Now Am I In Arden
A story by Ivor Sukwell and Kyle McKenzie. A story about a boy and a man with all that such entails. The setting is modern and based around the theatre. Not your thing? Sorry about that, we're sure you'll find something that is. Whatever your choice, please remember Nifty needs your donations.
Now Am I In Arden
Chapter thirteen
Time is a very precise thing; each minute has sixty seconds, each hour sixty minutes. No variations, never a fifty minute hour or a seventy second minute. How many times have people said `Time flies', or `Time is really dragging today'? Both nonsense; time neither flies nor drags, it moves at its own relentless pace. It is what we do in any specific period of time that makes it seem to go faster or slower, not time itself that changes.
Three months is a large period of time. Seven million, seven hundred and seventy six seconds. Easy enough to find a way of passing a few of those seconds, but almost eight million of them?
Brat was gone. Brat was in Hawaii. Brat was with Kasper in Hawaii. Brat was with Kasper in Hawaii for almost eight million seconds.
That alone was reason to be sad, reason to down too much malt.
Brat was fifteen. Brat, even at the advanced age of fifteen, had an excess of hormones. Brat would need to find a release for that hormonal overdose.
Brat may find that Kasper was a way to release those hormones. Brat might share a bed with Kasper.
Richard Williams was lonely. Brat was gone. Brat was with someone else. Richard Williams was jealous. Richard Williams drank more malt.
Time would pass. Brat would return. But would it be the same Brat?
How could it be the same Brat? It would be a three months older Brat. An almost eight million seconds older Brat.
I didn't want Brat to be eight million seconds older. I wanted Brat as he was.
And, more malt, because that wasn't true. What I really wanted was for Brat to be thirty two million seconds younger. I wanted Brat to be fourteen again.
I wanted the impossible.
However much malt I drank did not stop Mr Eliot from sitting in my mind and declaring in his pompous voice that, "What is actual is actual only for one place and only for one time." I had been with Brat in that time and place. It was in the past. What is in the past stays in the past, it doesn't come back again.
It was Brat's fault that I was drinking too much malt. It was Brat who had forced himself into my life, not the other way round.
It was Brat, fourteen year old, green-eyed, elfinly beautiful Brat who had come into my house, into my life. I hadn't asked him to.
It was Brat who had looked right through my forty years of self denial, laughed at what he saw, taken off his clothes and let his beautiful, slender, fourteen year old body say, "Can't deny what it is you want now, can you, you stupid old man?"
It was Brat who had stripped from me those forty years of safe pretence.
It was Brat who had made me see me as I really am.
And I had never put up even the pretence of a fight.
Brat was in Hawaii. Brat wasn't fourteen anymore. Brat was fifteen and growing older by the second.
I missed Brat. Christ, how I missed Brat!
There was not even the solace of communication.
"Electronic communication lacks the essential of security," we had both been warned by our separate solicitors, with sweet Mr Bertowski adding, to ensure I retained no misunderstandings, that he was sure I had no wish to finish up as David lamenting over the premature demise of Jonathan. "Different and distinct wildernesses for the pair of you would be desirable for a while," he rabbinically proclaimed, relying on the Old Testament as I relied on Shakespeare when a point needed to be made.
And, of course, he was right. The initial harpy assault had been repelled, but rumour is harder to dispose of than a harpy.
Always there are some who cannot bear to see those greater than themselves, and Jacob Brat was already greater than many in our esteemed profession, and there were more than enough around who'd love to have the chance to set fire to Icarus' wings and have him plummet downwards.
Mr Bertowski had wasted no time in filing the civil suit, and pulled countless strings enough to threaten an early date in court, a date, he glinted, that would never come. Yet again was Mr Bertowski correct; The Herald hurriedly settled out of court, hurriedly and very substantially in favour of both Brat and myself, so substantially that, even with Mr Berowski's fees paid, there was no need for me to have to work for some very considerable time.
Brat's agency had retained one Solomon Levy to represent him – the two plaintiffs should, under the circumstances, present separate suits we were told, and said Mr Levy screwed more for Brat from the Herald than Mr Bertowski screwed for me. "Jacob," he shrugged, "Is somewhat younger and therefore his earning potential somewhat greater, so he gets more."
