Kraken (23 page)

“Come on, bed now.”

Will couldn’t bear to use his arms to raise himself from the floor, and Cyrus lifted him gently, tenderly. Guiding him to the bedroom, Cyrus shucked his own clothes as they went, then laid them both down on the mattress. As Cyrus pulled Will’s back close against his own chest, and spread arms over him in a thick indigo blanket, he whispered into Will’s ear.

“When you’re healed, shall we try that deep inside your arse, my love? The sounds you made were delightful. I shall pull your hole wide so I can observe.”

Will buried his face in the pillow to catch his tears. He felt the years stretching ahead forever, each day no different to the last.

When the sun crept across the bedroom floor and shone into Will’s eyes he pretended to be asleep, watching the patterns of his blood vessels on the inside of his eyelids. Cyrus was not fooled, rousting him from the folds of the cool cotton quilt.

He rushed him through breakfast and a shower. “No clothes today, my love. You won’t need them.”

Cyrus retrieved his trusty backpack and placed a cloth-wrapped bundle in it reverently. He shouldered it and slapped Will’s arse, too forcefully to be playful. “Let’s go.”

At the beach Cyrus slipped immediately into the water, changing form even before he was under the wavelets. Will was left standing on the beach. He looked around, but realized quickly there was nowhere for him to go. Nowhere he could hide.

He watched Cyrus reach the runabout anchored a hundred yards off the beach, and effortlessly pull himself aboard. In minutes it was nosing onto the shore, and Cyrus held his hand over the side to help Will climb in. He ushered him into the cabin, pointing at the double berth. “I want you to lie down on your side.”

Will’s eyes flicked involuntarily to Cyrus’s face, to see if he was serious. He registered the beginnings of Cyrus’s movement and quickly lay down. Cyrus knelt beside him, opening a locker and pulling out short lengths of woven nylon rope in bright nautical colors. Quickly he bound Will’s wrists behind him, wrapping him to the elbows in complex knots. His legs were next, one piece wrapping his ankles close together and another around his knees.

From another locker Cyrus pulled a flat, navy-blue cushion with an embroidered motif of cheerful red and white anchors. He slipped it under Will’s head, caressing his cheek.

“What a very good boy you are, although I have to say I’m sensing just the slightest bit of resistance. I don’t want to hurt you, lovely. Not before I’m ready, anyway.”

He put the backpack on the other side of the cabin, and went out, closing the door behind him. The engine started, and Will felt the bow raise up slightly as the boat picked up speed. The ride wasn’t too uncomfortable at first, as they motored out of the bay. The movement of the boat changed, growing rougher, and he guessed they were in the long harbor. He was thrown up and down in the berth, but in only minutes Cyrus throttled back, coming down to a dull idle. Will felt the muffled bump as the boat came to rest against something solid.

He heard scrapes, and voices, and then smelled the acrid tang of diesel. The store. They were at the store, getting fuel. Will considered shouting. Was it worth the risk? Cyrus would have considered that, wouldn’t he? He’d hear him. And no one else might. And Cyrus had promised him punishment. Tears swept unbidden into his eyes, as he thought of losing use of his arms.

He heard the cabin door shut. He writhed around, jerking position on the berth until he could see the entrance. He gasped with relief when he saw Mr. Falconer.

“Oh, thanks the gods. Help me. Please. I don’t know— Fuck, I don’t even know what you can do. Are the police here? Can you tell them, please?”

Mr. Falconer sat down on the berth next to him, stroking Will’s face tenderly, kindness in his eyes. “Oh, William. My poor boy.”

Will gazed at him in horror.

“You can’t ever leave now, dear boy. Just like me. This is your home, for better or worse. Cyrus has tied you to the island. There’s no going back.”

Mr. Falconer stroked the disheveled hair back from Will’s face with his fingers, cool and comforting against Will’s skin. “There’s no police, William. There’s only him.”

The boat rocked slightly to one side as a metallic scraping noise drifted through the cabin. Footsteps echoed on the deck. Mr. Falconer leaned forward, whispering in Will’s ear.

“I’m so sorry it had to be this way, William. I really thought you’d made it out. But, in a way, I’m glad. If it wasn’t you it would have been Ryan. With Cameron gone he wouldn’t have waited any longer. You only have to keep him busy for a few years. I’ll talk Ella into leaving the island. Lou will help. It’s so hard when you’ve been brought up here. You don’t think the same way. You never fit in anywhere else.”

The cabin door opened. Cyrus leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, smiling at them. “It looks good to see the two of you together.” He extended his two long tentacles, caressing each of them with the wide bulbous pods. “Two ends of a spectrum. How fitting. How long have you been mine, Bill?”

“A very long time, Cyrus. I was nine.”

“And you were such a lovely boy.”

Cyrus smiled, then his face turned bitter. “Of course, then you went away.”

“I’m so sorry, Cyrus. I didn’t know then. I didn’t know how much it would hurt.”

“What happened?” The horror Will felt barely allowed him to form the whispered words.

“The war. World War Two, that was. I was getting older. I’d been replaced here, in many ways. I took a boat to the mainland when Cyrus was away, signed up. I was already on a ship overseas by the time he realized. I entertained some stupid childish dream that Cyrus might miss me. Might come and drag me back.” A wry grin twisted his face. “That lasted about two days. Until it became apparent what a very bad idea it had been to try to leave.” He frowned. “I never got to see a battlefield. It wasn’t pretty. They shipped me off to a country hospital outside of Halkirk. The doctors couldn’t work out what was wrong. My skin peeled off, my blood vessels ruptured, I lost weight. A lot of weight. And of course, there was the pain. Morphine didn’t work. It ate me from the inside out, William. Finally they sent me home. To die, pretty much.”

