A Boy Who Came In from the Cold Ch. 09

"I am always looking after him," Mikkal said seriously. "And his friends also, Rayne Wilde."

PJ McNamara said; "Your resume lists you as Jaysen Raymonde, Mr Wilde."

"My alias," Rayne told him, shredding the bread roll methodically and eating every third piece. He alternated the pattern with a small gulp of fizz, conscious suddenly of the effect it was having. His nerves were buzzing and he wanted to giggle at everything.

"Do I call you Jaysen or Rayne when I'm between your legs?" PJ wanted to know.

Rayne looked at him as if he had temporarily forgotten this eventuality. Now he chewed and swallowed the third small piece of bread carefully, fearing that it might stick in his throat. It was not that Paddy was repulsive; there was a certain charm and warmth about him that Rayne found himself rather drawn to, but he was unaccountably anxious all the same.

"Erm..." he faltered, laughing nervously. "I dunno."

"You don't know?" Paddy laughed too but it was not a critical sound. He seemed genuinely amused by this response.

"I guess I didn't really think about it much," Rayne admitted. "I guess I thought... it's a film, I'm playing a character. You'll call me whatever the character's called."

"I can't call you 'Cockslut' all evening," PJ chortled.

Around the table a number of the other guests laughed appreciatively at this. Rayne glared at him and looked away, pretending to study the dancefloor, which was still sparsely populated this early in the night. At one point, seemingly sensing that he had hurt Rayne's feelings, PJ asked if he wanted to dance but he shook his head. He was still trying to work this man out. His manner seemed to vacillate between gentlemanly conduct and boorish good humour as though he was not sure which was the more becoming.

The waiters brought more food and Rayne picked warily at the contents of the steaming dish set in front of him. There was nothing obviously animal in it, but he remained cautious all the same. Beside him, PJ tucked heartily into a steak that was almost as long as his forearm. Mikkal was excavating some kind of seafood platter that involved the shelling of things he preferred not to think about, certainly not when it came to putting them in his mouth. Rayne stared at his plate and willed himself to lift each spoonful. The food smelled fine but it turned to ashes once it was in his mouth. Each swallow was harder than the one before.

Fresh glasses arrived and PJ poured him a large glass of white wine, which he never normally drank. Now he snatched for it like a drowning man presented with a lifeline. It tasted sharp and sour but he gulped it down and felt it begin to have some effect. The clatter of cutlery and the rattle of several different conversations seemed to blur as if he had somehow closed a door between himself and the rest of the room. Somewhere behind him he heard music start up and there was a ripple of spontaneous applause. Someone filled his glass again and he thanked the person vaguely. PJ tried to feed him little bites of steak, which he resisted by biting down hard on the insides of his lips, to the amusement of those who observed it.

His plate vanished and a waiter appeared, asking him something he did not understand.

"Do you want dessert?" Aldo called out to him. "Or cheese maybe?"

"Cheese... yeah!" Rayne laughed, not sure why it was funny. He just thought that it was.

The wine tasted nicer this time, not so sour. He drank it without stopping to breathe. Someone told him to take it easy and he just laughed and told them to 'fuck off out of his face!' That set them off again but he was past caring. He pushed his chair back, meaning to stand up but his legs were not co-operating. A hot hand rested on his arm and PJ murmured; "Hey, slow down, Tiger!"

"Gimme another drink," he demanded.

"You've had enough," someone else said; Daniel he thought.

"Shut up! I didn't ask you!" He tried to look around the table for the miserable old bastard but the room started to spin slowly when he did that. He closed his eyes. Everything was still turning chaotically behind his eyelids and he took several quick breaths, letting them out more slowly.

"Get him some water," a quiet voice said. He thought it was Aldo but he was not sure.

"I'll take him back to the boat." That was Ant, who had been sitting with Terry and Dan during the meal, on his own side of the table so that Rayne could not see him without craning his neck to look round others.

"I don't want to go," he said stubbornly. "I'm okay."

"Here..." A glass appeared in front of him as he opened his eyes and he reached for it and drank it down in one breath. The water was ice cold and it felt incredible searing its way down his parched throat.

"Do you want some air?" Aldo asked him, leaning forward, concern in his dark, gentle eyes.

He shook his head, then changed his mind. "Can I just go for a walk?"

