Bonds of Earth (24 page)

T
HE
fat one was Winston van Eyck, the rich art patron that Castleton had promised to contact, and he, at least, seemed oblivious to the storm raging around him. After enthusing over the quality and boldness of Seward’s work, he proceeded to suggest a tour of the gardens so that they could “iron out the details of a show.” After shooting Michael a pointed look, Seward followed van Eyck out, leaving Michael alone with Castleton.

“Fancy meeting you here,” Castleton drawled, smiling crookedly.

Michael rounded on him. “What the hell are you trying to do?”

Castleton had the effrontery to look innocent. “Why, I’m trying to introduce your friend to the New York art world, as per your request,” he said simply. “He should be perfect for it. He’s got the brooding lord of the manor act down pat.” Leaning in, he added conspiratorially, “Honestly, I didn’t know you went weak in the knees for the tragic figure. Really, it lends you hidden depths that I find terribly attractive.”

“Did you forget,” Michael ground out, trying to hold himself back from punching Castleton on his perfect nose, “that you weren’t supposed to be here for at least another week?”

“I had no choice. Winston’s sailing for England tomorrow, and this was a last-minute whim of his.”

“There’s this invention known as the telephone,” Michael snapped. “I hear it’s been around for about forty years.”

Castleton smirked. “You didn’t leave me your number, darling.”

Michael surged forward, startling Castleton and forcing him back a step. “I told you once before not to fuck with me,” he growled.

Blanching, Castleton held up his hands in surrender. “I thought you’d be long gone by now!” he squealed. “How was I to know you’d still be here playing house?”

Michael glared at him for two thudding heartbeats, then turned away, suddenly disgusted with himself. That was exactly what he’d been doing, mooning like a love-struck schoolgirl. What the hell had he been thinking?

Perhaps it was better this way. Perhaps it was better that Seward found out now rather than later.

“How much did you tell him?” he asked hollowly.

“Not much more than what you overheard,” Castleton said, squirming. “But Winston might have told him you were the best rubber in any bathhouse in Manhattan.”

Michael closed his eyes. Shit. “He didn’t look familiar.”

“Well,” Castleton soothed, patting his shoulder, “you meet so many people.”

M
ICHAEL
found a gardening task in the front yard that required his immediate attention, so that when van Eyck and Castleton left, he would know it immediately. They emerged barely a half hour later, both with grim looks on their faces. Michael took a deep breath, peeled off his gloves again, and went inside.

Predictably, he found Seward in the library, pouring himself a drink from some bottle he’d managed to keep hidden. Standing in the doorway, Michael paused, uncertain. “I’m sorry,” he said softly.

Seward did not look at him. “For what?” His voice was chillingly calm. Michael tried to answer in the same fashion.

“For not telling you I’d talked to Castleton about your painting, about asking someone he knew in the art world to evaluate your work.”

Seward took a sip of his drink. “Not for exposing me to humiliation in front of your lovers?”

Michael frowned. “First of all, neither of those men is my lover. Second, there was no humiliation—”

“I’m not a charity case,” Seward said shortly, slamming the glass down.

“What did you tell van Eyck?”

“I told him I wasn’t interested, of course.” His gaze lifted to Michael. “Do you suppose I’m totally without pride?”

Michael shook his head slowly. This conversation was deteriorating even more rapidly than he’d imagined. “Van Eyck said you were talented because you are talented,” he said, as evenly as he could. “I didn’t fuck him to get him to come up here, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Seward’s eyes blazed with anger and hurt. “But you did, didn’t you? At some time or another?”

Michael hesitated; the truth came harder than he’d expected it would. “I don’t remember. I fucked so many men the first six months after I came home, I wouldn’t recognize half of them if they were standing right in front of me.”

Seward stared at him, horrified. “And what did you suppose these last few days would be? A parting gift? A little occupational therapy for the poor cripple?”

“You’re not a poor cripple,” Michael rasped. “You never were. And for the last few days, the farthest thing from my mind was leaving.”

“Do you expect me to believe that?” Seward snapped. “Did you and Castleton laugh about me while you shared his bed?”

Michael’s fists clenched. So help him, if he ever laid eyes on that little bastard again, he’d rip him limb from limb. “I
fucked
Castleton when I got back to New York, because I needed a
fuck
,” he gritted. “I didn’t
share
anything with him.”

“And now you’ve—fucked me, and you’re free to move on,” Seward said hollowly.

“That’s not what happened,” Michael protested but cut himself off when he realized he had no words to explain it. He’d never done anything but fuck, and Seward had never done anything but love. Had they been living in some no-man’s-land, some middle ground that belonged to neither of them?

Or had it belonged to both of them?

“Then what did happen?” Seward demanded, rising to his feet. “What did you imagine would become of… this?”

Michael shook his head, all of his doubts and fears suddenly returning, overwhelming him. Wearily, he murmured, “Nothing. I imagined nothing.”

“I’ll ask you one more time,” Seward said slowly. “What do you want?”

Michael took a deep breath.
Even if I wanted you,
he thought,
it wouldn’t change anything. This had to end eventually.
Aloud, he said, “When I came home from the war, I only wanted one thing: to forget.”

“And you still want to forget.”

Michael nodded. “Yes.”

Seward began unbuttoning his shirt, stripping it from his shoulders as Michael watched. When he lifted his undershirt up and off, revealing his landscape of scars, Michael understood.

“If that’s still all you want, then there’s nothing for you here,” Seward whispered.

14

T
HE
early November wind was unusually bitter, bringing the promise of a harsh winter. Ignoring a cheerfully decorated shop window filled with toys, Michael hunched his shoulders inside his too-thin coat and hurried along the sidewalk until he reached his destination. Pulling open the door, he welcomed the assault of hot, humid air and the chance to escape from reminders of the upcoming holiday.

