Brody decided to drive into London. He’d packed the boot with what they needed without Aden seeing, though Brody worried Aden wouldn’t be impressed with his plan.

Aden slung himself into the passenger seat and smiled at Brody. The guy’s smile was enough to get Brody’s pulse jumping.

“Oh fuck,” Brody moaned. “One look at you and I’m wondering why I’m driving you all the way into London when there’s plenty to do here without even getting out of bed.”

“I want to go on this date now. I’m intrigued.”

“Don’t get too excited. How are your aches and pains?”

“I’m fine. How about your biggest one? What are you going to do about Matt?”

Brody steered around the potholes on the drive. “I don’t want to think about him.”

“I know, but you should. Now he’s found you, you think he’s going to walk away? Something tells me he won’t.”

“You’re right.” Brody pulled onto the main road. “I guess I ought to talk to him.”

“Don’t. But if you do, not on your own.”

Brody bristled. “I’m not a fucking baby.”

“Don’t get stroppy. I know you’re not a kid but you are to him. You’re the boy he wanted and got. The boy he’s kept in place all this time. A relationship spanning thirteen years and it might have been off and on, but he thinks he can just step back into your life because that’s what you’ve let him do before.”

“Not this time.”

Brody didn’t want to see Matt or talk to him. But was that because he was afraid of getting trawled back into the world he’d stepped out of? He truly wanted to be done with him.

“The last time I left him I promised myself we were done.”

“When he nearly killed you. What the fuck were you doing?”

Brody tightened his grip on the wheel. “He strangled me to make me come harder. Well, that was the idea. But he went too far.”

“Jesus.”

Matt had closed his hand around Brody’s throat, added his other hand and told him if he struggled, he’d choke, if he kept still, he’d be fine.

“You agreed to it?” Aden asked.

“He didn’t do it without telling me. I knew the biology of it. Restrict the oxygen supply and the cerebral cortex stops inhibiting areas of the brain that encourage sensation. But being half-strangled freaked me out and when I tried to get him to let go, he didn’t.”

“Did you struggle? Have a sign if you couldn’t speak?”

“I told him while I could still speak. Then speaking became impossible. No, we didn’t have a sign. Yes, that was stupid. I had the marks from his fingers on my neck for days. I had to bandage it up and pretend I’d had a rope wrapped around it when I was handling a horse.”

“He could have killed you.”

“I know.”

Aden slid his hand onto Brody’s thigh and squeezed before he let go.

“He once said he wanted to die while he was fucking me,” Brody whispered. “He told me he wanted me to die at the same time so we’d be found decomposing together—into each other, our bodies enmeshed forever.”

“Shit. That’s not sexy. That’s fucking sick.”

Brody had thought that too, but he understood it was Matt telling him how much he adored him. “He loves me.”

“No, he doesn’t. He’s obsessed with possessing you. There’s a difference.” Aden snorted. “Christ, as if I know anything about love, but it’s commonsense. If he loved you, he’d let you go. But this guy is fucked in the head. I hope the high was worth it.”

“I came harder than I ever have in my life.” Brody regretted the snap in his voice, but too late to take it back.

It was a moment before Aden spoke. “Doesn’t make it right. If you wanted that sort of intensity, inhaling nitrate at the moment of climax does the same thing, except safely. Relatively speaking.”

“You’d be an expert in that, would you?”

Aden shrugged. “I’ve tried most things that are bad for you. Not always voluntarily.”

Brody gave him a quick glance.

“I’ve known a lot of abusers.”

Brody thought back to the early days with Matt. He had liked what Matt did. And when he’d thought maybe he hadn’t, Matt convinced him otherwise.

“The care system was shit,” Aden said. “Probably better now than it was, but it’s not a good place for any kid. Once it was clear I was gay, I was like catnip. Since I left care, I’ve not been fucked very often. Those I did allow access to my arse were all aggressive guys. I knew when I met them that I wasn’t going to be allowed anywhere near their backside with my cock. I chose not to walk away.”

“You wanted to be hurt?”

“Probably on some level. I knew what was going through their heads because it had been through mine. Aggressive sex is a release for something. Stress, or maybe some psychological twist that’s fucked a guy up. Maybe their father raped them, or their brother, or some boys tormented them, humiliated them. They hurt to try and make themselves feel better. They don’t care about the guy they’re fucking. I’ve been like that. I am like that.”

“You’re not,” Brody whispered.

“We’ve known each other for a week. I’m not good news.”

You are to me.

