Hold the elevator - 1. Hold the elevator

“Hold the elevator!” Hollering, Stuart quickened his steps, careful to not drop the files he was carrying.

A hand appeared from the inside the elevator just as the doors were closing. Momentum made him stumble inside the cramped space, but at least he made it. The relief he felt in catching the elevator quickly warped into disappointment when he noticed the guy in the elevator was Cyril. Not Cy, never Cy. That had been made abundantly clear from the day Cyril joined their department. Stuart had only made that mistake once.

“Hi.” Stuart always tried to be civil. His mom would give him such a disappointed look otherwise. Not that she would ever know whether he greeted his aloof and, frankly, quite unpleasant coworker.

As expected, a brief and bored glance was all he got before Cyril returned to tapping on his phone.

“Hi.” Even that short utterance seemed filled with disdain.

Stuart shook his head while shuffling the papers in his hands. It wasn’t as if they would strike up an interesting conversation. Cyril never did.

In the uncomfortable silence, they stood side by side. Stuart was convinced they both wished to be somewhere else, even though Cyril was far better at hiding his discomfort. As usual, the man barely acknowledged the existence of anyone around him.

Thinking back to the first time he met Cyril, Stuart almost sighed out loud, but managed to stop himself; no need to give Cyril more ammunition for his nasty quips. An eye-roll escaped him, but the other man was so engrossed in his phone that Stuart got away with it.

Cyril had acted the same ever since his first day on the job. No matter how much Stuart and his colleagues tried to draw him out, he kept to himself. Stuart had attempted to get to know him by bringing up various subjects: sports, movies, college, even work. Nothing had sparked an actual conversation to give Stuart any clues as to who Cyril was.

Cyril’s distant demeanor was not the main problem, though. Much worse was Cyril’s habit of making mean comments, just vague enough to make it impossible for anyone to call him on it. Never more than hints and innuendo, disguised as comments in passing or sometimes a “joke.” Some people had tried to raise the issue with a supervisor, but when they tried to state their case, it was like describing tendrils of smoke. It disintegrated until there was nothing left.

Not surprisingly, it didn’t take long for most of them to exclude Cyril completely from the group. Stuart felt bad for him on occasion, especially at lunch when he always sat by himself. But after trying to invite him to sit with them and barely getting a shake of the head in return, Stuart stopped bothering. After work drinks were equally scoffed at. So, now they settled for the next best thing and simply tried to ignore him.

A jolt of the elevator followed by a screeching sound shook both men out of their own thoughts. For a moment, they stared at each other as if not actually believing what had happened.

“It stopped?” Despite knowing the reaction he would get, Stuart couldn’t stop himself from asking the obvious. Something about being trapped in the cramped space made his mouth go dry and his palms moist. It wasn’t like he had claustrophobia or anything. He just didn’t like not being able to get out.

As expected, Cyril snorted quietly at his question.

“Yes.” The screen of his phone drew him in again, as if Stuart wasn’t there. Tap tap tap.

Stuart could almost hear the implied “Einstein” hanging in the air between them. Just to do something, he went over to the buttons and pressed them one by one with increasing force.

“I really don’t think that’s going to help.” Cyril sounded both bored and slightly irritated. “Why not press the alarm, instead?”

A perfectly reasonable suggestion, but Stuart still felt his hackles rise. This always happened. Cyril wasn’t bad at what he did. On the contrary, he was very good at his job. Some would even say outstanding. No one did, though, not out loud or to him at least. Cyril was too much of a jerk for that. So, taking his advice simply felt wrong.

Nonetheless, Stuart pressed the bright yellow button. Nothing. Annoyed, he pressed it again and this time he held it. Still nothing.

“What the…” He pressed the button repeatedly now, as if resorting to Morse code to communicate with the outside world. “Stupid crap–”

“If you hold it for a few–”

“I just did. Unlike you, just standing there.” Stuart couldn’t stop himself from snapping at Cyril.

