Beautiful Losers - Part Sixteen

For a long time, Jean said nothing. Feeling chilled, I grabbed the edge of the quilt and pulled it over me. Had I said something wrong - really wrong? Jean's face was an impassive mask , doing a good job of keeping me out.

"That's not your business, Shira," he said quietly, but with finality. The tone had that high, light quality that hid a sharp viciousness beneath it.

My stomach flipped over, I caught my breath. Instantly, tears pricked at my eyes, and the anger of being shoved away burned. At that moment, I would have done anything, paid anything to have been fully clothed. My nakedness made me so vulnerable. I didn't want to say the wrong thing, or lash out at Jean in anger or humiliation, but I knew, if I didn't move, I would.

"I love you, Jean. But I've got to go."

Climbing out of bed with all the dignity I could manage, I picked up my clothes and put them on in silence. The only thing I couldn't find were my panties, but there was no way I wasn't going to go crawling under the bed for the fucking things because I couldn't keep my cool that long.

Starting down the stairs, I could hear their raised voices - not what they were saying, but the tension in them. Jean's was louder but, by the time I reached the landing, Sebastian had opened the door. "How the fuck did you expect her to react?"

There's a lot to be said for Doc Martin's, but lacing them up is a bitch and takes time. Even unlacing them enough to get your feet back into them takes forever. Sitting on the sofa with my hands shaking, I fought to get them on as quick as I could.

"You're not leaving!" called Sebastian running down the stairs. He'd changed into his usual pair of cotton jogging pants, but wore nothing else. He reached the bottom of the stairs and stood, arms folded across his chest. "You're not going anywhere."

"I am, actually. You guys have shit to sort out." I managed to lace my boots up halfway: they'd stay on and that was good enough. Just breathe slowly, and deeply, I told myself. "And you need to sort them out in private."

That evening the week before, in the taxi on the way to Jean's apartment, I'd thought: this is going to fuck up our friendship royally. I was desperately angry that I hadn't believed myself.

As I made for the hall, Sebastian whipped out a hand and caught my arm. "Shira? Come on. Jean didn't mean it. He said it came out wrong."

I reared around and glared. "I'm trying very hard to keep my feelings to myself. Understand?"

"Then let's just sit down and..."

"Get your fucking hand off me, now. NOW!" I barked.

Sebastian flinched and released his grip. I reached the hallstand and grabbed my jacket and pulled it on. It was no later than seven, I guessed. I could walk down to the cross street and catch a bus. A cab would have been preferable, but I couldn't bear the idea of waiting for one.

As I pulled the front door open, the cold air hit my face. I hesitated, feeling sick about my outburst. He wasn't the target of my anger; I was pissed with myself. "I'm sorry, Sebastian. I don't mean to be a bitch. I didn't mean to shout at you that way. But I'm hanging by a thread right now."

"Yeah, I know," he said, keeping his distance.

Out onto the doorstep my thread broke. The frigid air seemed as thick as syrup and as if I had a thousand pounds on my chest. What the fuck had I done here, and why - for god's sake, why - had I done it?

By the time I got to the bottom step, the cold night came rushing into my lungs and I clenched my jaw and keened. The tears were flooding down my face, almost blinding me. The lights from the streetlamps splayed and fractured angles. I only had to get out onto the street. That's all. Then I could find a hedge somewhere and have a good cry, get it over with, and go home.

"Shira, wait!" yelled Sebastian. "Let me get something on my feet. I'll walk you."

He was swearing, but I didn't - couldn't - look back because the gate was near and, once I was out it, the world would return to normal. I wouldn't be the person I was in there. The clock would rewind and it would be as if none of this had happened.

The gate creaked as I swung it open and turned onto the sidewalk. Now, with the hedge for protection, I began to sob and walk, focusing on the ground, as if the whole of existence might be measured in those long paving stones. I crossed one, then another, then another, not caring that I was weeping or making noise about it. Some people cry quietly, but I can't.

That's why I heard nothing until Sebastian tackled me. He grabbed me from behind, his arms wrapping around me. "Shira, stop!"

I screeched and fought the embrace. "Let me fucking go! You asshole," I sobbed. "Please, please, please! Just leave me alone!"

He plucked me off my feet like it was the simplest thing in the world. The way cats do to running mice in cartoons. They hold them there, suspended, while their little feet go all blurry.

"I knew this would happen. I knew we would hurt each other. Oh, god! I just fucking knew it!" I cried, choking on the sobs.

A middle-aged woman, walking something that looked like a furry rat approached us from the opposite direction. She stopped at the far edge of a circle of streetlight.

"Are you alright? Miss?" she said nervously. "Is this young man bothering you?"

