A Boy Who Came in From the Cold

Part Three – "The Payoff"

(c) Sadie Rose Bermingham 2005

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UPSTAIRS AT THE FALCON...

"I was gonna pay you back, Johnno. I swear it. Every penny, I just need some time…"

Rayne was struggling into his clothes, keeping as much distance as he physically could manage between himself and the lanky figure of his ex-pimp in the doorway. Ant manoeuvred himself to his feet, groping for his trousers with one hand. He edged towards Rayne, determined to defend the younger man if he could. There was genuine fear in the boy's eyes this time. His breathing was still rapid and anxious and the pupils of his eyes were tiny pin-pricks. Ant fastened his pants and tucked his shirt into them hurriedly.

"Your time's run out, you little bitch," John shook his head again, sucking the life out of his cigarette. He rolled it between his yellowed forefinger and thumb, pinching the last dregs of fire out then casually slung it aside. "You owe me big bucks now, sweet cheeks."

He spoke with a gruff, Yorkshire accented voice; the gravel-toned resonance of too little education and too many fags. Even so, Ant didn't fancy his chances of double crossing this guy. He might be uneducated but he was not stupid. There was a mean edge to his expression and the casual way he stood, swallowing them with his empty, soulless eyes. Ant guessed that he probably had a weapon of some kind on his person.

Now he moved towards them steadily, extending a hand until his fingers brushed the fall of dark, blond-tipped hair from Rayne's sweat-damp face and smeared the layer of pale foundation beneath his right eye. Rayne quivered but he did not flinch away. His venomous green gaze held John's impassive stare.

"Who smacked you up?" the tall man asked at last.

This surprised Ant, who had presumed it must have been John who beat the boy black and blue. Rayne Wilde shrugged his slender shoulders evasively.

"Some bloke."

John's dangerous eyes flickered towards Ant but before he could object, Rayne said; "Not him. He's been lookin' after me."

A humourless smile tugged at one corner of the tall fellow's mouth. "I could see that when I walked in. He was taking care of you good an' proper, yeah?" His lips parted in a crooked grin that showed yellowing, misaligned teeth. "And you were enjoyin' it as well, weren't you my dirty little tart? Well I'm not happy. He likes lookin' after you a bit too much, Ray. Know what I'm sayin'?"

"You don't own him," Ant interrupted bravely. "He's had enough of being used by you. Why can't you leave him alone?"

John looked him up and down dismissively for a moment as though it surprised him that Ant could even speak.

"I can't do that, mate," he said at last, in a rational sounding voice. "You see, this little bitch owes me a lot of money. And the way I see it is, that makes his fuck hole my property until his debt gets settled. You know what I'm sayin'? And the way I also see it, you've been poking his hole good and proper tonight, which means that 'you' owe me big time as well, mate!"

Ant took a deep breath, determined not to be intimidated by this thug.

"How much?"

Rayne looked at him quickly, startled and clearly perplexed by this turn of events.

"What d'you mean?" John frowned at him too.

"How much does he owe you? How much will buy him out and clear both our debts to you?" Ant's voice trembled slightly. He did not like the idea of giving this man money, but if it would free them both from Johnno's shadow maybe it was worth the risk. Rayne shook his head and looked away.

"You can't afford that kind of money, mate." John laughed gruffly and stroked Rayne's cheek again like a collector with a prized piece in his grasp.

Ant clenched his teeth. "Don't play games! How fucking much?"

Without looking his way, John cupped Rayne's chin in one hand and tilted his face upward, staring down into his vivid green eyes.

"How long was toolin' you?" he asked huskily. "And don't lie to me. I know he was up here with you for at least three quarters of an hour after the gig."

Rayne shrugged again, awkwardly.

"'bout half an hour."

"And was he straight up your bum or did he take a bit of teasin' first?" John was chuckling, a dirty, insinuating little sound. Ant wanted to strangle him.

"He… he just did me in the arse, Johnno. Nothin' else." Rayne was trying to look away, there was a flush to his pale cheeks.

John's fingers tightened on his lower jaw. He wrenched the boy's face up to his again.

"Did you enjoy it, baby? Does he make you cum as good as I do?"

"Leave him alone!" Ant growled at him, unable to bear the idea of this seedy bastard between Rayne's legs. He did not want to hear Rayne's answer, no matter how forced it might be. "He's had enough of selling himself for your benefit. I don't blame him."

