Rentboy (6 page)

* * * *

With one hand Edward reached out, eyes still closed, expecting to feel Fox’s warm, skinny body beside him. Nothing. Disappointment washed through when he opened his eyes. Fox was gone. Edward placed his hand on the bed where the young man had slept, finding it cool. He’d obviously been gone for a while. And he had left without being paid again.

Did he leave a note, he wondered hopefully. “Don’t be ridiculous, Edward.” It was not as if they were in a relationship or anything, his bloke gone off to work early, leaving him a note to say good-bye like a normal couple.

Reluctant to start the day alone, Edward sat up on the side of the bed. The memory of fucking Fox in the shower came flooding back, and he had an instant erection. Naked, he walked to the bathroom. The used condom and foil packet still rested in the drain. Edward scooped them up and pressed them to his nose. Too much water had washed over them to leave behind any scent of Fox. But he could not make himself toss them in the bin and instead placed both carefully on the edge of the sink before turning on the shower.

Edward rarely masturbated, not even with his morning hard-on. Thoughts of the day’s work ahead would distract him until his willy fell limp. But this morning everywhere he looked he saw Fox. The clean white tiles in the shower disappeared as he closed his eyes and saw Fox facing the wall, saying,
“Fuck me.”
As if the young man were there still, he leaned against the wall and gripped his penis. In a few fast strokes the hot friction of his hand brought on an orgasm that rocked his body and left him gasping. Was he in love with a prostitute, or was he just taking his first sexual encounter too far in his mind? Making more of it than there was and certainly more than Fox felt.

“I wish you were my boyfriend, Fox.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not. I’m a whore.”

That had summed it up.

After a quick shave, he dressed in his usual corduroy trousers and fastened the buttons on his shirt with its unobtrusive dark green checkers. Compared to Fox he was so damn boring. He always thought when he finally got a boyfriend, it would be a man like himself, an academic who was hopeless in bed and never understood jokes or the finer points of casual discourse. Then there was Fox with his sharp mind and his sexual experience. It would never work. He’d bore the pants off a man like Fox. The only way he got the pants off him now was to pay.

In the living room he admonished himself loudly, “He’s not your boyfriend. Don’t be such a loser.”

Staring at his messy desk, he stopped short. He was sure he’d left his laptop there. It was always there. Every day he got home, hung his coat in the cupboard, and put his laptop on the desk with his keys. Was it possible he had thrown the computer in the cupboard? He’d done it a couple of times before, but then he always found his jacket lying on the desk, and the jacket wasn’t there. “Silly sausage, Edward.” His mother always called him that. “It’s been boiling out. You haven’t worn a jacket in a fortnight.”

Relief together with a slight feeling of panic clutching his belly, Edward opened the coat cupboard. The vacuum cleaner stood on the floor, its hose curled like a snake waiting to slither out. A collection of shoes, all needing a good polishing, were piled up beside it. His old briefcase with the broken buckle that he kept planning to throw out was slumped against the wall.

No computer. No Fox.

Edward ran back to his desk and began rummaging around for the memory sticks. Gone as well. “Shit!” he screamed. He never said
shit
, at least not out loud, but it was the only answer to his utter and complete stupidity. Despite his degree from Oxford and his well-paid job teaching and doing research at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Dr. Edward Atherton was an unmitigated fool. He should have been a court jester, not a scientist. He trusted people he should not trust. He loaned money to Nik who never paid it back. He wanted a prostitute to be his boyfriend. And now he would have to tell his boss that the work his department had secured a huge grant to pursue was out on the street somewhere in the hands of God knew who.

Tears of frustration rolled down his cheeks, and for a full minute he indulged them. Slowly he pulled himself together. This would not do. He was a grown man, and men didn’t cry. Thank heaven no one had been there to witness his meltdown. In the bathroom he rinsed his face and, briefcase in hand, headed out into the warm, bright morning.

Half an hour later, his head hanging like an errant schoolboy, Edward stood in front of Dr. Crispin Howard’s desk explaining the loss of his data without actually saying that a rentboy had stolen it. “But it’s all backed up on memory sticks. I haven’t lost anything we can’t retrieve. It’s all in my small safe in the lab.”

