by Con Riley
Vanya tugs his scarf down. There’s nothing secret about his smile of greeting, and for once, he doesn’t look over his shoulder after Jason’s quick kiss of greeting.
He’s glowing instead and crowing over a slim package he slips from his jacket. He presses it into Jason’s hands, still warm from the heat of his body. “Look,” Vanya urges. “Look what I’m discover.” The hardback book Jason unwraps is tatty, its pages yellow at the edges, smelling a little musty. As gifts go, he’s had much more impressive. Still, that bubble of satisfaction only expands when Vanya adds, “Saw it and knew was perfect.”
“You got this for me?” The book falls open to show diagrams and line drawings. Travellers jostle them, but Jason’s too busy flipping pages to pay attention. The book describes a restoration journey, one man’s life-long process to rebuild a cottage so similar to Riversmeet that he can hardly believe it. “This is brilliant.”
“I’m know.” Pleasure stains Vanya’s cheeks. “Saw in shop.” He leans close and flips a few pages to another image. “Notice this”—he points at a fireplace in a deep recess—“and remember.” Maybe he isn’t aware of what it does to Jason each time he tries new English, but when he asks, “Is inglenook, yes?” with a nervous edge of question, that bubble inside fills Jason’s whole chest. He nods instead of answering as they find their seats on the train.
Vanya takes the book back as soon as they’re settled, turning a few pages at a time until he finds a section that he slowly reads aloud from.
Jason sits beside him, barely hearing his careful narration, too caught up in thinking.
Vanya said he was too busy for more clients yet he set aside time to scour shops for this? It’s a mental picture that cheers him, as charming as the deep line bisecting Vanya’s forehead when he reads like each word is important, each sentence holding value. Most of all, Jason decides as he slides their tickets out of his wallet for the inspector to clip, it’s simply very touching that despite knowing he wants for nothing, Vanya’s found him a perfect present.
All he wants is to do the same thing for him.
He slides a hand onto Vanya’s thigh and squeezes.
Vanya breaks off just long enough to smile before he continues, holding this frayed old book that Jason already knows he’ll keep forever, leaning against his shoulder as he continues reading. It’s a simple story of one man’s weekend project, but Vanya selects pages to read that mirror aspects of the cottage Jason’s already described renovating. He trips over some tricky sections but keeps going regardless.
His persistence is amazing.
It’s a thought that Jason carries all the way to Moreton-in-Marsh and then tucks tightly away when Chantel hops the stepping-stones to meet them.
“I thought you were going to miss it!” Her hug is fleeting. “Come on!” she exclaims, heading straight for the stables. “Come on!” she demands as if they drag their feet instead of running right beside her. Her third and final “come on” is a whisper at the stable half-gate.
Beyond it Lady labours.
Spending the evening watching a horse give birth isn’t what Jason expected from this visit. They’re here to check out the venue for the wedding—which draws ever closer—not to spend hours kneeling on prickly straw while Lady strains and paces. This is nowhere close to that plan, but he wouldn’t miss it.
It’s another gift, Jason decides. A form of reparation he easily yields to. There’s no hardship involved in making tea and toast while Chantel maintains a late-night vigil, just like it’s actually a pleasure to rig a heater for her mare as the temperature plummets.
The vet comes when Lady seems exhausted, as does Andrew—very late from town and harried, overwhelmed with gratitude when he sees the warm nest Jason’s made. Then he pales at the vet’s prognosis.
Lady is quite elderly to be a first-time mother.
They need to prepare for tough decisions.
It turns out that some gifts have an expensive price tag. Being there during that news is one Jason willingly pays when it means he’s there for both of them to lean on.
Thank God, he thinks when the small scar on Andrew’s lip whitens. Thank God that they had a chance to make up after he was such a dick for so long. And thank God Vanya helped him, or he might not be here at all.
Vanya reads from the book he’s brought from London. It’s a quiet distraction that Chantel responds to, helping him when he stumbles, falling into the role she must play daily at work, supporting kids with endless patience.
