Dirty Angel-BarbaraElsborg (5 page)

Was it ever when he did this?

No words were exchanged. None were needed.

I am never doing this again.

He meant it.

Except that’s what he’d thought last time.

No more.
He had to change or he’d end up dead. He had to change or he’d end up a sad and lonely old man.

Brody lingered after the guy had gone. Cleaned himself up and held onto the wash basin as he stared into the mirror.
You are such a stupid pathetic fuck up.
He
let
stuff happen to him. It was as if he was trying to get hurt badly enough for him to feel something. Tomorrow, he’d make a call. Find someone who could help him break out of this spiral of self-loathing. He wasn’t blaming Matt for all of it. The guy wasn’t around now and Brody was still a mess.

Almost immediately, the less sensible part of his brain was convincing him this was no big deal. He didn’t need to get bent out of shape. It was just sex. But it wasn’t. It was about need and loneliness and fucked up emotions. For those few moments with a guy’s cock inside him, he felt connected to someone. Yet how could that be when he didn’t care about the guy and the guy didn’t care about him? The connection was only physical and gone in as long as it took to come.

When he told himself to go home, he listened. He collected his jacket from the cloakroom and headed back onto the street. If he hurried, he could catch the next train and not have an hour’s wait for the one following. The last thing he needed was time to sit and think about how messed up he was. But he’d hardly gone more than a few yards before his path was blocked. He moved to the side and the guy moved with him.

It could have been one of those funny moments when people trying to pass each other end up doing some weird dance-like shuffle, but when Brody felt someone press up behind him, he knew he was in trouble. There were three of them, one was the guy who’d just fucked him, and before Brody could cry out or reach for his phone—though who the hell would he call?—a hand slammed over his mouth, an arm wrapped around his neck, and he was manhandled into an alley at the side of the club.

Brody knew what was coming, but that didn’t mean he was just going to take it. He fought and struggled and kicked out while his heart pounded faster and faster. They were muttering in his ear, saying this was what he wanted, but not giving him a chance to tell them it wasn’t. His jeans were wrenched down and he was bent double. The men hit his face with their hands and their cocks, slapped him, scratched him, laughed at him, and called him names.

One of the guys fucked him in the arse while another shoved his cock between Brody’s lips, hands keeping his mouth open. Fingers threaded in his hair and held his head down, fixing him in place, forcing him to take the cock so deep in his mouth, he choked. Exhausted by his efforts to resist, Brody slid into acceptance and let it happen. He tried to stop thinking about what they were doing, concentrated on imagining it over. Tears rolled down his cheeks. He couldn’t breathe and when he choked, the guy pulled his cock out.

They shoved him to his knees, held him arched back and came over his face, not in his mouth. He kept his lips pressed shut. Two used condoms were thrown at his feet. When they’d done, he slumped to the ground and only just saved himself from face planting.

He hadn’t expected the hands that lifted him upright.

“You okay?” asked the guy who’d fucked him in the bathroom.

Brody opened his mouth and couldn’t get any words out.

“Too rough? I thought… Sorry. No hard feelings?” The guy tugged Brody’s jeans up around his hips and Brody shoved him off.

The guy took one look at his face and hurried away. Brody staggered to the shelter of a skip full of builders’ rubbish. He pulled himself together, straightened his clothes and wiped his face, struggling to get his head around what had happened.
I let myself get raped?

More tears fell and he angrily brushed them away. Maybe this was the wakeup call he’d needed. He’d done nothing to ask for that, or to deserve it, but that guy in the bathroom had seen something that made him think this was okay. Brody’s heart hurt so much. He could call the police. He
should.
But he had more to lose than if he kept quiet.

He wasn’t able to leave the alley until he’d got his shit together, his head back in gear, his limbs under control. Then he headed for the station. People avoided sitting anywhere near him on the train and when he was back in his cottage, he saw why. He looked as if he’d been in a fight. His eyes were wild, his irises dark and the whites bloodshot. He had bruises and scratches on his face, blood and a streak of dried come at the side of his cheek.

Almost like being back with Matt.

