Rentboy (7 page)

Through the door of Baillie’s office loud voices filtered into the hall. The twins stiffened, clutching at each other. Fox put one finger to his lips, ushering them past the door. They ran on silent feet to the kitchen while Fox listened. When his father stopped speaking, another man spoke in a heavy accent sounding like someone from an African country.

The twins had already begun to clean up the dishes left from their father’s breakfast when Fox joined them. The three of them had slept the morning away in his wardrobe. “You must be starving.” He got a tin of tomato soup from the cupboard and heated it in the microwave in a Pyrex jug. “You’ve got to learn to get yourselves some food when I’m not here.”

They’d starve if he never came home. Their mother had forgotten to feed them many a time when they were toddlers.

The twins glanced at the door and down the hall to their father’s study. Following their gazes, Fox knew that when he was not home, their whole day was spent avoiding their father even if it meant no food. They sat on stools at the island while Fox served them soup in cups, because they did not like to use utensils, and dry, whole wheat bread cut into cubes.

While they ate, Fox began to make himself a hummus sandwich with chopped peppers, and even though none of them were speaking, the silence suddenly deepened. Sensing the twins on alert, Fox looked over at the door to see William Baillie, his hands on his hips in his usual threatening pose. A well-built, very dark-skinned man stood beside him. For one terrifying moment Fox thought the bloke was Idi Amin until he remembered the Ugandan dictator was long dead. “This is Mr. Ogwambi Maputwa,” Baillie said.

“Hello,” Fox muttered.

“That’s my son, Fox, and them are the twins,” Baillie said.

“Identical. Very pretty.” The man looked at the twins and then at Fox. “Why do you allow him to wear makeup around his eyes like a girl? Is he a pansy?” the man asked and then laughed loudly.

“He’d better not be, or I’ll kick him from here to fucking Afghanistan.” Baillie looked hard at Fox, his mouth twisting into a frightening sneer. “Are you a fucking queer?”

“No, sir,” Fox said. He hated denying being gay, but what else was he going to do? Admit it and get his ribs broken?

“Good. Where’s the computer?”

“I’ll get it,” Fox said. He threw the terrified twins a look. He didn’t want to leave them alone with the men, but his backpack was in the hall by the door. “Shall I make you some tea and bring it to you in the office, sir?” he asked in a carefully respectful tone. “And I’ll bring the computer.”

The African man grinned. “I would like some tea.”

“Yes, do that,” Baillie said. “Three cups. There’s someone else here too.”

The two men left, and with a look of relief on their faces the twins finished their soup and bread quickly while Fox set a tray for tea with milk and sugar, three cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits. He adjusted everything on the tray so it looked perfect.

“Right.” Fox removed their dishes. “Get outside in the garden, and get some fresh air. It’s nice and warm out.” Obeying him as they always did, the twins went out into the back garden barefoot and ran for their trampoline. For a couple of minutes, Fox waited at the back door, watching them jump while smiles slowly began to blossom on their beautiful faces.
I love you. I’ll take care of you forever. I promise.
He’d better hurry with the tea before his father came back looking for him.

In his father’s office the three men sat looking at Fox struggle with the door while carrying the tray and his backpack. Self-conscious and not wanting to look any stupider than he felt, Fox put the tray on the desk and then took out the laptop and the two memory sticks.

“You’d better have got it right this time,” William Baillie said.

“This was everything he had.” His hands shaking, Fox placed the laptop on the desk in front of his father, but Baillie slid it over to Maputwa while the other man stood at the window. “Shall I pour the tea, sir?” Fox asked.

“Pour it,” Baillie said.

“What does he know?” the African man asked, looking at Baillie as if Fox were nothing more than a servant.

“Fox knows nothing. I just told him to get the computer.”

A wide smile split the man’s face. “Fox? Is he crafty and clever like a fox?”

“Most of the time he’s an idiot, like them moron twins.”

You are so going to die!

As he poured the tea, Fox watched Mr. Maputwa open the laptop. The man fiddled about for some time before saying, “Bingo!” and laughing loudly. “Now we are in business.” He seemed amused at using English expressions and laughed again.

“Do you want tea, Dr. Howard?” Baillie asked.

“Yes, thank you, Captain Baillie.”

