We took a cab to Euston Station and then made our way down a rather gloomy stretch of road. I couldn’t help glancing around nervously—it seemed like the London you might see on an episode of Crime Watch—but we weren’t mugged or murdered.
So…yay.
We came to a corner marked by this derelict Victorian building, its turrets and balconies and crumbling grandeur more than a little bit out of place on the Hampstead Road. A plaque on the wall, between the boarded windows, proclaimed the place LONDON TEMPERANCE HOSPITAL, ERECTED BY VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS IN HUMBLE DEPENDENCE UPON THE BLESSING OF GOD, FOR THE TREATMENT OF MEDICAL AND SURGICAL CASES WITHOUT THE USE OF ALCOHOL.
Good grief. From what I knew of Victorian medicine, practicing it on the sober was practically an abuse of human rights.
“Arden.” Ellery gestured impatiently at me from the other side of yet another barrier. “Come on.”
I slipped under it and into an overgrown car park leading to what looked like a garden…oh wait, no, a graveyard behind the hospital.
The abandoned hospital.
The abandoned Gothic hospital.
With its own graveyard.
That we were visiting in the middle of the night.
Holy shit, we were going to die.
“I’m not sure—”
“I said come on.”
Ellery pulled herself over the fence in a flurry of fishnets and boy shorts and, after a moment, I followed. Nearly impaling a bollock along the way and landing heavily on what was probably a dead person. A very-long-time-dead person six feet under the ground, but still.
London Temperance Hospital cast spiky shadows across the ground, the hazy moonlight making the edges of the broken windows glint like teeth.
Tl;dr: I wasn’t happy.
But then, there hadn’t exactly been opportunity for this kind of thing up in Kinlochbervie. There were plenty of deserted crofters cottages and moors over which ghosts could potentially roam wailing, but it was forty miles just to get to school. Inviting a friend round for tea and a spot of breaking and entering simply wasn’t practical. Assuming you had friends, which queer English kids generally weren’t over-endowed in. So I told myself this was an opportunity to experience a part of growing up hitherto denied to me and that I should embrace it—the fact I’d done pretty well without it thus far notwithstanding.
We climbed an iron fire escape to an open window and dropped down into a long corridor, all white walls and wood paneling, monochrome in the dusty moonlight. The place smelled of disuse and mold as we headed toward a staircase, which had been severely water damaged. I could hear a faint, warm thrum in the distance. Something that sounded—of all things—like a bassline. And increasing sharply in volume as we made our way through the debris-strewn corridors. I peered into the occasional side room as we passed them but they were empty and characterless. Nothing like the grand and Gothic exterior.
Should have been a relief, right?
Except somewhere between my concerns about being arrested by the police or killed by angry, Victorian ghosts, I’d become curious.
Also I could definitely hear music now. Loud, very loud music. Delirious and electric. And a genre I wasn’t cool enough to properly identify. Trance or techno or…God, maybe it was dubstep? Oh help. I was out of my depth.
We turned a corner and…yep. I was at a rave. An actual flashing lights, packed bodies, arms and glow sticks, OMG you’re all on MDMA rave.
In a gutted derelict hospital.
Ellery turned to me and smiled, the light breaking across her face in neon rainbows.
I leaned in and yelled, “Can’t you just go clubbing like a normal person?”
“I prefer this.”
She closed her eyes and lifted her arms, the music slipping over her like silk, her body softening, shaping itself to the rhythms. She looked relaxed—happy even—in a way I would never have expected.
The crowd broke open and swallowed her whole.
I stumbled after her, panicking. If I lost her here, I’d never find her again. And I had no money, no phone, and only the barest idea of where I was.
Everything was heat, dark, light, noise.
Overwhelming.
“Here.” Ellery pressed something into my hand.
Thankfully I was sufficiently sweaty that I didn’t immediately drop it in surprise. Or fumble as I attempted to see what it was.
I shouldn’t have needed to look: it was a small, chalky pill.
Probably not a good idea.
But there was something about the insistent tug of the music that made me want to dance…really dance. Be consumed by dancing. Claimed by it. Lose myself in the shadowy figures that surrounded us. Find a sense of connection that had nothing to do with words or touch or any of the usual, civilized mechanisms for human interaction.
