Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6449071.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Rape/Non-Con, Underage, Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Blackpool
  Relationship:
      Peter_Carlisle/Natalie_Holden, Ripley_Holden/Original_Male_Character
  Character:
      Ripley_Holden, Natalie_Holden, Peter_Carlisle, Shyanne_Holden, Danny
      Holden, Jim_Allbright, David_Williams_(OC), Brian_King_(OC)
  Additional Tags:
      slash_version_of_blackpool, entirely_for_my_own_amusement, and_my_david
      morrissey_obsession, david_may_look_a_little_like_a_young_david_walliams,
      there's_something_wrong_with_me, Sorry_Not_Sorry, Angst, set_alternately
      in_the_1970s_and_early_2000s, david_morrissey, Underage_Sex, Implied/
      Referenced_Underage_Prostitution, Implied/Referenced_Rape/Non-con, Blood
      and_Violence, Implied/Referenced_Torture, underage_sex_is_only_in
      backstory, Consensual_Underage_Sex, Suicidal_Thoughts, Suicide_Attempt,
      Mental_Health_Issues, Mental_Institutions, Emotional_Manipulation,
      Murder, Child_Abuse, Physical_Abuse, Hurt/Comfort
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-04-03 Updated: 2018-03-31 Chapters: 4/8 Words: 25293
****** Blackpool (Alternative Version) ******
by cinnamon_lyons
Summary
     Loosely based on the TV Series 'Blackpool' and a sad result of my
     ever-worsening David Morrissey obsession. There isn't enough Ripley
     Holden on the interwebs. So here's what might have happened if there
     was a whole different back story to the Mike Hooley case. Involving
     lots of gay sex, plenty of violence and some angst. There's always
     angst...
     Listed solely as M/M because I don't really go into the Peter/Natalie
     relationship in any detail. There's rather a lot of other
     embellishment here, obviously (especially about Ripley's childhood).
     Tagged underage because the two main characters get together aged 15,
     though the more explicit scenes are written as adults. Also note that
     the homosexual age of consent in Britain in the 1970s was 21, not 16
     as it is now.
Notes
     Set around the same time as the TV series (early 2000s). While David
     is a fictional character, he may bear some resemblance to a younger
     David Walliams (let's gloss over the fact that he's probably the same
     age as DW actually is now). I am ashamed and disturbed by my past
     interests. But hey, I wrote 100 pages of it, so what the hell - let's
     share it online anyway!
***** Chapter 1: Nostalgia *****
When he first clocked the body lying on the floor of his seafront arcade,
Ripley Holden swayed a little, his usual confident swagger faltering for a
split second before he recovered himself. He reached out, gripping onto the
corner of one of the machines, his knuckles whitening. For a moment, that sight
had taken him back decades.
And then he recovered, as he always did.
“What the fuck’s this?” He demanded, as if any of his staff might know. And
then he turned it into a bad joke. “The punters are dying for the triple bonus,
is that it?”
Ruth, the cashier, let out a squeal.
“Oh, my word! That young man! Is he okay?” She clasped her stomach. “Ooh,
that’s set me indigestion right off. What a sight!”
Ripley strode forward, eyes fixed on the shine of his shoes rather than the
body lying in front of him. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that the lad
was dead. He’d seen this before, after all.
In the background he could hear Ruth continuing to jabber away. He wasn’t
really listening but he thought she might finally be getting around to calling
an ambulance. Out of the corner of his eye he could just about see Deaf Barry,
standing uncertainly by the slot machines. But everything was a little hazy.
Everything, except the lad lying in front of him. He could see the bright red
blood in his spiked, dyed blond hair as clear as day. The man’s clothes were
torn, his shirt hanging half off him, the front of it soaked in blood. He
looked about twenty: a year or two older at the outside.
He was just David’s type.
Ripley forced himself to look away. He couldn’t let anyone see how much this
had shaken him.
“Tell them coppers to get a move on, Ruth!” He barked. “I want us up and
running by tonight.”
“Ooh, I need to sit down!” Ruth was off the phone. “Where’s Maureen? I need a
cuppa for the shock.”
Ripley nodded. Best to clear everyone out of here.
“Barry, take Ruth for a sit down and a cup of tea. Have one yourself while
you’re at it. Chantelle?” He turned to look at the young gambler, who was still
gawping over her pushchair at the body. “Take the baby for a walk, all right
love? There’s nowt you can do here.” She nodded, wide-eyed, wheeling the chair
round in a circle and walking out without a word, leaving Ripley alone with the
body.
He crouched down, still staring, and forced himself to reach out and press two
fingers into the man’s neck. He wasn’t surprised when he couldn’t find a pulse.
He bit his lip, closing his eyes for a second.
Fucking hell, David, what did youdo?!He heard his own voice, much younger – a
flashback in his ears. He swallowed. Why, after all this time? Why here, in his
casino?
Ripley was still crouched by the body when the emergency services arrived.
“I think he’s dead.” He told the paramedics as they approached. “I couldn’t
find a pulse, so I didn’t move him.”
“We’ll take it from here, Mr Holden.” They assured him.
“Mr Holden, can I have a word?” Another voice, as he got to his feet. A tall,
lanky detective with dark hair and a Scottish accent was regarding him
thoughtfully from a few feet away. Ripley nodded.
Time for the questions. But he’d had long enough to recover from the momentary
surprise. He’d kept his secrets for twenty-five years. He could keep them a few
more.
                                       *
Ripley Holden wasn’t scared of the police - one of his best friends ran the
local police station, after all, which showed just how far he'd come! But he'd
always found their questions easy enough to deflect, and he knew his past was
well hidden. What he didn’t know was whether that past was coming back to haunt
him.
When he’d answered Detective Inspector Carlisle’s questions and left them to
their investigations, Ripley strolled out along the seafront, half expecting a
tall, dark-haired figure to approach him at any second. But one hour turned to
two, and still he found himself walking alone in the steadily growing crowds.
In the end, he drove home instead. If this was what he thought it was, best to
prepare himself.
The house was empty mid-morning: his daughter, Shyanne, at College, son Danny
at school and his wife Natalie on her shift at the Samaritans. No chance of
anyone disturbing him as he heaved down the ladder from the attic trapdoor and
hauled himself up into the dim loft space. Dust covered the discarded remnants
of their lives: old children’s toys, clothes and books that once upon a time
they’d thought were best stored for later, but probably should have been binned
even then. Still, the jumble of boxes and bags easily hid items with a more
sinister history.
Ripley threw several bulging bin bags aside, fishing his keys out of his pocket
to unlock a battered old wooden box well buried by years of accumulated junk.
He always kept it locked, although he knew how unlikely it was that any member
of his family would go rummaging around up here. He sat down on a pile of
reasonably sturdy storage boxes and tilted up the solid wooden lid.
If Natalie had ever asked, he would have told her that the box contained
mementoes of his father’s: too painful to look at, but too valuable to burn as
he would have wished. And the box hadbeen his father’s, he’d taken it after the
funeral. Storage for a bible and a belt – two things Ripley always associated
with each other, even today. Keeping the box had been a final ‘fuck you’ to the
old man, a confirmation that neither bible nor belt had ever changed Ripley the
way his father wanted.
But he didn’t think about his father now, because the box contained something
quite different. A revolver, old but hopefully in reasonable working order, was
clearly visible on top of a pile of papers. He took the gun out first, opening
the barrel and checking it still spun. This he’d keep, just in case. He doubted
that leaving a dead body in someone’s arcade was intended as a friendly way to
renew past acquaintance, so it was best to be safe. Then again, David was a
fucking psycho, so it was entirely possible that this was his best effort at
fond reminiscence!
Ripley prised the papers out of the box, a good thick wedge of them: mainly
letters and notes, a few photographs and a passport with his own picture and a
different name. These, he would burn. He should have done it years ago. Why
hadn’t he? Sentimental attachment, he supposed. But had it really been worth
the risk of Natalie finding them? Some of those letters, he well knew, were
explicit to say the least.
He peeled a photo off the bottom of the pile. It was slightly out of focus: two
lads in their late teens, sitting laughing behind a table in a bar. The older
of the two had one arm flung casually around the other’s shoulders. That was
typical David. It could have looked endearing if Ripley hadn’t known it was a
sign of ownership.
He hadn’t cared at the time the photo was taken. He’d adored David back then,
worshipped the fucking ground he walked on! He’d thought David would change his
life. And he had, although not necessarily in the way Ripley had expected him
to.
Ripley sighed softly and then staggered to his feet, the stack of papers
clutched in his hand, the revolver stuck into his belt. He’d kept all this
because a part of him still felt he owed David. He might well not have anything
he had now if it hadn’t been for that twisted son of a bitch. He could even be
dead. Somehow he’d wanted to mark the importance of that, despite the fact he’d
walked out on David and left everything they’d shared behind.
Ripley sipped a whiskey as he burnt the letters one by one in the barbecue
beside the pool. It felt a little like a wake. He could pick out the occasional
fragment in David’s spiky, slanted handwriting: ‘leave for Vegas’, ‘get out of
this shithole’, ‘fuck you till you beg me…’ He swallowed hard. Most of these
had been written after David was discharged, when Ripley was still in hospital
dreaming of escape. Escape not just from Whittingham but from Lancashire and
his father, from a country in which opportunity seemed to have up and died
along with his childhood dreams. The bitter smoke from the burnt papers pricked
at his eyes, making them water.
At the last minute, Ripley snatched the photograph from the flames, patting
down a charred corner. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket, sliding the
picture in among a wad of banknotes and receipts. Sentimental attachment, yes.
An easy thing to say, but far harder to break.
                                       *
When Ripley Holden was fifteen, he’d tried to kill himself. He hadn’t been
Ripley Holden then, but nonetheless he knew it would come as a shock to his
friends and family if they ever found out. Ripley himself, though… even now he
wondered why it had taken him so long. He’d grown up with a strictly religious
father, who thought his wayward son would best find the Lord if he beat the
bible into him, and a mother so absent, lost as she was in her own mind and
troubles, that he could scarcely remember her. He was a cocky lad at school –
‘wild’, his teachers had called him. After a spate of glue-sniffing (well,
everyone sniffed glue in the ‘70s!) he’d turned to alcohol at thirteen as the
best means of escape he could find. His former classmates would no doubt
remember him as an angry drunken petty criminal, but Ripley knew he’d simply
been a messed up kid with no hope of a future.
What had tipped him over the edge? He wasn’t sure, even now. One day, he’d
simply woken up and decided he couldn’t take it anymore. He didn’t go to
school. He didn’t go and find his mates down the seafront. He walked as far as
the golf course at St Anne’s and sat leaning against a tree in the crisp
December air, drinking cider until he could scarcely walk. And then he’d
staggered onto the railway line and laid down in the cold. He’d passed out
pretty quickly, so he reckoned it would have been a fairly painless death, had
he not been spotted moments before the train was due to pass and dragged clear
by a passing policeman.
He wasn’t hurt, just belligerent, so it probably would all have been passed off
as an alcohol-related misdemeanour – a caution and maybe a night in the cells
to sober him up and deter him from further drinking misadventures – had Ripley
not gone mental in the police station. He vaguely remembered screaming and
hurling himself about as they tried to take him to the cells. He shouted that
if they let him go he’d jump right off Blackpool Tower; he’d drown himself in
the sea and nothing anyone could do would stop him! He couldn’t spend another
moment on this stinking earth, in a shithole dead end town. Then he’d split his
head open on the tiled wall and, when he came round, he had fifteen stitches
and was sectioned under the Mental Health Act.
It had been something of a relief, actually, the enforced incarceration in
Whittingham Hospital. With remarkable speed and efficiency, Ripley Holden – or
John Wesley Price, as he’d been christened by his bastard father – was swept
away from every remnant of his godawful former life. In one fell swoop he left
his hated parents, the schoolmates he’d tolerated and attacked in turns, the
shitty seaside town he’d never expected to escape from, the glue and the booze
and the fighting that never really helped. Asylums, wasn’t that what they used
to call them? Filthy and noisy and under-staffed and downright dangerous as it
was, Whittingham seemed like asylum to Ripley at the time.
Whittingham Hospital was one of the big old Victorian psychiatric hospitals: a
huge stone edifice of draughty dormitories and day-rooms like corridors on the
outskirts of Preston. It closed down less than twenty years later but, in the
late ‘70s, most patients were still housed in the original wings. The teenagers
were separated from the adult patients: as David later said, rather
sardonically, this was probably to given them false hope of recovery by keeping
them from seeing the chronic nutters. Nonetheless, Ripley was rather glad he
was taken straight to his ward without meeting any long-stay patients that
first day.
