The Sugared Game

by KJ Charles

  Chapter Eight

  Sleeping with Kim was always good. Waking with him had, to date, been a more mixed experience.

  On this occasion he was still in bed when Will woke with a mild headache, a sense he hadn’t had enough sleep, and a tight patch on the hairs of his stomach where he’d missed a bit of spunk. He dropped an arm over his eyes. Kim said, “Hello.”

  “Morning.”

  “Sleep well?”

  “Not bad. Is your chap likely to wander in with a cup of tea for sir?”

  “That’s ‘my lord’ to you, and no. Peacock does clothes, cooking, and occasional espionage. I make tea myself.”

  “Is that an offer?”

  “I walked into that,” Kim said with mild disgust, and rolled out of bed. Will took the opportunity to admire his back view until he covered it with his purple gown and went in the direction of the kettle, and then took himself off to the bathroom to borrow Kim’s toothbrush and make himself rather more presentable.

  By the time Kim returned with a tray, Will was sitting up in bed flicking through a book and feeling civilised.

  “Tea,” Kim said, handing him a cup. Will took a sip. It was horrifyingly weak. “Are you reading The Waste Land?”

  “No, you are.” It had been the only thing on Kim’s bedside table. Will didn’t consider Modernist poetry much of a bedtime story. “I’ve read it already. I had a copy in the shop a couple of months ago.”

  “Thoughts?”

  “It doesn’t rhyme.”

  He closed the slim volume and put it on the table as Kim got into bed, a feat he managed without spilling his tea, and sat with his knees up, so their shoulders didn’t quite touch.

  “Are we talking now?” Will asked. “Or is the door still locked?”

  “It is locked, but—as you wish.”

  “Tea first.” The tea was undrinkable, but he didn’t really want to know what Kim had been hiding about the job either. It would doubtless be infuriating, but he was less concerned by that than by whatever pain had driven a boy, a privileged marquess’s son at that, to let it out with a blade. Kim had no fresh scars, nothing within the last decade or more. Will had a crawling sort of worry that was because he’d found less visible ways to hurt himself.

  There were a lot of things he wanted to know, and he wasn’t sure he could ask most of them. They were private, secret things, and physical intimacy didn’t automatically open the door for those. You could ask a lover for them, but he couldn’t call Kim his lover in any conventional sense. Or even a conventionally unconventional one.

  “I don’t know what the rules are,” he said aloud.

  “Sorry?”

  “The rules for us. What we are, what we’re doing. I don’t know how we’re expected to behave in this situation.”

  “We’re expected not to do it at all,” Kim said. “That being the case, behave as you like.”

  “Rubbish. There’s still rights and wrongs and expectations. Things you ought to do, lines not to cross. The things you won’t change, the things I won’t put up with, the things we both want. I’d like to know where I stand.”

  “Wouldn’t we all. I’m not sure where I stand either, Will. I had an equilibrium before you turned up.”

  “I didn’t turn up. You turned up. You hired a thug to wreck my shop.”

  “Moan, moan, moan. He didn’t break anything expensive.”

  Will made an offensive gesture. Kim gave him a rueful half-smile. “How do we set rules for the game when neither of us is sure what we’re playing at? You have no idea what you want, and I don’t know how I’d give it to you.”

  “Start with this: I want to know what you do.”

  “You already know that.”

  “No, I don’t. You were a Bolshevik once, unless you weren’t, and now you work for the War Office, or maybe you’re a free-lance spy. What are you, exactly? What does it mean for you? If I’m helping you, who else am I helping?”

  “Is that the most important thing to you?”

  Far from it, but it was a truth he thought he could get, which would be a start. “You keep lying to me about it, so it probably matters. I want you to trust me with this.”

  “I do trust you.”

  “You’ve a funny way of showing it.”

  “Too true.” Kim turned the cup in his hands, round and back. “Ugh. In confidence, Will. Not to insult you, but it has to be said.”

  “Understood.”

