Part the Second

Thom turned up at the Club early on Monday evening, before Colin had arrived. The new suit was still stiff with lack of wear and the starchy collar of the shirt that he'd bought with it that morning cut uncomfortably into the soft skin below his jaw whenever he moved his head; he was still tugging at it irritably as he took a seat at the bar and ordered a drink, when the blond boy who'd asked Colin about his preferences the first night slid into the chair next to his and thrust a £5 note across the counter.

“I'll get this,” he said, flashing Thom a grin that seemed to be filled with too many pearly white teeth. Thom blinked. He seemed too bright, too vibrant for their subtle surroundings, a bird of paradise in a cage of sparrows. His hair was too gold, his shirt was too green, his eyes too blue, and when their fingers brushed against each other's as he passed Thom the drink, his skin was too soft and hot to the touch.

“You're Colin's friend, aren't you?” Thom asked, staring down into the glass so he didn't have to look at the boy's face. The boy laughed.

“I wish,” he said, throwing back a shot of something clear and oily-looking and licking his lips (which were too full and red, Thom's mind protested, and he gave himself a mental kick). “Actually, I know his brother – we were in the school orchestra together, years ago.”

Thom coughed and looked up at him. “I thought you were a student,” he said, feeling his cheeks turning pink.

The boy smiled, as though pleased with himself. “I'm twenty-five, actually,” he said. “I remember you from Abingdon, of course – I think everyone knew who you were, and besides, Jon was hanging around with you. Wesley Francis-Taylor, by the way.” He held out his hand, and Thom shook it, realising how clammy his own palms were and rubbing them on his thighs as soon as they broke apart. “So... are you here for anything particular?” His voice had taken on an unexpectedly seductive tone, and when Thom met the too-blue eyes he saw with a small shock that they were hooded with desire. He swallowed and sat back a little, trying to put as much distance between them as possible.

“I'm waiting for Colin,” he said stupidly, and Wesley's face fell.

“Oh,” he said, sounding vaguely disappointed. “So, you two – are you -?”

“Are we... no!” Were they? Memories of a warm mouth and a gentle hand sent a surge of heat to his groin, and he shifted uncomfortably on the hard chair. “No. We're friends, really. Nothing else.”

Wesley laughed, and Thom tried to pretend he couldn't hear relief in that sound. “That's just as well, then,” the younger man said. “Coz never seemed like the settling type, if you know what I mean. I couldn't imagine any proper boyfriend would be comfortable with... all of this.” He gestured expansively at the rest of the room.

Thom watched him curiously, and a question occurred to him. “Why do you come here, then?” he asked. Wesley was young, attractive – shockingly so, if truth be told – and he could have had anyone he wanted, Thom was certain of that. But instead he was here, like Thom, who wanted more than anything to be somewhere else: surrounded by the fantasies of other people, an observer rather than a participant.

“The same reason as anyone else does,” Wesley murmured, his expression shrewd. “Substituting real life for something that's never going to be so fulfilling. Why do you think you're here?”

Thom thought about it, and could only come up with one answer. “Because Colin invited me.”

Wesley's smile was too knowing; it made his skin crawl, as though the other man could see straight through him. He was staring over Thom's shoulder, and when Thom turned, he saw that it was because Colin had just stumbled through the door, his arm slung possessively around the waist of the young man at his side, laughing uproariously at something his companion had just said. Two dark heads bent together, sharing some secret joke; Colin's hair was untidy as though hasty fingers had been run through it only moments before, and the other's – this man was taller than Colin, in top-to-toe black, skinny and hard-edged – was damp from the rain outside, straggling past his collar in wet curls. But despite his apparent distraction, Colin's gaze was already sweeping the room; when he found Thom, and his eyes slid to Wesley sitting beside him, his face hardened. Thom fumbled to finish his drink as Colin approached the bar, the burn of the alcohol making his throat sting and his eyes water, so that by the time Colin laid a hand on his shoulder and he glanced up, it seemed as though there were three or four Colins gazing down at him.

The man on his arm was wearing eyeliner. And lipstick. His face was narrow and pale, doe-eyed, almost feminine but somehow wrong in its sharpness; the fingernails of the hand that was draped over Colin's shoulder were painted with chipped burgundy-coloured polish. Thom was fairly certain he could have hung his coat from those hips. “I see you've met Wesley,” Colin said coolly, leaning on the counter and signalling to the bartender.