The adolescent unit was in a wing that had originally been built as an
infirmary. The day room was small and dark, the dormitories divided into
separate rooms shared by just two or three patients. The ward was locked and,
retrospectively, Ripley had often wondered why he hadn’t railed against the
curtailment of his freedom when he was first admitted. He remembered waiting
surprisingly patiently with two burly male nurses while one of them unlocked
first the reception area and then, when the heavy door had slammed firmly
closed behind them, the ward itself. He supposed it indicated just how trapped
he had felt in his former life that, for most of the ten months he was at
Whittingham, he imagined those solid metal doors to be keeping the rest of the
world out, rather than locking him in. It was only when David left that things
changed and, by that time, he was allowed out on unsupervised walks and, not
long after, day release from the grounds as well (‘fuck release’, David called
it).
He met David that very first day. As they walked through the day room –
remarkably quiet for once – he saw several younger boys playing cards at a
table and another, slightly older, lounging in a chair by the window, reading.
As they passed, the boy reading looked up and Ripley could still picture his
smile. The lad was about Ripley’s age, maybe slightly older, tall and broad-
shouldered but lean. He had dark hair, slicked back from his face, and his
smile was knowing and even slightly cruel. It didn’t reach his eyes.
“Well, hello new kid.” The boy said, in a rather camp southern accent. He
turned his grin to one of the nurses. “Aren’t you going to introduce us,
Brian?”
“That’s Mr King to you, you cheeky get.” The nurse, Brian, snapped back. He
clearly had a deep dislike for the lad. Then he softened a little, presumably
for Ripley’s benefit. “John, this is David. Watch him – he’s trouble.” Ripley
was intrigued, despite himself. Outside, he would probably have derided David
immediately as a soft southern pansy. But here, now, he could see something
else. And he’d always been attracted to trouble.
“All right.” Ripley said, rather gruffly, his accent sounding thicker after
David’s Home Counties twang. David smiled again: more broadly, this time.
“Charmed, I’m sure.” He said. There was a strange hint of danger to his tone
and his smile. Camp as a Bond villain, Ripley thought.
“Come on, lad.” Brian’s voice softened, and he touched Ripley’s shoulder. “Your
room’s just down this way. You’re sharing with Bill and Alan, let’s see if
they’re about.”
When Ripley turned as they reached the doorway, David was still staring after
them. When he caught Ripley’s eye, he winked. Ripley found himself blushing a
little, though he was naïve enough then that he wasn’t quite sure why. Brian
saw and scowled, yelling back over his shoulder.
“You try anything, Williams you little psycho, and you’ll get no privileges for
a month – and that includes cigarettes!”
                                       *
Ripley returned to the arcade for the evening shift, but the cops were still
milling about. He took Carlisle to one side with a scowl.
“When can I re-open? We’re losing money here.” He snapped. He’d never liked
policemen, even before things went all Bonnie and Clyde with David. That's why
he'd befriended Jim Allbright after all - keep your friends close, and your
enemies closer!
“Ah, Mr Holden!” Carlisle feigned surprise at seeing him. “We’ll have you up
and running for tomorrow. Best to be thorough in these situations, I’m sure
you’ll agree. We don’t want anything like this happening again.”
“Someone’s dumped him here to ruin my business!” Ripley complained. “Why don’t
you do your job and talk to Chilcott down the road? He’s been after this site
for years!” Carlisle nodded, still smiling.
“Well, if you’re so keen to help, Mr Holden, maybe I could ask you a few
questions?” He suggested. “Shall we have a cup of tea in your office?” Ripley
shrugged, scowling again, but there was little he could do other than send his
staff home and do as Carlisle asked.
“We’ve identified the deceased, Mr Holden. A Michael Hooley – Mike, to his
friends. Who, I might add, appear to have mostly been gentlemen of the night,
if you catch my drift. Did you know him?” Ripley snorted.
“Do I look like the sort of man who consorts with fucking rent boys?”
“In my line of work, appearance is rarely much of a defence, Mr Holden.”
Carlisle pointed out. “Nor is a wife and kids, I might add.”
“So now you’re accusing me of being a nancy?” Ripley retorted.
“I wasn’t doing anything of the kind! But if you’d like to get something off
your chest?”
“You’d be the first person I’d open up to, detective.” Ripley rolled his eyes.
“Anyway, I never seen the lad before. I don’t know why someone would dump him
here, other than to ruin my trade.”
“This person went to quite an effort, just to ruin you.” Carlisle pointed out.
“The deceased had twenty-two separate knife wounds – at least three of which
might have been fatal. He’d also been sexually assaulted.”
“Doesn’t that go with the territory, in his trade?” Ripley shrugged carelessly.
“Perhaps.” Carlisle admitted. “But it doesn’t look much like a business
transaction. More like burglary.”
“So, someone wanted a freebie?” Ripley shrugged again. “The little shit
threatened them with the cops, they got nasty and then decided to kill two
birds with one stone and ruin me as well!”
“Ah, you really are the master of deduction, aren’t you Mr Holden?” Carlisle
mocked. Ripley was getting rather irritated by his sarcasm. He was so riled up
that he was rather thrown when Carlisle added. “Have you ever seen something
like this before, Mr Holden?”
“Wha-?” The line of questioning was rather unexpected. Ripley recovered,
rolling his eyes, “Oh of course, I’ve a sideline in disposal: people dump their
unwanted rent boys here all the time!”
“This isn’t the first time a body like this has been found in Blackpool.”
Carlisle’s words were quiet, serious. “There was a very similar instance in
1979. The case was never solved.”
“Well, you’re the copper, you remember crimes better than me.” Ripley reminded
him. Carlisle nodded.
“It’s more sophisticated this time.” He added. “Do you know what I think?”
“Oh, do enlighten me!” Ripley sighed, in exaggerated exasperation.
“I think last time the murderer was rather young. But he’s had practice since
then. He knows what he’s doing now. He’d probably be about… forty-three?”
Ripley, who was exactly forty-three, knew what Carlisle was getting at. He also
knew he was simply trying to wind him up, get him to open up in order to defend
himself. But he wasn’t playing.
“Well, that’s all speculation, innit?” He remarked. “And if you’ve got nothing
better to do than speculate, I’m going to enjoy my unexpected night off!”
“By all means.” Carlisle nodded. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Mr Holden.”
Ripley merely snorted as he left.
                                       *
It was heading towards autumn and the sky was already growing dark as Ripley
left the arcade. He went walking again, irritated by DI Carlisle, wanting a
drink and a laugh and knowing it was too early for his friends to be out at
Romeo’s, or even the nearby bar. He’d have a drink on his own in The Crown
round the corner: it’d be quiet at this time of night, and he could gather his
thoughts and calm down, he decided.
It was a relief to sink into a booth with his pint, taking a long drag straight
off the top. He relaxed back in the chair, taking a glance around the half
empty room. He caught the eye of a bird across the pub and grinned. Maybe a
shag was what he needed?
Then, as if they’d read his mind, someone slid into the booth opposite him,
clinking a glass down on the table, and a horribly familiar voice said.
“Hello, lover.”
The bottom dropped out of Ripley’s stomach: an instant jolt of panic and fear
and, underneath that, a hint of the exhilaration he always used to feel when he
heard those tones. He looked up, his eyes steely, his expression closed.
“David.” He said shortly. “I was wondering when you’d show your face.”
David was immediately recognizable. He had not been quite twenty when Ripley
last saw him, a good quarter-century ago. But he had the same sardonic grin,
the same dark, flinty eyes: if anything, a little more dangerous even than in
his youth. It was disturbingly attractive. His dark hair was cropped a little
shorter, but the same shade, not even a hint of grey. Ripley figured he
coloured it, but then he could hardly talk.
“You’re looking well.” David said. Ripley watched his gaze travel appraisingly
over a body he himself knew was still reasonably trim, and then up to his face.
David licked his lips, slowly and meaningfully.
“I’m married.” Ripley said shortly, trying not to let on how much David was
flustering him.
“I know, sweetheart.” David laughed a little. Then he said. “Did you like your
present?” Ripley scowled.
“I didn’t know whether to take it as a memento or a threat, you fucking
psychopath!” He snapped. David shrugged.
“Maybe it was a little bit of both.” He said, smirking.
“Why now?” Ripley asked. “More than twenty years and I don’t hear a fucking
word from you! And now… this?!”
“Did you miss me?” David teased.
“I told you, I’m married.” Ripley drained his glass and got to his feet.
“Mmm, but not especially faithful, I imagine.” David chuckled. Ripley shrugged.
“David, if you only came back here to tease me, you might as well give it up.”
He was shaking a little, but he didn’t think it was visible as he eased himself
out of the booth and made for the door.
He didn’t realise David was following him until he rounded the back of the
casino, away from the crowds, making for his car in one of the side streets
behind the arcade. He heard the footsteps behind him as he ducked along a
covered alleyway and whirled round, fists clenching.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He demanded.
“I thought you were leading me somewhere a little more private.” David said,
wiggling his eyebrows and laughing again. Ripley scowled, annoyed, and he
stepped forward.
“I don’t know what you get out of all this.” He snapped, “But things are very
different now than when we were kids. This is my town these days. And if you
don’t stop fucking with me, you won’t be here to enjoy it very long!”
David took a step forward. He was less than two feet away from Ripley.
“You’re so fucking adorable when you’re angry: you know that, right baby?”
David smirked again. Ripley wanted to punch him. Instead, he found he’d shoved
David up against the wall and stuck his tongue down his throat.
David gasped into Ripley’s mouth, kissing him back just as passionately. Ripley
thought he’d bitten David’s lip – certainly his teeth nipped against something,
but he didn’t really care. He pinned David against the wall and held him there.
His cock was rock hard in his trousers, and he ground himself against David,
feeling David’s hands grabbing at his buttocks.
It wasn’t like David to let someone else take the upper hand for long. He
shoved, hard, slamming Ripley backwards against the other wall of the narrow
passageway, almost winding him. Then he kissed him again, fiercely, one hand
grappling between their bodies at Ripley’s fly.
Ripley managed to push David away, gasping.
“Not here! Shit, David, someone could walk by any moment!”
“And then your whole family man charade falls away, eh?” David smirked, groin
still pressed close against Ripley’s. Ripley groaned, but he held firm.
“There’s police in the arcade, David, for fuck’s sake! You want them
investigating you? There’s more skeletons in your closet than Mike fucking
Hooley!”
His words finally hit home, and David stepped back a little.
“True, true. But I’m not leaving Blackpool without enjoying your pretty little
arse again, lover boy.” He chuckled. Ripley swallowed. He couldn’t think
clearly.
“Meet me at the Jolly Roger at midnight.” He managed at last. It was a shit
tourist pub. He wouldn’t run into anyone he knew. “I’ll find somewhere we can
go.”
David kissed him firmly on the lips, one last time.
“Until midnight, then.” And, with that, he turned and stalked off down the
passage.
                                       *
Ripley was shaking when he got to his car. He checked the gun was in the glove
compartment. Not that he was planning on shooting David, but he knew David all
too well. He needed to stay on his guard.
He couldn’t go home. Not now. Not after seeing David and… well, what had he
expected to happen? When he’d realized David was back, he’d known there’d be a
visit. Even when he first saw the body, he’d known in the back of his mind what
was going on. As David had just said: a little bit of a memento, a little bit
of a threat… it all boiled down to what Ripley had thought when he looked at
the photograph. A matter of ownership.
David was proving a point. No matter what had happened in between, no matter
how many years had passed, Ripley was still his. And, with David, obviously
that included his for sex. Again, he’d expected that. David was going to want
to fuck him, whether or not Ripley himself was keen on the idea. David had
never been particularly fussy about little matters like consent.
The thing that had shaken Ripley was the realisation that he still wanted
David. And, accompanying that knowledge, the fear that David had been right all
along. He remembered when he’d left David, all those years ago. He’d been upset
at the time. Angry. Part of him had even wanted David to persuade him to stay,
despite everything David had done. But David had simply laughed at him. “You’re
mine, Ripley Holden.” He’d smirked. “You’ll realise it, one day.”
“Fuck!” Ripley hit the steering wheel in a rage. Then he ran a hand through his
hair. He needed to think this through. He needed to go for a drive.
It took forty minutes to drive out to Whittingham. Ripley left his car at the
sports ground and strolled out across the grass, toward the building site. It
was late and the place was deserted. After a quick glance around, Ripley
grabbed onto a tree to boost himself up and haul himself over the hoardings
that surrounded it.
He dropped down onto the bare earth with a thud. He didn’t even know if any of
the buildings were still there, although he seemed to recall that some of the
older structures had been listed, which meant they couldn’t pull them down. He
lit a cigarette, wandering rather aimlessly across the site. He could barely
recognize anything, and it wasn’t just the dim light. It took half an hour of
walking round blank half-finished structures before he finally recognised the
old frontage, well disguised by new apartment blocks flanking it on either
side.
Ripley sat down on the steps outside and lit another cigarette. So, what was it
that made him David’s? His name? It had been David’s scorn that prompted him
into changing it. It was mid-afternoon, a few days after Ripley got to the
hospital. He had been sitting in the day room. A few of the other lads were
watching telly, but Ripley just heard it as noise in the background. He sat at
one of the scratched wooden tables, smoking, gazing dismally out of the window
at the frosty grounds.