  “All right, then. You may know that there’s a patchwork of what are flatteringly called intelligence agencies—Special Branch, SIS, the Private Bureau, and so on—which were set up by various people before the war on a more or less amateurish basis. Most of them are now being swallowed up into either Military Intelligence or the police force; some remain as independent operators of sorts. I work for the Private Bureau, which as the name suggests is a relic of the Edwardian era, and which has carved out a very specific niche dealing with problems that need brushing under the carpet. If the powers that be want a problem solved without such tiresome trivia as written records or court cases, if they don’t want official fingerprints on the scene of the crime or it’s important that a minister should be able to swear he never gave any such order, they come to the Private Bureau. Whereupon someone like me will slither around doing things that couldn’t possibly be countenanced by those paid to uphold the law—entrapping innocent bookshop owners, and so on. Making sure things don’t come to light.”

  “Cover-ups?”

  Kim shrugged. “The well-connected are protected, that goes without saying, but there are other issues. We deal with a fair few cases of extortion.” He waved a hand, indicating the bed they shared. “One might be disinclined to report a blackmailer to the police for fear of consequences, whereas the Private Bureau has no compulsion to punish the victims.”

  “What about the perpetrators?”

  “Consequences happen,” Kim said. “Sometimes officially, sometimes not. Jobs are lost. Bank accounts are emptied. Words are dropped in ears, and decisions are made to leave the country and start a new life in South America. The passive voice does a lot of work in my line.”

  Will frowned. “It sounds a bit dodgy.”

  “It is; that’s the point. The Bureau offers a certain amount of leeway. I don’t know if it’s a good or useful thing for society in general, but it’s certainly handy if—for example—one has made a miserable hash of one’s life. And if you don’t mind owing the chief a favour, up to and including your soul.”

  Will examined his face, the little lines at the corner of his eyes. “That seems a bit of a leap from being a paid-up Bolshevik.”

  Kim didn’t reply for so long that Will began to think he wouldn’t. At last he said, “I really did believe in it, you know.”

  “You don’t seem the fanatic sort.”

  “Fanatic, idealist.” Kim waved a hand. “I thought there was a better way for everyone. I believed—still do—that the war was nothing but empires squabbling for resources, with the blood of millions used to keep the engine running. I refused to be involved in mass murder, and tried my hardest to be gaoled as a conscientious objector, though my father put paid to that. I sincerely cheered the Revolution in 1917 and looked forward to the British equivalent. And then reports started coming in of the bloodbath.”

  “You thought it would be a bloodless revolution? Because you don’t get many of them.”

  “I know. But the fact of children lined up and shot—I told myself the aristocracy had brought it on themselves, that they had sowed the wind and were reaping the whirlwind, but by 1919 and the atrocities of the civil war, I couldn’t hide behind that any more. I couldn’t persuade myself mass slaughter was the beginning of a fairer society; I could only think of how the French had guillotined their king and created a vacancy for an emperor.”

  Well, yes, Will thought. Obviously whoever came out on top of any society would be a power-hungry arsehole: that was how the world worked. “You really were an idealist,�
� he said aloud.

  “Is that so surprising?”

  It was, considering his grimy goings-on these days. Or maybe it wasn’t; maybe spoiled innocence tarnished faster than healthy cynicism. The thought gave Will the same uncomfortable feeling as Kim’s scars.

  “I was sickened,” Kim went on. “Whereas my comrades, the ones with whom I’d planned a British revolution, were positively thrilled. They talked with enthusiasm about setting up a British Cheka. They wanted a secret police and summary killing of class traitors. Most of them were Oxford and Cambridge men of birth, I should observe.”

  “Of course they were.”

  “They revelled in the idea of mass execution, bodies in the streets. I can’t convey what it was like to watch civilised people go through the intellectual gymnastics necessary to persuade themselves that state murder was first a regrettable necessity, and then a high treat.”

  “I suppose you’d need to,” Will said. “If what you believe in goes wrong, either you let go the belief, or you believe even harder.”