It’s past midnight before Lady gets with the program, at last, to tiredly shove out new life. There’s a moment of hurried action following a huge gush of water. Chantel soon sounds frantic, repeating her earlier refrain of come on when the foal fails to respond to her mother’s licks and nudges. “Come on,” she urges again, her voice stretched and shaky when the foal lies still. They all jump when she roars, “Oh, come on, you daft beggar!” before dissolving into sobs when the foal finally draws its first breath.
The next while is a mess of relief and congratulations. It takes time before Jason sees that Chantel wrestles with her phone, her hands shaking too hard to unlock it. Andrew takes it from her. He dials like he knows who she needs to call without asking, and then quietly says a few words before passing the phone over.
“Dad?” Chantel’s voice is a choked sob.
Jason busies himself with Vanya, changing Lady’s bedding rather than listen to a conversation that’s interspersed with raw emotion. Instead, he crouches as Vanya offers Lady a mint from his pocket. She lips softly at his palm and then cranes her neck to see her filly, her eyes wide like she can’t believe she made her.
“Oh!” Vanya’s smile is as shaky as the foal’s attempt to stand up. “You have best baby. Beautiful!”
“She is beautiful,” Chantel echoes behind them. Her voice shakes then steadies. “She’s so beautiful, Dad. Please, please do come to see her.”
It’s past two in the morning by the time Lady’s settled and they’re all back in the house. The kitchen’s quiet, the last tea and toast of the night eaten. Jason rinses mugs when Vanya comes downstairs, still damp from a quick shower.
“Where is everyone?” He looks out the window. “Everything okay with Mama and baby?”
“Lady’s fine, her foal too,” he quietly says. “Chantel crashed though. Andrew’s put her straight to bed.” Jason tugs Vanya close. “Are those my pyjama bottoms?” They’re certainly loose enough on Vanya to be his, giving way easily at the waist so Jason’s hands can slide in.
“Forgot to bring.” Vanya avoids his gaze like he’s embarrassed. There’s no need. He can have anything that he needs—spare jacket or old pyjamas, whatever Jason’s got that he wants, if that makes him happy.
Vanya’s surprised at the time on the kitchen wall clock. “Is late, but I’m feel wide awake.”
“It was quite the evening, but you’ll regret it in the morning if you don’t get to sleep soon. We’ve got a busy day planned.” Jason leads the way to the bedroom, where a single bedside lamp shines, shadows crowding around the gold glow it casts across the bedspread. “I know you probably don’t start clubbing until this time most evenings, but us country bumpkins need our sleep.”
He shushes Vanya’s confused laughter and points at the ceiling. “Not so loud. This place isn’t exactly soundproofed.” He strips down to boxers and a T-shirt while a creaking sound—low but repetitious—starts overhead. Vanya scoots in beside him to whisper, his words a warm gust compared to the coolness of the bedroom.
“I’m think Chantel isn’t sleepy either.” He leans over Jason, all shadowed smiles and teasing. “Sure Andrew is only a little older than you? Seems more energetic.”
“I’ll show you energetic.” It doesn’t take much effort to flip Vanya onto his back. He’s perfect like this, his head tilted as he grins, offering smile-shaped kisses. He’s busy too, pulling at Jason’s T-shirt. His back chills quickly once it’s gone, skin prickling with goose bumps until Vanya hauls the quilt over thei
r heads.
“Should be naked. Share body heat is best way to warm up.”
“I can think of better.” Jason pushes down the pyjama pants Vanya borrowed and lays between his spread legs. “Do you know what friction means?” He feels Vanya’s nod rather than sees it. “If only I could find two hard things to rub together, I could demonstrate another way to make heat….” Vanya’s stomach quivers under his hand—silent, repressed laughter. “We’d warm up so much faster.”
For a while, all is quiet beyond the ragged sound of breathing, Jason holding their cocks while they kiss and rock together. The quilt gets shoved down when sweat beads between them, Vanya’s grip on Jason’s shoulders tightening. He covers his mouth when Jason ducks under the covers again, spreading Vanya’s legs wide with his shoulders, a wet finger pressed to his hole while Jason starts to blow him.