John released the young man's chin abruptly, pushing him away so violently that he reeled against the wall. He turned on Ant vehemently.

"You owe me a ton for tonight, you cunt. So I'd pay up or shut up if I were you. He…" and he pointed back at Rayne who was watching them nervously from the corner of the room; "…he owes me three and a half grand for the drugs and the trouble he's cost me." He laughed harshly in Ant's face. "Bet he didn't tell you he was a junky, did he?"

"As a matter of fact, he did," Ant retaliated, longing to just punch this bastard and get Rayne out of here as fast as he could. "I can give you fifteen hundred pounds, but you'll have to wait a couple of days. I can't raise it overnight."

His heart was pounding furiously. Even as he spoke the words, he wondered if he was hearing himself right. It was all the savings he had. The rest was tied up in boats and business ventures. Was he really offering to give it all to this creep just to save some junky kid? Rayne too looked startled. He shook his head again, adamantly.

"Ant… no! You can't!" The lad ran back towards him, staring at him incredulously. "You can't. I won't let you. It's not right. I can't… I can't pay you back."

"I don't want you to pay me back. I just want you to get your life sorted out, okay," Ant touched his bruised cheek gently. "Do that for me."

'And maybe fuck me occasionally!' his mind added hopefully.

John shattered the hope of truce by pointing out. "It's still not enough. He's still gonna owe me money."

"We'll find it," Ant said determinedly, whilst Rayne just stared at him with increasing bewilderment in his huge, pale, beautiful eyes.

"I've got a better idea," Johnno suggested, a crafty grin on his face now. "A faster idea."

They both stared at him warily. Ant put a protective arm around Rayne's slim shoulders and for once the boy did not try to shrug him off.

"Go on," Rayne prompted at last.

"I've got a job lined up," Johnno said speculatively. "A 'big' job. Naïve bunch of twentysomethin' wankers at a mixed gym in Soho. Some guy there's having a comin' of age do and what he wants most of all for his twenty-first is a boy's tight arse. But he wants the boy young and virgin so he doesn't feel like a right cherry all on his own and he wants his friends to get some as well. Mucho Mazoola, you know what I'm sayin'?"

Ant stared at him stony faced. Beside him Rayne uttered a little huff of forced laughter. "I'm not young and I'm not virgin, John. One of them's gonna twig, even if the birthday boy doesn't."

"Naw… Jocks, they're all brainless!" John shook his head vigorously. He turned unexpectedly to Ant; "How old d'you reckon he is?"

"I know how old he is, he's twenty. He told me so." Ant pulled Rayne a little closer to his side, not liking Johnno's idea one bit.

"Yeah yeah! But when you looked at him first what did you reckon? Jailbait, yeah?"

Ant shrugged, a little uncomfortably. That was exactly what he had thought.

"I guess." He sensed that Rayne gave him a 'look' but avoided the boy's eyes.

"And he's got a nice tight little hole, yeah?" John was laughing appreciatively. "I'm tellin' you, blokes, they fall over themselves to get him on his own so they can teach him how to be a man! Queer guys, straight guys, they all want a piece of his arse! These guys are gonna supply the venue and the lube and rubbers. They just want a pretty, submissive little bitch for a couple of hours of dirty fun. When they're done, and I've been paid, you can take him wherever you want, mate! All right?"

"No," Ant told him grimly. "It's not all right."

At the same time, in a more tired and resigned voice, Rayne asked; "How many guys?"

They looked at one another enquiringly. Ant said; "I don't want you to do this."

"It's one job, Ant. He's right. One more night of humiliating myself and I can call it a day." Rayne's expression was uncharacteristically sober. "I want it to stop, Ant. I don't want men paying for me all my life."

John folded his arms and said nothing but there was a glint in his eyes that Ant did not like one bit. He chewed on his lips and kept silent though.

"How many punters?" Rayne asked again.

"I dunno," John admitted. "I told him I'd set it up for a grand and half. He can bring up to fifteen guys; two hour limit."

"No," Ant said again, but Rayne ignored him.

"We're still six hundred short," he murmured distantly.

"I can give 'em the top-up clause. If they want longer and you're up for it they pay per session, fifty quid a fuck. Twenty five for a blow job."