Dr. Howard was a short, stocky, swarthy-skinned man in his early fifties who, despite his physical shortcomings, seemed to think he was God’s own gift to the fairer sex. “Saving your own copies is all well and good, but who the hell has their hands on proprietary information?”

“I don’t know,” Edward lied. He was not a good liar, and wringing his hands was probably a dead giveaway. He clasped them behind his back. “The laptop must have been stolen to sell.” What else would Fox want his laptop for if not to sell it? “He’ll probably wipe the hard drive. I never save anything important to the hard drive anyway.”

“What about the external hard drive?”

Without thinking, Edward began to wring his hands again. “It’s all on memory sticks, and they’re gone too. Anyway, it’s all encrypted. Only an expert could access the data.”

“Who? You said
he
.”

Panicked, Edward blurted, “I’m assuming it’s a bloke, probably some stupid kid. My place gets broken into all the time. Teenage boys with nothing better to do.” That wasn’t true; it was a very safe neighborhood.

“Comtrex is a powerful pharmaceutical company. They gave us the grant for that pesticide you’ve been working on and they are fussy about where their money goes. If you do idiotic things like losing privileged information, they’ll cut us off. Now try to get it back.”

“But I don’t know who took it,” Edward lied again.

“Are you sure, Dr. Atherton?” The man looked skeptical, as if he knew Edward had been having sex with a prostitute.

“Yes, Dr. Howard. But as I said, I still have the information. I just thought I should tell you I lost my laptop and memory sticks, that’s all. I’d better report it to the police.”

“No, don’t do that!” The vehemence in the man’s tone surprised him at the same time that he was relieved. The last thing he wanted was to sic the bobbies on Fox.

“We could lose the grant from Comtrex if they know we have nincompoops like you working for us.”

“Sorry,” Edward mumbled.

“I should think so.” Dr. Howard rose. “I have a meeting. You had better get to work.”

At the door to Dr. Howard’s office Edward stiffened when the man asked, “Was it some man you picked up in a gay nightclub?”

Edward turned to find a decided smirk on Dr. Howard’s face.

“Oh, come on, Dr. Atherton. Everybody knows you’re a homosexual.”

Horror settling over him, Edward asked, “Do they? How?”

“You rarely pay attention to women, and when you do, you are far too polite to them.”

Drawing himself up still taller, Edward looked the man in the eyes, even though his cheeks felt so hot they had to be scarlet. He’d never liked Dr. Howard, and at that moment he hated him. “I was brought up properly. You could take a leaf out of my book.”

“Really?” Dr. Howard raised both eyebrows, his smirk firmly in place. It was time to wipe it off.

“Yes, really. The young ladies in my classes complain about you at length. They call you creepy.”

That worked in spades. The man’s dark complexion grew paler and his cheeks pink. His thin lips twisted into a sneer, but he said nothing. Edward strode back to his lab feeling much better.

After a morning of accomplishing nothing, wandering about the lab thinking about the fantastic sex he’d had with Fox and the fact that he had stolen from him, Edward headed for Tisbury Court to find the little thief. He really should eat something, but he could not stomach the thought of food. Fox had stolen from him after he had trusted him. His boss had called him a nincompoop. Who said
nincompoop
anymore? And then the swine had outed him, if only to himself.

He was the world’s biggest twit.

As always the area bustled with pedestrian traffic. Gay pubs and shops lined the street along with fashionable boutiques and vintage clothing shops. At the alley beside Gimme Gimme, an LGBT gift shop, Edward stopped to look in the shop window. A red mug emblazoned with the words,
Some People Are Gay, Get Over It
, caught his eye. If only it were that easy. How was he going to tell his parents? If everybody at LSHTM knew, and it seemed they did, it would eventually reach home since his dad had been a professor there for years before retiring.

With something akin to revulsion, or perhaps merely dismay, Edward noted that the smell of refuse and urine bothered him far less with each subsequent trip down the alley. For more than a minute he looked up and down for the large box Fox slept in. Maybe he had moved like a tortoise carrying his house with him.

“You’re looking for him, aren’t you?”

What appeared to be a filthy bundle of rags leaning against the wall moved.

