Stockroom Secrets - 7. Chapter 7

The truth always comes out. Or so they say. The revelation that my mother's brother, Bryan, was actually gay came as a real surprise to me. As did the fact that it was my father who had forbidden the information being spoken of. Dad had always been an aloof and often cranky character, but I'd never thought of him as being such a bigot and homophobe.

You think you know someone, eh?

Maybe my mother was right. I know that just having her know the truth about me felt as if it had lifted a weight from my shoulders, so maybe talking to someone who knew about these things, about what I might be going through, might actually prove to be helpful. But going behind my father's back to do so would no doubt have risks. I would have to discuss this further with mum, I figured, and weigh up my options.

Putting all that aside, however, my mind kept going back to the text message I had received on Sunday. The one telling me that I had been seen with those guys and that the sender hoped that I was being careful.

The message concerned me, but it also intrigued me. Who had I seen that night? Or who had seen me? And who would care about me being with these two guys? Unless of course Mike and Animal had a known reputation, or the sender had first-hand knowledge of what they had gotten up to in the past with other young and impressionable guys . . . like me.

I stopped short of trying to call the number to try and find the sender's identity, as I didn't want to give away that I was worried – or at least that was my excuse – but I probably should have. Doing so may have taken away the mystery. I recalled that there were some guys from work at the pub that night, amongst a small group who were standing at the bar, but I hadn't spoken to any of them. Could it have been one of them? I knew they all played football together, tough guys that somebody such as me shouldn't mess with, like Luke Roberts and Danny Carter, but I couldn't really see any of them associating with either Mike or Animal.

There were also a few others I had known, who happened to be at the pub with other people, presumably their family and friends, and I recalled getting an odd look from at least one of these guys. Now who was that? With my head being so screwed up over the past few days it has almost become like every face I saw has now just blended into one anonymous face in the crowd, so it could have been anyone really.

On Wednesday I needed to return to work, but I did so with much trepidation. I'm not sure what I expected to happen and I had no idea what the immediate future would hold, but I still had to face it. What would Mike say? What would I say to him? Would any of my other workmates presume to know what might have happened and give me grief? Only time would tell.

As staff arrived and clocked-on there was the usual chit-chat and catch up. I found myself eyeing everyone with curiosity or suspicion, half expecting to be confronted by someone ready to out me, but other than a few hellos nobody paid much notice of me going through the motions. Once I had signed in I made my way towards the loading dock to face Mike for the first time since Friday, unsure of what the day was about to bring.

I found Mike in the invoice office chatting with one of the girls who worked in there, but as soon as he noticed that I had arrived he excused himself and quickly joined me.

'Good Morning, Gray.'

'Hi,' I replied.

For a moment he looked at me, and it seemed to me that he was trying to weigh up what it was that I was thinking.

'Are you okay?'

I tried to stay calm as my state of mind wandered.

'I tried calling you. I left messages,' he said.

'Yeah, I know.'

'Is there something wrong?' he asked quietly, while stepping a little closer.

Instinctively I stepped back, suddenly feeling as if I was wanting to lash out, or maybe just start crying once again. I had no idea what I wanted.

'Okay then. Maybe we can talk later. For now, though, we had a delivery yesterday so we have some work to do. We've got some trolleys of stock ready to go out onto the shop floor. Can you start by delivering those to the various departments please?'

'Sure,' I answered.

When I glanced back at him, as I was wheeling the first trolley out through the swinging rubber doors and onto the shop floor, Mike was still standing there watching me. I knew that we would have to talk things through, or at the very least I would need to let him know of my feelings about what had happened, I just didn't know when I would be up to doing that. The sooner the better, I figured, but how would I manage that in my current state of mind.

The morning passed with work being done and few words being spoken. A couple of times when we were alone I noticed Mike look at me and open his mouth, as if he were about to say something, but each time the moment passed. In a way I felt for him, as I knew my silence would be eating him up inside, but to be honest, that's exactly what I was hoping for. Maybe I wanted him to suffer just a little, after having made me suffer through Friday night and beyond.

When lunch time came around I figured it was finally time that I should just man up and confront him. I wheeled the last empty trolley back out to the stockroom and set out to track him down, eventually finding him at the open roller door where another small delivery had just arrived. The courier was just pulling out.

I stood back for a few moments, letting Mike finish marking off the delivery, before he looked up and noticed me waiting.

'All done, mate?' he asked. He was making an effort at being friendly.

'Yeah. All done. I was about to go to lunch, but . . .'

He raised his eyebrows, expectantly.

'I thought we should talk,' I added.

'Sure,' he responded, before adding, 'How about we just step outside for a minute?'

He jumped down off the loading dock and walked out of the shadows and into the sunlight, so I followed.

'I sense that you're not happy about something,' he began.

'You could say that.'

'Why? What's wrong?'

I looked at him in amazement. Was he really that clueless? I took a deep breath.

'You said you would look after me? You said nothing would happen unless I wanted it to happen . . . then you both just . . . I dunno . . . was that rape? Is that what it was?'

'What?' he exclaimed.

'You heard me. I'm not saying you did that . . . you did try to take it easy, I'll grant you that much, and I'm grateful for that, but . . . it's easy to see where Animal gets his nickname! I tried to get him to stop . . . I tried saying no . . . but he just kept going and going!'