Even though he was retired, William Baillie liked people to recognize his army rank. Fox served tea to the men and offered round the biscuits. With a glance at the plate he nearly took one himself. He was hungry, and his hummus sandwich remained in the kitchen, but he didn’t want to leave just yet or be reprimanded by his father for helping himself. “Do you need the laptop or just what’s on it, Mr. Maputwa?”

Mr. Maputwa looked him up and down before continuing to work on the computer. “Why do you want to know, Fox?”

“Because if you don’t want the hardware, can I have it?”

“You’ve got a laptop. I bought you a new one for that stupid fucking art college,” Baillie said loudly.

“University of the Arts London is very hard to get into,” Fox said quietly.

“And if you weren’t such a fucking nancy boy, the army would have taken you!” Baillie screamed at him, standing up. His face grew red very quickly when he was angry or frustrated.

Fox could only imagine how the men under his command had felt about him. Mr. Maputwa gave no reaction at all to the sudden altercation, as if he was used to such behavior. But Dr. Howard looked uncomfortable. Though Fox was entirely accustomed to his father’s sudden outbursts, he always shriveled and looked at the floor.

“The British Army would not have William Baillie’s son?” Mr. Maputwa’s grin showed a row of strong yellowish teeth.

The officer at the recruitment office his father had dragged him to at the age of sixteen had looked him up and down and said, “He looks like joining the army is the last thing he wants to do, Captain Baillie.” Addressing Fox in a surprisingly kindly tone, he had asked, “What do you want to do, son?”

“Go to art college,” Fox had replied. When they got home, his father had thrashed him until his entire body was black with bruises, but at least he had never suggested him joining up again.

Anger edging his words, Baillie said, “No, they wouldn’t.”

“One of these days you must bring him to Uganda, and I will train him. A father should never train his own son. Leave it to another man.”

“Are you related to Idi Amin?” The moment Fox heard
Uganda
, the words slipped out.

For a long moment the man stared directly at Fox. The whites of his eyes were laced with red blood vessels, the irises nearly black. Fox had seen eyes like that many a time at parties on people who were stoned out of their minds. He was sure Maputwa was on drugs. The man came across as a real fucking nut.

“A great man,” he said. “No, I am not related to him.” With a sharp clap of his hands Mr. Maputwa thrust the laptop from him and took a cup of tea. “The hard drive is wiped, though all we needed was on the memory sticks. Let him have it if he wants it.”

“I can get thirty quid for it from a girl at college,” Fox said quietly.

“Very enterprising.” Mr. Maputwa shoved several biscuits in quick succession into his large mouth and slurped his tea. With hasty movements, Fox refilled his cup.

“I’d better go and check on the twins.” He looked at his father, not daring to move.

“Go on, then, and you can sell that thing if you want,” Baillie said.

Flooded with relief at being allowed to escape the two men whom he found equally terrifying, Fox grabbed the equipment. At the door he paused very briefly to watch the Ugandan man hand a briefcase to his father. William Baillie opened it and pulled out a wad of cash, and with his other hand he took out another. Quietly Fox closed the door.

After stowing the laptop in his backpack and putting it in his bedroom for later, he grabbed the twins’ trainers and joined them in the garden. “Come on, you two. Get your trainers on. We’ll go over to the park for a while, and you can go on the swings.” Without a word, Alder and Arden obeyed. Holding Fox’s hands, they walked out through the gate in the garden fence and made their way down the sweeping driveway toward the road. Waiting behind his father’s silver-gray Lexus was a long black car with tinted windows. A uniformed driver sat in the front seat smoking a cigarette with the doors wide open.

What was on Eddie’s computer that a rich man from Uganda wanted so much that he was willing to pay for it with a briefcase full of cash? And who the hell was that doctor?

Despondent, disgruntled, dejected. Any of those adjectives could describe Edward’s mood as he opened his front door and stopped to check for letters. The post was always left sitting in a mess on top of the hall radiator. Sorting through it, he thought of the evening ahead. Maybe he should take Friday off after all and drive to Mitton early. What was the point in hanging around the flat alone? Only yesterday he had texted Nik to tell her he had seen the young man again, and perhaps it was actually a relationship after all, as opposed to just a one-nighter. Now it was all in shreds.