Slowly the man stood up. Edward stared at him nervously until a face emerged from between a filthy woolen hat and the top of an overcoat. “I’m looking for the Goth who’s usually here.”
The Goth?
What made him say that?

“Haven’t seen him since he left with you yesterday. He ain’t here much.”

“But he lives here,” Edward pointed out.

“No, he don’t. Are you one of them pharmasexuals?”

“Homosexuals,” Edward corrected. “And no! I’m not.” He glanced quickly around, wondering why he cared.

“Then why was he giving you a handjob up against that wall?”

The very idea that they had been seen, even by a tramp, caused a flood of red to run up Edward’s neck and cheeks.

“Yes, all right, I’m gay.” Edward raised his voice, repeating, “I’m gay!”

“Keep your hair on,” the tramp said. “Anyway, he’s too clean for a street kid. Haven’t you noticed how clean he is?”

He had noticed that Fox was clean but had not thought it unusual. “I don’t have much experience with street kids.”

“Well, I do, and I’m telling you, that boy don’t live on the street. He’s selling his arse for a bit of pocket money or a thrill, that’s all.”

“Where does he go after he leaves here?” Edward asked.

The old man held out a filthy hand. The nails were long, broken, and blackened. As much as he was loath to go any closer, Edward felt immensely sorry for the old man. What had happened in his life to bring him so low? Scrambling through the pockets of his corduroys he found a couple of two-pound coins. He pulled them out and pressed them into the dirty palm, and then waited for information.

The man looked at the money, nodded, and turned away. “Ain’t got a clue.”

Edward walked back to Tisbury Court. Fox had stolen his computer. Dr. Howard thought he was a nincompoop and probably guessed he had had a prostitute in his home. Even a tramp living in a box had taken him for a fool. He was the epitome of the bumbling boffin, and yet last night, just for a while, he had felt like the sexiest man alive. But even Fox had only want to steal from him and had at the first opportunity.

Vibrations in his trouser pocket alerted him to his mobile. He pulled it out and looked at the caller ID. “Hello, Mum.” As he talked he walked along the noisy street, taking note every so often of a handsome young man and finding himself drawn to those with black clothing and eye makeup. Without his realizing it, Goths had gone from scary to sexy.

“I’m arranging your birthday dinner, darling,” she said. “My summer solstice baby. I can hardly believe it. Thirty years old.”

“Oh yes, my birthday,” Edward said vaguely. He stepped into the street and was accosted by the sound of several car horns.

“Are you not watching where you’re going, Edward? Do you still need me to hold your hand crossing the street?”

“It was someone else, Mum, not me.” He hadn’t a clue why he lied about something so trivial. But the fact was he was lucky to be turning thirty at all. He’d never paid attention on the street. He bumped into people and parked cars, nearly got flattened by moving ones, narrowly missed buses and taxis. People he trusted stole from him!

“Good. You’re coming home on the weekend.” It wasn’t a question. She never assumed he might be celebrating with friends. “Nicoletta is coming on Friday because she has no classes on Fridays. Can you come with her?”

“No, I can’t take the time off. I’ll rent a car and drive down on Saturday morning.”

“Would you like to bring a friend?” she asked with an upward inflection. The words hung in the air. He knew she meant a girl.

“Yes, I would, actually,” he said, wondering who would be willing to be seen with him. Mum would be disappointed when he arrived on his own as usual, but at that moment he couldn’t bear to say yet again that he was alone as always.

“Oh, lovely!” She sounded so hopeful he almost took it back.

“See you Saturday, Mum.”

* * * *

With the twins dressed in identical jeans and plain white T-shirts, Fox brushed their hair and then carefully plaited it into a long braid each. “Nice and neat,” he said. “Let’s get you fed.”

When they emerged onto the landing, the twins looked cautiously about them, their gazes darting everywhere. It turned Fox’s stomach to see them always so nervous in their own home, but he did the same thing himself. Always on the lookout for William Baillie. He never thought of the man as Dad.

In single file, Fox in the lead, they tiptoed down the wide curving staircase. It had open-flight steps that had terrified the twins for the first year or so that they lived in the house. They would crawl on their hands and knees up and down. But their father had come up behind them enough times and kicked them in the arses that they had finally mastered the stairs.