Brat's agency said `Thanks very much', and slammed the entire sum in an interest earning off-shore account that Brat couldn't touch till he was twenty-one.
I couldn't help but think that Brat's fairy queen may have acted differently.
The Herald also published a very fulsome apology, on Page Three no less, and very neatly, though they accepted liability for their inaccurate and insufficient research, placed the entire blame for the whole sordid misunderstanding on one Mark Edwards, who was, they said, currently being investigated by the Metropolitan police for conspiracy to pervert justice, conspiracy to obtain money by threat and one or three other, unnamed conspiracies as well.
All very well and good; but Brat was still in Hawaii with Kasper and I was in Berkshire with malt. That was not all well and good!
Self-pity is not the best of emotions, and self-pity combined with too much malt easily leads to disaster.
I didn't work that out for myself, it needed Sis to make it plain for me.
"He'll be back or he won't be back, fuck all you can do about it either way." I could always rely on Sis for sympathy when sympathy was needed. "And if he don't come back, so what? You had the best year of your pathetic, Shakespeare ridden life with him, haven't you? What more can you fucking ask for? If he comes back then you can have another year, perhaps. If he don't, then you bloody remember him when you go to bed at night!"
It made sense. I knew it made sense.
But Brat was in Hawaii with Kasper and I was in Berkshire alone.
"You need to fucking do some fucking work," Sis sympathised; "Get your mind off that bloody boy and back where it belongs."
"Like what, Sis? Job offers aren't exactly flooding in."
"Like write a fucking book or something. Any fucking thing."
Again she was right, I did need to do something.
But Brat was in Hawaii .............
"And, you daft sod," she said almost gently, "I'll lay you odds he's still wearing that bloody ring."
Was he? I wondered.
I hoped so much that he was. In Hawaii. With Kasper.
I did work, though, and almost by accident. I discovered in a London bookshop a copy of a sixty year old work called `Shakespeare's Mystery Play', and because it had Shakespeare in the title, I bought it.
And read it.
And got hooked.
The Tempest, the book proposed, had more layers, more codes, more references to ancient mysteries than the Da Vinci Code dreamed existed.
Strangely, The Tempest was about the only work in the canon I had never done, for the very simple reason that no-one had ever asked me to do it.
After many, many hours with that book, I knew how I would do it if ever the chance did come.
The chance was never likely to come – live, legitimate theatre was dead on its feet, Shakespeare kept just about breathing on life support from tourists. Turn the Tempest into a rock musical and be a box office hit; do it as a play, as the play it was meant to be and chalk up big red figures on the balance sheet.
Brat was right, I lamented, though since I'd become absorbed by the possibilities of the Tempest, I lamented with less malt than before. There was no future, no real, profitable future, for him in legitimate theatre. Crap, `for entertainment purposes only' film was where the money was.
Oh, yes, he'd done some good stuff in front of cameras, good, but not box office hits. Good, but not building up his bank balance. Ten decent gigs didn't earn as much as one crap one. Why should he listen to me and want to do serious stuff when easy money was available in the sewers?
Was it even right of me to want him to do serious stuff? Was I only projecting onto him my own, outdated ideals? Was I trying to cast him in my own image?
Not that it mattered anymore.
Brat was in Hawaii.
God, I missed Brat so much!
There was Equus, though. Equus was still to come. Brat would be back for Equus.
It may well be the last real thing Brat ever did, but there was a chance, an outside chance, that Brat would show how good he really was in that Equus.
If he hadn't been tempted, seduced and corrupted by an action movie.
But Brat was in Hawaii, not here in Berkshire, on my lap, letting the words of Sweet Will, or words of Wordsworth, Eliot or Thomas take life in his mind and voice.
I had to lose Brat to time eventually. Even a besotted, fond and foolish old man knew that.
But not yet.
Please, not yet.
"And Action!"
I lunged for the smartphone on the bar room table, grabbing it as one of the mob enforcers tried to grab my arm to stop me. Half filled glasses were scattered across the floor, breaking underfoot, as I rolled backwards frantically hammering away at the smartphone that was pushed up close to my chest. The Mafioso tried to grab me again and I dived under another table, a cameraman with a handheld dashing in close to get a close up of my face as I hammered away with my thumbs. My wrists were cuffed together in front of me, with prop handcuffs at least, but they still made using the phone difficult.
