Won't Be Fooled Again

by C F White

  Drooping his shoulders, Kez exhaled a weary puff of air. He might have known she’d have had something to do with this. It angered him in a way he hadn’t felt in years. The unjustness of it all.

  “They cornered me. As soon as I moved in from the halfway house, as soon as I was ready to pick my life back up, they cornered me. First, I got a beating. Out of nowhere. I’m lucky I weren’t knifed, to be honest. They wanted to send me home and tell Mum what would happen if she didn’t pay.” Callum scrubbed two hands down his face. “Didn’t work though, did it? ’Cause she weren’t there. She didn’t clean me up. I did it myself, knowing this was going to happen again and again unless I paid up. I didn’t have that sorta money, Kez. I barely had enough to make ends meet. I was using the food banks most nights.”

  “You could have gone to the police.” Kez kept his voice light, even if inside he was a ball of swirling rage.

  Callum snorted. “Sure. And that would go down so well. Ex-con, two years behind for possession, gets beaten up by the local drug gang for not paying a debt. You think they’ll protect me, do ya? You think that’s how it works?”

  Kez bit his lip. It was futile to argue the pros and cons of going to the authorities. He’d lived that life. Not outright, but indirectly. He’d seen the hurt and anguish that drugs had caused from users, to sellers, to those unfortunately surrounded by both due to their status in the social housing. An endless cycle of pain.

  “I thought I had it all sorted.” Callum dug fingers into his eyes. “All I had to do was one hold. Look after one lot. Hand it to the next bloke. It was crossing borders, OT—out of town—transferring a new order out of London. All my involvement was to keep hold of it until the sellers came by. I’d get all debt signed off. I wasn’t planning to sell it. Just pass it over to those that did.”

  “It’s still possession, Cal. You know that!”

  “But it was one lot. I got given an egg filled with ready-to-go packs. Two hours tops, they said.” Callum bashed his head against the fridge, the bottles of chutneys inside clanging together. “I would have been clean free. Not a trace on me. I didn’t even touch the fucking egg! They brought it in. They put it down. I waited.”

  “What happened?”

  “The fire, Kez. The fucking fire happened.” Callum stood so close to Kez that Kez could smell the stagnant remnants of their earlier session and it did things to his messed-up mind he didn’t have words for. As Callum rested his forehead against Kez’s, his breath trickled to fizz on Kez’s tongue. “I think it saved me. I thought it had anyway. It meant I didn’t touch it. I didn’t pass it on. And it got me back to you.”

  “But they found you.” The voice of reason was old Kez. And reality.

  “Looks like. I got no idea how. I left no trace. Why they would even think to come here…” He stepped back. “Did you tell anyone I was here?”

  “Auntie.”

  “Shit.” Callum scraped his hair back. “Anyone else?”

  “Grace was there. Why?”

  “From the church? Oh, shit, Kez! They talk. Everyone fucking talks!”

  “You don’t think…” Kez couldn’t finish. He couldn’t bring himself to think what they might have done to his aunt and her elderly best friend.

  “They wouldn’t hurt her. They’d just ask her. Or Grace. And they’d do it in a way that they wouldn’t even know what they were doing. Probably offering sympathy.”

  “Oh, Callum. This is some serious fucked-up shit.” Kez grabbed Callum’s T-shirt in a balled fist and didn’t know whether to yank him in for a hug or launch him into the air.

  Callum staggered closer, pressing his body to Kez’s. “I know. I know, baby, and I’m so fucking sorry.”

  For a brief moment, Kez forgot it all and allowed Callum to kiss him, to melt into him, to lean on him for the support he so clearly needed. But someone had to be the bearer of bad news around here.

  “How are you going to pay him off by tomorrow?”

  Callum stepped back and wiped his lips. “You got a grand lying around here?”

  Shaking his head, the thought of launching Callum into the air, through the kitchen window and allowing him to slide down to ground level on his head, came to Kez with full force. Was that was this is? Was that what all this has been about? Yet more questions he didn’t want to know the answers to, but had to ask.

  “Is that why you’re here? Is that why you let me—”

  Gripping Kez’s neck, Callum kissed him. “No. All that, upstairs, that’s what I want.”