I froze, blinked and, to my disgust, heard Sebastian giggle. "Uh... no." I took a deep, hiccupping breath. "We're... I'm okay. Thanks."

"Are you sure, dear?" She narrowed her eyes, looking past me to Sebastian with deep suspicion. "Young man? You put that young woman down at once! And where are your shoes?"

I cast my gaze downwards. My feet were still inches off the ground, my hands in mid-claw against Sebastian's forearms and noticed, for the first time, that feet were bare. He lowered me to the ground and let me go. Against my back, I could feel him laughing soundlessly, burying his face in my hair and snickering.

"We're fine. Promise," I offered, wiping my face with my hand. "Just, you know..."

The woman made a clucking sound with her tongue. "Come on Freddie," she said in a singsong voice and sauntered by us with her rat-dog. As she gained some distance, I heard her talking to her pet. "Lover's quarrels, Freddie. Thank God we're past all that crap."

Sebastian spun me around, his hands firmly on my shoulders: he was still trying not to laugh. "You almost got me arrested for assault!"

But it wasn't funny. Laughter doesn't always make things better. "That night after dinner, I knew," I said. "I knew everything would change."

His cold hand cupped my cheek and he ran a thumb cross my skin. "You were right, then. Everything did change. And now we're all just going to have to figure out how to live with it."

"Maybe, if I just stayed away for a while, things would calm down and go back to normal."

He was wearing nothing under the leather jacket; he must have been freezing. "No it wouldn't. It's never going to go back to normal, Shira." Taking me into his arms, pulling me against his chest, I shuffled, tying to avoid stepping on his toes.

"Come back and talk to Jean. He's in hysterics and I doubt that tying him up and calling him a whore is going to help this time. He's so ashamed. And if you just walk out, he's never going to forgive himself."

"Okay," I muttered into his chest. His skin smelled of sweat, and Jean, and perhaps me. "Okay."

We walked back to his house, hand in hand. "Aren't your feet freezing?"

"Honestly? They've gone numb. Feels like I'm walking on stumps."

* * *

Jean sat halfway up the stairs, elbows on his knees, hands folded together. As we walked, in he started to cry. I climbed up to him and sat beside him. Unsure of what to say, I leaned my head on his shoulder and waited.

Sebastian stayed at the bottom of the stairs, arms on the railing, watching. For all his games - the slapping and the pinching and the hot things on skin - he wasn't all that comfortable with real pain. Not that he was a coward: he kept the vigil; he didn't harrumph and walk off like a lot of men I have known; he didn't pretend like it wasn't happening. But he kept his distance, as if this sort of pain was something he knew pretty intimately, and didn't like.

When the crying waned, I said, "Let's go have some tea." It was inane, I know, but my mother's English and, in my family, tea was just what you did after a good cry.

When he stood up, I caught a glimpse of his face; red and tearstained, I must have looked exactly the same to him, when he'd walked in on us earlier. Well, he wasn't naked, or impaled on someone's cock, or...other stuff, but he looked a mess. I didn't mention it though; it would have hurt his dignity.

We sat at the counter and Sebastian made us blueberry tea because, he said, it was more effective than plain tea - alcohol being a key ingredient.

After holding the warm cup in his hands for a while, Jean took a sip, and then another. "I'm so disgusted with myself. I can't believe I said that to you. I'm so sorry."

It looked like he was going to start crying again, and that would probably kick me off again as well, so I clumsily prodded his hand. "Drink some more tea."

He nodded, looking down into the cup, and took another sip.

"Maybe you were right, Jean. Maybe it isn't any of my business."

"That's not fair, Shira. People are either in or they're out. It *is* your business, as much as it's anyone's." He glanced at me, then at Sebastian.

"Well, actually, it's probably all my fault anyway. I shouldn't have been talking about it behind your back," he said to Jean.

"No...no! This is stupid. People talk about the people they love - that's normal. They talk about their feelings. I know it sounds hippy-trippy, but it's true. It's human. Can we just, for a moment, stop pretending we're all so bored and jaded and act like humans? At least with each other?"

Both Jean and Sebastian raised the same eyebrow at the very same moment; it was a tad creepy. I pondered the prickliness of all these competing sensibilities for a bit. Eyeing Sebastian, I said, "Can you give us a little time in private?"

He shrugged, but slid off the stool. "I want you both to note that I'm leaving my own kitchen. Really - take note! This is me," he said, edging out the doorway, "leaving my own fucking kitchen."

When he was gone, I lay my hand over Jean's and stroked it. "I know what I said upset you. I certainly didn't have any business being casual about it. It's not casual to you. I get that."

"No, it's not," Jean muttered into his teacup.

"Okay, but I really need to know. I need to know because - look at me, please. I'm not in the cup."

His expression was wary.

"I love you. Do you love me? I mean, in whatever way you can?"