“If you’re into being on the receiving end of pain, you need limits,” Aden said. “I know I told you this before but you need to understand it. Discuss at what point a line would be crossed. If the guy is worth being with, you draw that line together. I’ve not really been involved in BDSM, but I know that much.”

Aden was talking as if they were already done and they hadn’t even started yet.

“Matt never drew any lines.”

“Because he was older, thought he was wiser. He left you not expecting that consideration from other guys when you should have.”

Brody bristled. “I never had sex without protection.”

“So you said, but you were lucky you went with guys who’d even cooperate with that, and you weren’t always lucky, were you?”

“No. The night before I hit you with my car, I was at a club. I’d just been fucked in the bathroom and when I was leaving, the same guy and two of his mates dragged me into an alley. They didn’t listen to no.”

Aden slid his arm over Brody’s shoulder and stroked his neck. “Sorry that happened to you.”

“You’re not going to say it served me right?”

“Course I’m fucking not.” He paused. “Did the teacher listen to ‘no’?”

“Not always.” Not often. “He never raped me.”

“Technically he did. You were underage for two years, plus he was in a position of authority. He’d have been sacked, never worked as a teacher again. Maybe gone to prison even though it was consensual because the court wouldn’t see it like that.”

“He knew he was hurting me, but there was a time when I was into it as much as him.”

“Sure about that?” Aden slid his fingers into Brody’s hair.

“No.” Brody gave a shaky sigh.

“Because wouldn’t you still be with him if you were into it that much? Being rough is fine as long as you both like it. He abused you. He groomed you. I know because it happened to me. Lesser scale. Over a much shorter time, but the same. The more you let it happen, and the more you keep it all inside, the greater the control you give up. In the end, the less satisfied you are. I really don’t think you should speak to him. Definitely not unless someone is with you. Me. Des. If Matt comes near you, take out a restraining order. He’s dangerous.”

Brody thought back to what Aden had told him earlier, that Matt had tried to drown him. He hadn’t wanted to believe it, but he remembered Matt’s hands around his neck, how close Matt had come to strangling him. Brody reran the scenario as Aden had painted it. The door left unlocked because Aden had expected Brody. When Matt found it was Aden, a normal response would have been to back off, get dressed and wait for Brody to return. But there was all that water on the floor… Why would Matt have left if he’d not done anything to Aden?

But to try and kill him? Maybe Aden was lying or exaggerating to get Brody to take him seriously. Whatever the truth, Brody had to end it. He didn’t need Aden telling him Matt was bad news. He knew he was.

 

 

Aden wondered if he’d come on too strong. He’d hardly been able to believe he’d said all that. Wasn’t as if he’d ever been a source of useful advice to anyone, especially not to himself. Ha! But it sort of shocked him that a well-educated guy like Brody could be so fucking…dense. Aden got that everyone made mistakes. Some made more than others and Aden had done more than his fair share of stupid things, but if Brody couldn’t see this guy Matt was trouble, what the fuck could Aden do?

Make him see.

Whose voice was that?

He stared out of the window as Brody drove through London. Was this the type of thing Raphael had in mind? Aden becoming a better man by helping Brody get rid of that fuckwit? Before whatever the hell had happened at the Octoplex, Aden wouldn’t have given a shit about Brody’s issues.

But…

Aden had walked away from every encounter, sexual or not, because that way he avoided emotional involvement, getting entangled in anyone else’s life, fucking up his own more than it already was.

But…

Fucking but…

He was involved. He hadn’t changed, but he liked Brody. He hadn’t even fucked the guy yet, though he’d let Brody fuck him. And Aden had enjoyed it. Which had been another shock. Not that he was desperate for it to happen again, well not with anyone else but Brody. Aden had just somehow known it was the right way round that first time. That Brody needed it to be that way. Aden gritted his teeth. What’s happening to me? Interference from Raphael? Since Dante had stuck his oar in, why not Raphael too?

There was no way Aden could sort out Brody’s messed up life in the time he had left. If Brody hadn’t straightened himself out in all these years, what chance did Aden have of making him see the truth? But he could do something. Helping Brody get rid of Matt seemed achievable. Aden could give up on the love thing. He just had to make sure the guy didn’t fall for him. 

Brody pulled into a car park in South Kensington. Not an area of London Aden knew well.

Once the engine was off, Brody turned to face him. “Give me a hand with the stuff in the boot?”

“Okay.”

When Aden saw two large bags, he frowned. “What are we going to do?”

“Wait and see.”

He handed Aden the smaller bag and took the larger one.

“We’re staying the night in London?” Aden asked.