  “Don’t fool me, Callum. Don’t string me along. Don’t pretend. All I ask is that you don’t pretend.”

  “I’m not and I won’t. Kez, please, believe me. I’m here because when you showed up, I knew I couldn’t let you go again. I was kidding about the money. I’d never ask you for a fucking thing. I don’t want your money. I never wanted your money. If I could have bought my own clothes today, I would have. If I could pay Baz back and get him off our case, I would do. But I’m boracic, Kez. Nothing. Was laid off weeks ago, behind on rent, behind on bills. That money from the pass over would have got me out of debt, yeah, but it wouldn’t have given me anything else.”

  “So what’s your plan?” Kez leaned back on the counter for support. Whether it was because of what Callum had said or to prepare for what was coming next, he couldn’t be sure.

  Inhaling a fierce breath, Callum took another step back. Out of grabbing range. “Your doctor.”

  Kez burst out an involuntary laugh. Hysterical release, maybe? What the hell could Dr. Rawlings do? Give him a pay rise? The NHS didn’t work like that. And how did he expect Kez to explain to his senior leadership team what he needed extra money for?

  Callum stared at him. Serious. Not a trace of anything than absolute, stone-cold sincerity.

  “How do you think Rawlings can help here?”

  There was a flicker across Callum’s features. A painful, anguish-filled sputter as though he was about to recount something that Kez didn’t want to hear. It reminded Kez of how Eve had looked when she’d had to tell him that Callum had received three to five. Guilt.

  “He’s a major player at this club I know.” Callum bowed his head.

  “Club?”

  “Gay club. Sex club. That sort of thing.”

  Kez’s jaw dropped and he stumbled away from the counter. “What?”

  Squeezing his eyes shut, Callum paced the tiny kitchen with agitated energy. Kez watched him, waiting, unclear what the fuck was going on anymore.

  “You asked me about other men. That’s the other men. I’d go to this club. It started out as just a bit of release every now and then. All legit. Nothing more. Then one day I was desperate for cash and was chatting to this bloke who said the back room might help out. It’s a place where stuff happens. People pay to watch. Pay to…” Callum swallowed and avoided Kez’s wide-eyed stare. “Tell you what to do to the other.”

  Sick to his stomach, Kez looked away and the wafting MSG from the Chinese takeaway wasn’t helping him keep the nausea down. He retched, then turned to the sink. Callum rushed to him, stroking a hand along his back.

  “I only did it once. I didn’t know Rawlings. I didn’t know who he was. They all referred to him as the Doc. He watches. And he…directs.”

  Kez screwed his eyes shut. Callum’s voice wasn’t as confident as it once was, as though retelling it had brought it all back. It clearly wasn’t a fun memory.

  “I swear down to you, Kez. I only did it ’cause I needed cash.”

  Kez twisted his neck, meeting Callum’s pleading gaze. “What did he make you do?”

  Shaking his head, Callum allowed his hair to cover his face and hid behind the locks. “You don’t wanna know.”

  “Try me.” For some reason, Kez did want to know. He had to know. Out of morbid fascination or genuine concern, he wasn’t sure.

  “There were three of us.” Callum swallowed. “The doc wanted me in the middle…”

  Kez heaved into the sink a
nd Callum rubbed a hand up his back. It was no comfort.

  “He had a thing for me. Wanted to watch them get me to the brink—”

  “Stop!” Kez pleaded. “I can’t unhear this!” He wished he’d never asked. He had no idea how he’d ever shake the images from his mind.

  “Sorry.” Callum stepped away, his voice small and tight. “The doc, he recognised me.”

  “No shit! He’s probably seen more of you than I have!”

  Callum hung his head. “Yeah and, well, that night, he asked me to go to a private room with him after. He’d pay me if I did.”

  Kez whipped around so fast his neck almost ripped free from its tendons. “He what?”

  “I didn’t go.”

  “Two in one night enough for you, is it?”

  “Kez…”

  “Don’t. Just—don’t.”

  Callum sighed. “I ain’t proud of it. But, fuck me, Kez, it ain’t like you haven’t scattered yourself around.”

  “I beg your fucking pardon?”