David sat down next to him. Ripley glanced up, glaring a little. He didn’t
really want to talk to anyone. He’d spent the last few days in silence,
adjusting to his new surroundings. It wasn’t that bad. But it wasn’t great,
either.
“Give us a fag, new kid.” David said. It wasn’t a request, more of an order. He
took the packet as he spoke, and fished a cigarette out of it before Ripley had
a chance to reply. In the outside world, Ripley would have started a fight over
less. But, at the moment, he didn’t much care.
“Haven’t you got your own?” He asked dully. The staff hadn’t worried that much
about smoking in those days, even though most of the kids were technically too
young. There was nothing much else to do in the looney bin and everyone knew
it. David grinned.
“No privileges.” He said. “Brian’s always out to get me, you must have noticed
that.” Ripley shrugged.
“He’s not the only person who’s warned me about you.” He remarked. Some of the
other lads had told him to keep his guard around David. Brian was just a bit
more vocal about it. “What did you do?”
David merely grinned at him again. He leant forward, the cigarette in his
mouth. Rolling his eyes a little, Ripley leaned in towards him, pressing the
smouldering end of his fag against David’s.
“Ta.” David leant back in his chair in a haze of smoke, taking a long puff on
the cigarette.
“How long have you been here?” Ripley asked him.
“Nine months. They tell me I’m lucky I’m not in juvie.” He shrugged. “Sentence
would have been shorter, though, so I’m not buying that one.” There was a long
pause. David stared right at Ripley, and Ripley gazed off into the mid-
distance. Then David finally spoke again. “So, why did you try and kill
yourself, John Wesley Price?”
This shocked Ripley out of his apathy and he got to his feet, throwing his
chair back so that it smacked against the wall and grabbed David’s collar.
“Don’t fucking call me that!”
“Why not?” David was smirking again, clearly delighting in winding Ripley up.
“It’s your name, isn’t it?” There was another pause, and then he added. “You
know, you’re so fucking adorable when you’re angry.”
“You’re not fucking worth it.” Ripley let go, stepping back, breathing hard.
David regarded him thoughtfully for a moment and Ripley looked away, feeling
uncomfortable under the scrutiny.
“It may be the name on your admission record. But it doesn’t have to be what
anyone calls you, you know.”
“What do you mean?” Ripley turned back, intrigued despite himself.
“You tried to kill yourself. You lived. Why not live a different life?” David
suggested.
And that, more or less, was when John Wesley Price had become Ripley Holden. It
was also what started his friendship with David, despite the concern – and
often downright hostility – shown by the staff. Brian had come storming over a
few moments afterwards, snatching the cigarette off David and stubbing it out
angrily.
“No privileges means no privileges, you little shit!” His glare had taken in
Ripley as well, this time. “Don’t pander to him, Price. He’ll be after you
next.”
“Mm why not? He’s cute, isn’t he?” David commented. Brian’s hand curled into a
fist, but he didn’t do anything.
“You’ll wind up in Broadmoor by the time you’re eighteen, you mark my words.”
He snarled. “Antisocial personality my arse. You’re a fucking psychopath,
that’s what you are!”
                                       *
Ripley threw his cigarette on the bare earth, frowning as he remembered. He’d
been a contrary little sod at that time. He wondered whether he’d have pursued
the friendship with David if it hadn’t been for everyone telling him to do
otherwise. Possibly not. But possibly David would have been after him all the
same, and he hadn’t really been in any position to resist. He’d been a lonely,
messed up kid with no reason to live and David had given him that reason. He
had thrown himself into the relationship with David, body and soul.
It wasn’t just his new identity he owed to David: the confidence and
determination that was partly a reflection of David’s own manner and partly his
own anger and drive finally emerging from the malaise. It was also David who
had gotten him away from his father at last. Ripley’s discharge from hospital
had been quite sudden. He’d written to David to say he had a date to go before
the committee but he hadn’t expected that to be his last morning in hospital.
He’d sat before a panel of aloof but kindly doctors, none of whom he’d seen
much of while he was in Whittingham, and answered their questions with nervous
over-confidence. They’d told him how much improvement they saw in him and he’d
agreed, although inwardly he questioned their assumption that it was the
hospital that had helped him out of suicidal depression. Well, only inasmuch as
it was the place he met David.
Brian collected him afterwards, leading him out of the room with one hand on
his shoulder. Ripley expected to be taken back to the ward while preparations
were made, but then the nurse told him his parents were waiting to collect him.
“I’m to go now? This minute?” He’d been a little stunned.
“Rueben’s packed your things for you.” Was that a hint of disapproval in
Brian’s words? Ripley’s ears went red. If they’d been through his things,
they’d probably read the letters. Brian gave him a long, appraising look.
“I wanted to burn some of that filth you got from Williams.” He said
disapprovingly. “But you know how soft-hearted Rueben is. He persuaded me it
might send you over the edge again.” His frown deepened. “Personally, I think
that psycho bastard’s more likely to tip you over all by himself. And the worst
of it is, he’ll have you wanting to jump for him!” Ripley didn’t say anything,
but he suspected this was why Brian had arranged for his parents to come in
secret. David didn’t have a telephone, so if Ripley was rushed out of the
hospital he had no way of letting David know he was leaving.
Brian squeezed his shoulder.
“Stay away from him, that’s my advice.” He said, leading Ripley down the
corridor for the last time. “You’re a good kid at heart. You’ve a chance of a
decent future. I’ve been here twenty years and I see folk like Williams from
time to time. He’ll be in and out of psych wards for the rest of his life, you
mark my words: just crazy enough to stay out of prison, but sane enough to make
life hell for everyone around him. You don’t want to be a part of that.”
“You think going back to my father’s any better?” Ripley asked, an accusatory
note creeping into his voice. Brian sighed.
“There’s nowt we can do about that, lad, you know that. You’ll be sixteen soon
enough, and you can do what you like then.”
Even so, Ripley thought he saw Brian’s eyes narrow when he clocked Ripley’s
parents sitting in the waiting room: Andrew Price stiff and angry; his wife,
Maureen, so washed out she was barely present. Her words were slurred when she
greeted him, and Ripley figured she was dosed up on Valium.
“John.” His father said shortly, with a face like thunder, and Ripley winced at
the name. Even the staff at Whittingham had stopped calling him that long ago.
“Your boy’s a good lad, Mr Price.” Brian tried, rather helplessly. “He’ll need
your support more than ever right now.”
Ripley’s father hadn’t said anything in reply. He was probably about ready to
explode, Ripley thought. But he kept it all contained, more or less, until they
got home. An hour later, and Ripley found himself locked in his childhood
bedroom with a black eye, a split lip, and probably a fractured rib or two:
less than divine retribution for the sin of attempting suicide. He’d cried,
then, for the first time in months. To have his life given back to him only for
it to disappear just as quickly? It was almost too much to bear.
For five awful days Ripley didn’t leave the house. He wrote letter after letter
to David, but couldn’t even get out to post them. His window, he soon
discovered, had been nailed shut while he was away. He broke one of the panes
but it was too small to squeeze through, so all it got him was a slashed up
hand and another sermon-cum-beating from his father. He tried screaming and
shouting, kicking at the door in a fury. He tried silent acquiescence.
Eventually he settled on his old favourite: quiet glaring defiance interspersed
with regular sarcasm. None of these produced any relief: he was incarcerated
just as securely as he had been at Whittingham, only far more isolated. On the
fifth day, his bitter comeback to the Sunday morning selection of Old Testament
fire and brimstone encouraged the first appearance of the belt, and it almost
seemed like an old, familiar friend.
He’d forgotten how much it hurt, though, and he was rather relieved when there
was a loud knocking at the door before his father got into full swing. Andrew
Price paused, mid-strike, yelling for his wife to answer, but she was
presumably too far gone to drag herself out of bed. After what seemed like a
full minute of furious knocking, Ripley’s father threw down the belt with a
snarl, turning for the hallway.
Ripley followed him, his heart hammering in his chest, barely daring to hope,
knowing it would be dashed as it had been every time there was a knock at the
door. His father, large as he was, blocked the doorway, so that Ripley couldn’t
see anything at first. It was a few seconds before he heard David’s voice, and
his stomach flipped.
“Mr Price, I presume? Is your son at home?” David’s well-spoken tones threw
Andrew Price for a moment. He didn’t sound like one of the delinquents his son
usually associated with.
“Who the devil are you?” He said at last, although he still sounded flustered.
Mr Price stepped back a little, so that Ripley could see David’s face, and he
found himself grinning so hard his cheeks ached. David grinned back and
Ripley’s father turned slightly, realizing that his son had followed him.
“I’m the boy who’s been fucking your son for the past year.” David smirked.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t mentioned me.”
Ripley thought he would remember his father’s expression forever: Andrew Price,
perhaps for the first time, was stunned into silent disbelief. His mouth opened
and closed like a goldfish, and he staggered slightly, one hand on the wall.
“Ripley, sweetheart, get your things.” David said. Ripley wasn’t quite sure he
dared walk away from the open door, and he hesitated.
“If you think I’m letting you drag my lad off into some den of vice, you’re
very much mistaken!” Andrew was gearing up his anger again.
“It’s not like you ever wanted me here.” Ripley protested. “Why not just have
rid of me, once and for all?” He got a backhander for that, despite the open
doorway, flinging him against the wall.
“As if all your other sins weren’t enough, you add sodomyto the list?!” His
father shouted. He stood over Ripley, breathing hard, seemingly having
forgotten about David for the moment. But David’s measured tones cut in once
more.
“If you hurt him again, Mr Price, I’m afraid I won’t be answerable for my
actions.” David’s voice was almost pleasant but when Ripley looked up, blinking
through the pain, he was holding a knife. He looked confident, assured with his
weapon, and when Andrew moved towards him slightly, he raised it immediately.
Ripley had no doubt that he knew what he was doing with it. It was the first
time he had seen David with a weapon but it wouldn’t be the last.
“You won’t use that, lad.” Andrew sounded confident, but Ripley knew he was
rattled.
“You know I met your son in a mental hospital, right?” David’s tone was almost
conversational. “Do you think it wise to call a madman’s bluff?” He stared
right at Andrew, his gaze challenging and, much to Ripley’s surprise,
eventually Andrew hung his head slightly. Was he defeated?
“Ripley, get your things.” David said again, a steely determination in his
voice. Ripley staggered to his feet, running for the stairs. He didn’t dare
leave it too long, just in case Andrew recovered. He’d never unpacked his bag
from the hospital, and that was all he grabbed now. He didn’t need mementoes
from his childhood. He was leaving now for a new life, just as they’d planned.
He paused for a second, remembering the never-posted letters shoved under his
mattress. In the end, he simply dragged them out and threw them on the bed.
That would give his bastard father something to think about!
No one seemed to have moved when Ripley thundered back down to the bottom of
the stairs; the pair were still frozen in a tableau of menace. Ripley shoved
past his father, half expecting to be grabbed and pulled back at the last
minute so that he passed David too, diving down the path out of arm’s reach.
David took a few steps back to stand beside him, lowering the knife a little,
although his eyes were still fixed on Ripley’s father.
“John!” Andrew tried once again. He sounded broken, suddenly. “I only ever
wanted to save you.” Ripley shook his head in disbelief, angered by his
father’s plaintive tones. But then he felt David’s hand on his arm and he
turned, his face breaking into a smile. There was a spark of mischief in
David’s eyes and he put his hand on the back of Ripley’s neck, tilting his face
towards him and bending his own head to bring their lips together. Ripley felt
David’s tongue flick against his mouth, and he parted his lips, kissing David
fervently for several short seconds.
He wondered if those seconds seemed like years to Andrew Price, still frozen on
the doorstep, watching his son deep in embrace with his gay lover. When Ripley
pulled away, they both turned to look at him: David grinning, Ripley frowning.
There was anger and disgust in Andrew Price’s expression, certainly, but also
sorrow – maybe even regret. Well, it was too fucking late for that! Ripley
thought furiously. But then David squeezed Ripley’s hand, blew Ripley’s father
an insolent kiss, and turned to lead Ripley away.
***** Sentimental Attachment *****
Chapter Summary
     Ripley and David get it on.
Chapter Notes
     While WIPmonth is in progress, I thought I also might as well finish
     posting something I completed years ago...
Ripley was early to meet David at the Jolly Roger. He wanted to check there was
no one he knew around and find a good, well-hidden location in the huge, busy
tavern. There was some special on jagerbombs that night and the hen and stag
parties were lined up three deep at the bar. Eventually, Ripley got himself a
pint and a whiskey chaser and then was lucky enough to slide into a booth in a
quiet corner just as a group of drunken lads staggered out of it.
He ended up knocking the whiskey back right away, too nervous for it to be much
of a chaser. He caught the eye of a fat Scouser with dyed red hair as he
glanced around, and was glad of something to occupy his time when she came over
to him.
