s*x in C Major

Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The good mood didn’t last.

Stefan woke in the morning feeling run-down and low. His shot hurt more than usual, and left a bruise on his arse that looked obvious and out of place against the marks Daz had left behind. And the bathroom cabinet was empty.

“f**k,” Stefan breathed.

He bought his hormones over the internet. Stupid, he knew, but what else could he do? He was still registered to a GP in Huddersfield he’d not seen since he was kicked out, and even if he could get a referral to a gender clinic, the waiting lists were measured in years, not weeks. He’d have to wait a year, two years, maybe even four if he went to the one in Leeds, just to see the shrink. Hormones wouldn’t even be on their agenda until then.

And Stefan couldn’t do that.

He’d cracked a couple of months ago, standing in his bathroom with blood streaked down his legs from the proof his body was wrong, and running down his arms and hands from punching the mirror until it was shards sticking out of his knuckles. He couldn’t go back now.

But it meant paying for it.

And paying for something that might be testosterone. Or might be something else. Or might be a mix.

Either way, it was two hundred a month out of his benefits, which meant no gas, no internet, not even bus fares for two out of every four weeks. Living hand to mouth wasn’t even within his reach—more like hand to chin.

But it was worth it, for the way his d**k was growing and his voice was slowly beginning to crack and come down out of the rafters. The periods would stop soon, too. And maybe one day soon, he could pass properly, and his skin wouldn’t crawl so much just walking out of his front door.

He logged onto his neighbour’s wifi with his phone, and worked quickly before they noticed again. They thought it was the meth guy on their floor last time, Stefan had heard the row, but Sustanon wasn’t exactly multi-purpose so they’d figure it out soon. And the dyke upstairs, as they called him, was the next likely suspect.

He didn’t have two hundred in his bank account, but spent it anyway. The overdraft would charge him, but there was nothing he could do. He had about thirty quid still lying around the flat; he could get by until the next cheque from the Jobcentre came in, right? He could always start selling a bit of weed for Dean again if things got really desperate.

But once the money was gone and the package ordered, Stefan dropped the phone on the mattress and looked around the flat. It had been hope last night, with the cello’s notes warbling off the walls, but now…it was a prison again. And not the excitement of Daz keeping him for use, but a real prison. With a cage on the door to keep out his smackhead neighbours, a closet stacked with s**t to keep his only treasured possession hidden, and not a single photo on the walls of any of his family.

Because they didn’t exist anymore.

Nobody existed for Stefan anymore. It was just him, in this shitty flat he didn’t even own. If he dropped dead this instant, nobody would bloody well notice. He’d get his five minutes of fame when he ended up in the local newspaper after someone bust in to fix the roof in ten years and found his skeleton on a rotten old mattress. And even next door wouldn’t have noticed the smell, because of the damp problem.

That was his future.

Stefan shook himself when he caught his thumb rubbing over the scars on his arm, and picked up the phone again. Nope. Not going down that road. He’d been there before, and it had landed him in a hospital under watch for forty-eight hours on a female-only ward. If he was going to go down that road again, he’d do it properly.

And shitty as this existence was…he still had the bruises on his skin from Daz’s hands. Yesterday, he had been wanted. Had felt good. He’d played for the first time in years.

Stefan rolled his shoulders, and decided to distract himself. Maybe he could go round again. Hang around until he saw this foreign-language boyfriend leave, then knock and ask for more?

He shrugged on his jeans, let himself out of the flat, and—walked.

Just walked.

It was cold outside, last night’s rain having turned to ice, and the prickle of wet mist on his skin from the early morning brushed the dark cobwebs aside. His legs ached from being held open for Daz’s hands, and he found himself touching the bruises on his waist and hip from that exploratory grip. They burned pleasantly, and by the time he reached the city centre and began to head further south to Middleton, his mood had improved considerably.

It was a long walk—hours long, in fact—and so it was noon before he reached the narrow street of terraced houses. He loitered at a bus stop at the end, watching the house uncertainly. He could just go up and knock, and if the boyfriend answered, pretend he’d got the wrong address. Or he could call Daz—Daz had said not to, but…

Stefan dithered, unsure of the best way of approaching, but the decision was taken out of his hands when the front door opened, and a man stepped out.

Stefan narrowed his eyes.

The boyfriend.