He gripped the rim of the wash basin as he looked in the mirror.
You sick fuck.
In what world was any of what happened with Matt something that made him so happy he had to repeat it with strangers? He’d forgotten what being happy was like. Even his early happiness that Matt wanted him had been nothing but an illusion. Now his only pleasure came from his job. If he lost that, his life was over.

No more cruising for trouble.

No more thinking about Matt.

No more sex until he could keep himself under control.

He stripped off and groaned. Stepping under a torrent of hot water made him feel more human, but he’d hardly begun to wash before he heard someone pounding at the door. Brody wasn’t on call, but that didn’t mean Henrik wasn’t outside to demand his presence at some emergency. Though wouldn’t he have phoned? Brody switched off the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and slipped on a robe before he went to see who it was.

His brother Des stood there, looking as grumpy as ever, but his mouth slackened and his eyes widened as he took in Brody’s face. “What the fuck happened to you?”

Brody opened his mouth but Des spoke again. “Get dressed. I need you in the stable. I’ve got a mare with colic. Hurry.” He turned and strode away.

The contents of Brody’s stomach surged up his throat. He slammed the door and rushed for the bathroom. He’d nearly told Des he’d been raped. Not a good idea.

When he had his stomach and emotions back under control, Brody put on the clothes he’d just taken off. The knees of his trousers were filthy with dirt from the alley. He grabbed his bag on the way out and hurried through the farmyard to the stable block. Des was walking the mare, but when he saw Brody coming he took her into a stall. The nasogastric tube was already softening in a bucket of warm water.

“She’s a new one in today,” Des said. “Dreamer. I don’t know what she’s been fed before we got her, but she’s been pawing the ground, biting at her side and trying to roll. Walking her hasn’t helped.”

Brody checked her out. The mare was restless, sweating heavily and breathing fast. Her pulse rate was way up and her belly tight. Unlike people, horses couldn’t throw up something unpalatable. Though emptying his stomach hadn’t rid Brody of the memory of what had happened.

“All right, girl.” Brody stroked the horse. “Looks like colic.”

Des glared. “Isn’t that what I said? But it might not be.”

Brody sucked in his cheeks. “Let’s hope it is.”

“Now tell me why you look like shit.”

“I got mugged.”

That shut his brother up, though Des pointedly stared at the dirty knees of Brody’s jeans.

“Hold her head,” Brody said. “Is she eating, drinking, shitting?”

“Yes, yes—though not with much interest, and no.”

Brody listened again to her gut, which sounded on the fizzy side, then pulled on a glove and did a rectal exam. He was fairly convinced it wasn’t anything more serious than colic, though that was serious enough. He pulled off the glove, then looped the plastic tubing around his neck and squirted lube over the end he’d push up the horse’s nose. Des stood on the same side of the animal as him, holding the head down. Brody pinched the side of the horse’s nostril, holding it open to push the tube up the nose. Working stopped him thinking. He couldn’t let what had happened tonight dominate his thoughts or he’d end up more of an emotional wreck than he was.

“Good girl,” Des whispered. “There you go. You’ll feel okay soon provided my brother doesn’t cock this up.”

Brody was alert for any sign of resistance against the tube, but it went down easily. He was able to track its path along the neck and was confident he was in the right place. He put the end of the tube in his mouth, sucked, then blew into it as he pushed it further in. When he could smell the contents of the stomach, he took his mouth away.

“That stinks,” Des said.

“Yeah, no wonder she’s not happy.”

Brody pumped fresh water into the tube and began to wash out the stomach to remove the sour feed.

A couple of buckets of water later, with the stomach well and truly lavaged, he withdrew the tubing.

“Thanks.” Des stared at him. “Mugged?”

“I was coming out of a club. Three of them jumped me, knocked me down.”

“They take your wallet? Your phone?”

“A couple of guys came to my rescue.”

“Hmm.”

Brody bristled. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not. I was attacked.”

“I worry about you.” Des had softened his tone. “You promised to be careful.”

“I am being careful.”

Brody stalked off before either of them said something that couldn’t be unsaid.

“Ticket, please.”

Aden jerked awake to find his head twisted uncomfortably against a train window. He turned to see a guy staring down at him.