“What are you doing all alone, gorgeous?” She slurred. A pink sash over her
shoulder proclaimed her to be one of ‘Abi’s Birds’. Ripley could see Abi about
ten feet away, her veil slipping off her head as she stuck her tongue down the
throat of a man he guessed was very much not her fiancé.
“I was waiting for someone.” Ripley automatically turned on the charm. “But
maybe I’ve just found her.”
She giggled throatily, squeezing herself into the booth beside him. “I’m
Shirley.”
“Ripley.”
“You sound local.” Shirley observed. “I didn’t think the locals came here.”
“Well then, it’s your lucky night, isn’t it?” He leaned in closer to her. A
figure loomed over them, and they both looked up.
“Still one for the ladies, eh Ripley?” David was smirking from the other side
of the table.
“Fuck off, la!” Shirley retorted, with the eloquence of the drunk. “Can’t you
see we’re busy?”
“Ah, I can see the attraction.” Ignoring the redhead’s outburst, David sat down
on the other side of Ripley, thumping down the two pints he was holding. “Do
carry on, I wouldn’t want to interrupt your scintillating conversation.” He
waved a hand, rather camply.
Ripley rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t help but laugh.
“I don’t remember conversation ever being yourstrong point either when you were
in the mood.” He pointed out. David’s grin widened.
“Well you’d know all about that, wouldn’t you sweetheart?” He winked, looking
rather smug at the ease with which he’d got Ripley’s attention. Shirley got the
message but Ripley didn’t much care – that was the point of meeting in a
tourist pub, after all.
“You might have told me you was queer!” She got up, huffing rather
dramatically.
“Queer? Hey, do I look like I’m good with colours??” Ripley called after her.
David chuckled, sliding into the booth beside Ripley and Ripley felt the warmth
of a hand on his thigh.
“Actually, you always were a snappy dresser, baby.”
Ripley shrugged, drinking a good inch of the pint David had brought him.
“But you’re not just hanging out with me to look good, are you David? Why don’t
you tell me why you’re here?”
“All in good time.” David leaned back, regarding Ripley thoughtfully. It was
immediately obvious what he was thinking.
“Good time meaning when you’ve got laid, I suppose.” He suggested. David
laughed again, squeezing Ripley’s thigh.
“You remember me well.”
“Ripley!” A shout rang out from the crowd. Ripley jumped guiltily, practically
flinging himself away from David. “Ripley Holden, I never expected to see you
here!” It was Jim Albright, the local policeman who was part of Ripley’s close
circle of compatriots.
“Shit!” Ripley muttered under his breath as Albright rapidly approached,
sitting down opposite them, all perma-tan and white teeth.
“What are you doing in a shithole like this, Albright?” Ripley asked,
projecting confidence.
“Had to check it out for a case. Nothing major: seemed to be a tourist
disagreement that’s unlikely to be repeated. Thought I’d better keep an eye on
the place over the occasional drink, though, just in case.” Albright grimaced.
“The shitty beer makes it a bit of a chore!”
“It is that.” Ripley agreed, taking a gulp of his pint all the same.
“But what brings you here, Ripley?” Albright asked, genuinely puzzled.
“Well, I’ve shagged all the local birds, haven’t I?” Ripley grinned. “Sometimes
a man can do with a bit of variety.” David snorted, and Ripley shot him a
glare. Jim didn’t appear to notice, taking David’s contribution as a reminder
to introduce himself. He held his hand out amiably.
“Jim Albright.” He said firmly. “And you are?”
“David Britten.” David said, just as confidently, shaking Albright’s hand.
Ripley wondered how many pseudonyms David had had over the years.
“Old friend of Ripley’s?” Albright wondered. David nodded.
“That’s right. I’ve not seen him since we were kids. Happened to be passing
through Blackpool, so I thought it’d be nice to see what the years have done to
him.”
“Ripley as a kid, eh?” Albright leaned forward, looking rather too interested
for Ripley’s comfort. “I’ll bet he was a mad bastard!” David raised an eyebrow.
“In a manner of speaking.” He was smirking again. Ripley decided this was a
good moment to change the subject.
“David’s staying in Blackpool for business.” Had he hoped being forced to
account for himself would make Daviduncomfortable, Ripley was sorely mistaken.
“Oh aye, and what do you do?” Albright enquired.
“Loss adjustor for an insurance company.” David lied smoothly, with the mildly
apologetic tones of someone who knew their job was an immediate conversation
killer. “Nothing so exciting as a family entertainment entrepreneur!”
“You told him about the Casino Hotel, right?” Albright turned to Ripley. “We
could use another investor or two.” Ripley shrugged.
“If you’re volunteering to halve your own profits, maybe.” He downed the rest
of his pint rather rapidly. Albright nodded towards the empty glass.
“Another, lads?” He asked. Ripley shook his head.
“Tempting as a pint of piss may be, I promised I’d show David that empty bedsit
behind the arcade. He’s looking for a cheap place to crash. We’ve spent too
much time catching up already!” Albright pulled a face, looking at David.
“There’s cheap places and there’s health hazards. You’d really put a friend up
in that shithole?”
“I’m not fussy.” David shrugged casually. “A roof over my head and a firm
mattress is all I need.”
“And someone to share it with, eh?” Albright flashed him a grin. Ripley
pointedly ignored David’s attempt to catch his eye, not that Jim would have
noticed anyway. He got to his feet.
“Come on then, before these lot start stampeding for last orders.”
“Good to meet you, David.” Albright shook David’s hand again. “I’m sure I’ll
see you again if you’re in town for a bit.” David nodded, flashing Albright
another grin and then followed Ripley out of the bar. He nudged Ripley as they
strolled out towards the promenade.
“Well, this hazardous bedsit of yours sounds delightfully romantic.” He
chuckled. Ripley shrugged.
“I thought you wanted a shag. Not rose petals and Egyptian cotton.” He sounded
sullen, but there was a twinkle in his eye.
“True, true. And I’m guessing it’s close, at least.”
It took a mere few minutes for the pair to walk back to the arcade, following
the alley round behind it to the crumbling terrace. Hayley, the prostitute who
rented out the front bedsit, was leaning against the wall having a fag. She
looked from Ripley to David for a moment and back again.
“I’m letting out that empty room at the back.” Ripley explained, when she
didn’t say anything. “David – Hayley, Hayley – David. Your new neighbour.”
“You’re letting a room at this time of night??” Hayley laughed. Ripley pulled a
face.
“Well, those in this block keep all hours, you know that. Best to have a
neighbour that doesn’t care what you get up to, eh?” Hayley shrugged.
“If you say so. I’m off to work, any road.” She ground her cigarette out under
her heel, and strolled off down the path. Ripley pushed the front door open,
leading David down a narrow passageway that smelt faintly of damp. He fished
the keys out of his pocket, opening the far door, opposite Hayley’s.
“Here you are. May not look like much, but the bed’s not bad – and this room
even has a view!” He gestured at the overgrown garden that was just about
visible through the grimy window.
“You don’t have to sell me the flat, remember?” David laughed. He stepped in
through the doorway of the cramped room, his long legs reaching the bed in just
two strides. He threw himself down on it. “Anyway, it’s better than that squat
we had after Whittingham.”
“I liked that squat.” Ripley sounded almost wistful. “First home I ever had.
First place I felt safe.” He kicked the door shut behind him, taking one step
towards the bed. David tilted his head.
“Feeling nostalgic, sweetheart?” He asked. “I can take you back to those days
in more ways than one.” He held out a hand. Swallowing hard, Ripley took
another step towards him, letting David’s hand brush over the front of his
shirt.
“And then you’ll tell me what’s going on, yeah?” Ripley watched as David’s
fingers untucked the bottom of his shirt, and then shivered slightly as they
met the skin beneath.
“All in good time.” David murmured. And then his hands met at the small of
Ripley’s back, pulling him towards him. Ripley stumbled a little, half falling
onto the mattress beside David. David ran a hand through his hair, tilting
Ripley’s face towards his own. He gazed into Ripley’s eyes, and Ripley felt a
sharp tug at his heartstrings.
Then David kissed him again, his fingers tightening on the back of Ripley’s
neck, holding him close. Ripley found himself kissing back just as eagerly, his
hands on David’s body now. The size and shape of David’s body through his
clothes felt unfamiliar: a broad chest, firm muscular legs that he could just
feel the warmth of through David’s jeans. Ripley sighed a little into the kiss,
and David’s throat vibrated in a chuckle. He drew away, lips wet, eyes still
fixed on Ripley’s as he began to unbutton Ripley’s shirt.
Their legs were entwined now, lower bodies pressed against each other. Ripley
could tell that David was already half hard, and he felt a corresponding warmth
in his own groin. David pulled Ripley’s shirt aside, bending his head forward,
and his tongue met Ripley’s nipple, circling it slowly and then flicking across
it. Ripley groaned a little, relaxing onto his back, as David moved down his
body. He felt David’s fingers on his jeans: first his belt, then his fly, and
he closed his eyes for a second.
Ripley opened his eyes again to see David’s head moving downward, and a moment
later felt the warmth of his breath on the head of his cock, then David’s
tongue licking one wet swathe up the shaft. Ripley groaned again, his cock
fully erect now, bouncing a little at David’s attentions.
“Christ…” He murmured, almost in disbelief that this was happening. And then
David’s lips closed around his cock and he hitched a breath. David was
unbuttoning his own shirt as he fellated Ripley, but Ripley wasn’t aware of
anything but his erection pulsing in David’s throat, even when David tugged his
trousers down around his knees. His breathing quickened, pleasure coursing
through his body.
“Oh God, oh…” He babbled, thrusting his hips urgently to push his cock against
David’s mouth.
And then David let Ripley’s moist cock slip from between his lips, sitting back
on his heels and regarding Ripley thoughtfully for a moment.
“Christ, don’t stop now!” Ripley complained, half pleading, half angry. David
was wriggling out of his jeans, his own cock bouncing erect from his
underpants.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart, but you know I’ve been itching to fuck you.” David
smirked. He pulled the trousers bunched around Ripley’s knees off over his
feet. Ripley swallowed, feeling helpless for a moment, torn between a desperate
desire for David and a nervous anxiety about what was to come. David reached
for his coat, fishing out a sachet of lube. He coated his fingers as Ripley
watched. “I imagine it’s been a while, so I’ll be gentle.” Ripley found his
voice at last.
“There’s condoms in my wallet.” He said. “I can guess what you’ve been up to
for the last twenty odd years!”
David shrugged, but he did as Ripley asked. Then he gestured lube-slick fingers
at Ripley, who obligingly rolled over onto his front. He closed his eyes for a
moment, letting out just a tiny gasp when he felt David’s fingers slide down
the crack of his arse, rubbing back and forth across the entrance for a moment.
He felt just as nervous as when first they’d done it, a few months into their
time at Whittingham.
The friendship had very quickly become sexual. David was always angling for
that, of course, even though Ripley had rather stupidly not realised when they
first met. Brian assumed that David manipulated Ripley into it, although the
staff never gleaned enough direct evidence of their sexual relationship to
quite put a stop to it. The truth of it was that Ripley was a horny teenager,
and really quite open to experimenting. When David first went down on him, he
knew right away it wasn’t going to be a one-off. He was shut in Whittingham for
God knows how long, after all. He might as well do something to pass the time!
Still, it had taken all of David’s considerable persuasive powers to get Ripley
to let him bugger him. Although Ripley was already half in love with David by
that point, which was probably what made him cave in the end. Brian and Rueben
were both away, so there came one afternoon when there were only agency nurses
on the ward, who weren’t aware of the unofficial ruling that David wasn’t
supposed to be left alone with anyone. They’d paid Bill in cigarettes to watch
out for them, though Ripley suspected the other lads were only too happy to
oblige, since David’s interest in Ripley kept them all relatively safe from his
unwanted attentions.
Ripley gasped, so lost in his memories that it was a bit of a shock when David
slid a greased finger past the resisting ring of muscle, right up to the
knuckle. It wasn’t painful really, or even unpleasant, just not a feeling he
was used to any more. David drew his hand back, and the second time he pushed
in two fingers, bending them a little as he pulled them back again. That first
time they’d used shower gel, which had been messy but did the job. Ripley had
been surprised how much he enjoyed it in the end. From then on, they’d done it
whenever they had an opportunity. Usually – though not always – David took the
active part. Another example of David relishing being in charge of Ripley, he
supposed.
This was probably why David was so determined to fuck him now. It wasn’t long
before David removed his fingers with a slight squelch, and Ripley tensed
slightly as he felt the head of David’s cock press insistently against his
arsehole. David gasped a little as he pushed forward, his hands gripping
Ripley’s shoulders firmly.
“Mmm, I’d forgotten how good you felt…” He murmured. He’d stopped moving, his
erection firmly embedded in Ripley’s arsehole. Ripley could feel every inch of
it and, as David waited, letting Ripley get used to the sensation, he felt a
warmth spread through him, right through to his groin. He pushed his hips back
slightly and David took this as an invitation to start moving again, quite
gently at first. One firmer push hit the spot, brushing tantalizing against it,
so that Ripley gasped, pushing himself up onto his knees to pull David deeper.