He was going somewhere. He had a messenger bag slung over his back, and was wearing a coat and gloves. He locked the door too—so maybe Daz wasn’t home?—and fiddled with a mobile phone before pocketing it and heading down the street towards Stefan.

Okay.

Okay, if Daz wasn’t home, then maybe Stefan could scope out this mysterious boyfriend. Maybe he was going to meet Daz somewhere. Stefan didn’t even know if either of them worked; maybe there was no point coming to the house on certain days?

The guy had headphones on, and walked straight past Stefan like he wasn’t there, letting Stefan get a good look. Boyfriend was like Daz—dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin—and wore black glasses with a thick rim. He had facial hair somewhere between a thin beard and heavy stubble, and he walked quickly, head down.

Easy.

Stefan peeled away from the bus shelter casually, and began to follow him, keeping twenty paces or so behind. He just had to hope that Boyfriend wasn’t getting a bus, or meeting someone more observant.

Stefan was in luck, though—Boyfriend appeared to like walking, too. And he headed right back the way Stefan had come, heading into the city centre along the same route. He nodded once or twice to people in the street, and once answered a phone call, but otherwise seemed to be entirely alone. Heading to work, maybe? He seemed sombre and like he was going to be late if he ambled and looked around.

Almost.

As they reached the city centre, Boyfriend suddenly veered off, and his destination became instantly clear. Stefan had guessed him to be around thirty years old, but he had to be younger, as he headed towards the university buildings. And when he finally disappeared where Stefan couldn’t follow anymore, it was by swiping a card into the Department of Engineering.

An engineer.

Daz was dating an engineering student.

Unkindly, Stefan had a split second of thinking that it was no wonder Daz was willing to f**k someone else. An engineering student? The guy had to be pretty dour, right?

Then Stefan shook the thought off guiltily. Daz obviously saw something in him. And maybe they were going through a rough patch, or they weren’t very compatible in bed. Maybe the student had cheated before. But whatever was going on, Stefan was causing it. He was the other man in this situation, and he’d just followed his competition.

He felt sick.

Fuck, what was wrong with him? First being a freak by definition and injecting himself with drugs he bought online to feel remotely sane. Then he wanted a stranger to lock him in a room and use him like a s*x doll. And then he followed that stranger’s boyfriend and actively wanted to know when he wasn’t around, so he could enable even more of the cheating that had happened yesterday.

Fuck, he was so f*****g sick in the head.

Taking a deep breath, Stefan perched on a wall outside the building. He ran both hands through his hair. He had to stop this. He had to just forget about Daz. Take…take one problem at a time. He could find someone else to f**k him like Daz did. Someone who was single. Someone who was—

His pocket was ringing.

“What the—”

Shit. It wasn’t his phone, it was the one Daz had given him.

Stefan scrambled for it, heart pounding. To his horror, he realised his d**k was already swelling, and his jeans uncomfortable.

“Where are you?”

Daz’s voice was rough.

“Um, city centre.”

“Busy?”

“Not…not really.”

“What are you doing?”

He knew something. Stefan swallowed. Maybe he’d been home after all. Maybe he’d seen Stefan hanging around.

“Um. Nothing.”

“Really.”

It was laced with scepticism.

Stefan bit his lip.

“I, uh. I came by the house.”

“What did I tell you yesterday?”

“Not to,” Stefan whispered.

“So why did you?”

He couldn’t tell Daz about his thoughts. About his drugs or the money or his crazy neighbours. He couldn’t say any of that, because there was only so much freak Daz would take, and it had all gone away so completely yesterday…

“I wanted to see you again,” he mumbled.

“And did you?”

“I—I saw your boyfriend.”

“What?”

Daz’s voice was harder. Colder.

Stefan bit down on his lip again.

“He came out of the house as I arrived. I didn’t say anything! He didn’t even notice me…”

“So why are you in the city centre now if you were on my street an hour ago?”

“I—I followed him.”

“You followed him.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

“I—I wanted to find out about him. When…when he’d be at work. So I could maybe come over more.”

“You think you can just show up whenever you want?”

“No. No, Sir.”

“You think you’re on a par with him?”

“No, Sir.”

“You think you have a right to any of my time?”

“No, Sir.”

“Tell me why I shouldn’t hang up right now and drop you like a hot rock.”