“I was just telling him about how I knew Jonny at school,” Wesley said with an open smile; but this time it seemed predatory to Thom, almost shark-like.

“I see,” Colin said tightly; having attracted the attention of the bartender, he asked for a bottle of the wine they'd had last time. “It seems this is something of a school reunion, then, doesn't it? Thom, this is David -” he motioned to the man at his side “- he was in the year above us at Abingdon, we've been keeping in contact the past couple of years. I don't know if you remember him.”

Thom had a vague recollection of a David playing Ariel in a school production of The Tempest, but he couldn't be positive that it was the same person, so he nodded and hoped that would be enough. It all seemed a little bizarre to him, as if Colin had been constructing some sort of social spider's web around the club, ensnaring shadowy figures from their past. David was watching him with huge brown eyes like those of a frightened deer; Colin obviously found this alluring, but Thom thought it was annoying. Like the make-up and the nail varnish.

“Anyway...” Colin turned back to Wesley with the most insincere apologetic smile Thom had ever seen. “I'm afraid I'm going to have to steal Thom away from you now. Aren't I, Thom?”

Thom thought of Florian, and white skin turning dusky red, and Colin's expression when he was concentrating hard, and all of a sudden his trousers felt tight. He nodded, standing up, while Wesley watched him ruefully; Thom realised with a jolt that Wesley had thought he might have a chance with him, and his stomach did an odd kind of backflip. It was something to think about for the future, perhaps. He was as much a member of the Club as Colin was, and not everything he did here had to be dictated by him... there was a whole vista opening up before him, of men who might actually want him, and he felt a strange thrill at the idea.

Perhaps Colin's 'lesson' had paid off sooner than expected.

Colin and David were already ahead of him, and he followed them. They were heading for the Green Room, and Thom wondered if Colin always chose it as the setting for his liaisons. He shut the door and locked it behind him; by the time he turned to the bed (noting that the cushions were now arranged differently, as Colin had placed them), Colin and David were already starting in on the wine. David's jacket was draped over the chair in the corner. Underneath it he had been wearing a shirt with a thin pinstripe pattern, and a narrow black tie, and Thom could see how thin he was; the sharp angles of elbows and shoulderblades tented the fabric of the shirt, so that he resembled nothing so much as an animated shop mannequin.

Unlike Florian, David seemed to enjoy some sort of friendship with Colin which made Thom's position more unclear. He hovered uncertainly near the opposite side of the bed, until Colin turned to him and motioned at the cushions, an obvious indication of what Thom should do. As before, he kicked off his shoes and hopped up onto the bed, settling against the cushions and taking the glass of wine that Colin pressed into his hands.

“I told you there was someone I wanted you to meet,” Colin said, perching on the edge of the bed and pulling David closer.

“I was Colin's first,” David said, with all the blunt honesty of a sledgehammer. It was a forceful statement, without preamble: it said back off, I was here before you, it challenged Thom to prove what claim he had to Colin's attention.

Colin was beaming at Thom, as though the pair had just announced their engagement and were expecting congratulations. “Isn't he pretty?” he said, reaching up to stroke David's cheek. “He was just as pretty back then, weren't you?”

“Bending you over the sink -” David began.

“- trousers round our knees -” Colin interjected fondly.

“- in the loo next to the music practice rooms -”

“- I was begging to be fucked,” Colin finished, smiling reminiscently. “All of sixteen years old. Such a desperate little slut, really, and you told me so, didn't you?” The smile took on a darker edge. “Anyway, it didn't take long before I turned the tables, after all. David knows what he really wants. It's a shame you haven't learned that, Thom. And what do you really want, David?”

David's face was rapt with admiration; it was almost frightening, and Thom fought the urge to crawl away. “To give myself up completely to you,” he said, his voice quivering slightly. He sounded terrified, but it seemed to be what Colin had wanted to hear, and he patted David's head as though he were an obedient dog.

“Good boy,” he said. “Now... strip. Show Thom just how beautiful you are, love.”

