Part the Eleventh

At eight o'clock in the evening, Thom was still undecided.

He was standing in front of his bedroom mirror, wondering which shirt would go best with the suit, and whether it was worth whatever Colin had planned for him to actually go to the Club. And it had to be something special, something he had put a lot of time and effort into, for him to threaten to call off their arrangement if Thom didn't show up. He had spent most of the evening trying to count the reasons that he should stay away, but his mind had only added to the pile of memories he didn't want to let go of. Florian, pink-faced, incoherent and sobbing across Colin's lap. David, white-knuckled as he clutched the footboard and counted the blows. Nat, writhing under him, his full red lips parted on a scream. Wesley, bloody-nosed, blue eyes filled with unshed tears. And Colin himself, fingers laced across his stomach, watching him from the chair beside the bed.

He picked up the first shirt that came to hand, slipped into it and started to button it with fumbling fingers.

Oddly, what he was most concerned about was that if he started going back to the Club, Jonny would presume that Thom simply wasn't interested in him and drop the whole thing. It had been nice, for once, to be the object of someone else's attention like that; every time Jonny had said something to him, or smiled at him, or touched him, Thom had experienced almost as much of a thrill from Colin's obvious jealousy as from the contact itself. He wasn't used to people fighting over him – if he went to the Club tonight, would that be an acknowledgement that Colin had won? And then he remembered those small, hot fingers, the gentle caress of a warm, skilled mouth, and decided that in the end it didn't matter to him which of the brothers came out on top.

He walked the short distance to the Club from his house. It was an unusually mild night for late October, and he doubted he would have noticed even if the temperature had been sub-zero. As he arrived he half-expected the building to look different, somehow, in reflection of what awaited him, but no: the green-painted façade and white-framed windows were now disappointingly familiar. The doorman let him in with no more than a brief glance at his face and a nod of casual recognition and, his heart feeling heavier with every step, he climbed the staircase to the bar.

The first sign that the evening wasn't going to go according to plan was when he bumped into Wesley coming out of the door in the opposite direction. He was fully prepared to walk past as though he hadn't even noticed – the last thing he wanted right now was a confrontation with the blond-haired man – but Wesley caught his arm and swung him round to face him.

“Not the Green Room,” he said in a low voice. “Colin has the Red Room tonight, he wants you to meet him there.”

Thom stared at him. He hadn't even heard of the Red Room; the Green Room had been the only place Colin had ever shown him. “Where's the Red Room, then?”

Wesley's blue eyes searched his face keenly. Tonight they were clear as water, untainted by the influence of whatever he'd taken the night he'd fucked Thom, and in them he saw a fondness more genuine than anything he'd seen so far. “Opposite the Green Room,” he said, with a quick, easy smile. Then he leaned forwards, allowing his lips to brush Thom's cheekbone, and whispered: “Don't judge him for this. Please. Don't judge either of them.” Then he was gone, leaving behind only the prickling of Thom's skin where his mouth had rested gently, and the vague scent of cologne hanging in the air.

It felt as though every pair of eyes at the bar was trained on Thom as he walked straight across the room with his head down. His hand was slippery with sweat as he turned the doorknob to let himself into the corridor beyond the bar, his chest aching with a dull, consuming sense of dread at what he would find waiting for him in the Red Room. The door was identical to that of the Green Room, facing it across the corridor; heavy, dark wood, pitted with age yet immovably solid, with a resounding echo as Thom raised his hand and knocked sharply, once, twice, three times.

“Come in.” It was Colin's voice, sounding distant, utterly emotionless. Thom turned the handle, the door swung slowly open on silent, well-oiled hinges, and he let himself inside, closing it quietly behind him.

The room beyond was dark. It had more windows than the Green Room, and it felt bigger, the floor uncarpeted so that Thom's footsteps reverberated around the walls as he trod on bare floorboards. But all the windows save one were covered by heavy black drapes that shut out the meagre light from the street, and Colin stood there, a small, slender figure in black, silhouetted against the dim sodium glow of the outside world. Thom could see his face in profile, and a lump rose in his throat; whatever Colin was hiding in his voice, it was written clearly on his features. He was paler than normal, his eyes deep inky-dark pools against the chalk white of his skin, which was drawn too tightly over his bones. His mouth, pursed around the cigarette raised to his lips, turned down at the corners, and his arms were folded defensively over his chest as he stared down at the passers-by.

“I didn't want to frighten you away,” he said, without preamble, as Thom came to his side. His voice was still flat and empty, so utterly uncharacteristic of him that it could almost have been someone else. “I was gentle, wasn't I? I let you know that you could walk away, but you chose to stay. I thought you were learning, I thought I was helping you. And now it's all gone wrong.”

He sucked a little too strongly on the cigarette, and coughed, waving the smoke away.

“I...” Thom wasn't sure what to say. His first impulse was to put his arms around Colin and hug him tightly, but he'd never seen Colin in this mood; he had no idea whether it would be the right thing to do.

