Enigma - 7. Chapter 7 - Memories

Nikki Harris had been my friend forever. He was almost my exact opposite. I was good and he was bad: I was fair and he was dark: I was timid and he had no fear: I was shy and he was outgoing: I was quiet and he could never keep his mouth shut.

My parents had never been too happy about our friendship, especially as we got older and he started getting me into trouble. At first it was small things, like stealing apples from grumpy old Mr Frobisher’s apple trees. Then it graduated to major crimes like talking back to my parents, playing loud music at all hours and refusing to speak about my innermost thoughts.

Sometimes it felt like I didn’t have any thoughts except when I was with him. He was the focus of my life, the dark star around which I orbited, my only sustenance his radiance.

When we were thirteen our friendship took a not wholly unexpected turn and we became lovers. I still remember the first time he kissed me. It was on my thirteenth birthday. My parents threw a party for me and we bailed half way through. We sneaked off to our favourite hideout, a tree house in some rich kid’s garden. He never used it and for sure no one was ever going to find us there.

We were laughing and panting from our hectic run, sitting opposite each other and grinning like idiots. It was dark and it was hard to see anything but the pale oval of his face and an occasional glint of his eyes when they caught the moonlight.

For a time we were silent, getting our breath back and then there was a movement of air and suddenly Nikki seemed a lot closer.

“I have a birthday present for you, River.” There was something wrong with his voice. Even though we had both been sitting quietly for long enough to get our breath back he was still breathless. I think I crowed a little at that, thinking that I must have been fitter than he was to get my breath back so much quicker. I had no idea I was about to lose it again.

“Really? Why didn’t you give it to me at the party?”

“Because this is the kind of thing that you can only give when you’re on your own... just the two of us, together.”

“Okay.”

I held out my hand and snatched it back in shock when I touched him. “Shit, why’d you sneak up on me?”

“Close your eyes,” he breathed and I laughed, unsuspecting. I closed my eyes and then there was a sense of movement, a breath on my face and soft, warm lips pressed against mine.

For a moment I was shocked into complete paralysis; then I pushed him away, fighting. Then I froze again... and then I threw myself at him and kissed him back.

We spent the whole night in the tree house, kissing, talking and just being together. We earned a month of grounding and a love that, for the brief time we were together, transcended everything; eclipsed all that went before and, eventually, all that came after.

The next six months were the best of my entire life. Nikki was beautiful; truly beautiful and, as we progressed to exploring each other’s bodies and sexualities I realised it was a beauty that extended to every part of him. He was perfect. Not only that but he made me feel beautiful too. I have never been the most confident person and I was... am... certainly nothing to write home about in the looks department. Back then I was even worse... slightly overweight, inept at games, gauche in social skills, slightly buck teeth, unruly red hair with a tendency to curl in all the wrong places. Not a walking disaster but still... ordinary... that’s what I am, what I have always been... ordinary. Except when I was with him.

We spent every spare moment together, much to my parents’ chagrin. They hated him, saw him as a bad influence and maybe he was.

In the summer of my 13^th year Nikki, and by association me, began to hang around with a new crowd. They were older than us; a lot older, and not the kind of people I would have chosen to be anywhere near if it had not been for Nikki.

They were freaks, in every sense of the word. They dressed in leather, had tattoos and piercings and were far too interested in the intimate details of our relationship. They were all over Nikki, always touching him and complimenting him. He lapped it up but it made me more and more uncomfortable.

I begged him to stay away from them but he ignored me. He even started to spend time with them instead of me. I felt rejected and betrayed. We rowed about it all the time but we always made up.

And then he started to disappear for hours at a time. He wouldn’t tell me where he was going or what he was doing but whatever it was it was changing him. It’s hard to describe but bit by bit he was growing away from me, getting cold and distant. Whenever I questioned him about what he was up to he closed down completely and I felt as if I was losing him.

One night I followed him. He met up with the creepy crowd and they went into town. It was getting dark and I was scared but I really needed to know what was so important it was stealing my best friend and lover away from me.

They went to a club and, after talking to someone at the front they went around the side to a door in an alley. Nikki went willingly but I knew he wasn’t happy about it. I knew him well and the way he was looking around, fiddling with his clothing... I knew he was nervous and jumpy and it scared me.

The next day at school I faced up to him, demanded that he tell me what was going on. He closed up as usual. I told him I had followed him and seen him at the club and he exploded. He accused me of stalking him, or smothering him. He spat in my face that his new friends would never do that to him, that they valued him as a person with his own space.

Of course I couldn’t just take it and I fought back, telling him what a fool he was to be getting into that scene. I mean the club was a leather and fetish club... it didn’t take too much imagination to work out what went on in there. I told him that there were just using him because he was young and impressionable, that they didn’t care about him, only his pretty face and tight arse.