I just wanted to be part of something.
And, for a little while, purely physical.
In my body, not my head.
So I did it. I took the pill. Popped it, technically.
Waited.
“Um. I don’t feel any different.”
Ellery just laughed, pushed a bottle of water into my hand—where the fuck had she got it from?—and kept dancing.
Maybe I was a new breed of super-evolved, drug-resistant human.
Maybe one of the people around us would turn out to be an undercover agent and he’d kidnap me and take me to some secret facility where they’d want to perform all kinds of horrible tests on me.
And maybe Caspian would—
No. No.
Dancing. Not thinking.
And definitely no daydreaming about Caspian.
Who would not be carrying me out of an MI6 research laboratory as it exploded.
Anyway, I didn’t really need drugs to dance. Three years of gay-attracting club nights in Oxford had seen to that.
It wasn’t quite what was I used to—a distinct lack of Kylie among other things—but I tried to feel out the music. Let my body respond and my heart be free.
Ellery looked already lost. Swaying, twisting, turning, her hands in her hair, on her neck, on her hips. Her face vulnerable in joy, just like her brother.
There was something contagious about it.
It started in small rushes: just these little darts of pleasure, tingling through my whole body. And slowly the spaces between them faded away until I just felt good. So good.
And I think she understood it too because then we were dancing together. We were dancing together and dancing with everyone. All these people touching without touching.
Except for the ones that were.
Sometimes I was dancing, sometimes I was hugging, sometimes I was being hugged.
And it was all good. So good. The heat and closeness of bodies stripped of the threat or promise of sex.
I was also vaguely aware I was On Drugs.
Blatantly high.
But it didn’t feel like anything bad.
It was gentle. Tender. Drawing me closer to the music, to the dancers, to Ellery who had her arms around me, her body nestled against mine, her lips against my neck.
We were so with each other right then.
I loved her very much.
Wanted to hold her forever. Like this. Nothing but this. It was perfect. Beautiful.
The music was our heart. The light our blood.
We were shining. We were turquoise and emerald and purple and amethyst and electric blue.
Jewels inside us.
Sparking where we touched.
This was what Tagore wanted. This was how we should be.
Everything was so very clear. Not like the blurry happiness of alcohol or the fuzzy warmth of weed.
And I understood her. Ellery. I understood Ellery. All her sadness and fear and the splintered beauty inside her.
And the best thing was I didn’t have to tell her. Didn’t have to explain.
Because I knew she knew.
And I knew she got me too.
And all we had to do was dance. Dance and be together and feel the music. Feel the joy with our hearts wide open.
It went away again, of course.
But it was a gentle comedown.
The world was still so soft, so lovely, as Ellery helped me into a cab. Kissing my cheek before she closed the door.
It was a pearly pale morning. The sky almost iridescent. A swirl of cloud cover and the rising sun.
I watched the streets with wonder. Finished a bottle of water. I was exhausted in a distant physical way, but I wasn’t tired. An odd distinction, but it absolutely made sense right then. What I really wanted to do was have a long, hot shower and just feel the water against my skin.
It was going to be amazing.
The taxi deposited me at One Hyde Park, which didn’t look quite as intimidating as I remembered. I got security cleared and then wandered into the elevator—enjoyed the iris scan and the swift, silent whoosh of the ascent.
Pulling off my T-shirt—gosh, even air was nice, stirring a faint, residual memory of pleasure—I let myself into the apartment.
And discovered Caspian Hart waiting for me in the receiving area.
No jacket. No tie. Otherwise impeccable.
The room itself had been meticulously restored. Even the carpet I’d forlornly attempted to clean that morning.
And oh my word. He’d been here all night?
“Arden.” He rose. Smoothed the creases from that stark, black suit. Regarded me so coldly it gave me the shivers. “I’m glad to see you’re safe.”
That wasn’t exactly what I’d been expecting. But then I hadn’t expected him to be here at all. “Why wouldn’t I be?”
“Because I have no idea where you went and you weren’t answering your phone.”
Maybe I should have been touched by the concern. But right now it was pretty seriously misplaced. “You didn’t seem to care too much about that yesterday.”
“That’s not relevant.”