“Yep.”

“I think you over-packed.”

“You’ll thank me for what’s in these bags.”

Aden felt a slight niggle of worry he might bump into someone he knew, but when Brody led him through the gates of the Natural History Museum, he relaxed. No one in his circle would go there.

“Disappointed?” Brody asked.

“I dunno. I’ve never been here before.”

Brody turned to him with shock written all over his face. “Really?”

“I didn’t come to London until I was sixteen. Museums were way down on my list of things to do.” That was, not on his list at all.

“We’re spending the night here. I told Des not to expect you to help tomorrow.” Brody walked up the steps into the floodlit building and registered at the desk.

Aden’s eyes widened as they entered a huge cathedral-like, brick-built hall, the skeleton of a big dinosaur looming right in front of them. People were milling around, arranging sleeping bags on the floor.

“No bed?” Aden asked.

“In the bag.”

“Impressive. Got a bath tub and bedside lights in there as well, Mary Poppins?”

Brody smiled. “Toilet bags and flashlight.”

“What’s the dinosaur?” Aden nodded toward the skeleton.

“Diplodocus. I used to come here all the time with my grandparents. I had my photo taken in front of Dippy more times than I can remember.”

“They still alive?”

“No. What about yours?”

“I never knew any of them.” Aden was fairly sure his tone of voice would warn Brody to drop it. This was the fucking problem with asking questions, you got asked them back.

Brody made his way to one of the alcoves at the side of the hall. “Sure you’re okay with staying the night here? I’ve wanted to do this for ages, but I didn’t want to come on my own. When I checked, I couldn’t believe they still had tickets. Maybe someone cancelled.”

Or maybe Raphael fixed it. Aden glanced at the cross-eyed stuffed tiger sharing their sleeping area. “Just reassure me nothing with four legs or more comes alive at midnight. Maybe you ought to sleep that side, next to the tiger, since you’re the animal expert.” He hesitated. “There aren’t any live animals are there?”

“Museum remember? Everything’s dead. They don’t even take animals and stuff them anymore.”

“Just display newly discovered ancient bones.”

“That dinosaur’s not real.”

Aden gaped at him. “What the fuck? The first thing you see when you walk in and it’s not real?”

“It’s made of plaster. Probably why they’re replacing it with the skeleton of a blue whale. More appropriate to display an endangered species.”

“Right. So what’s going to happen tonight? Strippers? Pole dancing for beginners? Demonstration of rimming?”

Brody rolled his eyes. “We get something to drink and a meal. There’s various planned activities and we can go exploring.”

“Activities?” Aden raised his eyebrows.

“The sort you’re thinking of aren’t allowed.”

Didn’t usually stop Aden.

Brody took an inflatable mattress and a foot pump from his bag, and Aden sighed.

“Better than the floor, believe me.” Brody began to pump up the mattress.

When Aden looked in the other bag, he found bottles of water, fruit, snacks and a large blanket. Toiletries, but no lube or condoms.

He’d never done anything like this. He’d never wanted to do anything like this. He wasn’t sure he did now, but Brody seemed so excited that for once, Aden thought of someone other than himself and kept quiet.

Once they’d set up a sleeping area, a thick towel over the bags serving as a double pillow, they approached a guy who was handing out glasses of wine. Aden read the list of the evening’s events and pressed his lips together at the idea of getting into teams. He was not a team player.

“You don’t like this, do you?” Brody said quietly. “Sorry. I should have picked something like the cinema. I just wanted…”

“What?”

“To go on a normal date.”

“This is a normal date?” Aden’s lips twitched in a smile. His heart had thumped at the word. Sometimes after he’d fucked someone, they’d ask to see him again and he always said no. He’d never asked anyone out.

“It’s an expensive date,” Brody said.

“I should hope so.” Aden nudged him hard enough to make Brody stagger and almost spill his drink. “I’m worth it. Later, I’ll show you how grateful I am.”

Brody looked around. “We can’t.”

“Have I told you how much I like the word can’t?”

Brody groaned. “I’m worried now.”

“All these places to go and things to see and I haven’t been there, haven’t seen them,” Aden said. Bit late to regret that now but there was nothing like dealing with his own mortality to put things into perspective. “This place is special to you and I’m glad you wanted me to come along.”

He didn’t actually mean that, he didn’t think. He sounded like a little boy who’d practiced saying thank you, but Brody looked happy. Anyway, how hard had it been to show some pleasure and gratitude? Brody’s smile was his reward and the earlier version of Aden who would have walked away as soon as he saw the museum gates looming would have missed that.

