Page 55 of Compulsion

Baz sniggered again. “Not much goin’ on there, Mr. Pervert. He looks pretty fuckin’ small.”

“So would you, Baz, if you were waiting for some lunatic to cut your throat!” I snapped back. Seve pressed my arm as if in warning, but Baz didn’t seem to care about my anger.

“Just do somethin’. Gonna see if it’s fun f’ me or not.”

Seve leaned forward against my back, his breath on my neck. I felt pretty bloody vulnerable. I assumed he had some kind of plan. Though if it involved us actually having sex, he was going to be way out of luck. Like Baz so succinctly put it, I was totally shriveled. And any other orifice was tightly clenched as well. Fear does that to a man, you know.

Baz let himself down slowly onto one of the kitchen chairs. It skittered on the tiled floor and one of its legs settled on my discarded jeans. Guess he was getting a ringside seat: the condemned man has his last grope. Bizarre. His grip on the long knife was as good as ever, and his eyes were animal bright. I had no reason to believe he wouldn’t move as fast as before, if and when he needed, and I didn’t want that knife any nearer either of us. He was surprisingly strong too. Maybe between us, we could have taken him, but not without someone getting cut. And I’d seen the effects of that once, and once too often.

“Look, Baz, why don’t we—”

“Y’ talk shit!” Baz’s voice had risen again. “That’s all y’ ever did, Max. Talk ’n smoke ’n tell me what I din’ do. No more talkin’ anymore, okay?” He turned his gaze to Seve. “Show me.”

I felt Seve’s hand on my buttocks. He caressed me soothingly. Was this going to be the last time he touched me like this?

“You feel good, Max.” His voice was soft, maybe not only for Baz’s benefit. “Lean back. Let me touch you.”

I did what I was told. My mind was whirling. Seve held my back against him so I had to look at Baz, at his blinking, putrid, suddenly lewd little eyes. I had to look at the glint of the blade in his hand, listen to his ragged wheezing. If I weren’t so petrified, I’d have thrown up in his lap. Seve tugged me closer, our bodies blocking Baz’s view of the counter behind us. I cursed Seve’s minimalist taste in furniture because I couldn’t see anything around us I could use as a weapon.

Seve gave a soft groan behind me. I was shocked to feel his dick swelled inside his sweats. How could he get aroused with a wavering blade held inches from his body and the threat of possible death? He hitched down his waistband and rubbed his cock up between the cheeks of my arse. We were both damp with sweat, but thank God he didn’t try to push inside. I didn’t fancy being dry-fucked just before I was murdered. But it seemed he didn’t have that in mind, anyway. He moaned quietly and gave a few thrusts of his hips, as if he were moving inside me. It was an act. But to what point?

“Is he good, then?” came Baz’s reedy little voice. “Dun’ look like he’s enjoyin’ it.”

“He’s very good,” Seve said. There was a strained edge to his voice. “And of course he’s enjoying it. Aren’t you, Max?” He slid a hand down my belly to my groin and circled my dick with his palm. He started to stroke it. Baz followed the movement, apparently fascinated. Seve nuzzled into the crook of my neck and whispered to me, “Give him a show, for fuck’s sake. Then when I give you the sign, duck down.”

“Huh?” I grunted and tried to turn it into a moan of pleasure. Seve continued his pantomime, and I thrust back toward him, twisting an expression onto my face as if I was being well and truly fucked.

“I like you naked,” he murmured in my ear. “No clothes between us.”

Baz leaned forward in his chair to hear better. His expression was an odd mixture of repulsion and prurience. The serrated knife lay in his lap, and his grip on the other had eased as well. The chair creaked underneath him.

“Right?” Seve whispered to me.

I nodded. I understood now.

“Can’t see much,” Baz whined. “That all y’ fuckin’ do?” He gazed at my cock, nestled in Seve’s fist—at my thrusting hips, as Seve rolled his behind me. Baz was just that little bit entranced. Just that little bit distracted.

One of Seve’s fingernails pressed sharply into my hip, and I took it as my signal. I leaned forward, pulled swiftly out of Seve’s loosening grip, and dropped to my knees. Baz snarled, his instinctive suspicion awakening. No more sordid entertainment for him; he was all business, jerking up the blade and aiming it straight at my neck. He was less than a foot away from me and I was a kneeling, naked target. He couldn’t miss. I imagined I could already feel the slice across my nerve endings, feel the shock of mortal pain.

And then my mind settled, a chill running through my whole body. No clothes between us, Seve had said. I scrabbled for my discarded jeans and yanked them toward me, wrenching them out from under the leg of the kitchen chair—another example of Seve’s fashionable but ridiculously flimsy furniture. The chair tilted awkwardly, and with a shout of anger, Baz began to topple back. At the same time, Seve stepped forward in front of me, swung something out from behind his back, and brought it down on Baz’s head, hard. I didn’t know what it was until I heard the smash of glass and smelled the sudden rush of alcohol. One of the wine bottles from the rack behind him!

Baz continued to fall, the chair slipping out from under him. Liquid ran down his face, dark trails in the half light, drops falling from his nose and chin. He still gripped the knives, but his limbs were uncoordinated. His mouth was open, and he looked nothing more than startled. On his way down, he collided heavily with the table and finally slumped to the floor, sprawled between two of the table legs in a spreading pool that could have been red wine and could just as well have been blood. His fists opened like limp buds and the knives clattered out onto the kitchen tiles.

Silence. All I could hear was my own harsh breathing. My legs were shaking so hard I couldn’t stand. I scrambled on hands and knees back to the relative safety beside the kitchen cupboards. I just wanted to get beyond Baz’s reach, even though he wasn’t moving now. It was difficult to avoid the smashed glass, and I nearly put my hand on a large shard. It rocked back and forth, the torn label flapping wetly. As far as I could see, it had a fancy Spanish name on it with a big Roman numeral; its concave surface was covered in dust.

“Fuck, Seve.” My voice was very hoarse. “That wasn’t an expensive one, was it?”

Seve knelt beside me, his hand on my shoulder. He’d pulled his sweats back up around his waist. “Are you okay?”

I didn’t know how to answer that. “We need to get dressed.” My mouth opened and words came out, but I couldn’t take much responsibility for them. “We need to get shoes on. Clear up this mess.”

Seve ran his hand gently over my head as a parent might try to console a scared child. He stood up and carefully made his way to the light switch. The light came on with a flood of fluorescent white that made me wince. All around us, the floor was covered with shattered glass and spilled wine. Baz lay motionless on the cold, wet, too-shiny floor tiles.

Seve glanced at me. If he’d meant to smile, I had to tell him it looked a hell of a lot more like a grimace. He stepped gingerly around the carnage and crouched over Baz, placing his fingers on Baz’s neck. He made a small sound of exhalation.

I clasped my jeans to my chest, ignoring the fact both legs were soaked with booze. “We must call an ambulance.”

“He’s dead, Max.” Seve said it calmly, but I could see his shoulders shaking.