“It’s pretty fucking relevant to me.”
His face got all tight and still—a look I remembered from when he’d been talking to Ellery. “While you live under my roof, you will carry your phone, stay in contact, and use the driver I have assigned to you.”
Wow, I’d say he sounded like my mum, except my mum wasn’t a total dick. “You have no right to talk to me like that. I agreed to live here, and sleep with you, and fit my schedule to yours. But that doesn’t make me your fucking property.”
“I’m trying to look after you.”
“What? You mean in case I get myself raped in an alley again?”
There was a long, horrible silence. It made me wish I had another vase to drop.
“I shouldn’t have said that,” Caspian said finally. “And I’m sorry.”
“Wow. That is the worst fucking apology I’ve ever waited nearly forty-eight hours to receive. F minus. See me after class.”
He gazed at me steadily. And then said, very quietly, “I told you I wasn’t very good at caring for people.” A pause. “You keep saying you want me, Arden. Well, this is who I am.”
“No.” I came at him like a very small but determined tornado. “This is bullshit.”
We tangled up into this angry…hug thing? And ended up in the chair where he’d been sitting before, with me straddling him, my hands on his shoulders. It was probably the closest I’d ever been to him—including the times we’d fucked. His eyes were wide and shocked and wary, like a wild animal about to bolt. Or, y’know, rip my throat out.
“I’m really grateful you showed up that night,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean you get to use it against me. Ever.”
“I wasn’t—”
“Yeah, you were. You think I can’t tell the difference between what happened in Oxford and what I want with you?”
“What…” I felt the shudder run through him “What if I can’t?”
I shrugged. “I guess you’ll have to trust me then.”
“I’m not—”
“Good at trusting people?”
At last. The faintest of smiles. Poor ghostly thing. And suddenly I didn’t feel quite so messed up anymore. He was good at putting the world at a distance. But once you got past that, he did look wrecked. I guess having his non-boyfriend disappear with his not-completely-stable sister had hit him pretty hard.
“Can you try?” I asked. “For me? Just a little bit?”
I went to smooth the hair back from his brow, but he caught my hand and brought it briefly to his lips instead. “I don’t know.”
“Please?” I leaned in and kissed his mouth through the prison of our entwined fingers.
“What do you want me to do?” He gave this broken-sounding laugh. “Trust me is a very nonspecific and difficult-to-measure goal.”
Ack. Either I was really bad at being angry or Caspian Hart was secretly adorable. “I’ll be sure to prepare a Prezi. But you could start by maybe…spending the day with me?”
“I can’t. The situation with Eleanor put me behind schedule and I have too much to do.”
“What about tonight then? Can you come tonight?”
“I…I’ll try.”
“I’m not scared of you, Caspian.” I pressed my free hand against his chest—felt the thud of his heart and the way he trembled to my touch. Such heat and longing in him sometimes. If only I could convince him to give them to me. To surrender, just a little, so I could too. “What you said before…I mean, the hot kinky stuff about screaming and begging, not the scary tyrannical stuff about always having my phone and using the designated driver…”
He blushed. “I can’t force you to do those things, but I hope you’ll think about them. It’s not unreasonable for me to want to know where you are and that you’re well.”
“Maybe not, but it makes me feel like you’re one step away from fitting me with one of those GPS tracking collars you can get for your pet.”
“I rather like the sound of that.”
His mouth pressed hot and hard against my throat. And I glooped all over him like a badly made Baked Alaska. “S-save it for the bedroom.”
“I rather hope at that point I’d be well aware of your location.”
“No, but you might want to make sure I can’t get away. And besides”—I tilted my head for him, baring vulnerable places for his teeth and tongue—“from what you keep telling me I’m going to be in grave danger.”
“You can hardly expect me to rescue you from myself.”
I pulled away and slipped off his lap. “Of course I do. Why bother with a hero and a villain when you can have both at once? As a businessman, you’ve got to admit it’s efficient.”
“I can see you’ve thought this through.”
“You’ll really come tonight?”
A terrifying pause.
“Would seven work?” He seemed almost…shy about it suddenly. It was unexpectedly endearing.
I grinned the biggest grin in the entire world. “It’s a date.”