His whole body jerks, and Jason rises to find Vanya tightly clutching a pillow. “Is this okay?” It’s the quietest question so far, the house silent now around them. “I don’t have to.” His finger slides and pushes—the most intimate of pressures—barely pressing inward. “I don’t even know if you want it this way.”
“Want it always with you.”
Jason stops for a second at hearing a word that changes meaning dependant on its spelling. Vanya must mean all ways. “Have you ever…?” When Vanya shakes his head, Jason sinks down the bed one more time, past Vanya’s cock, which shines with his spit and precome, then going even lower.
His mouth on Vanya’s balls causes a sound that’s quickly muffled, his tongue tracing the seam of his perineum provoking a groan that Jason’s quite proud of causing.
Vanya seems to try to keep the noise down, fairly successful until Jason presses a finger deep inside him, Vanya muffling his groans with a pillow, like he does his eventual climax.
He’s boneless when Jason strokes himself off, barely able to do more than smile when his chest and chin are both striped with Jason’s semen.
Jason switches the lamp off once they’re clean, the rise and fall of Vanya’s chest barely visible as his breathing slows and deepens. He’s about to move nearer when Vanya’s hand brushes against his, linking their fingers and pulling like he too feels the same urge to get even closer.
Jason falls asleep with one thought—always might be too soon for Vanya, but all ways he can give him.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Vanya makes himself useful the next morning. Cars clog the narrow lane to Riversmeet, bringing the children from Chantel’s classroom, all giddy with excitement to see her on the weekend. They bubble over with joy at getting to glimpse a brand-new foal who’s not even a day old. He herds them to the stable yard where they wait to take turns to peek at her from a distance. One boy needs more corralling than all the others. He’s quick to dash off, distracted and deaf to his father’s pleas that he calm down this minute, until Chantel comes out to find him.
“There you are!” She gets down to the child’s level, waiting until he makes eye contact. “I’ve been waiting for you, Alfie,” she adds instead of chiding. “I need someone I can trust to do something important.” She’s clear in her instruction, showing him how to scoop and then level off cups of feed before dropping them in a bucket. “This is special food. When you fill it to this line, we’ll both give it to Lady. She needs a treat after working so hard to have her baby. You know all about working hard, don’t you, Alfie?”
The kid’s chest puffing up is clear from where Vanya sits on straw bales telling a Russian story to all the other children.
“She’s so good with him,” he overhears from one parent. “I don’t know where she gets her patience.” Another mother agrees and tacks on, “You’re good with kids too.” Politeness doesn’t stop several of them from outright asking. “Are you a teacher as well, or a classroom assistant, like Miss Latham?”
“I….” It’s a straight question that’s hard to answer. Teaching is a dream he’s no closer to letting go now than when he first washed up in Britain. There’s no better occupation, he knows. No way he’d rather earn his living, if he still had the option. He settles on the closest thing to the truth. “Nearly a teacher,” he admits. They don’t need to know that it would take a shift in politics he can only dream of to return home safely for his final semester.
“I thought you must be,” another parent smugly states. “Is that how you and Miss Latham know each other?”
That’s much harder to answer.
Does he admit that he’s here with Jason?
His gaze flicks to the children. Telling parents he was gay at home could never, ever happen. If these parents were Russian, they might agree with the legislation that states he could corrupt their children, like any love that isn’t straight must somehow be twisted. But here… here could be different.
He excuses himself to the kitchen to gather shreds of bravery that feel very flimsy. When he returns, he passes out cups of tea, his hand shaking when he holds the empty tray to his chest like a shield. “I’m come here with Jason,” he admits. “He is best man.” His inhale shakes as much as his hands. “At wedding and… and for me.”
No one reacts with outright horror.
Only Alfie’s father seems disgruntled, a minority of one that Vanya can live with.
When they leave a half hour later, the parents all issue friendly goodbyes apart from that one man who stays for longer. Alfie’s father is watchful, hanging back in the kitchen while his wife fetches their son. He’s quizzing Vanya about his accent when the kitchen door opens.