Not that I was actually using the phone of course. The plot of the film centred around an old school US Marshall trying to transport my character, a kid who can hack anything, to a court appearance. Various people were after my character, Kasper's crooked hedge fund manager who wants him to rig the stock market, a mafia boss who doesn't understand electronic crime but wants to be in on the action and a group of terrorists who want him to hack a nuclear missile.
In truth it was all pretty preposterous, a sort of action comedy where none of the older characters understood modern technology and my character could run rings around them by hacking into anything from a vending machine to a nuclear missile, but serious drama wasn't what they were going for.
"Look Jay," no-one in America seemed to be able to get their head around `Jacob' so I had been renamed `Jay' by Paul the director as soon I arrived on set, "this is a feel good move so we've got to give the audience a good time. Best way to do that is by having a good time making it, so anything stresses you out, you come tell me." Paul was totally different to `Dick' who hard directed `The Fall of Troy', if he wanted something different from you he would take you aside and explain it, showing you the footage he had just shot and how he wanted what you were doing to change. It was never a big deal if things weren't perfect first time, in fact he quite liked stuff to be a bit rough around the edges, and despite thinking Mr Williams would hate this film I was having a good time making it.
It helped that I was in Hawaii with Kasper, who was always up for a spliff and a laugh when Mum wasn't around, and had a lot of free time to hang out on the beach when I wasn't working.
In fact, things would have been pretty much perfect if I could have brought Mr Williams out as my chaperone. I understood why he couldn't come but it was still hard being away from him for three months. My agent had told me that, while the Herald had settled out of court, they would still be after me so I couldn't call or video message him as they could hack my phone, so I hadn't spoken to him since leaving London.
Did he miss me I wondered. I was fifteen now, growing taller and broader, and no-longer the boy he had lusted after. I was getting more and more attention from girls and sometimes women, (my agent had given me a long and unnecessary talk about the sort of women who would do anything to get fifteen minutes of fame by taking me to bed), but I knew I was changing from what Mr Williams wanted. There was no-way to stop that, but knowing that he might not find me attractive anymore when I returned, made being separated from him all the harder.
A second mafia goon tried to grab me as well and I dived under another table, the cameraman coming in to get another close up of my face. Paul wanted the shots of this section with me all mixed up, sort of like the audience were in the middle of the bar diving around as well, and I rolled over to away from him as the first guy grabbed and missed as well.
I kept banging away on the smartphone, I was supposed to be hacking the mafia's dirty money stash and hiding the funds somewhere else to blackmail them into letting me go, and Steve grabbed me by the front of my t-shirt and hauled me up and I jabbed a finger at the phone's screen in perfect time to him breaking a stunt bottle over my head. The `glass' was fake and designed to shatter instantly but I collapsed backwards onto a waiting crash mat as if I had been knocked unconscious, dropping the phone as I did so.
I lay still as the cameraman zoomed in on the phone's screen that was set up so it showed the mafia's account as zero.
"And Cut! Well done everyone."
Steve helped me up, patting me on the back as he pulled me to my feet. He had been in the US Special Forces before embarking on a new career as a stuntman, and I was more than a little in awe of him. As I was the youngest member of the cast, and he was in charge of coordinating the action parts, he took me through all my fight scenes.
"Can't afford to be sued by your Mom, Jay," he had joked, but in truth I was more than happy with the arrangement. Steve might have been in his fifties now but he was still in great shape, and seeing him after our daily workout session in the gym was becoming a staple of my wank sessions.
And that was a problem. What would Mr Williams think? I knew I wouldn't be able to lie to him and I was beginning to fear that I fancied Steve something rotten.
"You've got Jay for another twenty minutes boss, want to go again?" The amount of hours I could work was tightly controlled, each day someone had to time how long I had been on set, but Paul never got frustrated by it. Everything was running to schedule and he had planned to only have me around for a certain amount of time each day.