“Ticket, sir.”

Do I have a ticket?
As he processed the thought he became aware of a thin card in his hand. He thrust it to the man who checked it, and gave it back. Aden read the destination. Caterham. Where the hell was that?

His mouth was dry and he felt exhausted. As he shifted in his seat, his back twinged.
Ouch.
None of that had happened, right? Wings? He shuddered. He’d probably boarded this train while he was high and imagined the whole thing. No Raphael. No Dante. No misty rooms.
Christ, what a trip.
He needed to be more careful. At least he was back in the real world even if he was heading for a place he’d never heard of.

He pushed the ticket in his pocket and froze.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
He didn’t want to admit to what his fingers were touching, but when he pulled out his hand, he released an audible groan. One white feather and one black.
Not a dream then.
He dropped the feathers on the floor and checked his other pockets. No phone, no wallet, nothing. When he rubbed his back against the seat, he swallowed his gasp.
That hurts.
He put his hand inside the neck of his coat, reached back to his shoulder blades and touched tender skin, but not an open wound. He didn’t think. His shirt felt wrong though, sort of stiff and uncomfortable. When he pulled back his fingers, they were smeared with specks of red. Aden’s throat went even drier
.

An unopened bottle of water sat on the table in front of him. There was no one sitting opposite, though he supposed they could have got up to use the toilet. He waited, then dragged the bottle over and took a long slug. Please don’t let him have stolen that and wrecked his chances of being good before he’d even started. But no one came to join him and when the train pulled into Caterham, he stuffed the half-drunk bottle in his pocket. Pity there hadn’t been a pack of sandwiches as well because he was starving.

As he walked down the platform and up the stairs, the ache in his back deepened. Maybe he was still tripping. None of that could have happened. He shoved his hand back in his pocket and touched more feathers. He threw them on the ground, put his fingers back in his pocket and felt more feathers. When he stood surrounded by dozens of them, he stopped. So it did happen. It was still happening. If there had been any doubt at all, it had gone.

A glance at the map in the ticket hall showed him Caterham was an end of line station in Surrey. Had the place been chosen because he wouldn’t know anyone, or for some other reason?

Aden took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. This was his chance to get into heaven instead of hell. Be a better man for a month, learn some stuff about love and he’d never have to see his mother or father again, never have to find out how bad hell really was.
I’m lucky.
Well, not lucky to die so young, but lucky to get another shot even if it was only for a month.

He stepped out of the station to find himself standing across from a shopping precinct, a Waitrose supermarket to his left. A clock over the road told him it was almost three in the afternoon. It was pouring with rain, but he was sheltered by an overhang. He pulled up the collar of his coat and winced at the stab of pain in his back. How badly damaged was it? If they’d fully healed him, he wouldn’t be hurting, would he?

It was already beginning to get dark. He was hungry, cold and had nowhere to go. How was he supposed to survive without money? Get a job? Unless he was paid daily, he’d have to survive on nothing until he was given his wages. Anyway landing a job wouldn’t be easy. He retreated into the station and checked his pockets again. Even a quid would help. He found nothing but two feathers. He let them fall, and ground his heel on them.

“Okay, I get it,” he mumbled.

Aden had never had much money at any point in his life. He’d stolen from his parents, just small change they left lying around. Well, since he was supposed to be making an effort to be honest, he’d taken money out of his mum’s purse and his father’s wallet on occasion. Sometimes they’d noticed and his father had hit him or found some other way to punish him, but he got away with it often enough to keep doing it. He’d bought food: loaves of bread, fruit, cheese and onion pies, sausage rolls, anything to fill his stomach.

The first time he’d been given pocket money was when he was in a care home. He’d been reluctant to take it, thinking there’d be a price to pay if he did. But when he’d understood they were obliged to give it to him, he’d saved every penny, and then some fucking bastard had stolen it. After that Aden spent his money as soon as he got it, and he kept stealing. Not many houses he couldn’t find a way into. He rarely took anything but cash, clothes or food, but occasionally he liked to sit in someone’s lounge, watch their TV, eat stuff from their fridge and pretend it was where he lived. He was an expert at living in his imagination.