Jason stands for a long moment looking this man over, his expression neutral in a way that’s foreign on him. He’s abrupt when he says, “Vanya’s Russian, Garry.” He’s no friendlier when he adds, “I heard him tell you so twice, so there’s no need to ask him for a third time, is there?”
There’s something deliberate about the way he stands next to Vanya, so close that their arms press together.
Garry’s thin smile tightens. He’s about the same age as Jason, Vanya guesses, although not half as vital. He’s better looking, perhaps, but there’s none of Jason’s kindness or warm humour. He’s faded in comparison, his shoulders somewhat slumping when Jason flatly states, “Vanya’s English is excellent, so I know you can’t have misunderstood him.” Jason snags Vanya’s hand in his. “He’d hardly be a success as a personal shopper if his clients couldn’t understand him.”
“Personal shopper? That’s funny,” Garry, whoever he is, acknowledges without a trace of humour. “He didn’t mention that earlier. I could have sworn he said he was a student teacher.” He sniffs, like that’s questionable as well. “Personal shopper, eh? I’m amazed he got a visa for that.”
“Visa?”
It’s only a small word.
Four individual letters that combine to blow his cover.
Vanya’s in a sunny kitchen not kicked to his knees in a dark alley, but he’s never felt so frightened.
Fear dries his mouth in an instant, but his palms go clammy, sliding against Jason’s until he holds on tighter.
Garry continues, each word adding weight that would make Vanya stagger if Jason didn’t prop him. “Russia isn’t in the European Union, is it? It’s never been part of the common market, so I’m surprised he got a work visa to do something unimportant.”
This is the moment Vanya’s dreaded, his tissue of lies worn so thin a stranger tears right through it.
His heart stutters and stops.
Jason simply chuckles.
He snags Andrew’s car keys from the table and pulls until Vanya follows. “You’d be surprised how in demand personal shoppers are,” is all he offers over his shoulder. Then he adds, “So in demand, we have to leave right now to collect another one from the station. She’s brought the wedding dress down for a fitting, but don’t you worry, Garry, I’ll make sure to check her passport.” He’s outright rude for the first time since Vanya’s met him. “I’d say it was good to see you again, but I think we both know I’d be
lying. What’s it been? Six years since we last saw each other?” He pauses before adding, “Nice wife and kid you got there. Been together for long?”
For some reason, that makes Garry shrink. “Nine years,” he says faintly. “We’re very happy.”
“Me too.” Vanya barely hears Jason add a quietly voiced, “At last,” while his heart restarts to pound so loudly, like he barely hears the song playing in the background as Jason drives towards Moreton-in-Marsh. It takes a while before he believes Jason isn’t going to stop humming along with the car radio to finally quiz him.
He’ll spill every single lie of omission and half-truth told as a diversion if Jason will only ask a direct question.
Miles pass and it doesn’t happen.
Despite his veiled anger in the kitchen, Jason seems relaxed and happy.
Maybe this would be a good time to take the initiative and blurt out the whole truth—Vanya only straddles a thin line between legal and illegal until his plea for asylum is granted. Once he gets that, he’s safe. But if anyone finds out he’s taken money from Jason while waiting, he’s at real risk of forced repatriation.
Before he can open his mouth to say so, Jason reminds him of a very good reason to stay silent.
“Has Anna texted you to say whether she’s arrived at the station yet?”
Gradually, only very gradually, Vanya lets go of his death grip on the seatbelt and slowly pulls out his phone. “No. There is no message.” His stomach lurches when he thinks about her—blurting out the whole truth will only affect Anna as well. If he comes clean, he’ll have to confess where they’re currently living or go back to the hostel where her safety is much more compromised than his. He pictures that used condom on her pillow, her door hanging from its hinges.
This wedding will pay for the rest of their deposit.
Another week or two at the most and Jason won’t ever need to find out.
It’s a decision that’s validated when Anna gets off the train. She’s clearly harried, struggling with the dress she carries and bags slung over her shoulder. He slips into Russian as he takes them from her. “How did you manage all these on your own? Where’s Kaspar?”