'C'mon, Gray, that's a bit rich! You came with us willingly. You knew what we wanted. You wanted it too! Isn't that why you were there?'

'But not for that!' I replied, my voice starting to raise. 'He ripped me apart, Mike. There was blood! And I was still bleeding the next day. My mother found my fucking underwear!'

'Ssshhh . . . for Christ sake keep it down, Gray!'

'Why? Why the fuck should I? The pair of you took advantage of me!'

I was standing in front of him now. Face to face. And now that the words were flowing I was growing angrier and angrier.

'You got what you wanted,’ I hissed. ‘Animal got what he wanted. But what did I get, apart from getting torn open? Did I get a dose of the clap, or something worse? Do I need to get myself tested?'

He turned away from me at that point. I had to wonder why.

'I trusted you, Mike. I really did,' I said, in a more regular tone, then it was my turn to turn away. When I looked up at the open loading bay I could see two guys standing there watching us, Tom Goodwin and Rafael de Silva, both shop floor staff who I didn't know that well. Fuck, I hoped they hadn't heard all that.

I left Mike standing there and returned to the loading bay, climbing the ladder beside the open doorway and walking straight past the two shop floor staff. Glancing at them both I could see one of them looking quite concerned, but the evil grin on the other sent shivers down my spine.

+   +   +

Sometimes when I take my lunch breaks I would get something from one of the shops in the plaza and walk down to the park by the river that ran through town, or to another park nearby, or sometimes I would get in my car and go find somewhere quiet to sit and eat and watch the world go by. Anything to get out of the store. After buying some lunch today, however, I retreated to my car, which on that morning I had parked on the roof car park of the shopping centre. There were people and vehicles coming and going and despite it being a warm day it seemed like a good place to take refuge, where no one would see me – or bother me – unless they happened to be right beside me.

As I skimmed through some web pages on my phone my thoughts were on what had transpired before I took my break; my exchange with Mike and the fact that two of my workmates had witnessed that. I didn't know either of those guys very well, other than that Tom Goodwin was a boofhead football player a few years older than me and was probably one of those present at the pub on Friday night. He was the one who offered an evil grin as I had passed him today. Rafael I knew to be only a year older than me – a cute, fit, strawberry blonde with a carefree attitude who rode an old Honda motorbike everywhere. Everyone called him Raffa and from what I had seen he seemed like a fun guy.

One way or another I was almost certain that I would soon be hearing more about my encounter with Mike today, and when I returned from my lunch break it didn't take long. I went back to the loading dock expecting Mike to be there, but he was nowhere to be found. I did find some more trolleys of stock that needed to be delivered to the shop floor, so I set about doing that. It was while I was dropping off some boxes in the sporting goods department that I heard the word faggot first whispered.

I froze for a moment, not recognising the voice, before quickly coming to my senses and anxiously looking around me. There was nobody close by that I could see, but just knowing that someone was willing to say that certainly had me on edge. This would just be the start of it all now, I figured.

My hands were shaking by the time I returned to the loading dock to pick up the next trolley and when I passed a few staff members and received some odd looks and knowing smiles I just knew that word had gotten out. It looked like I was screwed, and not in a good way.

I may have wanted to curl up into a ball and hide from the world, but I knew that wouldn't fly, so I soldiered on, wary of what might come my way for the rest of the day and beyond. If there was one saving grace, it was that I was no longer at school and this wasn't a school yard, so maybe things would be different in the work place. I could only hope that might be the case.

I found out later that Mike didn't return after lunch, having phoned in and advised the Personnel Manager that he was ill, which seemed rather strange. I still had plenty of work to do, and now I needed to be accepting deliveries as well, but I battled on and did as much as I could. I didn't get snowed under and I managed to have all the stock ready for tomorrow, the boxes crushed and baled and the floors swept by the time I was almost due to clock off.

A couple of times the Store Manager, Mr Webster, came out to check on me and he seemed happy enough.

'Everything okay here, Grayson?' he asked about half an hour before closing.

'Getting there, Mr Webster.'

'And how about with you and Mike?'

My first reaction was to ask, 'What have you heard?', but thought better of it.

Instead I replied with, 'Okay, I guess.'

He studied me for a moment, then gave a nod, before saying, 'Okay, carry on then.'

When he left I couldn't help but wonder what that was all about and whether he had possibly heard something today, but I didn't get a chance to think any more on that subject as I was soon confronted by Tom Goodwin, sporting a shit-eating grin that scared me more than just a little.

'So, no Mike here now for you to run to, eh? Did you have fun the other night when we saw you at the pub? I didn't connect all the dots until I heard the two of you arguing today. Now it all makes sense! You're fucking each other! Was that third guy we saw in bed with you too? Kinky!'

'Fuck off,' I replied, as I tried pushing past him.

'Not so fast, bitch!' he said, while stepping in front of me and putting out an arm as if to stop me, but he was quickly stopped by a stern rebuke from behind us.

'Leave him be, Tom!'

I looked up to see Claire Brady, the Office Manager, standing at the doorway to the invoice office, hands on hips and looking quite menacing herself. I took my chance and dived past Tom, giving her a nod of thanks as I did so.

'Just having a bit of fun Mrs B.,' I heard him say.

'Yeah, I've heard all about your kind of fun. You leave him alone, he's done nothing to you!'

And so it begins!