CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Stanton turned up within the hour, an older man than I'd expected with thinning grey hair and glasses. He asked for no personal information from Sirius, which supported my assumption that Stanton had treated him before, and he seemed to accept our version of events without comment. But he was obviously uncomfortable in the extreme, giving Sirius only a cursory and mostly silent examination before agreeing that a fracture was certainly possible and that the only way to assess the damage was to have the knee scanned and x-rayed. The kid didn't look overjoyed by the prospect but he didn't protest, either: Stanton said that he'd call Saperstein as soon as he reached the hospital and again once he had the results, but he'd warned me that, since this was a Sunday, it might be some time before anyone got back to me.

Was I relieved? Does Zack O'Toole have a big dick? I'd been through more of an emotional wringer in the last twenty-four hours than I had since I'd outed Mikey, and I figured I deserved a little me time.

So I'd spent an hour giving myself a good workout and now I was lying back in the Jacuzzi, letting the jets of hot water soothe the aches from my muscles as I pulled thoughtfully on a Marlborough. The trouble was that, now my mind wasn't focussed on putting my body through its paces, it had drifted back to its default setting and was once again pointing towards its troublesome little blond lodestone.

God, the boy was pretty. Not only that, he was hot – not in my stud predator way, or even in a slutty bottom way, but in an unattainable, unapproachable way that was all the more alluring because I was willing to bet that beneath that cool, unresponsive exterior there lurked a consuming passion just waiting to be tapped by the right hands and oh, how I longed for those lucky, lucky hands to be mine. I seriously doubted that Sirius had ever enjoyed a true sexual encounter in his life because his only frame of reference when it came to gay sex seemed to be whatever sick games the Sap had embroiled him in, and I really couldn't imagine a worse mentor for the boy. On the one hand I couldn't help but be relieved - not to mention gleeful - that the creep wasn't physically capable of actual intercourse with anyone, but whatever means he was using to sublimate his desires appeared to be unhealthy in the extreme both for Sirius' physical and his mental well-being. Yet what could I do about it? Sirius had as good as told me that he wasn't being coerced into anything: as an adult he was as free as I was to make his own decisions, no matter how misguided they might be.

No, I had to pull back from this situation because I was getting way too involved and it was beginning to affect my professional judgement. It was easy to understand why I was obsessing over the kid, of course: I was cooped up here with none of my usual distractions available, so it was hardly surprising that my libido was in full spate. Under normal circumstances if I saw a trick I wanted to fuck, I fucked him, and that was the end of the matter: here, I couldn't. For some reason I found Sirius, little blond twink though he be, more attractive than any guy I'd seen in years and if it hadn't been for the fact that he was off limits I'd have had him spread wide open and begging for mercy long ago, so I guessed it was only natural that those tantalising glimpses of him I kept getting - his smooth, pale chest that first night at the Starlight; his taut little belly as he'd shimmied at Woody's; his bare legs this morning at the Loft – replayed over and over in my head in various shades of lust.

Wanting what you couldn't have was quite a novel experience for me.

I'd been stroking myself all the time I'd been thinking about him: now I ditched my cigarette, filled my palm with liquid soap and set about jerking off in earnest, imagining those sensual pink lips stretched around my dick and the tip of that artful tongue running up and down it. I saw my hands reaching down to steady a blond head, and felt soft wet strands of hair between my fingers: I saw those amazing blue eyes looking up at me in wonder and delight.

I came with a groan, spurting jets of cum across my stomach.

Somehow I didn't feel comfortable in the Sap's domain so I wandered back to the suite and ordered a chicken Caesar salad from the restaurant before rooting through the DVD's in the entertainment centre looking for something to watch. They were, as the Sap had promised, all mainstream standards that I'd seen a million times before: Jaws, Die Hard, Star Wars, Rocky, Alien … I was trying to make my mind up between Brando in The Godfather and De Nero in The Deerhunter when I spotted a copy of The Wild One lurking at the back of the drawer. That would do nicely.

I opened the case, popped out the disc and inserted it in the DVD player. I found the remote and went back to the couch, switched on the TV and while I was waiting for the disc to load I pulled the little information booklet about the film out of its clip in the DVD case and started leafing through it. Tucked away inside were a couple of sheets of folded notepaper, and when I opened them I found I was looking at a letter.

Of course I read it.

It was written on expensive, scented paper in a feminine, flowing script and was dated just a month ago.

Sweetheart,

Just a few lines to let you know how things are going at home, because it seems forever since you called and I know very well that there's no hope of your picking up a pen and writing to me!

Molly is doing well at the moment and the doctors are very pleased with her. I know she missed you badly when you left, but I've made a point of showing her your photo every day and telling her all the things you're getting up to at college and I'm sure that she's beginning to adjust to your absence at last. Certainly the tantrums are a lot less now. We had a lovely day together last week - the weather was so bright and warm that I took her for a picnic to the park. We sat by the pond and fed the ducks the way you used to, and do you know? I think you're right. She definitely seemed to respond to them – I'm sure she was laughing at all the noise they were making. I could see it in her eyes, and when we got home she seemed really happy and ate all her dinner like a good girl. I told her you would be proud of her. When summer comes I'll try to take her every day.