"Sure. Of course," Aldo was rising but to his right Paddy made a move as well.

"It's okay," the Irishman was saying. "It's my fault. I should have twigged that he wasn't holding his drink too good. We'll take a spin around the harbour and head back to mine. Anyone wants to come back for a night-cap or three, that's good."

"I'm sorry about this..." That was Dan again. "If you want to come over to the yacht later..."

Rayne closed his eyes, feeling ill and irritable in equal parts. There was too much heat, too much noise. He wanted to get out and to have a cigarette, but his fag papers and tobacco were in that damned pouch at Phil's flat. Rayne quivered with frustration, pushing himself to his feet. On his left, Mikkal caught his arm and steadied him. He was aware of a tide of people moving out of the way as the tall Finn guided him firmly towards the head of the table.

"You don't have to do this." Ant was in front of him briefly. His fingertips touched Rayne's face and the look in his eyes was almost soulful.

"What are you on about?" Rayne laughed hoarsely. "I'm just going for a walk. I'm not a kid. Leave me alone."

"He'll be fine," soothed PJ from somewhere behind him. "We'll come to the boat afterwards, okay? We'll take care of him."

Rayne could hear the buzz of heated conversation following him as he stumbled towards the exit but Mikkal's grip on his arm remained steady and suddenly they were out in the cooler air, under the starry skies. He took a deep breath and another, then doubled up and was violently sick all over the pavement.

"Hoo Boy!" exclaimed a cheerful sounding American accented voice somewhere very close by. "Better out than in, huh?"

"Christ Almighty!" Paddy's Irish accent was thicker now that they were out, losing some of its East Coast US twang. "Some people just 'should' not drink!"

"W'z the champagne," Rayne slurred, trying to wipe his mouth. He could suddenly taste the earthy, iron tang of mushroom and the sharpness of the garlic; everything that had seemed flavourless going down. The flavours were all too clear now. Everything was too clear. His head was pounding. "I c'n drink Vodka."

"Man of good taste," Mikkal said approvingly. He was still holding Rayne's arm, unfazed by the fountain of vomit that his companion had just ejected.

Another man came out of the club now with a couple of bottles of water and a damp cloth. His skin was a rich blue black like the shimmering sky over their heads. It had not been dark when they went in. Clearly the meal had taken longer than he thought. Rayne accepted the cloth and wiped his hands and face, then staggered a little way to the side of the path and sat down on one of the raised edges of a flowerbed, pressing the damp material to his forehead.

"Here," the black guy said (his was the stronger American accent). "Drink some of this, okay?"

Rayne took one of the water bottles and rinsed his mouth vigorously, spitting twice into the Zinnias before he began to gulp down the cold fluid. His head already felt a little clearer and he could look at his companions without wanting to black out now. The dark face in front of him belonged to a stranger and he cradled the bottle against his knees and long fingers as he asked; "Who're you?"

"Name's Barclay Johnson Francis, young man. But you can call me Clay. Here to assist!" The fellow grinned at him, flashing a soft-lipped mouthful of immaculate white teeth. He wore his hair shaved above the ears and at the sides of his head but long on top and braided into hundreds of tiny, midnight black plaits. His ears glittered with gold and diamonds all the way up to the topmost curve of the shell and his neck and wrists were hung with chains and bangles. As he rose to his feet, Rayne could appreciate the body that went with all of this adornment. He was extremely muscular; his body sculpted, as was Paddy's, although he was taller than the red-haired man by about six inches. He wore golden boxer boots, flat and tight to his powerful calf muscles and a chunky golden ring around the base of his cock under his balls, which only served to draw more attention to his manhood.

The shaft that hung between his broad, black thighs was a monster. There was no other word for it. It had to be nearly a foot long, with a fat, dark purple, circumcised head and it was almost as thick as Rayne's skinny wrist. Mikkal, standing to his left side still, was a pale shadow next to Barclay. His build was not as heavy although he was easily as tall and toned to the minute, and his skin gleamed as though it had been oiled and polished. His cock ring was silver and girded a cut tool that was leaner than his colleague's but made up for it with a little extra length. His boots were a pale, metallic blue.