Two envelopes that looked like birthday cards rested precariously on the radiator, and another had fallen down the back. Edward fished it out and shook off the dust before trudging upstairs. Birthday cards and a family birthday dinner to remind him that at thirty years old he had never had a relationship, never been sent a valentine card, and never been loved by another adult who was not related to him. Add
depressing
to the list of adjectives describing his life.

“Sorry, mate.”

At the top of the stairs he stopped and stared. Sitting on the floor outside his door with Edward’s laptop on the bare wood floor beside him was Fox.

“I shouldn’t have taken it, Eddie. I’m really sorry.”

The strangest flip-flop sensation clutched Edward in the gut. He couldn’t decide if it was the return of his laptop that did it or the sight of Fox sitting cross-legged, dressed in black as always, his eyes heavily rimmed with dark eyeliner. Edward had fancied many a bloke in the past, but he had never before got an erection at the sight of one as he did now. “How did you get in?”

“That woman downstairs was leaving just as I got here. You know, the one in the hijab. She let me in. She must have thought I didn’t look like a lying thief. Which I am.”

Rising quickly to his feet, Fox slipped his arms around Edward’s neck. Without hesitation Edward wrapped his long arms around Fox in return and held him tightly, pressing the young man close to his chest. A door along the landing opened, and without thinking, Edward released Fox to thrust his key in the lock. He shoved Fox in ahead of him and grabbed his hardware from the floor. A moment ago the thought of his relatively clean but very untidy, empty flat was horrible. Now he couldn’t stop smiling.

But Fox had still stolen his computer.

“Why did you do it? You left without your money, and then you took my computer. Why?”

A soft pink suffused Fox’s pale cheeks, and his gaze dropped to his feet. “I was going to sell it. I wiped the hard drive. I’m sorry. I needed the money.”

“You didn’t even take what I owe you,” Edward pointed out. “What did you need the money for?”

Looking up at him from under his darkly made-up lashes, Fox smiled. “Tofu.”

As joyful as he felt, Edward didn’t want to let off him so easily, at least not just yet. “So you didn’t access any of the information?” he asked cautiously. Everything was encrypted, but for all he knew Fox was some computer whiz kid. “You took two memory sticks as well. Where are they?”

“I just wanted the money I thought I could get for it. I tossed the sticks down a grid. They’ll be rotting in the sewer somewhere. I didn’t really know what to do with them.”

Edward put his laptop on his desk with his birthday cards. He’d look at them later. He wanted to be annoyed, but he was deliriously happy. In an attempt at sounding stern he pointed one finger at Fox. “You shouldn’t have done it. I trusted you.”

“You could always smack my arse.” Fox grinned, drawing a broad smile from Edward.

“Perhaps later. Would you like a beer?”

“Perhaps later.” He mimicked Edward’s upper-crust accent and took a step toward him. “Right now I’d like a fuck.”

The initial erection caused by the sight of Fox on the landing had softened. At those words he nearly came in his pants. He cleared his throat as if about to deliver a speech, making Fox burst out laughing. He should have felt ridiculous, but he didn’t. There was something comfortable about Fox, something comforting about being with him. “Come on, then,” he said, grabbing Fox’s hand to take him to the bedroom.

“What?” Fox asked without moving.

“Aren’t we going to bed?”

“No. I’m going to bend over the desk, and you are going to fuck me right here.”

Unable to stop himself, Edward looked at the window. He had never put up curtains or blinds in all the time he’d live there. He’d never thought of it until now.

“Eddie, live a little,” Fox said.

With his gaze riveted on Edward’s face, Fox slowly unzipped Edward’s trousers and pushed them down to his thighs, followed at once by his boring, white, waist-high Y fronts. “No one under the age of ninety-five should wear Y fronts. You do know that?”

“I know, but I’ve always worn them. They’re comfortable.”

From the pocket of his jeans, Fox took a lubricated condom and, just like the night before, tore open the foil packet with his teeth and rolled it onto Edward’s bulging, red willy. Taking long, slow breaths to control himself, Edward gazed into Fox’s eyes.

Fox unzipped his jeans and shoved them down, followed by pink polka-dot bikini underwear. He turned and placed both hands on top of the desk, bent at the waist, and thrust his hips out. Overcome by both desire and the urge to take Fox in his arms and forgive him for the computer and anything else he might steal in the future, Edward positioned his cock at Fox’s tight anus, then grabbed his hips and thrust hard inside him.