“Like it’s going to make a difference if I press it.” Shaking his head, Cyril looked at his phone again.

Stuart bit his tongue to keep from making matters worse and resumed his examination of the various buttons in the elevator. No matter how hard he stared at them, no other buttons appeared. With an annoyed huff, he felt around for his phone, only to remember he had left it charging at his desk. Great. Just great.

“This isn’t working for some reason. Call reception. They’ll know who to contact.”

Cyril didn’t respond but at least put his phone to some good use.

“There’s no answer.” For the first time, Cyril’s voice took on another tone. His normally blasé and distant tone now mixed with a touch of worry.

“No answer? Of course, there’s an answer. They always answer!” Stuart tried to keep calm, but a million thoughts rushed through his head. Why wasn’t anyone picking up the phone? What if there was a fire? What if no one knew they were trapped in here?

“Gimme that!” He grabbed the phone from Cyril, who was not prepared to give it up without a fight.

“I told you there’s no answer! Don’t touch my phone!”

“Don’t be an idiot. We have to call someone else!”

Suddenly as slippery as a bar of soap, the phone slid from their dueling hands and fell to the floor, landing with a loud cracking sound. Cyril looked Stuart with a horrified expression that would have made him chuckle if his heartrate wasn’t through the roof and the walls of the elevator weren’t closing in on him.

After Cyril picked up his phone, he examined it closely. From where he was standing, Stuart could see the screen was black and cracked. Not a good sign.

“Turn it back on.”

“Don’t you think I’m trying?” Cyril hissed the words, apparently starting to feel the effects of their predicament. “If you hadn’t tried to grab it I wouldn’t have to.”

“You weren’t doing anything! Just standing there!”

“I called! And I would have called someone else, if you had waited five seconds!”

Stuart took a deep breath.

“Okay, you’re right.” Saying the words was harder than he expected, but Cyril was kind of right. “I overreacted. I just don’t like being stuck like this.”

“Like I do!” A derisive laugh made it clear how Cyril felt. More frantic tapping on the phone was followed by a heavy sigh. “It’s dead. Great. Now I can’t even tell Fred that I’m going to be late. Just what I need.” Cyril pinched the bridge of his nose.

Fred. Hadn’t he heard just about enough of that name? Cyril’s “amazing” boyfriend. Or was the proper term sugar daddy? Lord knows he and his colleagues joked about the two of them all the time. Fred was always coming by after work to pick up Cyril in his fancy sports car. Cyril never stayed for a drink, because “Fred was expecting him”.

And Fred always got what he wanted. Perhaps because he was older and, as a corporate executive, richer than most. On a particularly chatty—or catty—day, Cyril had let them know Fred wanted him to stop working, but he had convinced his older lover to let him continue his career. If he wanted to quit, money would not be a problem.

Of course not. They had plenty. For trips to the Caribbean or Europe, which somehow always got mentioned. For expensive clothes and shoes, which for some reason tended to become the topic of conversation even though Cyril seemed to do his best to never talk to them.

Sometimes, Stuart wondered if Cyril had any friends. It wouldn’t surprise him if the answer was no. Who would put up with him unless they had to?

“You’re both grown men. I don’t think Fred will worry if you’re late once.” Stuart knew he was frowning, but he couldn’t help it. That level of attachment struck him as ridiculous. They had been together for years as far as he knew. Couldn’t claim new love anymore. Or maybe it was just sour grapes.

“Easy for you to say. You’re single and have been for so long. You don’t remember what it’s like to have a true partner.” Cyril was still looking at his phone and not at Stuart.

And there it was. With his uncanny ability to cause pain through a few choice words, Cyril had found Stuart’s true weak spot. Stuart knew he was, in fact, jealous of Cyril and his boyfriend, merely for the fact they had each other. He had been single for ages. It didn’t make things better that when he first met Cyril, he was immediately attracted to him.