Mr. Falconer laid an insistent hand on Will’s waist, as Cyrus curled his tentacle around him. “Don’t try it Will. The pain was— “

“And I forgave you for doing something so foolish, didn’t I, lovely?”

“Yes, Cyrus.”

Cyrus caressed the back of Mr. Falconer’s head. “You were young, and thoughtless. Luckily we don’t always have to live with our mistakes. It’s a shame you eventually had to grow up. There have been so many, Bill, but you’ll always be special. As I’m sure this one will be in time. He’s the spitting image of you, after all, lovely.”

Cyrus walked over to the berth, extending a questing suckered arm. It pressed against Will’s lips, spreading them apart and thrusting inside. Will tried to close his mind to his memories of Aiden at the moment he opened his throat, gagging as Cyrus pushed past his reflex. An anguished moan was forced out of his throat as he thought of a life spent like this, without hope and without love. It seemed both impossible and inevitable, and it tore his heart asunder. He caught Mr. Falconer’s eyes, as his head jerked and bobbed with Cyrus’s long thrusts.

“I’m sure you’ll both become good friends,” said Cyrus. “Pass on the tricks of the trade, so to speak, yeah?”

“Yes, Cyrus,” answered Mr. Falconer. He met Will’s gaze with clouded eyes.

When they left the store jetty, Will felt the boat turn into the heavier swells coming from the harbor entrance. The cabin stank of fear and salt, and the motion nauseated Will. Instead of the bow meeting each wave the movement came from the side, the boat rocking and twisting. A wisp of a breeze snuck in around the cracks in the cabin door, and Will gulped at the fresh air. After long hours the engine cut out, and then there was the rattle of an anchor chain.

Cyrus darted inside. He saw Will’s green face and bent over him.

“You doing all right there, lovely? You’re not looking so good. Need some fresh air?”

“Yes, please, Cyrus.”

Cyrus picked him up with a few arms, grabbing the backpack with another. He hefted him through the cabin door, lying him on the long bench seat in the cockpit.

“May I ask a question, Cyrus?”

Cyrus’s fingers drifted across Will’s back, stroking lovingly.

“Of course.”

“Could you tell me about the stones? Please?”

Cyrus snorted. “They’ve been gone for a long time. Someone stole them. Someone I trusted.” His soft hands caressed the back of Will’s neck, then tightened. “He stole them and hid them, and I reacted hastily. Far too hastily. To my regret. The only mistake I’ve made in a very long time. It doesn’t matter now. Very soon they’ll all be back in place.”

Cy’s hand went soft and loose again, and he ran his fingers down Will’s side, brushing over his flanks with a feather touch. He skated down to Will’s cock, and grasped it, pulling the foreskin back, pumping it, and working his thumb gently back and forth over the head. “Oh, lovely, I’m torn between taking you now, and leaving you till afterwards. Luckily I know how good it will be if I wait.” He nuzzled into Will’s neck, sucking his earlobe into his mouth. “And this time I want you to make an effort, yeah? At least try to get hard. The least you can do is show me some appreciation.”

There was a splash, and Cyrus was gone. Will lay quietly on his side, lulled by the gentle rocking. The sun moved across the sky. Will turned his head so he could look up where, high above, silver gulls circled, bright against the dark gray clouds rolling in from the west.

Will felt it clearly this time. He hadn’t realized until it had disappeared, like the drone of insects on a summer’s day. The strings of the world had been out of alignment, and with a snap, they were back. The calm tingle descended on his head and neck, and he closed his eyes and rested his head against the seat. Cyrus would return now.

All too soon the boat rocked with the weight of Cyrus’s body as he climbed aboard. Dripping water splattered Will’s skin, and suckered arms enveloped the lower half of his body. The ropes from his knees and ankles were jerked away, leaving the pain of burn marks etched into the skin. Cyrus urged Will onto his hands and knees, using two arms to pull his buttocks apart. Cyrus had barely bothered to change form, his giant cephalopod mantle filling the cockpit of the boat, as his arms caressed Will and drizzled slimy gel on his anus. Cy’s dark indigo skin absorbed the feeble gleams of sunlight from the darkening sky.

Will craned his head around and saw the huge pod poised over his arse, turning this way and that in the air, as if scenting for prey. It angled downwards and lunged inside him, thrusting violently. Will screamed. There was no easing the way this time, only a terrible tearing, and a spreading gray horror, as the world flickered in place, replaced by terror and pain. He screamed again, the sound wrenched from his throat involuntarily. It wasn’t possible to be still, it wasn’t possible to take this.

Cyrus’s arms stroked Will’s spine tenderly in some absurd theater of terrible affection. Will felt a great cramping inside him. In his mind he could see the tentacle working its way up him, until he was a hollow puppet. Wet heaving bubbles came from Cyrus’s siphon.

Cyrus flopped twice, heaving his thick body over the edge of the boat and falling, falling endlessly to the water, dragging Will with him. He had a moment to take a breath this time, and then all he could see was a faint red swirling stain against the cool green.

The thick tentacle impaled Will, but still he felt prodding at his entrance. He craned his neck around trying to see in the ocean’s gloom. Cyrus’s other tentacle had looped around, as if he were trying to insert both at once. He felt the tip of the pod stroking the other tentacle where it went inside him, touching his hole, inching inwards to join it.

Will thrashed in panic, constricted by him arms bound fast behind his back. He couldn’t take both. He couldn’t. He’d be ripped apart. His body would sink to the sea floor and crabs would make his skull their home. He opened his mouth and screamed.

A cloud of silver bubbles rushed out, and Will had one last terrible moment of certainty that this was his end. He waited as long as he could, then braced for his lungs to fill with liquid pain. At least it would be the end. He welcomed it. Will breathed in.