Stefan’s gut clenched. “No!” The word escaped before he could stop it, and he took a ragged breath. “I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’ll never do it again. Never. I was stupid, I’ll never do it again, never—”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I—”

“I’ll have to teach you a lesson. You better be a fast learner, because my lessons are not pleasant.”

Stefan’s breath caught. His d**k began to throb painfully, and his palms suddenly felt sweaty.

“What—what would you do to me, Sir?”

“I’d not have you in the house for it. Your house. And you’d not be leaving it until you’d learned your place.”

Stefan’s hand began to toy with the button of his jeans, and he glanced around frantically. There was nowhere to go. No bathrooms. He couldn’t get into the engineering building. But f**k, he needed to relieve the ache.

“I’d take your keys, your phone, your clothes. I’ve a nice gag I’d use on you—goes right in around your teeth, and shuts with a combination padlock behind your head. Steel. It hurts, and you’d not be able to get it off no matter what you did to it without the code. I’d handcuff your hands behind you, too. This is a punishment, not a wanking marathon.”

Stefan whimpered, and jumped down from the wall. There had to be something. An alley, a hedge, something. Just the image of that gag…

“You could crawl around on your knees all you like. But you’d not be able to get out, or call for help. Just a toy in a box, ready for use whenever it’s needed.”

There! A narrow alley between two buildings, lined with large industrial bins. Stefan shot down it, ducking between two of the bins, out of sight of the street, and dropped his jeans frantically, shoving his hand into his boxers. The very first touch of his fingers to his d**k hurt, the cold like ice, and he whimpered aloud.

“Are you listening?”

“Yes, Sir. Yes. What—what would you do? J-just keep me there, or—?”

“Oh, no, I’d put you to proper use. Come round whenever I needed a place to stick it. Or if my friends did. Might make a few copies of the keys, and hand them out to interested parties.”

Stefan gasped, beginning to rub frantically. Oh f**k. f**k, f**k, f**k—

“You’d make a nice doll for them, bound and gagged and with nothing on. All they’d have to do is hold your knees open and f**k you however, wherever they wanted.”

Stefan closed his eyes and whimpered again. Someone just walking in the door and shoving him over, someone he’d never seen before, someone just hammering into him and coming, then pulling out and walking back out, just leaving him there on the floor—

“Might keep it up for a week, two, maybe even a month if you fought me and tried to keep your legs closed. But I bet you’d like it. I bet I’d come round and you’d spread your legs the minute you heard a key in the lock.”

“Yes, Sir,” Stefan whispered. He was shaking. His fingers were damp. His bare legs were cold. He’d always be cold, naked and bound in steel in the flat. Except for Daz’s c**k, burning hot and filling him up. Apart from the semen staining his skin. Apart from stranger’s hands holding him open.

“Maybe I’d keep you like that all the time. Could make a lot of money off you.”

Stefan gasped. His thighs clenched. Fire exploded up his spine. He shuddered against the bricks. There wasn’t enough air, and his chest heaved for greedy gulps of it.

“Sir—Sir, Sir…”

The alley shivered back into view, Daz’s voice deep and dark in his ear.

“Did you just get off to the thought of strangers using you like a blow-up doll?”

Stefan swallowed, and slowly pulled his fingers out of his boxers.

“Y-yes, Sir.”

“Then maybe they’d be your reward when you learned your place.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Don’t go near my boyfriend again. And don’t come to the house unless I tell you. You got it?”

“Yes, Sir.”

The phone cut out, and Stefan stared blindly at the opposite wall. f**k. He was—f**k. He was standing in an alley, between stinking bins of three-day-old pizza and Chinese food, with his jeans around his ankles and damp underwear. Because…because a guy who’d f****d him just one time had threatened to keep him prisoner in his flat and rent him out to strangers.

The self-loathing rose up like a wave.

“Sick,” Stefan whispered. “Sick, sick, sick, sick!”

He scrambled for his jeans. They were stained from the ground, sticky with something dubious, and he wanted to cry at the sight he must have made. Sick in the head, sick in the head, so f****d up.

Thirty quid was lying around his flat.

Fuck—anything. f**k the electric bill, and the job interview he’d landed next week in Bradford. f**k it all.

He’d spend that thirty on weed, and smoke it until he stopped shaking.

Until he stopped thinking.

Maybe, even, until he stopped being himself at all.