“Harder, you bastard! Christ, David, when did you get to be so fucking gentle?”
David chuckled.
“Just easing you into it, sweetheart.” But he obliged, thrusting into Ripley
with more energy. He gripped Ripley’s hips now, hanging onto him to force his
cock deeper, and Ripley groaned, his body responding.
“Oh, that’s it. Jesus Christ, that’s it!” His skin felt hot, his entire being
throbbing with pent up orgasm.
“Tell me what you want.” David panted. Another game, but Ripley was well beyond
caring.
“Fuck me – oh David, fuck me!” He gasped. David was fair pounding into him now,
and it ought to have hurt but it didn’t, the maddening itch of his prostate
building and building, so that he was so close to orgasm he could barely even
think.
David groaned, and then bit off the sound with a sharp hiss, a noise that
brought a host of memories flooding back. He clung onto Ripley, thrusting deep
one last time and Ripley was tipped over the edge, his body spasming, muscles
clenching around David’s cock.
“Oh David, David…” He didn’t even realise the sound was coming from him as
orgasm swept through him, shaking his body until he collapsed, spent, on the
old mattress.
David kissed his hair, almost fondly, relaxing down beside Ripley and throwing
an arm around him.
“Maybe I missed you more than I realized.” He murmured. Ripley snorted, despite
his post-orgasm lethargy.
“You murder someone just to get me back into bed and you think that’s not a
sign of desperation?”
“You wait till you hear the full story, baby.” David laughed, despite the
unpleasant context to his words. He rolled over and reached for his cigarettes,
fishing one out and then offering the packet to Ripley. He lit Ripley’s first.
They both lay there for a moment, smoking in companionable post-coital silence.
And then Ripley’s mobile buzzed angrily. He reached for it almost without
thinking.
“Leave it.” David was frowning. Ripley shook his head.
“I can’t – what if it’s one of me kids?” He checked the screen. Danny. Sighing,
he held a finger to his lips, staring pointedly at his partner for a moment.
David raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.
“Danny? What’s up?” Ripley answered smoothly. There was a long pause. “Hey,
slow down lad! Look, don’t let ‘em get to you… Okay, okay!” He paused again.
“Look, I’ll come and get you. Just tell me where you are.” Another pause. “Ten
minutes, max. Just sit tight, lad.” He hung up the phone, grimacing a little,
and then reached for his trousers.
“So you’re just going to love me and leave me?” David said, pouting mockingly.
Ripley sighed.
“It’s my lad, he’s been in a fight or something. Couldn’t get much out of him
on the phone, he’s not that coherent at 2 o’clock in the morning.” David
watched Ripley dress, looking thoughtful.
“Something tells me you’re not a bad father.” He said eventually.
“As you know, I had someone to teach me all the mistakes to avoid.” Ripley’s
voice was tinged with bitterness, as it always was when he mentioned his
father. David nodded, but he didn’t answer. Ripley got to his feet, throwing
the keys down on the bed.
“Stay here, make yourself at home.” He said, trying to avoid looking too
closely at David’s naked body stretched across the bed, reminding him of how
much he didn’t want to leave. “I’ll swing by tomorrow afternoon, we can talk
then.”
“Till tomorrow, lover boy.” David said with a grin. And he winked, a move that
seemed rather like a calculated reminder of their first meeting, but gave
Ripley butterflies all the same.
When Ripley reached the front door, it was open. Hayley was back, sitting on
the doorstep smoking. She raised an eyebrow at Ripley as he passed.
“And I thought it was just me as paid rent like that.” She was laughing. Ripley
glowered, in too much of a hurry to be charming.
“You fucking tell anyone and you won’t have a flat to pay rent on!” He
threatened. She laughed again, watching him hurry off into the distance.
                                       *
The next morning, weak autumn sunlight filtered through the dirty glass of the
bedsit window. David watched for a while, and then decided he’d be better off
getting some fresh air outside. He dressed quickly but fastidiously, not
neglecting to shave and check his hair.
It was nearly ten by the time he headed out. He sat on the front wall, smoking
cigarette after cigarette, until Hayley appeared.
“David, isn’t it?” She asked. He nodded, but didn’t answer. “Want a cuppa?”
David smirked knowingly.
“Ah, that well-known precursor to gossip!” He commented. Hayley grinned, but
didn’t say anything. “Add a biscuit to the mix and you’ve got me.”
Hayley was back not long after, with two mugs of sugary tea and a packet of
bourbons. She handed David the mug.
“I wasn’t sure how you liked it.” She half-apologised. David shrugged.
“I had tea pre-mixed long enough to drink it any which way.” He said. Hayley
wasn’t sure what he meant, but she let it go. David drank a mouthful of tea,
sighed with enjoyment, and took a biscuit when Hayley proffered the packet.
“So, how long have you known Ripley Holden?” She asked at last.
“We’re childhood… friends.” David said at last. Hayley raised an eyebrow.
“Sounded to me like you was more than friends.” She commented. David grinned.
“Well, maybe the word I was searching for was sweethearts.” Hayley didn’t seem
to know how seriously to take this. David looked at her over the mug. “I take
it you’re not going to go spreading this around?” He asked. Hayley shook her
head.
“More than the roof over me head’s worth!” She pointed out. “I just enjoy
hearing about it, is all. Never in a million years did I think I’d be seeing a
punter out and hear Ripley Holden screaming some feller’s name through the
wall!” She laughed.
“Oh, I intend to make him scream a lot more, believe me.” David put the mug
down to light a cigarette. “I trust it won’t keep you up at night.” Hayley
grinned, rather warming to him.
“I’ve got plenty else to keep me busy.” She pointed out. David offered her the
cigarette packet and she took one, pausing a moment as she lit it. “He’s not a
bad man, Ripley Holden. But I always knew he had a messed up past.”
“You’re suggesting that’s all I am?” David was mock offended. Hayley shook her
head.
“No, but you know I’m right, don’t you?” There was a short pause, and then
David nodded.
“Maybe that’s why I was drawn to him. You’d think I could let go after all
these years.” He almost sounded wistful. But Hayley was practiced in seeing
through her punters’ bullshit, and she rather thought he might be manipulating
her, at least a little bit.
“Are you telling me you’re in love with him?” She snorted disbelievingly. David
grinned then, catching her eye over the mug and keeping it.
“I never said that. But whether he’s still in love with me is another matter.”
He paused for a second. “How far do you think I can push that?” His grin was
almost cruel for a moment and Hayley frowned, but it was gone as quickly as it
came. David stood up, putting the empty mug down on the step.
“Thanks for the tea, neighbour.” He smiled, quite charmingly, and then turned
and stalked away.
***** Leverage *****
The arcade was back open. Ripley had spent the morning sorting out yesterday’s
problems (with both Danny and the business) and was now loitering on the arcade
floor with Jim and Terry, casting the occasional glance over the punters and
chatting casually.
Shyanne dropped by, all smiles and big eyes.
“Dad, I’ve got the afternoon off college. Me and Steve are planning on driving
up to Cleveleys. I don’t suppose you could give us a bit of spending money?”
“Can’t that useless boyfriend of yours put his hand in his pocket for once?”
Ripley said mock grudgingly. He hadn’t met Steve, but could imagine what he’d
be like: all tattoos and attitude. “I thought he was working! Or has he got
himself fired like the last deadbeat you were seeing?” Shyanne laughed.
“He’s not like that, dad.” She protested, but she could see Ripley was already
pulling out his wallet, so she didn’t push it further. Ripley peeled off a
couple of twenties, and handed them over to Shyanne. Fate must have been
playing games with him, because somehow, out of all the receipts and tickets
and useless bits of paper in his wallet, it was the photo of him and David that
slipped out and fluttered to the floor.
Shyanne scooped it up before Ripley could.
“That’s never you, dad! You must be younger than me in this!” She tilted the
photo round, staring at it a moment longer. Terry craned round to take a look.
“Your dad was quite a looker as a kid, eh Shyanne?” He offered.
“Hey, less of the ‘was’!” Ripley protested. “Now if you’ve quite finished
eyeing me up, Terry…” He held out his hand for the picture.
“Who’s the other lad?” Shyanne asked, glancing up at Ripley. Terry, who thought
of himself as Ripley’s oldest friend, shook his head, puzzled.
“I don’t recognise him.” He said. “You didn’t stay in touch then, Ripley?” Jim
Albright, who’d been quiet throughout this exchange, was leaning forward now,
taking in the photograph.
“It’s David, isn’t it?” He said, which caused Ripley’s heart to sink and
Shyanne and Terry’s frowns to deepen.
“You know him, Jim?” Terry turned to the policeman, confused. Jim shook his
head.
“I met him yesterday, is all. Childhood friend of Ripley’s. He’s visiting, and
Ripley’s put him up in one of the flats out back.”
“Dad!” Shyanne sounded horrified. “You’d put a friend up there? We’ve got a
perfectly good guest room at home.” Ripley shook his head.
“David’s got work to do in town. He wanted somewhere central.” He said shortly.
“Speak of the devil.” Jim said suddenly, and Ripley looked up to see David
marching smartly towards them, a grin plastered over his handsome face.
“Well, this looks cosy!” He said. He flashed a smile at each of them in turn,
ending with Shyanne. “You must be Ripley’s daughter. How delightful to meet
you.” He took her hand in a gesture that Ripley thought ridiculously over the
top, though he could tell from Shyanne’s response that she found it alluring.
“What are you doing here, David?” He asked, trying not to sound obviously
confrontational. David grinned.
“Lovely to see you too, Ripley dear.” Clearly David hadn’t missed the
irritation that had crept into Ripley’s tone. “Feeling a bit sore after last
night?” He smirked. Ripley knew full well what he was getting at – the
unfamiliar ache in his guts only underscored it – but he forced a laugh.
“We didn’t drink that much! Bit of a lightweight these days, eh David?” He
teased.
“You knew me dad when he was a kid, right?” Shyanne interrupted. “You’ll have
to come over for dinner, tell us all the horror stories!” She laughed, rather
flirtatiously. David grinned again, wider this time.
“Oh, I have plenty of those, believe me!”
Ripley rolled his eyes, putting a hand on Shyanne’s arm.
“Enough with the gossip, Shyanne. You’ll waste your afternoon in Cleveleys if
you don’t get going.” He reminded her. She shrugged and nodded.
“See you soon then, David. I’ll let mum know about dinner!” Shyanne’s parting
words were called back to them down the arcade. Ripley sighed, frustrated, but
Terry was now busy causing another problem.
“You want to join us tonight, David. We’re off down Aphrodite’s at 10, all the
lads.” He said amiably.
“Aphrodite’s isn’t really David’s thing.” Ripley cut in, wondering why the hell
everyone seemed so interested in David.
“He’s a man, isn’t he?” Jim laughed.
“Let’s just say he’d be more at home in Flamingos.” Ripley said meaningfully.
Jim looked rather taken aback, and both he and Terry looked at David
appraisingly. David didn’t know the club names these days, but he could catch
the drift.
“You mean I’m a massive fucking queer?” He interpreted, with a grin. And then
he shrugged. “I can appreciate a female figure all the same.” He glanced round
again, aware that all three were now looking uncomfortable. “Aphrodite’s it is!
Later, gentlemen.”
He stalked out without another word. Ripley was seething, and had half a mind
to go right round to the flats and set David straight (as it were).
“Is that why the two of you fell out?” Terry said quietly. “You found out he
was a poof?” Ripley wondered if Terry was re-evaluating the photograph now.
“Who said we fell out?” He retorted.
“Well, you haven’t mentioned him in 20 years!” Terry pointed out. “Something
must have happened.”
“We lost touch, is all.” Ripley said dismissively. “He knows to keep his hands
to himself.”
“Sounds about right.” Jim commented, relaxing a little. “I can imagine the
state of the poor bugger if he tried it on with you!” He clapped Ripley on the
back, laughing. Ripley forced a laugh as well. He needed to find out what David
wanted from him, and fast! All this – meeting his friends, his family – it was
just leverage. And he really didn’t want David getting any more.
                                       *
The afternoon got busy in the end, and Ripley didn’t have the time to get to
the flats. He tried in the early evening, before going home for dinner, but
David wasn’t in. Neither, thankfully, was Hayley, so at least that was one
awkward conversation he didn’t need to have. Dinner, however, was a singularly
unpleasant experience. Shyanne talked at great length about meeting David,
clearly fascinated both by the handsome stranger and the idea of finding out
about her father’s youth. She pestered and pestered until Ripley had to show
all of them the photo, which Natalie agreed was rather sweet – “you look very
close, the pair of you!” She insisted Ripley invite David over the following
day, and even Danny seemed vaguely interested in the prospect of meeting him.
Ripley was rather glad to get out to the club in the end.
He had a vague hope that David simply wouldn’t show: all he’d wanted was to put
the wind up Ripley, and he’d done that well enough already. And the strip club
would bore him, Ripley knew. But he was there, loitering outside with a
cigarette, when Ripley showed up. Ripley sighed, but he said.