  Callum screwed his eyes shut. “I just meant that you knew what to do. You know I ain’t good with words and shit.”

  “I’ve had boyfriends, yeah. I’ve been with other blokes. I’ve even, I’ll have you know, had one-night fucking stands. No, I didn’t wait for you. Did you think I would? Did you think I’d pine over you forever? Did you think I wouldn’t want to at least try and move on?” Kez widened maddened eyes and he couldn’t stop his mouth from spitting out the words he had never wanted to say. “I thought this, us, whatever this was, or is, meant nothing to you. That you didn’t see me in that way. That you were playing me.”

  Callum reached for him, but Kez shook his head. He didn’t want it. He couldn’t take any comfort in Callum right then.

  “But me trying to get over you.” Kez spoke to the floor. “And to stop myself from loving you, is nothing compared to you being a puppet boy for my boss!”

  Callum sucked in a shaky breath and Kez closed his eyes, wishing he’d never admitted any of that. No going back now.

  “All right, I know. Sorry.” Callum held out his hands, beckoning Kez to him. “But we can use this, Kez. We can use the doc. He was so shit scared when he recognised me. Like literally shitting his pants that I’d tell you and everyone else his sordid secret. The man’s a perv. A predatory perv who likes to watch and control. We can use that.”

  “What the hell do you mean, use it? Because if you’re even hinting at the thought of going back there and—”

  “No. I wouldn’t. It was bad enough the first time. From now on, I’m all yours.” He hung his head. “If you still want me.”

  “Undecided.” Kez snapped that out without thinking. It fell from his tongue before his brain could process it. Callum looked hurt, but that in no way compared to the pain and misery Kez was being put through at the mere thought that the doctor he serviced, the man he saw every day, his boss, the man who tended to all those little children with heart deficiencies, had paid to see Callum, the one person Kez had been in love with for years, get fucked by strangers. Kez might as well have his own heart deficiency, because it might never be mended after this.

  Callum shuffled back, spreading the gap between them both. He shivered and wrapped his arms around himself. “We blackmail him.” Callum mumbled that out through quivering lips, like he wasn’t totally confident it would either work, or that Kez would be in on it.

  “We what?”

  “We tell him we know. We say we’ll tell. He’ll lose his rep. He’ll pay us off to keep schtum and we pay Baz.”

  “Oh, Cal.” Hanging his head, Kez pinched the bridge of his nose. “You want me to blackmail my boss? You want me to tell a well-respected doctor that I see every day that I know what he does of a weekend and to pay me to keep quiet about it? Then skip into work every day where I see him saving the lives of poorly children?”

  “When you say it like that…”

  “When you say it any way, Callum!” Kez just about prevented his foot stamp. “This is by far the stupidest thing you have ever said or done!”

  “I know. I fucking know! And I have no idea how to get out of it.”

  Kez folded his arms and heaved out a sigh. “I’m not sure you can. Not without doing something you won’t want to do.”

  “Right.” Shuffling away, Callum hit the fridge behind him. “I do that, and I’ll be back inside.”

  Kez wanted to reach out for him. He wanted to offer him the support he hadn’t given five years ago. He wanted to wrap him up and take him upstairs, forgetting everything that had happened in the past half hour and go back to when they’d been enveloped in each other’s arms. He wanted it more than anything.

  But he couldn’t. Callum had to step up. To show him he could fix this. So he waited.

  “I guess that’s it then.” Callum shivered. It was like a Silence of the Lambs re-enactment with his lips and teeth chattering. “Best thing I can do right now is go.”

  “Cal—”

  As if in some trance, Callum swayed over to the front door and slipped on his trainers still tatty with black smudges from the smoke. Kez marched over, watching from the doorway.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Don’t matter, does it? As long as I’m gone. I’ll figure this out. They won’t come here again, I promise.” Callum yanked open the front door.

  “What the fuck does that mean?” Kez held the door, ready to slam it shut and keep Callum inside, no matter what the consequences.

  “It means they follow till it’s paid. They either want money, or me. They’ll get one of them.” Callum lunged forward to walk out, but Kez grabbed his arm, digging his fingertips in to the point he’d leave bruises. The door banged onto his back, shunting him forward.