There was a huge argument; the worst I have ever had with anyone. Of course we both ended up storming off. I was so angry with him that for the whole afternoon I hated him; truly hated him. He had walked out of school... I hadn’t... so I spent the whole of the rest of the afternoon simmering alone.

On the walk home I realised that I didn’t really hate him and that my anger was because I cared for him... hell I loved him. I diverted to his house intending to apologise and make it up to him. He wasn’t there so I went home licking my wounds and vowing to make it up to him at the very next opportunity. Except that there wasn’t another opportunity.

Nikki wasn’t at school the next day and when I went to his house after school his mother was a bag of nerves. She jumped on me as soon as she saw me asking me if I knew where Nikki was, as he hadn’t been home all night. There had been only two occasions previously when he had stayed out all night... and they had both been with me... once the night of our first kiss in the tree house and once when he fell asleep when we were... well... having fun in my room and didn’t wake until my mother caught us in the morning.

That was the day I came out to my mother and the day her deep seated hatred for Nikki was grounded.

Anyway, Nikki hadn’t come home that night, and he didn’t come home that day or any of the days after. The weeks following his disappearance passed in a whirl of fear, pain and guilt. Of course I blamed myself. It was my fault wasn’t it? It was me who drove him away.

I told the police about Nikki’s new friends and the club they went to. They raided it but found nothing. They found nothing anywhere... Nikki had just disappeared into thin air.

After three years the pain and fear had diminished and all I had were memories. I moved on with my life, got a new boyfriend and sat my GCSE’s doing pretty well.

I kept in touch with Nikki’s parents, because we liked each other, and because it was comforting to keep the link with them... with him.

One day, completely out of the blue, I got a call from Nikki’s mother which utterly floored me. The police had done a raid somewhere and they had found Nikki... he was coming home.

After I put the phone down I sat absolutely still in complete shock. Nikki was coming home. What did that mean to me? I was almost seventeen. I had a steady boyfriend and a steady future mapped out in front of me. Did I even want Nikki back in my life?

Hell...who was I kidding? There was never any question... of course I wanted him back in my life. I had never, could never love anyone the way I had loved him.

It was three days before I got the call to say that he was actually coming home the next day. His mother sounded nervous, told me that she had spoken to him and he seemed different. She wanted me to be there when he arrived.

He was late. Nikki was always late for everything so nothing new there. They brought him in an unmarked police car and the police officers with him didn’t even come to the door. I watched him get out of the car and look around with a dazed expression on his face.

He looked different. Of course he did. He went away a thirteen year old kid and came back a man. He was taller, much taller, taller than me, and very thin. His hair was long and tied back in a ponytail at the back of his neck. He was dressed in shabby jeans, a white tshirt and a leather jacket and he had a duffel bag over his shoulder. He was pale and sad and nervous and the most beautiful creature I had ever seen in my life.

My heart was pounding when his mother opened the door. I strained for the first sound of his voice but it was too soft for me to hear. It seemed like their conversation in the hallway took forever and I was in a complete state by the time the living room door opened and the three of them... Nikki, his mother and his father, came in.

“We’ve got a surprise for you honey. An old friend came to welcome you home. You remember River don’t you?”

My heart almost stopped as those incredible chocolate brown eyes swept over me. There was a moment when I saw something spark there... something that could have been recognition, could have been regret, could have been pain, then he shrugged and turned away.

“Nikki?”

I didn’t mean for there to be such raw pain in my voice but it got his attention. For a long moment he stared at me then he smiled a smile of deep sadness and regret and turned away.

Over the next weeks Nikki kept pushing me away. He pushed everyone away. He had changed so much. He was no longer an outgoing, opinionated, mouthy teenager. He was cowed, almost silent, obedient to the point of being unable to make decisions for himself, to function unless someone was telling him what to do.

He never mentioned a word of what had happened to him in the three years he was gone; not to me; not to his parents; not to anyone. They got him a counsellor and he went religiously... because he had been told to... but he didn’t speak the whole time he was there. I am sure that the counsellor tried their best but they never got through to him, no one did.

When we were alone together he did speak a little. We were never close, not like we used to be but he did speak to me sometimes, usually when we were lying on his bed, listening to the music he no longer really had any connection with. We never touched; he avoided touching anyone if he could help it, but we did talk.

I told him about all the places and people he’d known, how they had moved on... or how they hadn’t, and sometimes... sometimes he would start to tell me something and then stop himself.

Once I asked him about that club we had been to, whether he had been back there and he went still and quite for a moment then he whispered... “It’s dangerous River. I’m so glad you didn’t follow me there again. It’s where they find people; where they start to groom them; to draw them away from their families; their lives. I wish I had never gone there. I wish... I wish...”

“What? What do you wish?”