Rayne looked from one to the other, feeling his head clear with alarming speed. Now McNamara came from behind Barclay to crouch before him. He got a tantalising flash of that infamous phallus before the man hunkered down but it was like piecing together a scene from fragments glimpsed as a train flies in and out of a tunnel on the underground. He swallowed again at the euphemistic imagery of trains and tunnels, especially in such close proximity to these three studs.

"Is that better?" Paddy asked him, a sparkle of amusement in his pale blue eyes. "You feel more like yourself again now?"

Rayne nodded once, then bit his lip.

"Sorry," he said quietly, lowering his eyes. "I fucked up in there, didn't I?"

"Ahh, it was too stuffy inside anyway!" the Irishman rested both hands on Rayne's knees and crouched lower to peer up at him curiously. "What do you wanna do now?"

They were attracting attention from passers by and Rayne could see that the two bodyguards, though effectively casual, were on their mettle. Two young men with closely shaven heads called out to Paddy excitedly and though he acknowledged them affably enough and even waited while they got paper so that he could sign an autograph for them, he seemed relieved once they were gone on their way.

"You wanna go down the beach? It should be quieter there," he suggested now. "We can dip our toes and cool off for a while then head back to the boat."

"Okay," Rayne said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.

SECOURS:

Back at la Fenix, the atmosphere lightened once PJ and his entourage had taken Rayne out for a walk. Terry hit the dancefloor with the twins and Daniel settled back in his seat to chat with Arturo over a bottle of red wine. Ant accepted a glass of some purple concoction from Isolde, who had just returned from the bar, and sipped it warily, pulling a face. He had been feeling frustrated for the last couple of days and drink simply was not going to lift his spirits at the moment. How stupid had he been to imagine that bringing Rayne here would be the answer to all their problems? The dream was rapidly turning into a nightmare. In the past, when he had spent time out here with Terry and Dan, it had always been idyllic. There were boys and parties, as there should be. Dan almost always had a movie on the boil. Often more than one! The boat was always crowded with pretty young actors who needed seeing to.

But of course, that was the problem. Tonight, the one pretty young thing he truly wanted was getting seen to by another man. The very thought of it made him want to hit something. How the hell had he become so wrapped up in Rayne Wilde that he failed to see how the kid was making moves on everyone else? To make it worse, Rayne had warned him that this would happen before they came out here. Like an idiot he had believed he could make the boy change.

No wonder people were laughing at him.

"Darling, you look very far away tonight," Isolde purred solicitously. "Can I do something for you, to cheer you up?"

"You're very kind," he sighed, setting down the sweet, purple drink and shaking his head. "I just feel a bit... jaded, I guess."

"Maybe you also need some air?" Daniel's pretty Transsexual friend flashed a knowing smile at him. "We could take a walk together. Would you like that?"

"I'm not going to run after him," Ant said, more defensively.

"That was not what I had in mind," Isolde chuckled, resting her hand on his thigh. "The boat is empty right now. Perhaps you and I should have a little nightcap."

Her lips were painted a rich scarlet tonight and her long nails matched to perfection. There were black, diamante feathers in her artfully styled copper curls and her long lashes fluttered playfully at him now. Ant took a longer sip from his drink, his eyes roving over her curvaceous body. No one not in the know would ever have guessed that Isolde was born a man. A jewelled, black mesh wrap hung loosely over her full breasts and was co-ordinated with a short, black leather skirt and a wide, golden belt. There was a huge diamond set into her gold neck collar just beneath her chin and her high-heeled, strappy, golden sandals glittered with diamante stones. As a younger man he had always been overcome by a combination of lust and awe when in Isolde's presence. Like Rayne, he had discovered her secret in bed but he was sure he had not handled the revelation as well as his young friend.

These days he had no fear of her, but for many years he had been wide-eyed and wary around Isolde Parvenue. It seemed she was prepared to forgive him tonight, at any rate.

"I think that would be really good," he exhaled, returning her smile.

