Finally, although he hated himself for being so weak, he wandered up to the office.
Nikolas was doing something on the computer. He turned the screen slightly away from Ben and didn’t look up. “Did you get lost?”
This was something of a standing joke between them; Ben and office work didn’t do well together. Ben perched on the edge of the desk, watching him. “What’re you doing?”
“This life of idle indulgence doesn’t pay for itself. Annoyingly, I have to occasionally click some buttons to produce this vast amount of wealth we both enjoy. What do you want?”
“You?”
“I’m busy, Ben. Go play with your toys.”
Ben slid closer. “That’s exactly what I had in mind, only my toys are…here…”
§ § §
Nikolas wondered later if he’d lost a few million because he realised one hand had been on the keyboard as he’d taken Ben, very slowly, bent over the desk. Who knows?—maybe he’d made a few instead…
Afterward, in the shower, Ben seemed distant once more. Nikolas didn’t get a face full of soapsuds, he didn’t get annoyingly probed or squeezed, or any of the other things Ben usually amused himself with when he had a captive, naked Nikolas. He pursed his lips for a while, debating letting it go. He’d known Ben intimately for five years and knew very well Ben would probably tell him what was wrong sooner or later. But he didn’t want later. Later hadn’t worked so well for them recently. When they were drying off, therefore, Nikolas commented as casually as he could, “You’re very quiet.”
Ben shrugged.
“I rest my case.”
Ben sighed. “It’s you.”
“Me! Well, that’s more like the old Benjamin. What’ve I done now?”
“It’s what you’renotdoing.”
“Ah.” Nikolas knew very well where this was going, and he didn’t like it. He tried to slide past Ben toward the bedroom, but Ben caught his arm.
“I’m not a fucking girl, Nik.”
Nikolas shook his hand off. “I’d have thought, given what we’ve just spent the last hour doing, it was obvious I know you aren’t a girl. And how many times do I have to tell you—don’t swear at me. ”
“I don’t know, Nikolas, how many times do I have to tell you I’m fine? I don’t need mollycoddling. I don’t need you constantly monitoring me, and most of all I don’t need you to fuck me like I’ll break in two if you so much as thrust too hard. What the fuck was that in there? Last time we did that in the office, we broke the desk if you recall!”
“I do, and it was expensive to replace.”
“Bollocks, and it wasn’t. You’re just making that up. This is about those questions the police asked you, isn’t it?”
Nikolas rounded on him. “I’d have thought it was more about the questions the police asked you, the examin—”
“It wasn’t any of that that got to me. It was the…other things they said. I didn’t—don’t—care about the bruises, you know that—or you used to.”
“Well, I cared! Fuck, Ben, I had to sit there and let those little men recite a catalogue of injuries, as if I’d done to you what that psychotic bitch did to me. Rope burns! Rape? How do you think that made me feel?”
Ben suddenly chuckled. “You didn’t let them know how you felt. That wassocool.”
Slightly mollified, Nikolas went into the bedroom. “Well, I wasn’t so cool inside, Benjamin, trust me. I’m not going to hurt you like that again.”
Ben caught him around the waist and wrestled him to the bed. They lay side by side, naked. Ben turned his head and regarded the stony profile. “You don’t trust me.”
“I don’t trust myself.”
“You’re demeaning me by making this decision for us both.”
“Have you been reading women’s magazines again?”