I was too eager; pushed too far as always and he closed up again, shaking his head and closing his eyes, something which had always for Nikki signalled that the conversation was over.

Those times with Nikki, when I could almost convince myself that everything was okay, that we were slowly getting back to normal again, that he was coming back to me, were so precious. I clung to them like threads of gold running through a tapestry that was quickly unravelling.

My friends, and especially my boyfriend, tried to hold on to me but I slipped through their grasp falling deeper and deeper into the black hole that was what Nikki had become. In the end I was alone, but I didn’t care. I was back to spending all my time with Nikki and that was all that mattered to me.

He was begrudging with his time. He never seemed pleased to see me, never initiated any conversation with me. But he never sent me away either, never withdrew completely from me. He seemed to be comfortable in my presence, at least as comfortable as he ever was with anyone. Always on edge, his eyes seemed to be constantly moving, piercing the shadows, jumping at breezes.

One day we were lying on his bed in his room as usual. He had his eyes closed, lost in the music and I rolled over on my side to look down at him. I could barely breathe; so overwhelmed by his beauty that I was almost consumed by my desire to reach out and touch him. It wasn’t the first time I had thought it but it was the first time I acted on it.

I touched his face, just a gentle touch, the faintest brush with my fingers across his cheek. His eyes flew open and he stared at me. At first I thought he was angry with me but then I could see that it wasn’t anger, it was fear.

“What happened to you Nikki? What made you so scared of everything?”

“I’m not scared of everything. It... it’s just... I was trained not to think River, not to have my own mind about anything. It’s hard learning to be me again.”

“Trained? What do you mean, trained? For what? By whom?”

His eyes narrowed and his hand rose to touch my cheek. A lost expression came over his face as if he was far away, almost as if he needed to be somewhere else before he could speak.

“I was a slave River. They trained me to be a slave. They starved me and drugged me, beat me and humiliated me. They locked me in a cage and only let me out when they were going to hurt me or when they wanted me to do something for them.”

In a curiously detached voice, his eyes fixed on a point on the ceiling and as dead as a fish’s, he talked to me about what had happened; the gruesome and shocking details of what had been done to him. I had to fight with myself to remain still, to let him talk without interruption. It was in those hours that my desire to be a nurse was born; although I didn’t realise it then; I was totally absorbed with Nikki.

“After a while I forgot.” He whispered after hours of speaking, when his voice was hoarse and almost gone. “I forgot everything about who I was; who I am. I became what they made me. I obeyed instructions without question, no matter what they were. I did whatever they wanted without hesitation or complaint. I was a good slave. I was... I had a place, a purpose and I knew what it was. Everything was so simple there; so clear.”

“Are you saying that you would rather be back there than here?”

Almost as if he was shocked to see me, as if he had forgotten I was there, his eyes snapped onto mine and he started to shake. He shook his head. “No, I... I don’t... it isn’t... maybe.” He started to cry and I took him into my arms. He was shaking more than I had ever felt anyone shake before. It seemed as though there was a beast inside him trying to tear its way out.

“I can’t... I don’t know how to live in this world River. I can’t cope with making decisions. Back there everything was set out for me. I did what I was told and nothing more. It was so easy. I didn’t have to think, I just had to do. Here everything is complicated. I am surrounded by choices and questions all the time. Do I want toast or cereal for breakfast? What clothes should I wear today? What music should I listen to? And I can't even think about the questions like... what’s next? What do I do now? Where do I go from here?”

“You don’t have to, Nikki. I’m here and I’ll always be here for you. You don’t have to do anything; to decide anything to answer anything... until you’re ready; until you want to. I’ll take care of you I swear.”

I thought that it would make things better but it didn’t, it only made him cry harder.

Somewhere in the middle of the storm something changed. Still crying, still shaking he raised his head and, taking me by surprise, he kissed me.

“Nikki I...”

“Please River... please. Let me do this... let me do what I know, let me be what I know... let me feel safe again... just once... please.”

And I did.

I took him gently into my arms and kissed him, putting all the stored up love and tenderness that had been biding its time for three years into the kiss.

But that wasn’t what he wanted. He pushed me away and stripped me expertly then he took of his own clothes, slowly and sensuously, like the practiced stripper he was. He stretched and gyrated and swayed in a breathtaking display that made me feel sick.

When he was naked he lay down on the bed, stretched out in all his glory next to me. God he was beautiful. There was not a spare ounce of flesh on him anywhere and his muscle tone and definition was actually a lot better than it had seemed through his clothes. He had no hair anywhere, except his head, his arms and his legs. He said that the man who had taken him had done something to him, early on, something that had hurt him a lot and meant that no hair ever grew again on his face, torso or genitals. He was sketchy about the details and must have been pretty heavily drugged I think.