Isolde walked back through the arcade, arm in arm with him, her head resting against his shoulder like they were a pair of long-term lovers. Ant felt a little satisfaction in the lingering looks they attracted from those they passed. As they walked through the shadows of the deserted market place, he stopped and cupped her face, touching his lips to hers. Isolde kissed him tenderly, letting him guide her towards one of the empty tables where the stall-holders set out their wares during the day. The laughter from the nearby bars on the strip were clearly audible but not a disturbance. Ant climbed onto her, lifting her knees so that he could lie between her thighs as they kissed more intimately and Isolde wrapped her arms and legs around him invitingly. She had never been shy and he was hungry for her uncomplicated company tonight. His hands stroked hungrily up her slender thighs, caressing the growing bulge in her jewelled thong, answering her low, hungry moan with a growl of his own.

When he first heard the whimpering, he thought it was Isolde. He only sat up when it happened again as he was kissing her ravenously.

"Darling, don't stop," she panted.

"What was that?" Ant shifted back to the edge of the table, looking around suspiciously.

"I did not hear anything," Isolde insisted. "Hold me."

"Wait!" Ant held up a hand, moving back from the table and crouching to listen more carefully. As his eye level reached the underside of the benches, something moved in the darkness on the ground and he heard it again; scuffling and a muffled, frightened noise like an injured animal.

He knelt and reached beneath the tables where a number of storage crates and some dusty old tarpaulins had been stashed out of harm's way. There was something pale huddled up between the crates, trying to shrink into the shadows. Ant crept in after it, his heart pounding.

He was so preoccupied with Rayne that he was immediately imagining the worst. The boy had left the club a good twenty minutes before he and Isolde came out. His horny companions could easily have all had their way with him in that time, whether he wanted it or not. Rayne was slight and tempting and very, very drunk. Ant seethed at the idea of it, even as his hand came to rest on soft, warm flesh. The whimper became a moan and he murmured; "It's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you. I want to help."

He heard a rustling and the click of heels on the concrete as Isolde wriggled off the table and crouched down to peer after him.

"What are you doing, Antoine?" she asked incredulously.

"There's someone under here. I think they're hurt." Ant's hand traced the shape of a slender calf muscle and moved to the back of a knee and the underside of a long, slim thigh. A shuddering breath answered his touch and as he murmured soothing nonsense again, a small, touchingly familiar elfin face turned towards his out of the shadows, wet with tears and already mottled with bruises. Ice pale eyes stared out of the shadows and tears bubbled up in them at once, spilling through thick, mascaraed lashes and running down his pale cheeks in fresh, black streams.

"Thierry!" Ant breathed out, his relief quickly turning to shock. The boy was curled up in a foetal huddle with his hands tucked under his chin and his knees pulled up to his chest. His legs and elbows were grazed and bleeding. "Thierry, what happened to you?"

"Please!" the boy whimpered, trembling uncontrollably. "Please, say nothing. Do not take me back to him."

He reached for the French boy's hands then realised that the defensive pose was partly imposed. Thierry wore a thick, black, leather collar with chrome rings in it. His wrist cuffs were attached to the collar with screw-lock loops. To compound his misery, his booted ankles were girded by a pair of iron cuffs with a short, connecting hobble chain between them.

"Come on," And said gently. "Can you get out? I promise, I won't let anyone hurt you."

"Do not tell him where I am," Thierry sobbed huskily. He sounded terrified and exhausted.

"I swear I won't," Ant reached out carefully, resting a hand on his close cropped blond hair. "But I can't do anything for you if you stay down here."

For a few moments the youngster sniffled and sobbed quietly and Ant wondered if he should go back to the club for help. Isolde was hovering impotently at the edge of the table. He could not imagine her scrambling under here on her hands and knees, but at last Thierry's baby-blue eyes blinked away the tears and he tried to squirm towards Ant, like an eel, on his side. Only as he reached the clearer space near the lip of the overhanging bench-top did the older man realise how remarkable his escape from Christophe had been. The hobble continued, with a length of chain that ran from his ankle restraint right up his slender back to another hoop in the back of his neck collar. The chain was about three feet long; not long enough for him to stand up straight.

"Did you crawl all the way down here?" Ant questioned him, already fumbling with the ring at the nape of Thierry's neck. Fortunately it too had a screw fastening and not a padlock. Thierry nodded miserably, too dejected for words. Ant managed to undo the rings holding his hobbles and release the collar so that the boy could sit up, slowly and painfully. His lower lip wobbled dangerously and Ant sat next to him for a little while, putting a protective arm across his shoulders and back.

"Ssshhh... it's okay. I'll look after you," he whispered.