“The others not here?”
“I don’t know.” David shrugged. “Haven’t been in yet.”
“You don’t have to do this, David.” Ripley insisted. “You won’t enjoy the view.
Why not go back to the flat and I’ll swing by later?”
“There’s other things to look at than what’s on stage.” David leered a little,
looking Ripley up and down. “Those trousers are tight, baby. Did you dress up
for me?”
“In your wet dreams, David.” Ripley tried not to doubt himself. He hadn’t, had
he? No, he’d known this was going to be excruciating enough without trying to
give David a hard-on!
It was actually moreexcruciating than Ripley had even imagined. David’s
incessant hints and nudges were just subtle enough to slide over his friends’
heads – most of them, at least – but to make Ripley so uncomfortable he
couldn’t even enjoy the show. And David picked up everything – every tiny
movement was met with a knowing grin (“feeling uncomfortable, baby?”). He tried
confronting David once, as David emerged from the toilets.
“David, this is fucking idiotic! You do realise how suspicious this is, right?
You suddenly show up in town after decades away, at the same time as a body’s
left in my arcade… it’s only a matter of time before the police pull you in for
questioning. And not very much time at that!”
David didn’t seem to care. But then that was David all over. He thought he
could get away with anything, and the worst of it was he was usually right.
In the end, all Ripley could do was drink. And he could drink a hell of a lot.
“I don’t know what’s got into him!” Terry lamented, as he and David dragged
Ripley away from an altercation over spilt drinks that was threatening to get
violent. “I’ve not seen him this bad in years!” He sighed, trying to steer
Ripley back to the booth and away from the bar. “We can’t send him home like
this. Natalie will do her nut!” He sighed. He really didn’t want Ripley staying
at his, but it was starting to seem like the only option.
“I could take him to crash at the flat.” David suggested. “He can go home in
the morning when he’s sobered up.” Terry looked hesitant. But Jim had already
left over Ripley’s behaviour, and Terry’s support for his friend was dwindling.
“I promise I won’t take advantage of him!” David added, throwing his hands up
with a reassuring smile. Terry flushed a little.
“I wasn’t insinuating…” He protested, rather emptily, as that was just what he
had been thinking. David’s obvious awareness of this embarrassed him out of his
concern, and he made his decision.
“Where to now, lads?” Ripley was trying to get up, but he couldn’t really
stand.
“I’m going home.” Terry said, quietly but nonetheless decisively.
“Home?” Ripley echoed in disbelief. “You can’t go home, Terry you fucking
fairy! It’s not even closing time!”
“Well, I’ve had enough and so have you!” Terry retorted. “David’s taking you
back to the flat. Okay?”
“What do you think, Ripley?” David added. “A nightcap and a jaunt down memory
lane?” Ripley frowned a little, and then he tried to take a step forward and
staggered into David’s arms.
“Memory lane.” He murmured.
That was all the agreement they got out of him, but it was enough for Terry. He
helped David get Ripley into a taxi to the arcade, and then David hauled the
now barely conscious Ripley round to the flats.
“Rohypnol, is it?” Hayley joked when she saw them. “Having to drug him to have
your way with him now?” David, who was straining under Ripley’s weight, didn’t
laugh for once.
“Shut up and give me a hand.”
When they finally got Ripley into the flat and threw him down on the bed, he
went out like a light.
                                       *
Ripley woke feeling like there was a drill hammering through his skull. He
groaned, rolling over slightly. There was a warm body beside him, but when he
tried to open his eyes the light was like a sharp spike into his brain. He
closed them hastily.
“Ah, conscious at last?” He heard David chuckle. He groaned slightly. Well,
given the events of the previous two days it was boundto be David next to him.
“Barely.” He felt David’s body shift, one hand resting on his naked back.
“Well, I don’t need you to do much more than lie there.” David murmured,
kissing Ripley’s shoulder.
“Jesus, you’re eager!” Ripley protested, though without much energy. “Didn’t
you get any yesterday?”
“I don’t suppose you remember passing out the moment we got back here?” David’s
body pressed against Ripley’s, spooning him. He could feel David’s hard-on
against his buttocks.
“I didn’t think you’d let a little thing like that stop you.” Ripley’s tone was
amused, despite himself. “You have changed!” David chuckled.
“You were so far gone I thought you might choke on your own vomit.” He
admitted. “Call it a moment of weakness.” He ran one hand down Ripley’s side,
and Ripley shivered slightly.
“Is your newfound interest in foreplay part of the same weakness?” Ripley
teased, but his body was responding to David’s touch all the same. He was
always horny when he had a hangover. David’s hand reached Ripley’s arse,
spreading his buttocks carefully and running his fingers down the crack. His
breath was warm on Ripley’s cheek, his words soft.
“You’d prefer it if I just took you, lover?” When Ripley didn’t answer, David
shoved two fingers rather abruptly up his arsehole. Ripley gasped, despite
himself.
“With lube, you animal!” He complained. David laughed again, and Ripley felt
his body shift behind him. A moment later, he was back, and Ripley heard the
slight squelch as he greased his penis. He licked his lips, mouth dry with
anticipation as David withdrew his fingers, parting Ripley’s buttocks to let
the head of his cock nudge between them.
“You like to be fucked hard, don’t you darling?” David hissed, and then he
penetrated Ripley, his erection sliding smoothly, deep into Ripley’s guts. One
hand on Ripley’s hip, the pair still lying on their sides, David started moving
slowly, rocking back and forth inside Ripley. It was enjoyable enough but, in
his hungover haze, Ripley wanted more.
“You’re not quite there!” He protested. “I need… need…” He felt urgently in
want of orgasm, now: feverishly so, as if it was the only thing that could cure
his alcohol-induced lethargy.
“Try lifting your knees a bit, sweetheart.” David suggested. “Better angle.”
Ripley did as David told him, and David’s hand reached over his body as he did
so, fingers closing around Ripley’s erection. Ripley moaned faintly, the
sensation building now, heightened by the pleasure of David’s hand around his
cock. He wouldn’t last long, he knew.
Eyes still tight shut, Ripley reached behind him to try and grasp at David’s
body, spurring David on to speed his thrusts, pounding into him. Lights seemed
to flash and spin before his eyes – probably an after-effect of drinking – as
the pleasure mounted. And then his cock jumped and spat in David’s hand, his
muscles contracting, wringing an orgasm out of David.
He realised afterwards, as David withdrew, that he hadn’t used a condom this
time. He could feel the sticky warmth of David’s semen trickling from between
his buttocks but he was too hungover to care. He groaned again, rolling over
into the pillow, utterly spent. David kissed the top of his head.
“I’ll get you a cuppa and a bacon sarnie, baby.” He said.
“Ah, domestic bliss. You really have changed!” Ripley murmured into the pillow.
He heard David dressing, dimly as if in the distance, and then the sound of the
door.
Had David changed? Or maybe it was simply that the last fractured year of their
relationship had coloured the rest of it in Ripley’s memory. Because it had
been David who had found them that room in the squat. He’d even done his best
to furnish it before Ripley arrived, and presented it to Ripley with something
like pride.
It was an old B&B, half derelict, but the many small rooms made it easy to
divide up among the various beatniks, anarchists and destitutes that inhabited
it. The place had been damp, cold and dirty. The water company had forgotten to
ever turn the water off, but the electricity siphoning one of the more
experienced squatters had set up only worked downstairs so it was always cold.
But they had a roof over their heads, and an old mattress to lie on. They
hardly left it for the first three days.
Ripley grinned to himself, remembering their youthful enthusiasm for each
other’s bodies. That first morning he had been exhausted, though. He had hardly
slept since he’d left Whittingham: lying there in David’s arms was the first
time he’d felt safe enough to close his eyes and then he’d slept like the dead,
well into the next day. David had woken him soon after noon with a polystyrene
cup of tea and a kiss, and he could still remember the rush of feeling that
stirred up in him to see David there. His face had split into a grin, so
impossibly huge it hurt his face. He hadn’t said anything, but his thoughts had
been so fervent that for a moment he wondered if David could hear him all the
same: Christ, Ifuckinglove you!
He sighed into the pillow, enjoying the memory despite finding it tainted by
what had followed. At the time, he had adored David, pure and simple. He had
never even considered why David had rescued him, never wondered what David’s
agenda might be. Now he knew what David was like, he found himself analysing
every moment, working out how each tiny action of David’s might have been
intended to manipulate him. But perhaps he’d gone too far the other way. Maybe
a cup of tea and a kiss was simply that.
It was with mixed feelings that Ripley took the cardboard cup that David
offered him on his return, propping himself up on the pillows. He watched
silently as David stripped his clothes off and slid back into bed beside him,
and then he took a gulp of tea and sighed contentedly.
“Not too sweet?” David asked, with a grin. Ripley shook his head, knowing what
David was getting at. It was a legacy of Whittingham, that they both had a
taste for sweet tea. Ripley had a feeling that, by the ‘70s, there was a lot
more freedom in the adult wards than there had been. But the adolescents still
weren’t trusted to serve their own tea: instead it came lukewarm, pre-mixed
with milk and sugar in big institutional teapots. It was always too weak,
always too sweet, but in the end you got used to it.
David passed Ripley a sandwich wrapped in greaseproof paper, and they lay there
in companionable silence for a while: breakfast, followed by a cigarette and
the last of the tea. Then David said, suddenly and unexpectedly.
“Stay with me today.” There was a pleading undertone to his voice. “We can go
out somewhere. Drive up the coast, maybe. It’ll be like old times.” Ripley
frowned.
“I can’t, David. It’s Sunday. I got to open up, then dinner with the family.”
He stopped short of issuing Natalie’s invitation. Despite David’s change in
mood, he didn’t think he was quite ready for the experience.
“Just the morning then.” David suggested. “I’d like to see what they’ve done to
the old hospital, and there’ll be no builders there on a Sunday.” He paused for
a second, then flashed Ripley a winning smile. “It’s warm enough to fuck in the
grounds. For old time’s sake.” Ripley laughed, half won over.
“Another day, perhaps.” He lit up another cigarette. There was a long pause.
“You were right last night.” David said at last, his voice unusually serious.
“I can’t stay here with the cops sniffing around. I’ll be here two more days –
three max. Not much time to reminisce.” Ripley nodded, taking this in, but he
didn’t answer directly.
“Where will you go?” He asked. David grinned, then.
“Where do you think? Vegas, baby!” Ripley smiled, slightly sadly. They’d
planned that trip for so long, back in the day, but never made it out of the
country. Their first step had been London, and that had ended badly. “I’ve been
out there a few times.” David continued. “Got some good contacts. But it’s
easier to hustle with a partner, you know that. And I’ve never found anyone
quite as good as you.” Ripley rolled his eyes a little, aware what David was
getting at but oddly tempted all the same.
“So that’s why you’re here? To drag me off to Vegas?” It didn’t quite ring true
to him. David shrugged his shoulders.
“That’s part of it, yeah.” His face was serious again. “Look, go and open up
the arcade and then come out to Whittingham with me, just for a few hours. I’ll
tell you the whole story.”
Despite himself, Ripley caved. This was why he’d had to walk out on David in
the end. David could always get round him somehow, even when Ripley was aware
he was being manipulated.
They’d dressed quickly. Ripley grimaced a little as he tugged on his trousers,
still feeling rather sticky. He could have done with a shower, but that would
have to wait. He made himself as presentable as he could over the tiny sink in
the corner.
“You want to negotiate on terms, David.” Hayley laughed as the pair left the
building together. “That rent’s getting pretty steep!”
“First time was just the deposit.” Ripley retorted, and she laughed again. He
sent David for a walk on the seafront while he opened up the arcade. Hallworth,
the protester sitting outside with his religious placards and flask of coffee,
nodded his head in the direction of David’s disappearing form.
“Who’s that? He looks familiar.”
“He was here yesterday.” Ripley said shortly, unlocking the security gate and
stepping back as it rose all too slowly.
“I don’t mean that.” Hallworth frowned. “From before then. Years back. He used
to hang around the seafront as a lad, didn’t he?” Ripley shrugged.
“I wouldn’t know about that.” His voice was as vague as he could manage.
Thankfully the grill juddered to a halt at the top just then and Ruth appeared,
hurrying along the promenade, calling out.
“Ripley, I’m not late am I? I had a terrible night. I knew I shouldn’t have
eaten that curry!”
He reassured her as they went inside, and quickly set up for the day. When all
the staff had arrived, and the punters started trickling in, it was easy enough
to head off.
David was sitting on a bench near the entrance to the pier, looking
romantically windswept in his long coat. Ripley’s stomach flipped. The more he
saw David, the more he seemed to fucking fancy him! David grinned as he
approached, and he found himself smiling back. He knew full well why David had
chosen this bench. They’d often sat here as kids, sharing a can of cider,
watching the world go by and feeling so fucking superior to every sad drone
that passed. Sometimes they’d got so drunk they’d kissed, right there on the
promenade: a fuck you to the easily offended tourist families they both hated,
and a taunt to the queerbashers. They were both messed up enough that they
weren’t averse to provoking fights this way. Sometimes they came out on top,
sometimes they didn’t. But winning was never the point of fighting.