I reached for him but that wasn’t what he wanted either. Batting my hand away he went to work. He was good, very good; playing my body like a musical instrument. At first it felt strange; not like making love. Nikki wasn’t ‘there’... he was on automatic pilot, getting impatient and annoyed whenever I tried to reach for him; to involve him in the process. I eventually realised that this was the way he had coped; this was what he had done, shut off completely, going through the motions without actually being present. At that point, what he was doing to me began to feel less like love and more like abuse... except that I couldn’t work out which of us was being abused.

After my second attempt to get him to stop he went into overdrive and my mind flipped. He did things to me that no one else has ever done... before or since. He made me feel things, made me cry and scream and shake. He took me to heights and depths I never imagined possible... and when it was done he turned away from me and cried.

I put my arm around him and tried to pull him into my arms but he resisted. I could tell he was crying but he wouldn’t let me comfort him.

“It will be alright Nikki. I will help you. We can fix it. We can sort it out. You’ll be alright.”

But he wouldn’t speak to me; wouldn’t or couldn’t communicate any more. In the end I couldn’t take it any more; the silent weeping; the lack of connection; the cold back and refusal to even look at me. I kissed him on the cheek and he let me although he turned his face away when I tried to kiss his lips. Crouching by the bed I stroked his hair and whispered to closed eyes and a blank face.

“I love you, Nikki. I would do anything for you. I would die for you. I will make this better for you. I don’t know how but I will find a way. I promise. I won’t leave you. I won’t ever leave you. I will always be here for you and we’ll find a way... together.”

Then I left him. I will regret that until the day I die. I walked away from him. At the door I turned and looked at him; naked and shaking, curled on his side, like the marble statue of an angel. My body was still fizzing from the things he had done to me and my adrenaline was pumping. I turned and walked away and that was the last time I ever saw him.

That night Nikki managed to make a huge decision, all by himself, as alone as anyone ever can be. He made his choice and he acted on it... and the next morning his parents found him lying on his side with one hand curled around the pillow and his eyes open staring at the indentation of a head in the pillow, almost as if he was looking at someone lying next to him. He even had a smile on his face.

The floor next to the bed was littered with empty pill bottles, anything and everything he could find in the house. He was taking no chances; he took everything from cat worming pills to the anti depressant and sleeping pills he had been prescribed by his doctor, to his mother’s strong painkillers. His parents rang for an ambulance and they took him to the hospital but he was dead long before they even made the call.

For a long time I blamed myself. I should never have walked away, should never have left him that day, especially when I had promised him I never would. It was over a year before I would allow anyone near me. I couldn’t bear a look, a touch, a smile, anything that reminded me of him. His face, that last time I saw it, tormented me, plagued my dreams, for many years and, in some ways, it still does.

I didn’t go to the inquest but his parents told me afterwards that it all came out; details of how he was taken from the club and imprisoned in a local house before he was sent away to a ‘training facility’ where he was drugged, abused and ‘trained’. When he was ready; fully trained, he was ‘sold’ to the highest bidder and had passed through a number of hands until he came to be, by pure chance, at the facility which was raided by the police who had been engaged in a long term undercover operation regarding white slavery in the area.

Nikki was beautiful; he had always been beautiful and he had been in high demand. He had quite a following in certain circles and had been used and abused over and over and over.

I kept feeling that they should have known; that we should have known that, after all of that, there was no way he could have adjusted to life back with his family. How could anyone? After what he had been through how could he live a normal life? The police had known it, known it all, right from day one. Why hadn’t they told us? Oh I know they had their reasons, but to me at the time they didn’t seem like good ones. Why at least hadn’t they made sure he had the help he needed?

Questions, questions, questions... that’s all that were left for me. Why hadn’t I...? Why didn’t they...? How could we...? How could he...?

At the funeral I gave a speech about what a truly beautiful person he had been and how we had all let him down. There wasn't a dry eye in the packed crematorium. The family had wanted a service in their local church but that was stamped on from the start. Nikki was the worst of sinners... not only was he gay but he had engaged in the worst of the sins of the flesh... that it had not been of his own free will was irrelevant... and in the end he had killed himself, forever barring him from the kingdom of heaven and from consecrated ground anywhere on earth.

So much for their fucking mercy and charity. Where were they when he was hurting? Where were they when he was crying out for help? Where were they when he was in chains? Where were they when he was dying from the inside out? I spat on the doorstep and have never set foot in a church again; nowhere; ever, not even for my sister’s wedding; not even for the christening of my first nephew and godchild.

After that I moved away and never saw Nikki’s family again. I couldn’t. It was just too painful. I never forgot him though, ever. Even now his face haunts my dreams, those great big eyes pleading with me from beyond the grave. I never knew what they were pleading for but I have a feeling that I am getting close to finding out.