“What do you fancy doing?” Brody asked.

Apart from fucking you in the bathroom? “I really don’t mind.” Unless Brody had hidden lube and a condom somewhere that wasn’t going to happen. And was that really all Aden wanted? A guy to fuck around with? Maybe it had been, but something had changed.

“Life drawing?” Brody suggested.

“Are you going to strip?”

“No.”

“Then no.”

Maybe Aden already had a way to stop Brody falling in love. If Aden acted as if all he cared about was sex, getting off without much regard for anything more or for Brody getting off as well, Brody would eventually see him as the shallow guy he was and it would make it easier on him when Aden walked away.

“Listening to ghost stories? Watching horror films?” Brody asked.

“If you hold my hand.”

Why was Aden even hanging around at all? Why not leave Brody now before he made everything worse?

Matt. Sometimes Aden felt as if the same things kept rolling back and forward in his head.

“How about going to a talk about the filthy and disgusting sex life of insects? Or there’s a standup comedian who’s supposed to be really good.”

“Whatever you want to do tonight, I’ll do. But one way or another I’m getting a blow job.”

Aden had thought that would piss him off, but Brody rolled his eyes and smiled.

 

The three course dinner was pretty good, though neither of them won prizes in the raffle. Brody had bought tickets for Aden as well as himself, though Aden would rather have had the ten quid to add to the twenty Des had given him. But when Brody told him the money went to charity, Aden felt guilty, though not guilty enough to add in the twenty.

The talk about insects was far more fascinating than Aden had thought it would be. Brody knew the answer to every single fucking question. Aden knew the answer to none.

“Christ,” Aden muttered as they headed for another part of the museum. “Apart from you, you freak, who’d have guessed that fourteen percent of a bush cricket’s bodyweight is its testicles?”

“The equivalent would be a human male having balls that weighed eleven pounds.”

Aden winced. “Great. I think I could have lived without knowing that or that fleas have telescopic double dicks.”

“Koalas have two penises.”

“Christ.”

“Echidnas have four-headed cocks. Sea-turtles have five-headed ones and kangaroos have three vaginas. And each time a blue whale fucks, it releases thirty or forty pints of sperm. Enough for some critters to drown in.”

Aden laughed and almost without realizing he was doing it, reached for Brody’s hand. Before he could let go, Brody tightened his grip, though Aden knew Brody would have detected his slight pull back.

I don’t hold hands.

Brody exhaled. “Worried you’ll get lost?”

“I’ve been lost all my life,” Aden replied quietly.

“Not lost.” Brody squeezed his fingers. “Just undiscovered.”

The pang in Aden’s heart took him by surprise. He turned to see Brody staring at him.

“Didn’t have to dig you up though.” Brody gave a quick smile. “Just knock you down.”

In more ways than one.

“Want to let go?” Brody asked.

For a moment Aden didn’t get what he was talking about. Fuck, the holding hands. He didn’t want to say yes. He just kept holding on. “I can’t remember the last time I held anyone’s hand.”

“Your mum didn’t let you cross the road on your own when you were a toddler, did she?”

“Probably.”

“Oh God.” Brody paled. “Sorry.”

Shit. Did I say that out loud? Aden put a smile on his face. “Okay. So you’re the animal expert. Put your guide hat on and show me everything.”

“It’ll be a long night. This place has over seventy million botanical items, fifty-five million animal exhibits, nine million artefacts from archeological digs, half a million rocks and minerals and two horny gay guys. Well, I suppose there might be more horny gay guys than the elderly couple I spotted by the giant squid.”

“Thank you, talking guide book.” But Aden liked listening to Brody. He was endearingly enthusiastic, knew endless facts about the exhibits and he was funny. Aden found himself laughing out loud at some of Brody’s descriptions, particularly about how the hippo attracted a mate by spinning its tail and taking a shit at the same time to spread the apparently irresistible odor.

Though Aden was less amused when Brody led him into one of the scheduled activities which involved eating insects.

“You’re not serious,” Aden whispered. He put his mouth to Brody’s ear. “Wouldn’t you rather have something much tastier in your mouth? Something long and hot and hard with a tangy but deliciously rewarding aftertaste?”

Brody spluttered. “Can’t I have both?”

“Maybe. But you can forget having a kiss if you’re eating any of these bugs.”

“I seem to remember you saying—whatever you want to do tonight, I’ll do.”

“Yeah but…” Aden swallowed hard as he sat next to Brody. No way could he eat an insect.