There was something about Cyril’s light brown eyes and pale, freckled skin that made Stuart’s heart—or to be honest another body part—respond. Then the man had opened his mouth and Stuart’s attraction had cooled off quickly. Still, he couldn’t deny that if things had been different he would have seriously considered violating the company code of conduct regarding interoffice dating.

But right now, the guy was pissing him off. As usual.

“I may have been single for a while now, but I do remember wanting a life outside the relationship. Not wanting to be constantly joined at the hip like some cliquey high school girls.” He knew his sister would be upset with him over such a derisive comment regarding girls, but he was too angry to be politically correct.

“Well, I can’t help it if you haven’t experienced real love and devotion.”

Cyril was really poking that stick in there, so Stuart decided to leave it. No good would come from them arguing. Especially not in their current situation.

“Whatever. I guess all we can do now is wait.” Stuart sat down on the floor, and prepared to go through the file he had collected from their legal department. He might as well get some work done.

Silence settled once again between them. Stuart tried to focus on the memo he was reading, but out of the corner of his eye he could see Cyril fidgeting and getting progressively more anxious. The man kept trying to get his phone to work, removing the battery several times to see if that would jolt it back to life and then smacking it on the back as if attempting CPR. When he started mumbling to himself, in a quiet but agitated voice, Stuart couldn’t take it anymore.

“Sit down. You’re making me nervous.” It came out harsher than he had intended. Stuart assumed he was more hurt than he wanted to admit to himself about their previous exchange of words.

Cyril flinched and looked at him as if he had only now realized Stuart was still there.

“I have to contact him. He’ll wonder where I am. He’ll be… worried.” Cyril’s eyes were darting around the cab.

“We’ve only been here for what… thirty minutes?” Without Cyril’s phone, they didn’t have any way to tell time, and Stuart found it annoyed him. They had only just gotten stuck and he had already lost sense of time. “Maybe he’ll make them look for us and then we’ll be out of here.”

“He said I should be ready since he’d pick me up early today.” Cyril’s right hand drifted to his lower back, absentmindedly giving himself a gentle massage. He winced. “We’re going out to dinner.”

“Not with us in here, you’re not.” Stuart couldn’t stop himself, even if it was a cheap shot.

“It’s not funny!”

The increased desperation in Cyril’s voice struck a chord in Stuart. Okay, the man wasn’t very nice, but he didn’t deserve to be that upset. Stuart got to his feet and stood in front of Cyril. Gently, he took the broken phone from him. Surprised but not resisting, Cyril looked at him.

“It’ll be all right. Fred will ask for you and then they’ll find us. We’ll get out of here.” In an unexpected way, having Cyril to focus on helped Stuart not to panic himself. The vulnerability he saw in Cyril’s eyes made him feel sorry for the guy.

“Of course, we will. Question is when. You may not have anyone expecting you, but I try to keep my promises to my partner.” The temporary crack in Cyril’s façade that had exposed his inner self slammed quickly shut. Stuart shook his head and sat down again.

As time passed, Cyril began to pace the small space inside the cab. He stopped intermittently to push random buttons. Stuart tried to ignore him and simply kept reading. When Cyril suddenly banged on the doors, Stuart couldn’t take it anymore. The elevator cab shook and the motion had Stuart’s fears flaring up again.

“Stop that. You’re rocking the whole thing.”

“We have to do something. We’ve been here forever! Fred is not going to be happy if I’m late!”

“I think he’ll be even less happy if we plunge to our deaths because you’re shaking this thing!” Saying the words out loud made them both fall silent. Then Cyril made a low whining noise. Stuart felt like an asshole for scaring him like that, even if he, too, was scared.

“We’re not going to die.” Uncomfortable as he was, Stuart tried to sound as if he knew what he was talking about. “These things have all kinds of safety gadgets.”

“I know that.” Cyril snapped back, once again quashing any guilt Stuart felt about his choice of words. Cyril turned to the doors once more and placed a hand on them. “I’m just concerned for Fred and how upset he’ll be. He’s going to be so mad.”

