There was nothing for it but to strip out of his filthy, stinking clothes and step into the cold, white bathtub. He began to shiver even before he turned the taps to let the cold water flow. It was still bliss to sluice clean water over his body, then to scrub with real soap, hair, too, and to rinse what felt like a river of dirt from his body, no matter how cold the water.
Using the enema with cold water was a different sort of experience. He gritted his teeth and got on with things, but it wasn’t the vaguely pleasant precursor to vice that he’d experienced before.
He was perched on the toilet, letting that cold water do its work, when Jonathan opened the door and stepped back into the room as though there was nothing out of the ordinary about barging in on a naked stranger on the toilet.
“This should suffice,” he said with an easy smile, like he was in his element and loving every moment. He draped the thick robe over the edge of the bathtub. “Whenever you’re ready, I have things set up in the bedroom.”
He winked saucily at Charlie then left.
Charlie let out a breath once Jonathan was gone and finished his business. Never in his entire life had things taken such a bizarre turn. Not even the first time that he’d been offered a taste of the forbidden fruit he’d craved since as long as he could remember.
He finished cleaning himself, distressed at how thin he’d grown since…before, and wrapped himself in the robe. It was warm and soft and smelled of Jonathan. He breathed in the scent and smiled, then blinked, his smile dropping, and questioned his sanity.
There was nothing for it but to leave the bathroom for the bedroom. The scent of toasted bread and something sweet hurried his steps once he made it into the hall. His stomach growled and told him nothing else mattered besides putting something in it.
Those thoughts, and everything else in his head, stopped abruptly when he entered the bedroom. It was larger than he would have expected with a bed standing in a place of honor against the far wall. Thick, velvet curtains hung at the head of the bed, like the screens and curtains in the studio downstairs. There was a wardrobe and small cabinet in the room as well, and a fireplace with a flickering, crackling fire on the interior wall.
And there was a camera.
Pointing at the bed.
“It’s too late to cook anything,” Jonathan explained as he made some sort of adjustment to the camera, “but I did make toast with butter. And there’s cheese, an apple, and some cold meat, if you’d like.” He nodded to a small table by the door.
Charlie was so transfixed by the camera and everything it implied that he hadn’t noticed a plate of food right next to him. Considering how hungry he was, that was something.
Food quickly took precedence, though. He reached for a slice of apple, warring between the manners that had been drilled into him his whole life and the ravenous need to fill his belly with as much as possible in case he went another few days or weeks without anything at all.
“It’s alright,” Jonathan laughed, coming to the table and picking up a piece of cheese for himself. “Gorge yourself on as much of it as you want. There’s more where that came from. I’ll heat up some soup in the morning before sending you on your way.”
Charlie froze in the middle of chewing his apple and reaching for a wedge of toast. He would get to spend the entire night with Jonathan? With soup in the morning?
He let out a breath and his shoulders dropped.
Before being put back on the street.
Jonathan seemed to find his reaction amusing. “You didn’t think I’d cast you out into the cold with nothing, did you?”
If he’d been one to talk, Charlie would have said, “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
Instead, he pushed all thoughts of the morrow aside and dove into the moment at the expense of all else. He tried not to eat the toast too quickly and prayed he didn’t look pathetic as he raced through two small pieces of cheese and a slice of delicious, spicy sausage.
Jonathan had shifted to the side of the table, where he opened a wooden box that seemed to be filled with square plates of glass coated in something dull and grey. “You’re in good hands with me, I promise,” he said. “Photography is my passion, and I have devoted myself to the art single-mindedly, much to my father’s dismay.”
He was making light of his father’s disapproval, but Charlie sensed bitterness under Jonathan’s casual charm.
“The science of photography is changing as rapidly as the seasons,” Jonathan went on as Charlie reached for a mug of some sort of light, sweet ale that sat beside the plate of food. “I keep up with every one of the latest inventions, of course. The Americans claim they are about to revolutionize the entire industry and make photography accessible to everyone, but I choose to believe that there will always be a place for those of us who have married science to art to create worlds through images.”
Charlie lowered the mug and stared at Jonathan, transfixed by everything he said, the tone of his voice, and the movement of his lips.
“Of course, the worlds I create with my camera are not for everyone,” Jonathan added with a mischievous wink, and then proceeded on to, “If you’ve had your fill, we can get started.”
Food was forgotten. Charlie’s belly felt fuller and better than it had in ages, and his skin tingled at the whisper of what was to come.
“Off with that robe now and onto the bed,” Jonathan said, his cool cheer a sharp contrast to the smoldering excitement in Charlie’s core.
There was something wrong about him, something wicked and depraved. Charlie already knew that. He’d known it from the time he’d first felt the stirring in his soul and the rush of blood through his body when he’d seen some of the men from the factory rinsing their sweat-soaked bodies by the pump at the end of the street where his family’s home stood. He’d known it the first, tentative time he’d taken himself in hand and gloried in the sensations instead of feeling ashamed, as the vicar had warned all the boys in his catechism classes they should feel. He’d confirmed it when he allowed Rossindale to lure him intoa remote closet at the office where he was a junior to the man so that he could fuck Charlie senseless. Once the older man was done, Charlie had asked when they could do it again.
So when Jonathan held out his hand, asking for the robe, Charlie stripped out of it quickly, then went straight to the bed.