"Don't need to. This is perfect," Paul beckoned me over, putting an arm around my shoulder as we watched the sequence back.
"You're a pro Jay, how many bar fights you been in?" We all laughed and I thanked the rest of the guys as someone brought me a bottle of water as Steve got the cuffs off me. The scene had started with me kidnapped by the mafia so I had to do the whole thing handcuffed to keep continuity, but I was glad to get them off all the same.
"Warm-down time Jay," I had changed out of my costume into my regular clothes and pretended to pull a face as Steve put an arm around my shoulder and took me off the main set and into the small gym that we used to run through the fight scenes before filming them. I had to do quite a few `physical' scenes in the next few days and couldn't let my muscles stiffen up, but my idea of a light exercise session and ex-marine Steve's idea of a light exercise session were two quite different things.
"Show me what you got Jay," Steve tossed me a pair of boxing gloves and stood behind the heavy bag that hung from the ceiling. For the next twenty minutes I pounded away as Steve gave me his own brand of encouragement by telling me I hit like a little girl, would have my ass kicked by his ninety year old mother and that I would fucking stay here until I hit like a fucking man. It was all pretty light-hearted, and as I pounded away, Lucy from my agency snapped a few pictures on her iphone for my instagram account.
That was another new thing. I now had an instagram account to help my profile, though in truth I didn't do anything to it. Instead the agency posted stuff and asked me what I thought of the captions. Sometimes I came up with my own stuff but mostly I used their ideas, and at first it had seemed weird to have someone else controlling what was supposed to be my `personal' account but after a while it made sense. They wanted to present me in a certain way, sort of jokey but also professional, and I was happy for them to get on with it and deal with the business side of my career.
"That's good Jay," Lucy snapped a few more of me punching the bag before Steve called a halt and had me lie down so he could stretch out my muscles. He knew what he was doing but wasn't exactly gentle, and I half cried out and half laughed as he pushed his thumbs into the back of my leg and ran them down to the back of my knee.
"That's great, do it again!" Lucy obviously found my discomfort hilarious and zoomed in for a close up of my face screwed up, half grimace and half laughing, as Steve ran his hands down my other leg.
"Keep still Jay," Steve had moved on to my arms and pulled them up and around, before making me stand and shake them out. Lucy had thankfully left us to it and Steve stopped me, told me to get my shirt off and got his thumb in near my shoulder blade.
"Hold still kid, you've got a knot." I yelped as he worked the knot out of my muscle, squirming until he barked that I should quit being such a pussy.
I was quite glad he was behind me as the feel of his hands on my body had got me more than a little hard. I was only wearing a loose pair of footie shorts that did nothing to hide the fact that my cock was tenting them out and I quickly grabbed my shirt from the floor and held it in front of my groin when he was done.
"If that shoulder gives you any trouble let me know kid." Did Steve like touching me? He was pretty `hands-on' with me, but then he also seemed pretty straight. I definitely fancied him, and with Kasper loved up with his latest model girlfriend I was getting more desperate for release by the day, so was I just imagining things? I had been only with Mr Williams for so long I was beginning to worry that I no-longer knew how to get with men.
"It feels a bit weird sometimes," I was at a loose end this afternoon and horny as hell, and while I knew I shouldn't, the idea of Steve's hands on my body was intoxicating.
"Lay flat then kid," I let Steve massage me more before asking if he would mind if we did this back in his trailer.
"Lucy's cool, but had enough of pics for one day," Steve laughed and draped an arm around my shoulder as we walked out. Was he just being friendly? He had never made anything approaching a pass at me but I was sure his enthusiasm for massaging me wasn't just born from professional concern.
"Want a drink Jay?" Steve took a bottle of water from his fridge as I looked around. His trailer was like all the others on set, though spotlessly clean with everything tidied away. Like the others it was just a large caravan with a big living room, tiny toilet and small bedroom in case he wanted to sleep between takes.
"Tequila," I tried to sound grown-up and confident, but desperately wanted something to drink to cover my nerves. It had never used to be like this when I wanted to mess around with a guy, but somehow I felt as if the watcher could see what I was doing and was judging me.
"Kasper get you drinking that, kid?" Steve didn't look amused, in fact he looked pissed off, and I tried to tell him it had been a joke.