Ripley leant on the back of the bench.
“Shall we get going? Time and tide aren’t giving us a fucking break, I’ll tell
you that.”
“Remember when we bumped into Brian here?” David tilted his head, gazing up at
Ripley leaning over the bench behind him.
“Bumped into? I don’t think we’d have seen him if he hadn’t been fucking
obsessedwith you.” Ripley pointed out. They’d been shit-faced that day,
laughing hysterically at the glares they got from those elders who considered
themselves considerably better than the two teenage louts. By the early evening
they’d had their tongues down each other’s throats, so pissed they didn’t even
notice the responses any more. But Brian had been particularly loud.
“I don’t fucking believe it!” Even through a fog of alcohol, Ripley recognised
the voice, and pushed the protesting David away in order to look up. All three
had stared at each other, frowning silently, for a long moment. Typically,
David spoke up first.
“Brian! How delightful to see you again! Still got a hard-on for rules and
regulations?” Brian glared at him, but it was Ripley he spoke to.
“You had a chance, kid. You could have done something with your life. But
instead you’re just letting that sick son-of-a-bitch fuck you over?”
“Oh, he lets me fuck him over and over!” David retorted, running his tongue
along his upper lip, slowly and obscenely. Brian ignored him.
“I should have told you everything, back when I had a chance. You don’t know
half the things he’s done!” Brian’s hatred of David was clear in every word.
Apparently he couldn’t even bring himself to look at David, his eyes focused on
Ripley as if David wasn’t even there. “He’s still doing them, you mark my words
boy. You think you’re special? That’s what he wants you to think!” Ripley shook
his head, starting to get angry.
“What gives you the right to act so fucking high and mighty?” He demanded. He
pulled free of David, staggering to his feet. “You sent me back to my father,
you arsehole! Three fucking days he beat me into the ground, and what did any
of you bastards at Whittingham do about it?” Brian stared at him, mouth open,
unable to think of a response for a moment. “It was David who saved me, not
you. David turned my life around, not the fucking looney bin! I don’t give a
shit what he’s done, I fucking love him!”
In his drunken haze it was the first time he’d actually said the words out
loud. Brian was speechless, but David was standing too now, sliding his arms
around Ripley from behind.
“I love you too, you crazy little bastard.” There was a cruel amusement in
David’s voice. He kissed Ripley’s neck, nuzzling against the skin. Brian stood
for a few moments, gawping at them, and then he shook his head.
“I give up.” He said quietly, and he turned and walked away.
Another memory that the years had warped, Ripley thought sadly. At the time it
had been another example of him and David against the world. They’d gone home
and fucked into the small hours. He really hadloved David, he knew that. But
now he was pretty sure that David had never been capable of loving him in
return. He could even see the scene from Brian’s perspective: Ripley was just a
pawn to David. Brian wanted to save the lad from David’s clutches, and so David
had proved to him that he couldn’t. It was the beginning of the end, really, a
few short months before Ripley’s eighteenth birthday...
“Not a happy memory, then?” David’s teasing voice intruded on his thoughts.
Ripley sighed, shaking his head.
“Let’s go to Whittingham.”
                                       *
Ripley didn’t tell David that he’d been out to Whittingham recently, but it was
probably obvious from the fact he knew exactly how to get in, and where the old
central block was. It looked different in the daylight, though – both more and
less familiar in turns. They sat down on the grass at the edge of the parking
area out front, and looked out across the grounds. This bit of the development
was almost complete, and they’d laid new squares of lawn turf over the torn up
ground where the construction lorries had been. It was almost tranquil.
“It seems smaller, somehow.” David said at last. Ripley nodded, lighting up and
offering David the packet.
“You ever been in the bin since?” He asked. From David’s tone, it sounded as if
Whittingham had had as big an impact on him as it had had on Ripley, and he was
almost surprised to consider that it might have been David’s one and only time
in a psych unit. David shook his head.
“Brian didn’t get all his predictions right, you know.”
“You mean you got better at not getting caught?” Ripley teased. David chuckled.
“Something like that. These days, I think if I did it’d be prison anyway.”
“So Whittingham cured you!” Ripley’s words were sarcastic. David laughed again,
louder this time.
“They liked to think so. It was good for the statistics, wasn’t it? Two
teenagers, returned to sanity and society: a triumph of the last days of the
great psychiatric hospitals!” He shrugged. “Not that I’m complaining, mind. I
was quite happy here, in a way.” Ripley nodded.
“Well, the outside world was fucking shit.” He pointed out. David stretched his
legs out, lying back on the short, too-green grass and gazing up at the autumn
sun.
“I nearly got caught once, about ten years back.” He admitted. “For assault,
mind, not any of the other business. I had a long think about it all then. I
figured if I went down I could easily enough stay out of Broadmoor, despite
what Brian reckoned. But I could just as easily get into it, if I wanted.”
“You fucking psychopath.” Ripley retorted. David laughed and shrugged.
“Maybe. Anyway, the case fell through so I never had to decide which was
better.”
“Are you in trouble again?” Ripley asked. “That’s why you came back?”
“Not the law.” David said. “But… Well, I told you I never found another partner
like you, right? I got better at hustling alone, but it’s harder when there’s
no one to watch your back. And I was never any good at keeping my mouth shut.”
He paused for a moment, taking a drag on his cigarette. “So I pissed off the
wrong people. Really fucking pissed them off. They wanted me dead; I got out of
town.” He pulled a face. “But I had to get something out of it, and that pissed
them off even more. So I need to leave the country, at least for a few years
until it dies down.”
“Where did all this happen?” Ripley asked.
“Manchester.”
“Manchester! And you only came as far as fucking Blackpool?!” Ripley sat up,
shaking his head. David leant on one elbow, gazing up at Ripley for a moment.
“I need you to muddy the waters for me.” He admitted. “I can’t have them
working out where I’ve gone. The police investigation will only buy me a few
days – once things calm down they’ll come looking.”
“Why me?” Ripley didn’t know how to feel about all this. “I haven’t seen you in
twenty fucking years!”
“Exactly.” David laughed a little. “I don’t play well with others, you know
that. I thought at least the years might have made you think more kindly of
me.” He tilted his head, a slight smile playing across his face. “I was right,
wasn’t I?” Ripley shrugged, a little grudgingly.
“You spent three fucking years using me for your own ends while you were
fucking your way round Blackpool.” His words didn’t sound quite as angry as
he’d meant them to. David merely laughed.
“Like you’re a fucking saint!”
“I never raped anyone, David. I never took a fucking knife to them.” He shook
his head. “No matter what, I still don’t understand why you needed to do that
when I-“ He broke off. He’d been going to say, “when I would have done anything
for you” but it sounded too pathetic even in his head. David pulled a face.
“Like you said, I’m a fucking psychopath.” David was teasing; Ripley knew he
didn’t really believe his words. In David’s mind, it was perfectly logical for
him to simply take whatever he wanted and play other people any way he needed
in order to do so. Ripley frowned. He still thought there was something else
behind all this, but he couldn’t quite work it out.
David reached out a hand to run it lazily down Ripley’s chest.
“Come to Vegas with me.” He said at last. “No secrets this time. You know what
I’m like, and I know you still want me despite that.” His fingers flicked, one
by one, across Ripley’s groin. “It’ll be like old times.”
Ripley shook his head.
“I’m not leaving my family, David.” He said firmly. A smirk played across
David’s mouth.
“You might not have a choice.”
“What the fuck do you mean?” Ripley was on his guard now, sitting up with
muscles tense, ready to rise at a moment’s notice. David’s hand fell onto the
grass, and then he sat up lazily.
“For an experienced con man, you really aren’t that sharp sometimes, are you
Ripley?” He teased. He saw Ripley’s body tense again, and he held up a hand.
“No, no, I’m not threatening you. I’m just explaining something I thought you’d
have worked out by now. The body.” Ripley’s brow furrowed.
“What about it?”
“Sweetheart, you can’t have failed to notice that you’re the prime suspect for
murder!” David pointed out. “Maybe you think you’re safe because you know
you’re innocent. But you’re implicated, all the same. I’ve given you enough
witnesses to my return to point the finger, sure. It might, after all, be the
only way you can avoid taking the rap yourself.” He paused for moment. He
sounded like he was enjoying this. “But you can’t do that without opening a
whole other can of worms. How do you know it was me? What do you know about the
other murder? And just what was our relationship?” David grinned, showing his
teeth. “You’ll lose your family either way. Come with me before you get
arrested and at least they’ll never know for sure what you’ve done!” Ripley
shook his head, starting to get to his feet. Despite everything, he’d never
seen this coming.
“You bastard!” His words were hissed, he could barely force them out. David
laughed.
“Well, I really didn’t know you were going to be so obliging, darling. I
thought it might take a bit longer to persuade you to help me, not that you’d
be so fucking desperate you’d jump my bones the first time we met!”
Ripley punched him, then, full in the face. David was expecting this, of
course, and although he went down he was soon struggling to his feet, so that
they both stood facing each other: Ripley breathing hard and angrily, David
smirking a little despite the blood running down his face.
“Brian was fucking right about you!” Ripley snarled. David laughed.
“Admit it, baby, you always kind of knew he was.” He retorted. “You wanted me
just the same.”
The worst of it was, Ripley thought as he drew back his fist again, that David
was right. This thought only made him angrier, and he knocked David down again.
This time he dove on top of him, so that they were struggling on the turf,
grappling with each other. David was fighting back now, and they tumbled a
little down the hill, hands pulling at each other. Ripley tried to rise to get
a better punch in, but David dragged him down, managing to get his hands around
Ripley’s neck until Ripley kneed him in the stomach. David doubled up,
releasing his grip, and that gave Ripley enough strength to struggle to his
knees, driving his fist into David’s face again and again.
Despite the agony he must have been in, David somehow managed to raise a hand,
but Ripley only noticed when he felt the pressure on his cock through his
trousers. He hadn’t even realised until then that he had a hard-on. He paused,
and David’s hand stroked up and down his groin, just once. And then he spat
blood to say.
“And you still fucking want me, baby!” He laughed, gurgling a little. Ripley
shook his head. Afterwards he blamed the adrenaline, but at the time he barely
even thought about it. He swatted David’s hand away, and grabbed at his hips to
haul him roughly over onto his front. David didn’t respond as Ripley yanked
down his trousers, releasing his own cock with one hand as he did so. He spat
on his hand, a bit of cursory lubrication, before he angled his erection
between David’s buttocks, penetrating him rather roughly.
The entire thing was over in a matter of minutes. Ripley’s hands gripped
David’s shoulders hard, pinning him down as his cock stabbed into him, fucking
him with a lack of finesse that nonetheless built quickly into orgasm. He could
taste David’s blood in his mouth, dimly hear David gurgling in pain beneath
him, but neither of these two things did anything to stop the build of pleasure
inside him that rapidly overtook him. He grunted as he ejaculated into David,
still breathing hard as he withdrew almost immediately.
Ripley sat back on his heels, looking down at David’s bruised and motionless
body. He doubted David had got much out of this, although he reasoned that one
could hardly call it rape. Maybe it had been David’s plan all along or maybe he
had just pulled Ripley into it on a whim. Either way, it was all part of
David’s fucked up Machiavellian mind game! He shook his head, tucking his cock
away and fastening his trousers. David rolled slowly over and, his anger spent,
Ripley was shocked for a moment to see the mess he’d made of his former friend.
“Admiring your handiwork?” David said with some amusement. “Like father like
son, eh?” Ripley didn’t rise to the bait.
“You want me to take you to hospital?” He asked. David shook his head, slowly.
“Nah, too dangerous. I’ll be all right.” His voice was choked. But then he
smiled, barely visible beneath the blood. “I’ll take that as a yes, though.” He
added. Ripley didn’t have to ask what he meant.
***** Betrayal *****
They went to a hotel in the end: a down market place at the wrong end of the
seafront where Ripley thought there’d be no questions. The receptionist
flinched, nonetheless, when she saw the state of David.
“What happened?” She asked, eyes wide.
“Fight.” Ripley said shortly.
“Shall I call the police?”
“No need.” Ripley said, and then, when her hand continued to hover over the
telephone, he added more firmly. “No! We just need a place to clean up. I’ll
pay cash up front.” She nodded and took the money, glancing at David every so
often all the same. He was leaning heavily on the counter, looking pale under
the blood. When Ripley got him upstairs, he collapsed onto the bed. Ripley had
to undress him, rolling up his own sleeves and touching David quite gingerly
despite the fact he’d caused the injuries himself. There were bruises spreading
across David’s ribs and stomach, and his face was a bloody mess. Ripley
swallowed, shaking his head. Like David had said, it reminded him of his
father. Although Andrew Price had usually left Ripley’s face untouched, so that
the bruises were easier to hide.
