Reconciled - 11. Chapter 11

The last person Arran expected to see was Salem, but there he was, standing at the front door grinning. Salem stepped inside and Arran closed the door. It was getting late, and even colder.

"So this is Tom?" Arran's dad was standing in the hall.

"I'm..." Salem was about to say hello to Arran's father.

"This is Michael," Arran interrupted. "Tom's brother."

It was all he could think of on the spur of the moment.

"Well, nice to meet you, Michael." His dad grabbed his coat. "I won't be back till late. Don't wait up," he joked. "I left some money on the kitchen table, if you want to get a takeaway."

His father smiled at them as he opened the front door and walked off into the evening gloom.

"What are you doing here?" Arran was staring at Salem.

"Why'd you use Michael and say I was Tom's brother? Your dad has never met Tom?"

"No."

Arran pushed Salem back against the wall, pressing his body into him, one hand going behind Salem's head. He leant in and kissed him.

Neither of them spoke after that. The kiss became a long, deep exchange. Arran had been feeling horny when Ali arrived, now he was hard as a rock. Salem pulled off his jacket, kicked off his shoes, and they kissed again. Arran led the boy upstairs to his bedroom.

He didn't even think about why Salem had called round. In a hurried excited frenzy they both stripped off their clothes and were standing there almost naked. Salem was just as excited as Arran. They paused, looking at each other, Salem's heart beating rapidly. Arran was almost intoxicated with his feelings.

"You wanna..." Salem began, but Arran moved closer and kissed him again.

"Shut up," he said, stopping the kiss, staring into the boy's eyes.

He pushed Salem down onto the bed and fell on top of him. The two bodies wrestled and moved against each other, kissed and touched, explored. At some point their last items of clothing were removed and it was two naked bodies rolling and pressing together on the bed.

It seemed like they had been transported to another reality when finally they lay there, on their backs, side by side. Each was satiated, each lost in their own drifting thoughts.

Arran had surprised himself. Not because of the urgency with which he had virtually assaulted Salem, nor that it had happened. That was, he figured, a question of circumstances. But he surprised himself by how good it felt. It scared him. He knew he loved the sense of power and domination, but was that normal?

With Tom it had been completely different. He was discovering things about himself which he wasn't certain he wanted to know. He wasn't even sure he could voice his emotions and feelings to himself. Could he even accept himself? A nagging voice in the back of his head kept whispering things about what he was doing. But his urges were stronger than any self control and every time he gave in to them it seemed he discovered a new deviance.

Salem was happy, but had an intuition which warned him to be careful, to keep quiet. That was nothing new. He knew how to lock things away, how to lie, how to tell people what they wanted to hear. It was almost like walking a tightrope, but it was worth it for moments like these. He couldn't help wondering about Arran, but decided whatever he was thinking about the two of them it didn't matter.

He got what he desired from Arran. It was a bit unexpected. Arran seemed to him to fall into an almost perfect role. Salem wanted someone to do to him what Arran did, he needed that control and mastery. As he lay there, his body used, naked and spent, he felt at peace, but knew it wouldn't last for long.

"You want something to eat?" Arran turned on his side, raising his head and looking into Salem's eyes.

He smiled and gave a little nod. Arran's free hand touched the boy's chest and his fingers played across his skin. Salem trembled as those fingers walked around his belly button.

"You can stay the night." Arran smiled. "If you want?"

Another unexpected event. Salem thought Arran would use him and get rid of him. Which was alright. But he wasn't. He was inviting him to stay. Was it because he wanted more sex? There was more, Salem could see it in his eyes. Sex was something Arran wanted, but there was something else.

"Okay." Salem smiled back.

"Okay to eat, or okay to stay?"

"Both."

It was the middle of the week when Tom stopped Arran in college and told him they needed to talk. They did. After everything that had happened they needed to sort things out between themselves. Arran knew it, but had been avoiding Tom.

That afternoon Tom was on monitor duty in the Art room. Mr Arnold had left him to clear up. When Arran showed up Tom closed and locked the door, and took Arran back inside so they were alone and unobserved.

"You've been avoiding me. Ever since..."

Arran interrupted, "Yeah, I know." The events at Malcolm's apartment played through his head. "It's kind of fucked up, don't you think?"

Tom stood there looking at him with a stern expression, almost glowering. Arran didn't know where to start or how to sort out this confrontation. It was a confrontation, he knew it would happen, he just didn't want it to.

"It's not... fucked up, as you put it. Maybe..." Tom hesitated. He was tempted to say, 'you're fucked up,' but he really didn't want to go there. There was enough nastiness in his life and no point in spreading it around. Besides, that would not achieve what he wanted. "You and Salem..." He tried to be casual in raising the topic.

Arran held up a hand and took a deep breath. "I know you want to know."

Tom stayed silent.

"I can't tell you. This is all new to me."

"Wow! That's a freaking cop out. New to you. You don't think it's new to Salem, or new to me? Be honest for Christ's sake!"

That took Arran by surprise. If he thought he could skirt around things, it was going to prove difficult.

"Okay, sorry. It's new for everybody. You want to know about me and Salem. I don't know what to tell you."