  “And it hurts to let go. God, it hurts. My ideals were a bad joke. My family had disowned me over them. My brother, my little brother had called me a coward and gone to war in my place, and he was dead. If I’d gone he’d be alive now, but he was dead because of what I chose, and every piece of news from Russia made it clearer that I’d chosen poorly. My idols were false, and for all my principles, the only person I had saved by not going to war was myself. Everyone who despised me for it had been right.” He breathed out hard. “And it all rather came crashing down.”

  Will put both empty cups on the bedside table and reached for Kim’s hand, squeezing his fingers. They felt cold. “Kim—”

  “Don’t insult me with comfort. If I’d enlisted, Henry would be alive now, but since I refused, he’s dead. It’s as simple as that.”

  “No, it isn’t. You might as well say If Henry had stood a foot to the left, he’d be alive, and blame him for being in the wrong place. I was there, Kim. I knew a chap who tripped over a rock and his pal behind him took the bullet that went over his head. He never got over it to my knowledge. Was it his fault?”

  “He didn’t duck it deliberately. I did.”

  “And your brother signed up deliberately. He was a grown man who chose to march into a meat-grinder that had already chewed up millions of us. It was mass murder; maybe if more people had stood against it, fewer would have died. I know why he went to war, I signed up too, but that doesn’t make either of us clever.”

  “Nobody ever claimed Henry was clever,” Kim said. “But he had to go because I did not. It really is that simple.”

  “It bloody isn’t. I’m trying to tell you. You can’t just say if this then that, and decide what would have happened when the whole thing was a sodding lucky dip. What if he’d gone anyway and you’d both got killed? What if he’d stayed home and died of the ’flu? What if there’s some German lad right now discovering a cure for the common cold because you weren’t there to put a knife in his ribs? What if one of the men I killed was going to be a great leader, but he met me in a trench? If you want to start on They’d be alive if only I hadn’t, we’ll be here all day.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Not ‘but’. You’re talking as if you had some sort of control, like if you’d behaved differently, the whole world would have been different. Don’t flatter yourself.”

  Kim gave a short laugh. “I had no idea that was what I was doing. You cannot talk this away, Will. I did harm. Henry went to France as a direct consequence of my refusal to enlist, and he died there. I lived, he died, and it was all for nothing. I’m not asking for absolution: I took the wrong path, and there’s no comfort in pretending I didn’t. Christ, I made a hash of things.”

  That part was inarguable. “So you joined this Private Bureau to make them right?”

  “I can’t even claim that. I couldn’t see any way ahead. But I’d met a fellow socially who, little did I know, was the Bureau chief. He paid me a visit, and said he had a use for me. I told him it was more than I did, that I didn’t care if I lived or died, and he said excellent, that was exactly what he wanted.”

  “Charming.”

  “He saved my life. For his own purposes, of course, but he never claimed otherwise. He set me to join an actively dangerous Bolshevist group—as it turned out, one run by Zodiac—and I turned out to have a knack for the game. Between that and Phoebe, who needed a keeper, I managed to believe I was doing something useful while I put myself back together. So there you are.”

  Will nodded slowly. He’d asked the question, but the last thing he’d expected was a comprehensive answer, still less one that felt so rawly honest. He felt like he’d stepped into an unseen pit.

  They sat for a few minutes in silence. Will had no idea what was happening in Kim’s head, but he’d spent plenty of time with men whose wounds weren’t on the outside, so he waited. Sometimes that was the only thing you could do.

  At last Kim shifted. “Sorry. I don’t talk about this very well. I hear what you said to me, and I appreciate it.”

  “I don’t mean to tell you how you ought to feel about your brother. Only that, if you go around counting up the cost of lives from what we all did and didn’t do, the numbers aren’t going to be pretty for anyone.”

  “Perhaps that’s a reason to count them.”

  “True. But then, if your lads had come through, if the Bolsheviks had brought in what they promised and made things better for everyone, wouldn’t it have been worth the cost?”

  “Also true.”

  Will sighed. “Fucking war.” He looked round at Kim’s huff of laughter. “Well, that’s what it comes down to, isn’t it? So when you said you worked for the War Office before...”