"I should put you over the end of that couch and whoop your little ass. He got you snorting that white shit as well?" Steve towered over me and I tried to back away, but in his small trailer that was nearly impossible.
"Nah he's clean, he don't do that anymore Steve!" The older man scowled at me.
"Don't remember saying we were on first names terms, kid. Where I'm from a boy your age calls a man Sir. Got it maggot?" He was in full military bollocking mode now and I thought it best to just agree.
"Yes sir." Steve scowled and turned away from me, opening one of the drawers in the small kitchen that formed part of the lounge.
"You know why a kid your age don't drink tequila, Jacob?" I shook my head and he stared at me until I answered with a quiet `no sir'.
"Because tequila's a drink for wet-backs and eighteen year old college girls." He was smirking now and I realised he had been winding me up, and I managed to breathe out and give him a nervous smile.
"I should still whoop your ass for even asking," Steve poured himself a shot of brown liquid from a bottle he had retrieved from the drawer, looked at me with amusement and poured another before walking behind me. I could feel his body close to mine and knew I was getting hard, and almost jizzed in my underwear when he put the shot glass to my lips and tipped my head back so I downed the drink in one.
"Shit," I coughed and spluttered as the liquid burnt my throat making Steve laugh.
"Bourbon, kid, what we drink in the Marines. That's what real men drink."
"One more reason I'm not joining the fucking marines," that made him laugh more and he helped me out of my t-shirt.
"It giving you trouble here?" He pressed near my shoulder blade and I let out a little moan at the feel of his hands on my body.
"Lower."
"Here?" Both his hands were on my lower back now and I was grateful he was behind me and couldn't see the damp patch on the front of my footie shorts.
"Lower." I felt his hands tense, any lower and he would need to put his hands in my shorts, and for a moment or two we just stood there.
"Lots of trouble down there kid. Trouble for you if your Mom finds out, a whole world of trouble for me if anyone finds out." He stood there for what seemed like a lifetime then, slowly, I felt his hands make their way into my shorts.
The Tempest was there in my head. Full and complete it was brilliant. I knew it was brilliant. It was like no Tempest had ever been before it.
Or was it? Perhaps Will's Tempest had been like mine. Will wrote the words and I'd added nothing to those words, taken nothing away. Just the words. Always, just the words.
Brat sat in a different compartment in my mind.
Brat was in Hawaii.
Brat, I felt sure, was in Hawaii sharing his bed with Kasper.
Brat needed to share his bed with someone. Brad needed physical adoration. Brat needed sex.
For just over a year Brat had shared a bed with me, allowed me to give him the physical adoration he needed and craved.
But now Brat was in Hawaii.
And Brat was some millions of seconds older than the Brat who had shown me what heaven is like.
Brat was in Hawaii, heaven no longer visible.
Brat had become Beatrice and I was looking at hell, not heaven.
The Tempest could not compete with Brat.
Nothing could compete with Brat. Not with the memory of Brat when he was fourteen, and Brat was no longer fourteen. He was heading fast for sixteen now.
Why did those millions of seconds fly so fast for Brat? Why did he have to grow older?
Was it, I began to wonder, not Brat I dreamed of.
Was Brat simply my idea, the real idea as Plato would have it, of a boy?
Had Brat simply been the means by which I had been dragged in front of a mirror, seen who Richard Williams really was?
Was it that it wasn't Brat I longed for? Would any boy, a boy of fourteen do instead?
Is that what Richard Williams was drinking himself into an early grave for?
Was it that Richard Williams knew now, knew what had always been true; that Richard Williams needed a boy? Any boy?
I turned to some of those internet sites Brat had told me of. Internet sites that were full of boys.
But though I stared at image after image, video after video of naked, fourteen year old boys, none of them were Brat.
Boys were wonderful. That I did accept and understand.
But they weren't Brat.
Brat was in Hawaii, growing older with every passing second.
`If you're sleeping with Kasper,' the thought came, both bidden and unbidden to my Brat deprived mind, `Take that ring off your finger first. I'll understand, Brat. I will understand.'
