Trapped

Chapter 2-1

Chapter 2

Sam closed his eyes and held his breath. Exactly as he had hoped.

“It was nothing. Just a beating. I’ll be fine.”

“Just a beating?”

Sam snuggled tighter. He tried to ignore how good it felt to be held and focused on the fact that whilst he could push his face into Maurice’s chest, he didn’t have to look him in the eye. “Just a beating.” He didn’t need to tell him that it was the last beating that pushed him to the edge.

Maurice didn’t speak, he just carried on stroking his bruised body.

“I have to tell you something,” Sam said. It was now or never. “I have to tell you.”

The stroking stopped. “Tell me what?”

Sam took a deep breath. “Well, it might not matter terribly to you, but I am leaving Dante’s.” Dante’s was the name of the club that employed him as a prostitute. Dante was the name of the man that held his life in the palm of his hand and never let him forget it. The man he had to get away from or die. Sam registered the fact that beneath him Maurice had gone completely still.

“When?”

“By the end of the week.”

“But it is Thursday already. Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. I shouldn’t have told you.” Sam sat up and ploughed his hands through his hair.

“But I need to know where you are going. How else will I see you? Will I still be able to see you?” Maurice’s tone was taking on a desperate note.

“You…I…I won’t be able to see you. I…” Sam put his face in his hands. “I beg of you not to breathe a word. I am running away. I cannot face this anymore.”

There was a rustle of the sheets as the boy sat up beside him. “I am so, so sorry,” he whispered after a long moment’s silence, and his voice wavered. “So terribly sorry, I never imagined you would view me in that way. All I can say is you are a remarkable actor. I have been so wrapped up in my own pleasure, my own need for…” He stopped and put a hand over his mouth.

Sam was taken aback. He never imagined that the boy would think that he meant him. How could he even imagine he meant him? He turned so that he could look at him. The misery was back in the boy’s eyes, tenfold.

“Not you,” Sam said, and meant every word. “Never you.” He took the boy into his arms, rocked him, and kissed his temple. “You’ve been the one thing that makes all this bearable. I love being with you. I love every moment of it. I tried to make them let me only work for you but they wouldn’t and I can’t afford to live on…” Sam squeezed him again, meaning every word. “Never you.”

“I suppose the money that I give them doesn’t come to you.”

“No. I get bed and board. A roof over my head, clean clothes, and food in my belly. More than most.”

“What will you do?”

Sam screwed his eyes tightly shut. “I am going to escape and go to Yorkshire.”

“Yorkshire.” The boy’s voice was breathy. “Yorkshire is an awful long way away.”

Sam nodded and risked a glance at him. “I have a cousin there. He escaped from Dante a few months ago. Not many do.” Sam smiled at the thought of Harry; settled and free.

Maurice moved out of his embrace and looked at him, his brows drawn into a frown. “What do you mean by escape? Are you not free to leave?”

“No. Dante’s make a lot of money from me. I am…popular. Some gentlemen enjoy a firm hand,” Sam said, and glanced at Maurice. He flushed. “Others like to experience overpowering a big lad like me. Making me take it. Some get carried away.” He glanced over his shoulder at the bruises, then back at Maurice. The owner and his right-hand man think that they can have me whenever it pleases them. He shuddered at the thought of Bill Mosely and Dante. “I can’t do it anymore.”

“Oh God.” Maurice ran his hands through his hair. He had lovely hands. “I’ve wondered often what your life might be like, what happens to you when I am not here.” Maurice looked lost for a moment, then a curiously hard resolve came into those blue eyes, and he spoke the words that Sam had been praying hard to hear.

“Let me help you.”

Sam’s heart beat fast. This was it.

“I couldn’t ask that of you,” he whispered, holding his head down.

The boy took hold of his chin and lifted his face so that he could look at him. Sam’s heartbeat doubled at the action. Those light blue eyes that often looked shy, shadowed, and miserable were now serious and calm, but still filled with that resolve. “You haven’t asked it of me. I offered. I think you should count me as a friend. I know I should like to think of you as such. We have been meeting for over a month now and the fact that I am here—what, two, three times a week?—should tell you that I care for you. A great deal.”

Sam could barely speak. He had hoped that he pleasured the man enough to make him want to continue, make him want to set him up in a room somewhere, perhaps as his paramour, or whatever one called a male lover. He hadn’t expected a heartfelt offer of friendship.

“Thank you,” he whispered, moved and unable to look away.

The boy let go of his face and smiled. “Is Henri actually your name?”

Sam grinned and shook his head. “Nothing so fancy. Samuel.”

“Tristan.”