Stuart got an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach hearing those words. Cyril looked over his shoulder, down at him.

“All because you couldn’t keep your hands away from my phone!”

“I’m going to work now. If you could keep your freaking out to a bare minimum, that would be great.” Grabbing his papers, Stuart decided Cyril wasn’t worth trying to figure out. The man was impossible, switching from asshole to scared boy and back again.

Cyril sank to the floor with his back to the doors. At least that meant he wasn’t constantly moving around, which made reading easier. The calm didn’t last long.

“The hatch! We could go through the hatch!” The excitement in Cyril’s voice as he bounced up and pointed to the ceiling told Stuart he actually thought this was a good idea.

“Are you nuts? You want to go out there, into the elevator shaft? What if this thing starts to move? Then we’re toast. And even if it doesn’t, what will you do out there? Climb up? You’re not Bruce Willis, you know! We’re accountants!” Stuart couldn’t help shouting.

“Oh, as if it’s better to just sit here and do nothing. Not even trying. Well, maybe that’s why you’re alone. You don’t even try. You just accept things.”

Jumping to his feet, Stuart poked Cyril in the chest with his finger.

“You know nothing about me or my life. You know why? Because no one here likes you and won’t talk to you! So shut up!”

He must have pushed harder than he realized, because Cyril shrank away into the corner looking like a dog who had been smacked in the face with a newspaper. Stuart immediately regretted his words and the finger poking. It was so not like him. Then again, he usually wasn’t trapped in such cramped spaces.

He knelt next to Cyril. “I’m sorry. That came out wrong.” Stuart ran a hand through his hair, frustrated with himself. “I’m just not very good at being trapped in elevators, apparently.”

Their eyes met. For a few moments, all that could be heard was the sound of their breathing. Stuart had the feeling he had missed something and searched for answers in the scared eyes of the man in front of him. Then Cyril blinked and the look disappeared. The arrogance was back.

“I still say we try with the hatch. Instead of just giving up.”

“All right, but we only peek out.” Feeling guilty about scaring Cyril, Stuart didn’t want to say no. “No climbing out there or anything stupid like that, though.”

“I’m not stupid!” The outburst from Cyril was heated, but then the man quickly reverted to his usual closed off self. It was confusing.

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Stuart did his best not to let his emotions get away from him again. Cyril was Cyril, but even he didn’t deserve that. “I don’t think we should let our panic get the better of us. We both want to get out of here. Just don’t do anything that can turn a bad situation into something much worse. Okay?”

Cyril nodded, but didn’t answer.

“So how do we do this?” Stuart eyed the ceiling but didn’t see any obvious clues as to how to open the hatch. He wasn’t sure there even was a hatch.

“In movies, they just push on the ceiling and it opens.”

Stuart bit back an acidic remark at the childish suggestion and turned to Cyril. The man had his eyes firmly fixed upwards, allowing Stuart to look all he wanted. It was as if he was seeing Cyril for the first time all over again. With his mind focused on the task at hand and perhaps feeling insecure about it, Cyril appeared younger and not as guarded as he usually did. The air of snarkiness had vanished from his face. For all his flaws, Stuart couldn’t help thinking the man was beautiful.

“I think it would be best if you lift me up. I’m lighter than you.” Cyril kept his eyes up and gestured at Stuart to come closer. “I can reach up and see if I can find a hatch.”

“Like this?” Weaving his fingers together, Stuart formed a foothold for Cyril to step into. Cyril nodded, and was that a hint of a smile?

“Exactly!” He grabbed Stuart’s shoulders and put his right foot in Stuart’s hands. “Here we go!”

Cyril wasn’t very tall or big, but he was, nonetheless, heavier than Stuart had expected. Determined not to show weakness, Stuart widened his stance and tried to breathe through the exertion. Cyril reached up and felt around, but couldn’t find any hatch. He pushed and banged on various sections of the ceiling without any luck.