In the end, his half-formed plans to start over again had come to nothing, for he realized that a change of location would not change his situation or his outlook. Millie had welcomed him back with open arms, and he had clung to her like a drowning man to a bit of flotsam. Eventually he knew he’d go under, but for the time being he could see no other way to survive.

He debated about saying hello to Millie, then vetoed it. He’d overslept after staying out too late the night before, and she would not be pleased with him. Feeling like a burglar, he crept past her open office door on his way to the massage room.

“Michael, darling, don’t run away,” Millie sang, and Michael winced. Sighing, he straightened his shoulders and turned back the way he had come.

She invited him in with a solemn air that immediately raised his hackles. He’d been late for a shift only a couple of times before, and he was never less in the mood for a lecture. Folding his arms, he drew himself up and glared down at her.

Millie, predictably, was completely unperturbed. “Oh, my, now I know what they mean by the Black Irish,” she breathed, pretending to fan herself. “You’re positively melting my corset with that fearsome glower.”

Sagging, Michael threw himself into a chair. “All right,” he said heavily, “you win.”

“I didn’t realize it was a competition,” Millie said gently. “You’re in a foul mood tonight, aren’t you? But then, you’ve been in a foul mood for—” She laid a finger against her lips, pretending to think about it. “—hm. How long have we known one another?”

“Very funny.”

Her eyes sparkled. “Well, I thought so.” Sobering, she indicated a stack of books on the table beside her. “Relax, my sweet. I only wanted to give you these.”

Michael stared at them dumbly for a moment, then leaned in and studied the spines. “These are medical textbooks.”

“Yes, I know. I was cleaning out a closet in the back the other day and found them. You must have forgotten them before you left for school.”

Michael picked up the first one and opened it to the frontispiece. “This book,” he said carefully, “was published last year. I sailed for Ireland in ’13.”

Millie craned her neck to peer at the page. “Oh, well, you know how these books are. It must be a misprint.”

“Millie…,” Michael warned.

“Just take them,” she said softly. “Please.”

“I can’t,” Michael returned, just as softly, even as he found his gaze roaming over the spines. She had obviously had some help in picking them out; he recognized most of the authors as the foremost authorities in modern physical therapy, but some of the titles were so recently published as to be unknown to him.

Millie leaned back and gazed at him for a long time before speaking. “When I met you, I knew you deserved so much more than the life you were living.”

Michael stiffened. He didn’t like to remember those times, and Millie knew it. “I was barely sixteen and paying my room and board by sucking cock in rat-infested alleys,” he said, as calmly as he could. “I can’t think of anyone who deserved that fate.”

Millie glared at him, and he fell silent. “I also knew that you deserved more than the life I could give you,” she added. “But I gave you all I could.”

“You gave me more than I can ever hope to repay,” Michael said fiercely. “Don’t ever think otherwise.”

Millie waved away his passionate words with a hand. “Darling, I gave you a fancier venue, that’s all. But in the end, you were still selling your body and your very talented hands. And for that I apologize; it was the best life I could provide.”

“You encouraged me to learn, to study,” he said helplessly. “You sent me to school.”

“And what has that ever brought you but misery and regrets?” Millie countered with surprising vehemence. “You’re never going back, are you?”

Michael opened his mouth, then closed it again. He didn’t want to tell her that he’d been dreaming nearly every night of dying, though not in war as he’d imagined a thousand times before, but of old age, gasping his last breath in a freezing and threadbare furnished room, with nothing and no one to warm him. Nor could he tell her that he was beginning to doubt that any amount of time and distance would insulate him from this raw, unfamiliar ache of loss, this bizarre conviction that he no longer belonged in the life he’d lived for so long. The last thing he should be doing was giving either of them false hope, and yet he heard himself saying, “I’ll take the books home with me after my shift,” surprising them both.

Millie nodded. Michael tried to ignore the way she blinked furiously before speaking, or that her voice was still rough when she did. “Oh, I almost forgot,” she said, mercifully changing the subject. “There was someone in here earlier looking for you.”

Michael sighed. He had developed enough of a reputation that he was acquiring new customers through word of mouth. Some salesman from Newark would whisper about him on a train, and the next week his friend would be lying on Michael’s table with a hard-on and a complaint about his terrible lumbago. “Did you set him up with an appointment?”

Millie shook her head and flung one powdered arm over the back of the divan. “He didn’t want one. He only wanted to talk to you. Apparently he’s been trolling every bathhouse in the city looking for you. He looked nearly worn to the bone, too. He walked with a limp.”

Michael ignored the sudden leap in his pulse. “What was his name?”

Millie’s gaze dropped to her nails. “I don’t remember if he told me, to be honest. Since you finally told me about that trouble with the bull, I haven’t been terribly inclined to give out your personal details to men I don’t know. When I wouldn’t confirm you worked here, he shut his pretty little mouth and left.”

Michael ignored the irrational surge of disappointment. “Yes, of course. Thanks for that.”

Millie eyed him. “Do you know who he was?”

Michael considered lying to her but discarded it when he saw the concern in her eyes. “I think so, yes.”

“Friend or adversary?” she asked softly.

Michael’s hands gripped his knees. “I don’t know.”

“Well, darling,” Millie said kindly, “you must admit you’ve always been notoriously bad at telling the difference.”

H
E
IS
in the baths again, but unlike in his other nightmares, his body is still young, his skin supple, his hands strong. He is working on a man whose back is muscled, unmarred, perfect, and Michael feels himself growing hard as he kneads the firm flesh. When Michael nudges him to turn over, the man rolls obediently—and Michael stares in horror at the blood-streaked face, half of it ripped away, the left eye socket empty and bottomless.