  “Don’t. Don’t you dare leave me again.”

  Callum offered a troubled smile. “I’m sorry.” He then leaned in and kissed him, his lips brushing the following words against Kez’s. “I love you too.”

  A heady rush of euphoria sparked through Kez’s entire being, until it meshed with overriding hopelessness making his grip on Callum’s arm loosen. Callum took that moment to run. Out of the open gate and away from Kez’s life. Again.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Facing It

  Callum hadn’t ever run so fast. He didn’t know if he was running to something, or from it. Nor did he really understand why. His head pounded as he thumped his tatty dust-ridden and dirt-encrusted trainers along the pavement. He had no idea where he was heading. Away. He had to get away. His eyes stung with the force of the wind smacking him in the face and he rubbed an arm over them, sniffing as he scraped his hair back.

  With no Oyster Card, he had no way of travelling anywhere other than by foot. Which was okay with him as his mind couldn’t process a Tube map, but his legs seemed to know where to take him. As the stitch in his side stretched and burned, he stopped and walked at a slower pace, checking behind him, which was futile. Kez would never have had enough time to run after him. And that was the only person he would have wanted following him. Anyone else, he didn’t care. He’d rather they sneaked up on him and stabbed him in the back. He deserved it—he’d pretty much done the same thing to his best friend.

  Not my best friend. My only friend.

  Not my friend. The man I love.

  Sniffing, he glided along the London streets without looking where he was going. He bumped shoulders with pedestrians walking in the opposite direction. He fell off the curb into the road. He stumbled over dogs on leads. He was going nowhere. Fast. Like my life.

  Why? Why did this have to happen now? Why couldn’t he have been given a few more minutes? He’d planned to explain it all to Kez whilst chomping down on the chow mein. He was going to be open and honest, tell him he was in trouble and that they needed a plan to get out of it. But fucking Baz and his fucking big mouth and untimely intrusion. Callum had been floating on a high for all of one hour. He was back with Kez. They’d fitted. It had been the best fucking t
hing. Ever. Period. Callum could see his life paving out before him. No more scrabbling around in the dark, no more scraping the barrel, no more fucking about. That fire had saved him. Kez had saved him.

  Now it was over and he had nowhere to go.

  Speckles of rain sprinkled over him as he paced the darkened streets. Maybe he should just toss himself in the river? Get it over and done with? The only thing that prevented him from attempting it was Kez. The debt wouldn’t disappear—he’d never hated his mother more in his life. Not for bringing him into it, but for bringing Kez into it.

  Grow up, Wrighty-boy. Not everything was always someone else’s fault. He should have told Kez sooner. No, he shouldn’t have gone with Kez from the community centre. No, he shouldn’t have accepted the fucking bundle in the first place! Or ever gone back to the Marlyte. He should have stayed away and not tried to reunite with his waste-of-space mother. He should have taken the bedsit offered after release and stayed there. Or taken up their rehabilitation and re-homed in Kent, Surrey, Hertfordshire—fuck, anywhere away from London and the shit that the place brought. He’d never be free. Even out of prison, he’d never be free.

  With no idea how long he’d been roaming, he found himself nearing a train station. Fuck, Forest Gate. That had to be a good few miles’ canter. He’d done most of it head down and avoiding the world. His legs made the choice to board the overhead northbound platform. Subconsciously heading toward home, he suspected, but wherever the line would take him would be fine. Avoiding the glare from the security guy, he shoved his hands deep in his pockets under the pretence of searching for an Oyster Card, then mingled among a young crowd also dodging the turnstiles by going through the family gate and onto the platform. The train shunted in and he boarded, leaning against the pole in the centre. Head down, he tried to drown out the drone of chatter, the screeching of wheels and the tinny music from headphones.

  He needed a plan. He had to decide what to do. He could go back to the club. One paid-for session and he’d have the money to keep Baz and his cronies at bay. It wouldn’t pay it all off, but it could be enough to keep them from Kez. Slamming his eyes shut, he shook his head. He’d never be able to go through with it. Not anymore. Not now there was Kez. Had been Kez. ’Cause Kez wouldn’t be his anymore. Not after hearing all of that. He’d burned that friendship to the ground good and fucking proper.