The boy stuck out his hand and Sam shook it shyly and asked the question that had been burning inside for a while. “How old are you, Tristan?”

“Four and twenty.”

How old are you, Samuel?”

Sam smiled at him. He’d thought him a little younger than himself. “The same, though I will be five and twenty in a couple of weeks.”

“Ah, then you have the advantage. I am not five and twenty until the end of the year. You have eight months on me. So how can I help you to get away from Dante’s?”

The change in topic made Sam jump and made him realise that although the boy might look younger, might act vulnerable and shy in the bedroom, like as not he might very different out of it as many men were. In fact, he wasn’t that young at all. He used his best smile and stroked his thumb over Tristan’s hand that still lay in his. “You can’t. Not without getting involved and if anyone ever found out and, you would be ruined. You could be hung.”

“Why do you need to run away? Why can’t you just leave?”

Sam hesitated, shame making his face colour, but he stuck to his resolve to be as truthful as possible, and took a deep breath.

“I owe Dante money. He pulled me out of the gaming hells and paid my debts in return for me working for him. I’ve done it for nearly a year now and I don’t think I can bear it anymore, but the money he loaned me had interest on it and it just grows and grows. I now owe him nearly five hundred pounds. I will never be able to pay it off. Never.” The panic in his voice was genuine. At first it had seemed like a capital idea. Saved from his debtors, somewhere clean and comfortable to live, food, and an endless supply of men. What he had not banked on was the depraved nature of many of the guests who visited the club, and the nature of Dante himself and his vile henchman, Bill Mosely. In fact, it was Mosely’s return that made him realise that he had to get out if he wanted to stay out of the madhouse.

Tristan’s arms came about him again. “What did you do before you worked here?” Tristan asked softly.

“I served in alehouse. The Bucket of Blood in Covent Garden. Wasn’t a bad job, but I…I suppose I was greedy. I wanted more, wanted better. I’m good with cards, I can mimic the quality easily, and people seem to like me. I gambled, won, and got…greedy. I knew the stakes were high playing with Dante, but I thought I could win. Thought that I could set myself up for life. I was wrong.” Sam hung his head and Tristan squeezed his hand. He was going off script now. He was supposed to be spinning a tale that would make Tristan sympathise with him. He hadn’t planned on spilling his pathetic life story. He took several deep breaths and tried to think clearly. Appeal to him. Appeal to the kindness that he sensed in him.

“Now, I only want you,” he whispered. It was the truth. The absolute truth. Then he remembered the miserable look in Tristan’s eyes when he came in. “Enough about me. When you came I could not help but note you appeared troubled,” he said.

Tristan pulled his hand away and fiddled with the sheet over his lap. “You are terribly observant.”

“I just think that I have come to know you well.” That was better. Sam shifted closer and stroked Tristan’s arm. “Do you want to tell me about it?”

Tristan shook his head and smiled sadly. “It’s…nothing. Did you really work somewhere called the Bucket of Blood?”

Sam smiled and accepted his avoidance of the subject. “Indeed I did. They had bare knuckle fights there, so it got messy on occasion.”

Tristan smiled back. “How do we get you out of here? Do you have somewhere to go if we do?”

Sam hesitated, but decided not to push Tristan to reveal what troubled him. Instead, he let his smile spread slowly over his face. When he spoke, his voice was a little shy. “I love that you say we. I love that you want to help me…I…I think that I love you.” Sam held his breath.

The look of unalloyed joy on Tristan’s face shook Sam to the core. “Oh, Samuel,” Tristan breathed, climbed into his lap, put his arms around his neck, and held him tightly. “Oh, Samuel,” he said again. Sam squeezed his eyes shut as guilt bit sharply. He’d guessed that the boy was terribly in need of loving, despite his requests to be taken hard, and he had been right. So right.

Tristan pulled back and stroked Sam’s face gently. The look in those beautiful eyes was so tender, so loving, Sam wanted to weep. “I will bring the five hundred pounds. I will come as usual on Saturday, give you the money, and I will find you somewhere to live so that when we get you out you will be safe.”

“No, you can’t do that. I can’t ask that of you,” he protested.

“I can and I will.” He kissed him on the cheek. “I will find somewhere where we can be together regularly. Where I can visit you…is that what you want? I mean, do you want to continue our association outside of here?” He looked around at the opulent room decked in shades of crimson and purple.

Sam squeezed him tight. “It is what I want. More than anything in the world, I want to be with you.” His words were fervent, and true. He did want to keep seeing Tristan and to have an association with him. His heart thumped painfully in his chest as he wondered if he really did love him. How one earth did a chap know if he was in love? His heart almost stopped completely when Tristan spoke.

“Then I shall make it happen.”