“Don't say anything. Please.” Colin leaned forwards and stubbed out the glowing end of the cigarette in the ashtray balanced on the windowsill. Thom noticed that the other man's hands were shaking. “I... I trusted you. As much as you trusted me – probably more so, because I showed you a part of myself that very few get to see. You could have laughed it off, told me you weren't interested, let the others know, and they would never have let me get away with it. But... you didn't. I could almost believe you understood, except that you have never been able to keep control of yourself – of your emotions, or your desires, or your body. You showed me, with Nat, that you didn't understand it at all.”

To Thom's surprise and horror, a single tear welled in the corner of one of the huge liquid eyes, spilling over and tracing its damp course down Colin's cheek. Colin didn't bother to wipe at it; he was acting as though he hadn't noticed it was there.

“I didn't want to give you up as a lost cause. You were – are – my best friend, you know. I thought I could bring you round, help you to realise that there is much more to physical relationships than just lust and desire, and then there was Wesley. Whether he told me about the pair of you to spite me, to make me jealous of him, or to make me angry with you... it's beside the point. You hardly knew him, yet to offered yourself up to him as readily and willingly as any one of his little whores, and I realised then that there was really nothing I could do to change you. To help you to take your pleasure as I do.”

Thom swallowed. “Colin...”

“Shhh.” Colin pressed a finger to Thom's lips, staying his words abruptly. “I don't think it was a failure. You learned what you needed to learn – that you can never achieve anything greater than an illusion of control. Tonight's lesson isn't for you, but I think you'll want to see it anyway.”

“What...?” Thom murmured against the finger. Colin tapped his mouth, dipped his head forwards and left the gentlest of kisses there. It was nothing romantic, or even possessive as Colin had been before; Thom understood after a moment that it had been a reassurance, but... a reassurance of what?

“Always so curious,” Colin murmured. For once, the observation didn't sound like an admonishment; in fact, Colin actually seemed pleased, which was somehow more worrying than anything else. He gestured to the darkened room with one hand. “I thought that it would be time for a change of scenery. We have conducted the terms of our agreement within very strict boundaries, but if we both agree – and we do, don't we – that this arrangement is no longer going to serve either party, I might as well show you what else the Club has to offer.”

“I can't see it,” Thom said, wondering if he was stating the obvious.

“In time,” Colin said patiently. He stamped a foot on the floorboards, the noise echoing oddly around the room. “It has... different purposes, you see. It's easier for the owners to regulate what happens, within reason, and the Red Room is very specific. You'll understand, soon. Touch the wall.”

Thom blinked at him. “What?”

“Touch it.”

Thom reached out a hand into the darkness until he came into contact with something solid. Well – at first, it felt solid. As he pressed down on it, it gave slightly beneath his fingers; it had an odd, foamy texture, like the insoles of shoes. “What is it?”

“Soundproofing. Of course, the windows spoil the effect a little, but it stops those in the adjoining rooms from being disturbed. Sometimes... it gets a little loud.”

“Oh.” Thom snatched his hand back from the wall, and wiped it on the side of his thigh, feeling in some bizarre way as though he'd been contaminated. Then, with devastating suddenness, the lights all flashed on at once; he was temporarily blinded by the brightness, and his impression of the room's appearance came to him in bits and pieces.

It was much larger than the Green Room, for one. It had the same high ceiling, but it was painted black instead of white, so that instead of the room feeling larger, it gave Thom an uncomfortable claustrophobic sensation as though the soundproofed walls were caving in on him. The walls were red. It wasn't a bright red, either, but a deep, bloody shade of crimson with a queasy, swirling pattern to it. The floorboards were a similar colour to the door, and highly varnished, but Thom wasn't paying much attention to them.

The only time he'd seen a place that looked like this was in the magazines that had made him blush in Colin's university room all those years before. Everything was dark wood and burnished metal: the glass-fronted cabinet that Thom had miraculously not walked into beside the uncovered window, containing an array of steel and plastic devices that had Thom's head spinning at the possibilities; the fleece-padded wooden cross in the corner, heavy buckled straps hanging from the four corners, and the rack of hooks on the wall next to it from which were suspended a variety of long, thin wooden or leather accessories; the number of ropes, shackles and chains dangling from the ceiling, glinting threateningly in the flood of light. Scattered about were a few low benches and chairs, but in pride of place in the centre of the room was a chaise longue, covered in black leather, and at its foot, kneeling with bare legs on the floor, was a slender, graceful girl, dressed in nothing but a shimmery black chemise, her dark hair tumbling thickly around her hidden face. Colin had selected a long, thin bamboo cane from the rack, and now as he stood over the girl he put the end of it under her chin, tilting her head up to face them. Kohl-rimmed eyes met Thom's own, and the shock of realisation sent him reeling.

“Jonny?” he gasped.

And Colin merely smiled.