Jean frowned; his beautifully plucked brows drew together. "You know I do. Shira, you *know* I do. More than anyone else in the world."

That surprised me, but I went on. "Then I really want to know - because Sebastian fucking adores you, Jean - why won't you let him?"

A little huff emerged from his throat, and his eyes slid away from mine. "Well, for one thing, honey, he's hung like a horse. I do *not* want that monster up my ass."

I took hold of Jean's chin and made him look at me. "Bullshit, Jean. Don't go all clubby and camp on me. He's not *that* big. Bodies accommodate. I love you dearly, so please don't just brush this off with a lie."

He stared down into his cup again. "Does it really matter, Shira? He's got you now, if he absolutely must have a hole to stick his dick in. What does it matter?"

Repeating his answer in my head didn't help; the implications of it were grotesque. "Are you jealous, Jean? I bloody well hope you are, because the alternative explanation for what you just said is...sick. Just sick."

Jaw set, he tilted his head back and looked me straight in the eye. "I'm not jealous, Shira."

The worst of it was I believed him. I drew in a breath and put my hand up to my mouth. "So," I whispered, picking my words carefully. "I'm your...what? Your proxy?"

Jean's words, when they came, erupted in a flood. "I can't, Shira. I just can't let him. I can't let anyone. Oh, God! You can't understand how much it frightens me. How sick it makes me feel inside. No one is going there. No one is going to take me like that, use me like that. Never, never again!"

"Never...Again?"

"Never." Jean looked into my eyes. "Never again."

"When?" I whispered.

His attention was back on the dregs of tea in his cup. "When I was - oh, I don't remember - twelve, maybe?"

I gasped. "Oh, Christ, Jean! God, why didn't you tell me? Why haven't you told him?"

Face crumbling, Jean shook his head. "I don't want to be damaged anymore. I don't want you or him to see me as some fucking broken thing."

I reached out to touch him, hesitated - thinking of just how much someone's touch had betrayed him - and then swore at myself. Slipping off my stool, I went to him and hugged him tight. "You're not broken," I whispered. "You're the most beautiful, wonderful person in the world. How could you be broken?"

His arms crept around my back and he buried his face in my neck and wept. Rocking him, rubbing his back, I let him.

When he went quiet, I pulled back and kissed his wet cheek. "Jean, you have to tell him. If you love him, you have to. Sebastian thinks it's him, and that's not fair."

Jean sighed and, looking up at the ceiling, brushed the tears from under his eyes. "Oh, god. And what if I do? We're right back in the same old place. Except that now you'll leave, and he'll have no one to fuck."

I shook my head. "I don't think it's an either or thing with him, Jean. I don't think he's fucking me because he can't fuck you. He's messed up in his own way, but not that way."

"Do you know where I met Sebastian? Did I ever tell you?"

"No."

"He was fucking a total stranger in the toilets down at the beach."

It wasn't possible not to giggle. "That sounds about right. And? What's your point?"

"That's Sebastian. He's never going to change. If he can't get what he wants one place, he'll find it somewhere else."

I shrugged. "I don't think that's true anymore."

"Why?"

"Because he's not there now."

"That's only because you're with us."

It wasn't a completely unfathomable possibility, but the more I thought about it, the more I doubted it was true. I bit my lip, considering the alternative. "I think you're wrong. I don't think fucking boys up the ass is really what gets Sebastian off. If it did, then I wouldn't work as a proxy, would I? Come on, Jean. It's not the same thing, and you know it!"

He looked away, thinking. "Then what is it?"

"I think it's trust. He gets off on trust. Think about it: all those ways he puts us into positions that are designed to prove we trust him. He wants to be trusted. He equates it with being loved. Why else all the bondage, all the games, all the power crap he pulls?"

It was clear from Jean's expression that he was mulling over my explanation.

I took a big breath. "Look, I don't think he really cares much about your ass, Jean. I think he wants to know you trust him enough to let him have it."

"So where does that leave us?"

"Well, for a start. You need to tell him why it's so difficult for you. You need to tell him what happened."

"And then?"

"And then... you need to break the hold on whoever the motherfucker was who did this to you, and give Sebastian your trust."

"And my ass."

"Well..." I nodded. "Yes."

Jean kissed me. "Thank you, Shira. You're right. I do, at least, have to tell him."

I smiled and brushed my fingers across his face, through his fucked up make-up. His mascara was all over it, and mine couldn't have looked any better. "I so love you, you know that?"

Smirking, Jean stroked his fingers through my hair. "So will you let me have your ass?"

"Jean, seriously! Do you even really want it? It's only an ass." I shrugged. "I'll admit I'm a bit squeamish about it but - you know what? I can get over that. If you really want it, it's yours."

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