Ant grabbed his shoulders and turned Rayne to face him. "Listen to me. No! I'm not having you fucking fifteen guys to pay this creep!"

John pushed him aside and pulled a serrated blade from the folds of his jacket, pointing it meaningfully towards Ant's thorax.

"Oi hero! We can have this conversation with you or without you, you know what I'm sayin'?" he warned. "Why don't you go and 'ave a little chat with your bank manager and see if you can't come up with the rest of the cash, or your little sweet cheeks here is gonna be floggin' his pretty arse for a lot longer!"

"Ant!" Rayne pleaded more quietly. "Don't get hurt for me. I don't want you to get hurt for me. I'm not worth it."

Ant just stared at him hopelessly, wondering what he had to do to protect his lover from this evil creature who had been manipulating him.

MILE END:

They hailed a taxi around the corner from the pub. Rayne twice asked Ant to take his guitar and go back to the boat with it but he refused to leave the boy alone with John. For all he knew, the lanky bastard might do anything once he had Rayne on his own. The cab took them to a squalid part of the East End up beyond Mile End tube station. This late at night the gates of the station were barricaded shut and there were metal shutters pulled down over the shop windows, all decorated with graffiti and strewn around with refuse. Shadowy figures lurked in alleyways, retreating beneath hoods or back into the darkness as the cab rattled past. It dropped them on a street of tall, Victorian terraced houses, some of which had clearly seen better days. John immediately shepherded them into the three storey end house and bolted the door behind them.

There was candle light shining from one of the downstairs rooms and a thin, weary looking young woman standing in the hallway greeted Rayne with a look of surprise as he passed her. She ignored John and Ant completely. Rayne's pimp led them up to the top floor and opened a door into a darkened room with a mattress on the bare boards.

"You can kip in here," he told Ant gruffly. "In the morning you go and sort out the fuckin' money."

"What about him?" Ant nodded towards Rayne Wilde who was staring at his feet miserably.

"The fuck hole comes with me," John said with a wink. "Gotta protect my assets now, 'aven't I?"

Ant fumed impotently.

"If you hurt him…"

"Why would I do that?" John interrupted cynically. "His tight little hole's gonna make me three grand richer this weekend. He's gotta look pretty for the paying public, yeah?"

He pushed Ant into the bedroom and closed the door between them. Feeling angry and helpless, Ant punched the woodwork but that only left him feeling sore and no less frustrated. He wandered over to the mattress which had a rumpled duvet cast negligently over it. There was a candle on a crate in the corner of the room and some matches. Ant lit it and sat down on the edge of the mattress. He heard John go down the stairs after a little while and got up, opening his door quietly.

Cautiously he made his way across creaking floorboards to the door at the end of the landing. He tried the knob but the door was locked. The other end of the landing yielded a little closet with a toilet and basin that did not seem to have been cleaned for years. Ant unzipped and pissed into the bowl, trying to ignore the smell, then washed his hands and rubbed them down his trouser legs. He went back to his room and waited, leaving the door slightly ajar.

As he was beginning to nod, the sound of footsteps brought him back to his senses. The candle had expired and it was still dark, but a sliver of moonlight from the window illuminated the face of his watch. It was twenty to three in the morning. There were two men on the stairs, from the sound of their steps. They did not speak but he heard a key click in the lock of the door down the hall. It did not close behind them and Ant moved quietly to the doorway and looked out. There was a light flickering in the room and he could hear the low murmur of conversation, punctuated by quiet, monosyllabic responses from Rayne. Neither of the men sounded like John. Very slowly and cautiously he edged nearer until he could see through the three-inch gap between the door and the casement. There was a mattress on the floor in this room too, with a crumpled, off white sheet on it. A broad shouldered man moved into his line of sight taking off his shirt. Then he saw Rayne walk back to the mattress, his back to the door, slowly removing his clothes. When he was naked he knelt down on the crude bed and the big fellow unzipped his pants. He stood by Rayne's head and the boy began to nod slowly over his crotch, taking the guy's penis into his mouth and sucking obediently.

"Ahhh, good lad," the fellow rumbled. From the sound of him he was a Geordie. He had tattoos all over his burly arms and chest.

The other man in the room was smaller and more wiry in build. He was stripping off as Rayne sucked his companion's cock. Once nude he came to sit on the mattress beside the young man, watching closely as he gave head. After a little while, he took Rayne's left hand and guided it to his stiffening cock. As Rayne fisted his growing hard-on, he eased two fingers between the young man's pale bum cheeks and interfered with him, teasing his hole then pushing his hands between Rayne's legs and fondling his balls.