"Done this before kid?" I nodded, his hands were just on my hips, inside my shorts but outside my underwear. "Fuck tell me you've hit puberty," Steve's right hand had found the patch above my cock where he was clearly expecting find some pubes.
"Shave em," I told him with a giggle, and was rewarded with the feel of his hand going lower.
"Horny little trick ain't ya," I had no idea what the meant but I guessed Steve liked whatever it was as I was spun round so he could clamp his mouth on mine. He didn't waste time with lip nibbling or teasing, instead putting his hand on the back of my head and getting his tongue in my mouth. He tasted good, like the whiskey he had poured down my neck and I moaned and writhed in his grip as he tongued me.
"I like my boys noisy, but there's two mil of fibre glass between us and the make-up woman, so keep it quiet." Steve went back to tonguing me and I tried to keep my moans to a minimum but was too horny to be silent.
"Fuck, you want to get caught?" Steve clamped a hand over my mouth and picked me up, my eight stone body clearly not much of a challenge for him to manhandle. As I giggled and squirmed he carried me into the tiny bedroom at the back of the trailer, before dumping me on his bed. "If you can't do it yourself guess I'll have to make sure you keep quiet," he told me as he stripped off his shirt.
"Stop fucking moping, Rich," Sis consoled me. "For fuck's sake go out and pick up a rent boy or something. Plenty enough of them round here. Should be able to find a nice skinny, fourteen year old one without too much trouble."
"Don't want a rent boy, Sis." I knew she was trying to help, but that wasn't the sort of help I needed. "Wouldn't know what to do with one if I found one," I tried to be flippant, but only earned a derisive snort from Sis. "Don't want any boy," I tried to explain, though I knew that Sis didn't need me to explain, "I want Brat."
"Boy is boy," Sis reloaded her gin glass, "All the same once you got their clothes off."
"Not like that, Sis," I reloaded my malt just to keep her company.
"Only one cock good enough for you, is that it?"
"Only one, Sis, the only one."
"God help you," Sis emptied her glass. "Fucking idealist. The boy's a boy, Rich, not some fucking bit of perfection on a fucking pedestal."
"Perhaps he is, Sis. To me, anyway." I emptied my glass as well. "Don't want him any other way, I suppose."
Sis snorted again and refilled both our glasses.
"Like that don't ya," Steve still had his hand clamped over my mouth but was now playing with my nipples, rolling them between thumb and forefinger and throwing in the occasional tweak for good measure.
I could only make a muffled moan but I did indeed like what he was doing. In fact I was in heaven, Steve's heavy frame pinning me to the bed with one hand clamped over my mouth while the other explored my now nearly naked body. He had pulled the shorts and underwear off me, leaving me to kick off my trainers, so now the only clothing on me were my white socks.
"Damn this is tight," Steve's finger pressed up against my arse-hole and my body tensed. I wanted to have fun with him, wanted release more than anything, but definitely not that! There was no way I could do that!
"Anything been up there but your little fingers Jay?" I gave a muffled grunt and shook my head, and then a louder grunt as he worked a finger inside me.
"I'd love to loosen you up but you wouldn't walk straight for weeks," the finger was removed and pulled between his legs as he lay back.
"Something else to keep you quiet," his cock slapped wetly against my cheek and I let out a low moan. He wasn't shaved, in fact he was quite hairy, and his cock was probably the biggest I had seen in real life. Not huge, but maybe an inch bigger than Mr Williams, and I gulped as he wiped it around my face.
"Done this before Jay?" I nodded and he smiled, putting his hands behind his head.
"In your own time then kid," I looked at his cock, my heart pounding and my own cock rock hard beneath me. I wanted to, wanted to suck and lick and taste him more than anything. Wanted to get his hands back on my body, his fingers and maybe more inside me, his tongue back in my mouth. I wanted him to do everything to me but...
"You ok Jay?" Steve gave me a concerned look, the reality of what we were doing cutting through his own lust, and I tried to recover the situation by bobbing my head forward. I wanted to open up, to suck him, to go back to being the slutty boy I had been before, but I just couldn't. He would know, he would see through me, hate me, reject me for being too old and loose. I wouldn't be Peter Pan, I'd be grown up and useless, and the Watcher would have no use for a boy like that.