Colin's words might have been sugared, but their tone wasn't, and from what Thom had seen, David just wasn't the arguing type. He watched as David stood back, the light from the lamp by the chair casting a golden hue over his white skin and bringing out red shades in the depths of his ebony hair. Long, slender hands went to his throat and began to unknot the narrow tie, which he laid at the foot of the bed beside Colin before moving on to his shirt buttons, each one given painstaking attention that made Thom squirm as, inch by inch, an expanse of pale chest was exposed, shadows cast in sharp relief beneath the delicate architecture of ribs and collarbones. The shirt was folded carefully and placed next to the tie, and David's fingers skated lightly over those coathanger hips on their way to his belt buckle. He slid the strip of leather through the loops, the soft hiss sending a jolt straight to Thom's cock, but instead of putting it down he presented it to Colin, who took it with a murmured word that Thom couldn't hear. Shoes, socks, trousers and underwear were shed with less pretence; David's body under his clothing was long-limbed, loose-jointed with lean muscles that made him look less awkward than he did clothed. He moved with a kind of easy, feline grace to the end of the bed, leaning over and gripping the rails of the iron footboard; Thom didn't understand why, until Colin knelt up and wound the belt around bony wrists, tying it off to the rail so that David was anchored there, unable to pull away.

There were no more soft smiles now, no more gentle touches or affectionate comments. Colin was back in that place where Thom didn't understand him, and when he turned to Thom and leaned over him, small hands going to Thom's own belt buckle, he shied away without really knowing why.

“Thom?”

Colin's voice was gravelly: it sounded like it had done the first time they'd sneaked a pack of Mrs Greenwood's cigarettes from the drawer of her bedside table and smoked them out of Colin's window. Reluctantly Thom looked up at him. His expression was curiously soft, almost sympathetic, as though he understood Thom's confusion; and it was Colin, who seemed to read people like he could read books, so he probably did.

“I need to borrow this. You'll get it back, I promise – but you don't want to disappoint David, do you? He's wanted to meet you for a long time. This means a lot to him.”

Thom glanced over at David. The black-rimmed eyes were fixed unblinkingly on him, and he shivered and nodded. “OK... all right.” He breathed in and out deeply as Colin unbuckled his belt and slipped it off, winding the buckle end around his right hand before slipping off the bed and walking round to stand behind David. David's head had dropped and he was focusing on the carpet, the muscles of his shoulders and back straining with the effort to hold his position, and Thom wondered briefly why before he saw the leather tail of the belt flicking up and heard the crack as it landed across the back of David's thighs.

“Count,” Colin ordered coldly. David hadn't made a sound, but then he gasped, “One... one, thank you.”

“Thom?” Colin said. “Thom, I want you to touch yourself. You're going to come when David comes, do you understand?”

Thom jumped violently. He hadn't even realised it, but his hand was resting on his erection anyway – in fact, he'd not noticed he was hard to begin with. He could have questioned Colin's instruction, but he wasn't sure he wanted to. Instead, he put the wine down on the table and slipped a hand into his trousers, wrapping it around his cock with a small sigh as the belt slapped against David's arse and he heard a shaky, “Two, thank you.”

How many blows did Colin intend to deliver? He watched David's hair, swinging slightly as it hung down around his face and a choked “Three, thank you” escaped his mouth. He began to stroke himself slowly, noticing that despite the rough treatment David was as hard as he was (“Four, thank you”) and that Colin showed no sign of relenting.

By the time David counted fifteen, Thom's hand was moving roughly in his trousers, keeping pace. Although most of Colin's attention was focused on David, his gaze was fixed on Thom; conversely, instead of increasing his embarrassment, it stripped it away, making it a competition to see who would break first. And, on the count of twenty-three, David let out a sharp cry like a dying animal, coming over his stomach and the carpet and slumping to the floor, arms still pinioned to the footboard, and Thom followed him instantly over the edge, coming over his hand and the inside of his boxers with a stifled moan, and broke eye contact with Colin as he shuddered and struggled for control.

Colin had won, if it had been a contest in the first place.

And now he was down on his knees next to David, stroking his hair, kissing his face, Thom's belt abandoned beside them and as forgotten as himself. He pulled his hand out and wiped it on the quilt, and then, because it was good wine, he picked up his glass and drained it. If Colin or David noticed as he walked past them and retrieved the belt, neither of them let him know; and so Thom went home alone for the second time in a row, feeling curiously unfulfilled.