The first so-called treat was a bamboo worm and watching Brody bite into it made Aden gag. He took one when the plate was offered, and lifted it to his mouth. Even holding it was difficult.

“Wow, that thing’s salty,” Brody said.

Aden nodded. Then followed weaver ants, a toasted silkworm, a giant mole cricket and a weevil. Christ in a campervan.

“The cricket’s nasty.” Brody winced.

Aden nodded again. He chewed with his lips pressed tightly together.

“But the weevil tastes like crispy bacon.” Brody turned to him. “You okay? You’re pale.”

“From watching you.” Aden opened his hand and revealed all the insects he’d been given and not eaten. “Want some more?”

Brody’s eyes widened. “How the hell did you manage that? I saw you put them in your mouth. You chewed and swallowed. Well, obviously you didn’t. You cheat.” He laughed.

“I’m an expert in not eating what I don’t fancy. You seemed to enjoy the weevil so much I saved mine you for.”

“I’ll pass.”

Aden rose to his feet and brushed the insects onto an empty plate. “You need to take the taste out of your mouth. I have just the thing. Find a bathroom.”

A quiet groan slipped from Brody’s mouth. “If we get caught.”

“I’ll blame you.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s your fault my cock’s trying to break my zipper. The least you can do is sort that out for me.”

Aden followed Brody’s arse down darkened corridors past exhibits he took no notice of, and into a restroom, his cock hardening with every step. Need was on the rampage, his entire body desperate for Brody. There weren’t many people around, but there were plenty of museum guards and though Aden didn’t give a fuck about getting caught, he didn’t want Brody to get into trouble. That’s a new one.

The restroom was brightly lit, and empty. Aden bundled Brody into a stall, locked the door and pushed him onto his knees.

“No noise, okay?” Brody rubbed the bulge of Aden’s cock, squeezing and pressing him through his jeans and Aden’s stomach roiled as his balls tightened. “The price you pay for not eating those bugs is no talking. No moaning.”

“Not even a tiny squeak?”

Brody smiled up at him with his sexy eyes, then mouthed Aden’s dick through the material. The wash of warm air made Aden shudder. Brody wrapped his hands around his butt and pulled Aden into him but Aden was too impatient for play. He tugged Brody’s hands to the front of his jeans which were swiftly unbuttoned and unzipped. He wasn’t wearing shorts and his dick sprang out against Brody’s mouth.

The first long lick from root to tip had Aden curling his toes in his boots. He threaded his fingers in Brody’s silky dark hair and tried not to yank on it as Brody’s tongue practiced butterfly flutters over the crest. Aden clenched his butt cheeks and held his breath. Brody wrapped one hand around the base of Aden’s cock while he worked the head with his lips and tongue, and only now Aden was trying to keep quiet did he realize how much noise he usually made. Not just the sounds that normally came out of his throat but instructions for the guy sucking him off. Fucking harder, fucking slower, fucking faster, not there, fucking there. He didn’t need to tell Brody what to do. His touch was perfect.

Of course someone came in just as Aden was about to explode. He pressed on Brody’s head to get him to stop but he didn’t. Aden leaned back against the cubicle wall, gritting his teeth, tensing every muscle in his body as he thought of the insects he’d seen Brody eat, imagined the mouth on him having just eaten those bugs, conjured up the image of a bamboo worm coming out of Brody lips onto his dick, but nothing helped. Orgasm was a train thundering inside him, an unstoppable force.

As he exploded into Brody’s mouth, a sound escaped from his and he quickly turned it into a cough. He tensed as he spasmed, struggling to keep still, to keep quiet, to keep from wrenching out Brody’s hair. Brody swallowed every last drop of come, then licked Aden clean before tucking him back in his jeans and zipping him up. He rose silently to his feet, a big smile on his face, and Aden kissed him, tasting himself on Brody’s lips. No insects. When he reached for Brody’s crotch, Brody shook his head. The drier went on then off. The outer door swung open and closed.

“We’ve been in here long enough,” Brody whispered. “We’re missing the woman playing the harp. I’ve been looking forward to it all night. It’s the reason I wanted to come. Well, that and the insect feast.”

Aden rolled his eyes.

As they emerged from the bathroom, a security guard heading toward them gave them a hard stare. Brody tugged down his sweater and Aden held back his smirk.

“Want to watch a film or listen to ghost stories?” Brody asked. “Or just go and lie down and listen to the harp music?”

“Whatever you want.”

Brody took his hand. “Let’s talk.”

Shit. The one thing Aden didn’t want to do.