Rayne uttered a little sound that might have been protest and might have been pleasure. The wiry fellow felt him up more intimately, reaching over to stroke his cock and belly.

"Awww he's bonny," he huffed excitedly, in the same accent as his larger companion. "You sure we can't fuck him? I've got some Vaseline in the bag."

"You heard the man. He'll do us any way we want but we've to leave his arse alone. I wouldn't do anything to get on Rabid's bad side. He's got a nasty temper. If he wants the chicken's arse left virgin then he gets it, right?" The big fellow set a hand on the back of Rayne's head, stroking his hair. He soon began to make contented little crooning noises as the boy nodded faster, touching and teasing them both.

Ant experienced a tremor of excitement. He was indignant on Rayne's behalf but watching the young man getting them off was making him hard. So much so that he only realised that he was not alone when a floorboard creaked right behind him. As he jumped and spun about, John put one hand over his mouth and shook his head.

"Naughty naughty," the Yorkshireman whispered to him. "Who's a dirty peepin' Thomas then? You like that, do you? He's a good little cocksucker, yeah?"

"You said you wouldn't do anything to him," Ant hissed as John steered him firmly away from the bedroom door.

"Shut your hole! I'm not touching him am I?" The lanky pimp sneered at him openly. "They've got strict instructions. Nobody goes in the back way unless I say so. But if my little fuck hole needs his fix he's gonna pay for it up front. I'm not getting him anything else on the tick, you know what I'm sayin', mate?"

Ant thought he did.

"They're dealers? You left him alone with a couple of dealers?"

"Smarter than you look aren't you?" Johnno grinned at him and patted his cheek then pushed him back along the hall to the other bedroom. "Don't you worry about Raymondo. He's a tough one. He'll sort us all out if he knows what's good for him."

"You bastard!" Ant growled at him. "You just want to keep him hooked so he'll come back for more."

"He's doin' it to himself, my friend," John sighed, shaking his head. "No one makes him do it. I just provide the goods, if you know what I'm sayin'. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna turn in."

He gave Ant another deliberate little push and as the other man stumbled back into the darkened room, turned and walked rapidly back down the landing. By the time Ant had recovered his balance and reached the top of the stairs, the door into Rayne's room was closing. He heard the key turn in the lock and cursed vehemently.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS:

Ant slept with difficulty that night. He 'was' exhausted; it had been a long day and he had not got much sleep during the previous twenty-four hours but the periodic bumps, creaks and groans from the room along the landing kept him from slipping into a deep slumber. He wondered what was going on. Were they letting him rest, or was Rayne destined for another night of incessant fucking? Ant was both anxious and rabidly jealous. He hated knowing that Rayne was so close yet out of his reach. It worried him that they might pump the boy full of drugs until he had no idea what he was doing. Maybe that had been Johnno's plan all along, to get the kid high until he did not even remember that Ant had tried to help him. In the morning would they kick him out on the street, leaving Rayne a prisoner again?

He felt sick with worry. A long, low groan of satisfaction reached his ears from the other room and he wanted to punch someone. Once, he thought he heard Rayne's voice, very soft and imploring, then it was muffled and silenced. Not long afterwards one of the Geordies began a rhythmic grunting that ended in a cry of exhausted affirmation. Ant got up and paced to the window. It was beginning to get light outside. He prayed silently that in the morning John would just take the money and let Rayne come back to the boat with him.

John came for him a little before ten. He was unwashed and unshaven and stank of stale sweat but he pushed Ant from the room and down the stairs where two younger men, one burly, with a crew cut and the other skinnier and hiding behind a mop of tangled red hair, were waiting on the lower landing. They walked down to the street together and Johnno told the pair; "Don't bring him back without the cash, capiche?"

Getting his hands on the money was harder than he had hoped. It was Saturday morning and by the time he reached the bank his branch was on the verge of closing for the day. In the end he trailed around to various machines and took out money on his bankcard and three credit cards to the tune of eight hundred and fifty pounds. He felt nervous carrying so much cash. What if his bodyguards just coshed him over the head and scarpered with it? He would be back to square one, with a diminishing chance of helping Rayne to escape.