"Seriously Jay, if you don't want to," Steve knelt up and patted my cheek, and the affectionate gesture broke the last of my resistance and, humiliatingly, I burst into tears.
"Know you love him, Rich," Sis was gentler than I'd ever known her to be, "But didn't think it was that fucking much!"
"Not wisely, but too well, Sis," I attempted a smile, but I don't think it was over-successful. "Foolish fond old man, I guess, with a dream stuck in his head."
"World be a fucking awful place without a dream, Rich," and that surely wasn't Sis? "Important thing is to know it is a dream, even if you want it to last for more than one fucking midsummer night."
"I've got to tell you Jay, this isn't exactly how I envisaged spending the afternoon with you." Steve smiled to show it was a joke and I gave him a wan smile in return. We were sitting in the lounge of his trailer, both drinking bottles of beer, though him with more enthusiasm than me.
"If I came on too strong for you, kid..." Steve patted my knee, and I wiped at my wet eyes. We were both dressed again, there was no chance of any fooling about after what had just happened, but he didn't seem pissed off and I mutely shook my head.
"It wasn't that, I liked that, it's just..." I looked at my feet, the tears flowing again and suddenly, like a flood it just all came out. What had happened in Italy, the Watcher, what would happen if I did what my body wanted me to do, what it was trying to force me to do.
I thought Steve would laugh, or maybe tell me I was crazy, but he just sat and listen, letting me pour it all out. Then he told me a story of his own, how for years after coming home from the War he had thought the Viet Cong were watching him from the woods, from the trees, from where ever, until his every hour was filled with fear of being watched.
"You know how I stopped it Jay? I went into those woods. You told this Mr Williams what's happening?" I shook my head mutely. I couldn't imagine doing that, the very idea was terrifying, so I couldn't imagine ever being brave enough to go through with it.
"So I guess we know what you've got to do don't we," Steve took the virtually un-drunk bottle of beer from me and downed it, before taking me out of his trailer and driving me back to the condo where Mum and I were staying.
"More than just one midsummer night, Sis." At least with Sis I had someone I could talk to, explain. "A lifetime of midsummer nights wouldn't be too many."
"Not gonna happen, Rich," she sympathised, "Boy isn't Peter Pan, you know."
"I do know, Sis, and that scares me. When, if, he gets back he'll be almost sixteen. He may not want to know me anymore."
That thought had me reaching for the bottle again. Malt went nowhere near dimming Brat's infinite variety in my mind, but it did help me cope with the absence of him.
"Just teenager BS, he likes someone who don't like him back, yada yada. The usual." I could hear Mum and Steve talking downstairs. She had known I had been upset as soon as I got in, but I hadn't wanted to talk about it and thankfully her need to be polite to a guest had meant she couldn't try and force the truth out of me.
"Yeah two daughters, no my wife died ten years ago. No need to be sorry, they're amazing. Well now they are, when they were Jay's age, I tell you, suddenly Vietnam didn't seem so stressful." I could hear them laughing and talking boring adult stuff, the sort of conversations only parents seemed to have, and I lay on my bed and turned on my iPad. There was an email from Lucy with a few new pictures and potential captions and I quickly emailed her back to say they were fine before checking out what she had uploaded to the instagram account.
The pictures from the day before were there, me sparring with Steve and a short video clip of me laughing/grimacing as he worked loosening up my muscles as well as a few other new ones.
`Haha too funny' someone had commented, with a few more smiley faces below. `Please be my bf', made me smirk and I clicked through a few other pictures to see what people were writing.
`Fuck you're hot babe', `you need to come to my school', `please be my Romeo'. A black and white one of me and Kasper staring at the ocean had a lot of comments, mostly about him but quite a few about me and I clicked through them distractedly until one made me freeze.
No way he would know how to use instagram. No way would he be watching me even in the digital world.
"Put your fucking ring on or tell him to his face!!!!" The person who had made the comment had deleted their account so there was no way of messaging them back, but I knew they could only be talking about one ring. I didn't wear it on set but I did at night, and as Mum and Steve talked downstairs I slipped it on quickly in case the Watcher's eyes were on me.