

  “I wasn’t brave enough.”

  “The braver thing was to stay alive.” March stared at him, still struggling to believe this was happening. “I can’t get my head around what twelve years of… How did you cope when you got out? All the things we have now that we didn’t have then? How can you bear to let anyone touch you? How can you bear to let me touch you?”

  Caleb’s jaw twitched. “I coped because the alternative was retreating into myself, and after twelve years of that, I’d had enough. I emerged hooked on drugs and I didn’t even know what they were. Probably just as well.

  “I was scared of my shadow, scared of the dark, scared of the light. I found it hard to talk to people, to even pass the time of day. There were long periods when I didn’t speak at all. I had to practice talking by asking strangers the time, just to get used to the sound of my voice. I didn’t know how to have a conversation about ordinary things.”

  “Hard to shut you up now.” March cringed. I’m joking about this?

  Caleb rubbed his thumb along March’s jawline. “Don’t start double thinking everything you say. It is hard to shut me up now. I went from hardly talking at all to chattering all the time. I struggled to find that balance that comes naturally to most people. Still do.”

  “I don’t want to upset—”

  “Then just be you. That’s all I want.”

  March tried to smile.

  “I saw a psychologist for a while,” Caleb said. “I didn’t tell him everything, just that I’d suffered long-term abuse as a child. That my dad hit me and my mum let him. He gave me coping mechanisms, ways to deal with my panic attacks—flicking an elastic band on my wrist, stuff like that—and he helped me draw up a plan of action to get my life on track. He warned me not to rush into a relationship and I laughed. The thought of anyone touching me made me quake.

  “But I wanted to be with someone. I was desperate to find a decent man, someone the opposite of Liam, but I had to stick to one-night stands. When I let myself try for more with Simon, it was too soon. I didn’t know how to handle his jealousy. I didn’t know how to handle him.

  “After he died, that was when I went back to one-night stands with anonymous men and I liked that better. I could pretend they wanted me for more than sex, pretend they loved me just for those snatched minutes or hours. But what was important to me was that they let me go. They didn’t make me do anything. They expected nothing of me, most of them not even my phone number.

  “Don’t get the idea that I slept around, I didn’t, but sometimes I needed to be held. It was nearly three years before I risked my heart again on Mike. Another mistake. Maybe I’m too damaged to be with anyone.”

  “That’s not true. You are incredible,” March said. “You’re a survivor. I think you’re the strongest person I’ve ever met.” He panicked at the thought of Caleb walking away.

  “I was a weedy, gay eleven-year-old in love with a fourteen-year-old I thought was oblivious to how I felt, though sometimes when you looked me I wondered if you knew. I adored the ground you walked on, clichéd as that sounds. I survived because of you. You kept me going when I began to fall. Even when I gave up believing you’d find me, when I finally accepted you were dead, my memories of you stayed in my heart, and the little flame of hope that thinking of you gave me was never entirely extinguished.”

  March’s heart felt as if it were being squeezed into his throat.

  “Liam used me in every way you can imagine and a whole lot more you won’t be able to imagine. Twelve years with the same guy. Longer than a lot of marriages last.” Caleb gave a short laugh.

  “When and if you want to tell me what he did, then tell me,” March said. “But I need to understand why you think you killed him. I want to know who’s stalking you. I appreciate how difficult all that might be, so I want you to know that I’m here and that I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait until you’re ready. There’s no pressure. However long it takes.”

  He leaned in, pressed his lips against Caleb’s and willed him to respond because he knew this was a tipping point. He’d stay and they’d face this together, or Caleb would run and March would spend the rest of his life trying to find him again. Tell him.

  March pulled back. “Don’t run. Don’t make me spend the rest of my life looking for you. I want to hold you. I need to hold you.”

  “I should shower,” Caleb said.

  “Mine’s bigger.”

  Caleb slid his hand onto March’s cock. “I think you’ll find mine is.”

  A laugh burst from March’s throat. “In your dreams.”

  March dropped his arms and Caleb pushed his fingers into March’s hands. “Show me how much bigger yours is,” Caleb said. “Obviously I’m talking about the shower.”

  “Let me start the water running so it’s not cold when we get in.”

  He didn’t think Caleb would run. He didn’t want h
im to, but one thing he knew was that he couldn’t force him to stay. Caleb had to want to be with him or March had to let him go, much as he knew how difficult that would be. He’d told Caleb he’d spend his life looking for him, but he didn’t want to stalk him.

  By the time March had shucked off his clothes, the water was hot. He moved around the curved-glass wall and tipped his head up to the flow. When there was still no sign of Caleb after a couple of minutes, he began to worry.

  Then the bathroom door opened and Caleb walked in naked, his fingers opening and closing at his sides.

  March blinked water out of his eyes. It was the first time he’d seen Caleb naked in the light.

  “You sure?” March asked. Am I crazy? Isn’t this what I wanted?

  His already hard cock hardened more at the sight of Caleb coming toward him, all long limbs and fluid grace. He was lean and beautiful. His shoulders weren’t broad, but were in proportion to his narrow waist and trim hips. March stared at him, trying not to let his gaze linger on the puckered scars. He still struggled to get his head around what he’d learned over the last hour.

  Caleb opened the shower door and stepped inside, but kept his back to the wall. March reached out and trailed his thumbs down the slight depression between Caleb’s pecs and spread his hands over his ribs. When his fingers drifted to the crease of Caleb’s groin, Caleb’s head fell back against the wall.

  “You look perfect. You feel perfect,” March said.

  He ran his thumbs up and down the delicate skin on the inside of Caleb’s hips and then around to clasp Caleb’s butt.

  “I’m not,” Caleb whispered, his hair dripping down his face.

  “Not what?” March’s thought process had come unraveled.

  “Perfect.”

  “You are to me. You’re the boy I lost. The man I want.” March leaned in and kissed him.

  A choked moan escaped from Caleb’s throat and March swallowed it. He ground himself against Caleb, fucking his mouth with his tongue, then let Caleb do the same. March licked Caleb’s throat, blinking as the water splashed his face.