Daddy is well, of course. I wish I could say that he's come round a little, but I'm afraid he's still adamant that he won't let you come to the house. I'm not going to pretend that I understand his stance on this, because I don't, but you're just as stubborn as he is and I'm sure we could work something out if the two of you would only sit down and discuss it like sensible adults. Perhaps if I made arrangements for the Centre to take Molly for an afternoon I could come up to town and we could meet for lunch and talk? We could even squeeze in a little shopping trip – I'm sure you won't say no to that! I'd love to meet your flatmate – perhaps there's even a nice boy in your life by now! Perhaps that's why I hardly ever hear from you!

Seriously, Justin, I know how hard you must be working (I went to college too, remember!) and I realise how exciting it must be for you - sharing an apartment with your new friend, living in the city instead of out here in the suburbs - but please, darling, don't forget us. I'm sure if you really tried you could call a little more often. However bad things are between you and your father, I will never stop being your mother, or stop worrying about you.

I miss you, sweetheart.

Love, Mom xxxxxx

I read the letter twice, Brando forgotten. Then I grabbed the ashtray off the coffee table, pulled out my Marlboroughs and lit up. This definitely needed consideration.

Justin. That was the kid's name. I liked it a lot more than fucking Sirius. And his mother … I remembered how happy she'd looked as she'd waved us away from her house and I'd wondered how such an obviously classy lady could be so complacent about her son's association with a lowlife like the Sap. Well, now I had the answer - she evidently was completely clueless as to what was really going on in the kid's life. There she was in her nice, cosy suburban world, fondly believing that her little chick was safely spreading his wings at college, simply delighted that he had finally found the time from his busy schedule to pay a fleeting visit. And of course she'd been trying to catch a glimpse of me – she probably suspected I was the boyfriend, too nervous of meeting her husband to come to the door.

Why hadn't the kid told her the truth? Come to that, why hadn't his father? The Sap had said that Sirius' - Justin's - old man had disowned him because he'd quit school to pursue a career in music, and to some extent the letter bore this out. But if his mother still believed he'd gone to college then the old man must have given her some other reason for barring their son from the family home. Because the kid was gay, perhaps? Justin had implied that. His mother seemed to be cool with the idea, but maybe his father had played the homophobic card as an excuse to get rid of him. The only certain thing was that both of them seemed determined to shield her from the knowledge that her son had in fact dropped out of school and was now involved in a highly questionable relationship with a man old enough to be his father and singing in a nightclub twice a week.

Well, I guessed most mothers wouldn't react well to news like that, and perhaps Justin's already had enough to worry about. Molly had to be a close relative, probably a sibling, although neither he nor the Sap had mentioned a sister. Whoever she was, it sounded as though she was severely handicapped and the mother provided her full-time care, so I supposed I could understand why neither her son nor her husband would want to cause her more distress than they needed to.

I was distracted from my musings by the phone ringing: it was the restaurant telling me that my lunch was on its way, so I went to the foyer to take delivery. I tipped the waitress who'd brought it up in the elevator, took my meal back to the suite and picked at it while I read the letter again.

Of course, Justin's mother wasn't the only one being kept in the dark: the kid must have hidden the letter here in the suite because he didn't want Saperstein to find it, in the same way he hadn't wanted the guy to know about our trip to South Fayette. Ergo, it would be safe to assume that the Sap would be more than a little displeased to find that Justin was still in contact with his mother, presumably because he didn't want any outside influences lessening the control he had over the kid. Yet Justin had been willing to risk not only my ratting him out but also an unpleasant encounter with his father, all for the sake of a few minutes spent in his old home. I reasoned he'd probably he'd been spooked by his mom's proposed visit or perhaps it was because of Molly: the letter had implied that Justin had spent a lot of time with her and that she had missed him badly, so they must have been close; maybe he'd just wanted to reassure himself that she was now doing as well as his mother claimed she was.

The one thing that seemed clear to me was that the kid must be carrying a shitload of guilt around with him and maybe that was the answer to the enigma. To Justin's eyes it must seem that he'd disappointed his father, deserted his sister, had been deceiving his mother for months – and whatever the Sap said, he clearly wasn't happy doing it. Perhaps that was why he was allowing the Sap to abuse him … because he felt in some way he deserved it. And if he felt that bad about himself then it made my guess about his attempted suicide all the more likely.

I remembered my own brush with death on my thirtieth birthday, and how I only had Mikey to thank that I was here at all. But what friend did Justin have to watch his back for him?

I pushed what was left of my lunch away. I really didn't feel hungry anymore.

TBC