  “It was true as far as it went. I was on loan. DS—that’s my chief, intelligence men have a fashion of going by initials—sits like a spider at the centre of a web of obligations, occasionally pulling threads. I am a resource to be used, just like everyone else.”

  “So if I help you, I’m working for the government, but not getting paid?”

  “The Private Bureau very definitely isn’t the government. I doubt most of the Cabinet know it exists: they don’t have to. It ticks quietly away in a corner of Whitehall without anyone paying attention. I’ve a long leash, and a free hand.”

  “And authority?”

  “In what sense?”

  “I just helped you commit a burglary—”

  “Unlawful entry, at most.”

  “Still unlawful. Are you allowed to break the law? I stabbed a man on your behalf last time; I’d like to know.”

  “Murder is not encouraged, and best avoided,” Kim said. “I am absolutely not empowered to break the laws of the land, so I try not to get caught at it. But when push comes to shove, DS protects his own, is owed a great many favours, and knows where the bodies are buried.”

  Will contemplated his profile. Kim had been looking ahead throughout the conversation, not once making eye contact. “Do you feel right about what you do?”

  “I’ve done things that needed doing. That’s a significant improvement.”

  “All right. I see. Thanks for talking to me.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t put it like that,” Kim said. “It rather emphasises how bloody awful I am at this. I’m sorry, Will. You deserve better.”

  “I deserve you not to lie to me about what I’m doing. I’ll work with you, but I want to know who I’m working for and against. And something else.” Their hands were still touching, had been throughout all that. Will interlaced their fingers deliberately. “This is a rule for you: you don’t use me to punish yourself. You don’t decide not to talk to me for two months to keep me out of danger or because you’re a terrible person who deserves to be alone, or any of that. I’ll tell you what I deserve, and what I want to be involved in, and I’ll let you know when I’ve done with you, same as you can me. Got that?”

  Kim looked round at last. “What does tha
t mean, ‘when I’ve done with you’?”

  “Like we said the other day. When I decide I don’t want to keep on, I’ll tell you so, and you can do the same. Only, actually tell me next time, all right?”

  Kim gave a half smile. “When you don’t want to keep on. When will that be?”

  “How should I know? I don’t know what I’m doing. Nothing’s gone like I thought it would since 1914. And all I can think about is you.”

  Kim’s mouth opened. He looked just a little desperate, and just a little hopeful, and then he reached for Will’s head, leaned over, and kissed him hard.

  Will grabbed his shoulder, feeling the tension, still holding his other hand. They kissed savagely, tongues tangling, need rising fast, and if this was a way for Kim not to talk about things any more, Will could live with that for now.

  Kim threw a thigh over Will and pulled himself across so he was sitting over his lap, leaning forward to keep their mouths joined, hips and pricks rubbing together. Will freed his hand and grabbed Kim’s dark head, the stupid beautiful lying hurting bastard that he was.

  “Just...” He didn’t know what to say. Stay with me. Talk to me. Hide in me if you have to. Don’t be alone. “Jesus. Kim.”

  “I need you to fuck me,” Kim said against his mouth. “Please.”

  “So do I.”

  Kim leaned over to get the Vaseline from his bedside drawer, clamping his thighs over Will’s to keep his balance, with interesting effect. Will took the opportunity to run his hand over Kim’s arse, buttocks tense with the movement. Kim purred, and Will hauled him up with one arm to keep him sprawled over his lap, stroking the bare flesh, feeling the prick hot and hard against his leg. He ran his fingers lightly over Kim’s skin, down the cleft of his arse, between his legs. Kim spasmed under him.

  “Tell me again,” Will said, hoarsely. “Let me hear it.”

  “I want you to fuck me. I want you in me and all over me.”

  Will pressed up with his thigh. “You’re hard for me. For this. You know how much that makes me want you?”

  Kim whimpered. Good. Will wanted him mewling, and desperate, and not thinking about anything else. More, he wanted to take charge. Last time, which had been Will’s second go at the act in his life, Kim had had to talk him through it. He planned to do better now.