As Stuart’s arm began to shake from the strain, their little balancing act wobbled. In an attempt to stay upright, Cyril swung his other leg around to Stuart’s back until he practically sat on Stuart’s shoulder. On instinct, Stuart reached up to support Cyril’s back. In the process, his hand got stuck in the man’s shirt, hiking it up. Cyril was too preoccupied to notice, but what Stuart saw almost made him drop his cargo. There were bruises all over Cyril’s back. Several large black and blue marks with some yellowish ones in between. So many bruises…

“I don’t think this thing has a hatch…” Cyril looked down at him, his flushed face giving him a boyish appearance. Then he noticed where Stuart had his hand and his face turned hard again. “Put me down.”

Cyril’s eagerness was gone in a heartbeat, and his guard raised in an instant. But Stuart couldn’t move.

“I said put me down now!”

Something in his voice jolted Stuart out of his whirling mind, back to reality. He helped Cyril to the floor and watched the man stuff his shirt back into his pants with hurried, jerky motions.

“Hey, Cyril….”

“I fell, OK. I was putting up a photograph at home and I fell. No big deal.” His eyes were trained on the floor, and it was difficult to read the expression on his face. But it didn’t take Dr. Phil to figure out this was upsetting him.

Stuart didn’t know what to say. What was going on with Cyril? Was Fred abusing him? He had never really spoken to the guy, but didn’t they say abuse can happen in any relationship? So why not two guys? But maybe he really did fall down? That happens, right?

“I’m just really clumsy sometimes. I only have myself to blame.”

The words were spoken so quietly Stuart barely heard them, but they made everything so apparent. The realization chilled Stuart. Cyril glanced up at him and the moment their eyes met, Stuart knew that Cyril knew he knew. Stuart had never seen such vulnerability before. Without saying a word, Cyril sat down in a corner, keeping his face turned to the floor. Stuart had to do something. Say something.

“Cyril, I know we’re not exactly friends. But I have to say this. You didn’t get bruises like that from falling down on your own. It’s not right what he’s doing and if you want help, just ask. I’ll do what I can to get you away from him. I have a guest room, and you would be more than welcome to—”

“I fell, okay? Did you hear me? I fell!” Cyril snorted, seemingly back to normal again. “Jeez, I get a few scratches and you jump to all sorts of conclusions! Watch a lot of day time TV, do you?”

Remaining silent, Stuart shook his head. The sneer on Cyril’s face didn’t quite reach his eyes, which still held a hint of that vulnerability. Stuart knew what he had seen. He knew what it meant.

“Okay. Just remember what I said. Anytime.”

With that they both fell silent. Time passed, but Stuart didn’t know how long. It seemed like forever and, at the same time, like only an instant had gone by when the elevator suddenly moved again. As it dinged, coming to a halt at their floor, their eyes met again. Then Cyril turned and hurried out the door. Stuart almost forgot to get off, the revelation of the afternoon spinning around in his head.

For a few weeks, he hardly spoke to Cyril. Not that they had spoken much before, but now the man seemed to avoid him professionally as well. When they did speak, it didn’t go well. Cyril was snarkier to him than ever, even causing their supervisor to raise an eyebrow one time.

Stuart felt bad about not acting on his suspicions, but he didn’t know what to do. The situation was complicated. If Cyril didn’t want help, the police wasn’t going to act. He knew that much. It wasn’t as if Fred was beating him half to death. Ironically, that could have made things easier. But as things were now, without Cyril testifying, there would be nothing they could do. And the man clearly wouldn’t do that. Frustrating as it was, Stuart was all too aware he couldn’t do anything.

Then one evening, when he was sitting at home watching some TV show about surviving in the Alaskan wilderness, there was a knock at the door. Puzzled, Stuart answered it, only to reveal a greater mystery as he saw Cyril standing there with a small bag in his left hand. The man was slightly hunched over and held his right hand protectively across his stomach. From the look on his face, it was obvious the man had been crying. His voice was hoarse as he spoke quietly.

“Can I come in?”