"I want to know about us, Arran. You and Salem I already know about."

"What do you mean?"

"Salem tells me everything. Online. We chat. Remember?"

That was another shock for him. So, Salem told Tom everything. Arran wondered exactly what everything meant?

"He came round last Sunday." Arran shifted his feet.

"I know."

"If you know, why all this?"

"I told you. I want to know about us."

Arran had an image of himself as a strong, balanced, even normal guy. But he wasn't. Is anyone? What he did manage, which might be seen as being balanced, was to justify everything to himself.

He moved across the room and sat down on the stage which was still in place for life drawing classes. He was thinking about Tom, then Salem, and what they had all done recently, Ali also popped into his head, and his father. He was silent for some time, but Tom was patient.

"I'm attracted to you. You've always intrigued me. I like what we do together."

Tom looked over at him. "You like the sex?"

"Yeah." Arran couldn't help a little smile twisting his mouth, nor could he not notice the twinge in his groin.

"That's not a relationship, is it? Just friends who screw around."

"No, it's more. I love when we screw around. It's special."

Tom sighed, a deep expulsion of air mirrored by his drooping shoulders. "It's not special. Just liking the sex. That doesn't make it special."

"Sexy then," Arran smirked. "I love..."

"Shut up!" Tom said angrily. "I know what you love. For me that's going nowhere."

Arran felt a pang, an emotional strike, hard to interpret. Was it the idea of losing Tom? He thought it was, but for what reason? The sex, or being together?

"I can't say you don't excite me. Come on, you know it. When you dress in that skimpy little tartan skirt with nothing on underneath."

"You like a feminine boy."

"Can we stop this?" Arran didn't like where this conversation was heading.

"And what is it with Salem? He's not feminine. You like what? Dominating?"

"What's he told you?" Arran was beginning to get annoyed.

"Everything. I already said."

"Then there's nothing to say."

"You beat him, right?"

"Tom! I did not beat him. I'm going. Open the fucking door!"

Tom was now as angry as Arran. "The key's in the lock." He bit his lip so as not to say 'arsehole!'.

Arran unlocked the door, and pulled it closed behind him. He didn't look back.

'He just walked out.' Tom typed the letters, watching them fill the box. He hit the return key.

'Michael is writing...' appeared on the screen.

Staring at the screen he was thinking about Arran, he couldn't concentrate on Michael. Whatever Salem had to say it wasn't going to solve the situation.

'What did you talk about? Me? The Sunday I told you about?

'Everything.' Tom remembered that word. He should never have told him. Everything. Why the fuck did he tell Arran that?

'I pushed him. Too far. That's it.'

'You love him?'

Tom looked at the words. Read them back to himself. He couldn't answer.

'I told him he beat you.'

'He didn't.' Came the instant reply.

Tom started typing. 'You said...'

Before Tom could finish Salem added. 'It was playing around.'

Tom deleted what he'd written. 'But he hit you?'

'Playing around.'

Tom was thinking. 'I get it. You little perve.'

A large laughing, crying, emoji came back.

'I'll talk to him. Saturday. I'll go see him again.'

'Perve,' Tom repeated.

'Come with me?'

'I'll think about it'

That was it, he shut down the chat and the computer, listening to the electronic whirring die down like some giant motor descending into oblivion. He was an art student he reminded himself, given to extravagance and imagination. Temperament as well. Art was renowned for excess and a certain depravity.

Salem would not sort it out, of that he was certain. Maybe he would try again with Arran, before the weekend. Maybe.

"I think, my darling little brother, I know exactly the person to talk to." Alison was perched on the edge of Sam's bed.

It was obvious and had been for a while how Sam was feeling. She wanted to help, even if it felt a little odd. Although, on reflection, perhaps not so odd. How many younger siblings get crushes on their older brother's or sister's friends? Admittedly, this had a twist to it, Arran was practically her boyfriend before they separated.

"It would be good to talk to someone who has been through the same thing." She watched him fiddling nervously with the bedding, his eyes downcast. "After all, I can't say much about your feelings."

He looked up slowly, almost, but not quite meeting her eyes. "I'd die. I couldn't talk to him."

"Don't be so melodramatic. You wouldn't die!" She smiled to herself, thinking how cute it was. Her little brother in the first throes of attraction for someone. She kept those emotions to herself. This was delicate. "Maybe I should talk to him?"

"No!" he said emphatically. "That would be a hundred times worse."

He looked from the bed to his feet, as if somehow he might find a magical escape route that would free him.

"You have to share with someone. Someone sympathetic."

She wanted to say, someone like you, but she knew her brother was so sensitive about how he was feeling and that word that was up there, out in front, like some neon sign about to illuminate him for everyone to see. Gay. He definitely needed a little chat with someone like him, who had been through the same thing, had the same feelings, crush, and emotional turmoil.

"Tell you what." She used her most delicately soft voice. "I will talk to Arran. I won't say anything about you. Just, I don't know, ask him what someone might do, who they might talk to about their feelings, in this situation."

He looked up, hardly managing a tiny smile, before she got up, leaving him brooding, just the way she had found him.