“You’re not enjoying this, are you?” David sounded almost intrigued. Ripley
well remembered David’s reaction to his own injuries way back when: an eager
“can I see?” and a sharp hissing intake of breath when Ripley slowly peeled off
his t-shirt. There had been a fire in David’s eyes, a desperate lust that
hadn’t bothered Ripley at the time because he had wanted David just as badly.
He didn’t care exactly why David wanted him, wasn’t even especially bothered
that his injuries turned David on...
“I don’t share your interests, David.” Ripley helped him to his feet, leading
him to the bathroom and turning the taps on the bath on full.
“So, the fight turns you on but not the aftermath?” David said, sounding
intrigued. Ripley gave a noncommittal grunt in reply. The water was warm, and
he helped David into it, starting to sponge him down gently. He’d meant what he
said; he didn’t get off on blood and bruising the way David did. But it was a
strange experience, nonetheless. Beating someone to a pulp and then cleaning
them up was bound to be, he supposed. But he hadn’t expected it to be so oddly
intimate, so that the last vestiges of his anger seemed to be rinsed away with
the blood.
And yet nothing had changed! David had still set him up, after all. Ripley just
didn’t seem to care anymore. David noticed the shift in his mood, of course.
“I know you won’t believe it, but I missed you.” He said softly. Ripley
snorted. “It’s true!” David insisted. “I’ve never met anyone who meant a
fucking thing to me, except you.”
“You used me.” Ripley said shortly, dabbing the sponge across David’s face.
“I know.” David’s voice was sincere. “But that doesn’t mean I didn’t care about
you.”
Ripley wanted to believe David, really he did. Maybe, after all, David was
right. Ripley strongly suspected that David didn’t know any way to relate to
people otherthan by using them. But he’d trusted David, once upon a time, and
look where that had got him. He sighed.
“I suggest you stay here for a couple of days at the most. That should give you
time enough to plan the trip to Vegas. You want me to muddy the waters, I’ll do
it. But I’m not coming after you, David. Not this time.”
David nodded, smiling almost fondly through the ruin of his face.
“Thank you, sweetheart.”
                                       *
Ripley had a shower and cleaned himself up as best he could, making a note of
the extension number of the phone in case he needed to check in with David.
He’d have to talk to him before he left anyway, work out the best way to keep
those Manchester lads off David’s trail. He drove back to the arcade, so lost
in thought that for a moment he forgot about the murder.
Carlisle was waiting for him outside.
“I need to take you in for questioning, Mr Holden. Would you like to come with
me, or meet me at the station?”
“I’d like to go home for me dinner!” Ripley retorted, but he’d given Natalie a
call to tell her he’d be late and gone to the station all the same. At least
David had prepared him. He was surprised at himself for not having considered
all the things David had pointed out to him, but then he guessed David’s return
had rather overshadowed everything else.
They didn’t seem to know all that much, thankfully. No mention of David, as
yet, although as luck would have it someone remembered Ripley himself trying to
start a fight with Mike Hooley at Romeo’s. Ripley had been drunk enough on the
opening night that he didn’t much remember, but that was doubtless why David
had chosen that particular lad to murder. It didn’t help that Ripley had come
in for questioning with bruised knuckles and torn and dirty clothing.
“Are you often involved in fistfights, Mr Holden?” DC Blythe, Carlisle’s
irritatingly juvenile partner asked him.
“Not as a rule, no. I’m an upstanding member of the community, me!”
“But you have been in a fight today?” Carlisle followed up. Ripley could hardly
deny it.
“More of an altercation, really.”
“And did you have an altercation with Mike Hooley?”
Ripley continued to deny everything, and in the end Carlisle had to let him go.
When he got home it was late, but Natalie had kept his dinner warm. He gave her
a grateful kiss, but of course she couldn’t help but notice the state of him,
backing away.
“Have you been in a fight?” She sounded horrified.
“Jesus, dad!” Shyanne chimed in. “What happened? What did you do?!”
“A misunderstanding, that’s all.” Ripley tried to brush the whole thing aside.
“I’ve had a shitty day, and that fucking detective harassing me all through
dinner instead of doing his job and finding the bastard that killed that lad’s
the last fucking straw!” He went and poured himself a whiskey while he spoke.
“Are you in trouble, dad?” Shyanne tried to keep the interrogation going.
“Leave it, Shyanne.” Natalie intervened, fetching Ripley’s dinner and carrying
it to the table. “Can’t you see your dad’s tired? Let him have some peace for
once.” She shooed Shyanne out of the kitchen, and then came and sat down with
Ripley while he ate in silence. After a bit, she reached out for the bottle and
poured herself a whiskey as well.
“Are you going to tell me what’s going on?” She asked, when he finished eating.
“What do you mean?” Ripley frowned. “I’d like to know what’s fucking going on!
Isn’t that what the police are supposed to be figuring out?” Natalie chewed her
lip. Then she reached out across the table and laid her hand on Ripley’s.
“Let me tell you what I think.” She said. “I think this David’s trouble. That’s
why you didn’t want to invite him to dinner.”
“Where the hell did you get that idea from?” His words didn’t put her off.
“Ripley, I’m not stupid. And I have a good memory. Back when we first met,
there was someone you warned me about. You never mentioned him by name, but you
were scared of him. You thought he’d come after you, and by extension me. Do
you remember?” There was a short pause. Ripley wondered what to say, what to
admit to. And then, slowly, he nodded.
“It was David, wasn’t it?” She continued. Eventually, Ripley nodded again.
Natalie squeezed his hand, and then she let it go and sat back.
“You don’t have to tell me what he did, Ripley. You don’t have to tell me what
he wants now. But if there’s anything I can do to help, to keep the kids safe –
to keep you safe – you know I’d do it, right?”
Dumbly, Ripley nodded again. He reached for the bottle, and topped up both
their glasses without asking. Then he cleared his throat.
“He’s not coming back.” He said. “You don’t have to worry, Natalie.” He knew
how she’d take his words, after the state he’d come home in, but he didn’t
care.
                                       *
Although Ripley felt more prepared after David’s confession, events conspired
to take an unexpected turn that even David couldn’t have anticipated. In the
midst of everything, Shyanne decided to introduce her parents to her boyfriend,
Steve. Steve turned out to be Ripley’s age. Although the age difference
certainly bothered Ripley, what bothered him more was the realisation that he
and Steve had been at school together. Steve knew about the suicide attempt,
because he’d been one of the five kids Ripley picked at random to send notes
about: Dear Mr and Mrs So-and-so, I had to kill myself because your son made my
life hell. He couldn’t bear the thought of checking out without creating a bit
more chaos. The notes had come up a lot during his time at Whittingham.
Presumably they were seen as yet another thing that marked Ripley out as
unhinged.
If Steve let anything slip, the entire investigation would take another track.
As yet, Ripley was pretty sure the police hadn’t realised Ripley Holden was not
the name he’d been born with, and so probably hadn’t uncovered his psychiatric
history. When they did, that would be the first in a chain of links leading to
David. So Ripley had warned Steve off, knowing how easily he could scare him.
And it had seemed to work, for a day or two. But he hadn’t counted on Shyanne’s
persistence. She’d worn Steve down, and he’d confessed everything.
“He said you tried to kill yourself, dad!” Shyanne stood in the hallway, hands
on her hips, eyes blazing.
“It were a long time ago! I was just a messed up kid.” Ripley protested. He
hadn’t wanted his family to know, but they were all there, staring: Danny
stunned, Shyanne furious at the way he’d treated Steve, Natalie concerned. He
sighed, trying to work out his confession. “Look, me dad was a monster. I
couldn’t work out how to get away from him. My mother was so spaced out I don’t
think she even noticed I existed.” He shook his head. “It were a stupid thing
to do, I know that now. But I was desperate.”
Natalie squeezed his arm.
“You don’t have to explain yourself.” She reassured him: that Samaritans
training coming through.
“He bloody well does!” Shyanne was still angry. “You warned Steve off, dad. You
haven’t changed, have you? Still playing with people’s lives!”
“It’s for your own good, Shyanne. He’s too old for you!” Ripley tried changing
tack, but this just sent Shyanne’s fury up another notch.
“I don’t even know who you are anymore!” She flung the words at him as she
turned to storm out of the house. Ripley took a step to go after her, but
Natalie laid a hand on his arm.
“Give her some time to calm down.”
But time was something Ripley didn’t have, because he knew it wouldn’t be long
before the police came calling again. The very next morning, in fact, just
three days after Ripley had beaten David up, DI Carlisle turned up at the
arcade.
“Can I have a word, Mr Holden?”
“Still out to ruin my business, detective?” Ripley didn’t feel particularly
gracious towards the policeman.
“Well, I could do this formally if you’d prefer. But I actually thought it
would be better for your business if we talked here, rather than letting your
customers see me drag you down to the station.”
Ripley had no choice, really, other than to take Carlisle up to the office. He
threw himself into the leather chair behind his desk, in front of full-length
windows, looking out over the arcade floor.
“Make it snappy, I’m a busy man.”
Carlisle folded himself into a seat opposite Ripley.
“We’ve been looking into your past associates, Mr Holden. Something’s come up
that rather surprised me, and I’d like to get your side of the story before we
take things any further.” The detective regarded him thoughtfully for a moment
and Ripley shrugged. Carlisle went on.
“Nearly thirty years ago, the local papers reported the attempted suicide of a
young Blackpool lad named John Wesley Price. The reporter seemed to think
Price’s drunken misdemeanour was the act of a young hooligan, but the
authorities were more charitable and ruled him mentally ill. He spent ten
months in Whittingham Psychiatric Hospital, and then he more or less
disappeared.” Ripley didn’t say anything, although Carlisle seemed to be
waiting for a reaction. When he didn’t get one, he eventually continued. “There
appears to be little in the official record on John Wesley Price after that
until a few years later. A deed was issued to change the name of John Wesley
Price of Blackpool, Lancashire, to Ripley Holden.” Carlisle sat back and
waited.
“If you know all that, what do you need me to tell you?” Ripley asked.
“I’d quite like to know what happened in the period for which no records
exist.” Carlisle spoke smoothly. “I should add that we’re approaching the
relevant authorities for access to your medical files. If it’s deemed relevant
to either murder, we will get them. So I thought I should give you an
opportunity to explain the situation first.”
“Either murder?” Ripley knew exactly what Carlisle was talking about, but he
pretended not to understand.
“The one in 1979. I mentioned it before, remember?” Carlisle’s face was
impassive. “Two years after you left Whittingham, and a few months before you
changed your name.” Ripley snorted.
“You’re insinuating that’s why I changed my name? Well, let me put you
straight.” He was angry, despite himself. This was why he hated the fucking
authorities. They’d done nothing to help him when he needed it, and now dared
to suggest that what he’d managed to do for himself was suspicious?
“I changed my name because it’s what my religious nutter of a father christened
me. You ask anyone at Whittingham, and they’ll tell you I was calling myself
Ripley even then. So there’s no record for several years? Well, that’s what
happens to homeless teenagers, did you know that? They disappear! I tried to
kill myself to escape my father’s belt. Whittingham gave me respite, sure, but
then they sent me back to him. So all I could do was walk out. When I turned
sixteen, they couldn’t make me go back. But until I was eighteen I couldn’t get
a bank account, I couldn’t get a flat, I couldn’t get a passport and I couldn’t
change my fucking name!” Ripley’s words were furious by the end. He stared at
the complacent face of the smug Scottish detective, breathing hard, fists
clenched. Carlisle nodded.
“It must have been a difficult time.” His concern didn’t sound genuine to
Ripley. “So where did you go? Who did you stay with?”
“I found a place in a squat.” Ripley knew he should probably mention David: it
was hardly going to stay a secret for long. “I was with a friend, a kid I knew
from Whittingham. It was hard, but we looked out for each other.”
“Can you tell me the name of the friend?”
“David.” Ripley admitted. “David Williams.”
Carlisle noted everything down, but there wasn’t much more he could glean from
Ripley as yet. Ripley found himself wondering what they’d get from Whittingham.
Since the hospital had closed down, he wasn’t quite sure where his records
would have ended up. Could the police get access to them, with just a suspicion
to go on? He didn’t even know what they said, but it was highly likely the
notes expressed concern about his relationship with David, given that those
concerns had been voiced by the staff often enough. If nothing else, Carlisle
would find out just how intense his connection to David had been. He found he
rather enjoyed imagining the look of shock passing over the detective’s smug
superior face when he did!
                                       *
Ripley was still angry when he left the arcade. He’d got through those years,
sure: even enjoyed a lot of it, with David at his side. But he still hated the
authorities for what they’d failed to do for him. It had taken him and David a
while to work out how to survive, after Whittingham. David was sixteen by that
point, Ripley not far off. But they’d been rather less street-wise than they’d
thought they were. Ripley’s parents might have been useless on many fronts, but
he’d been fed and clothed at least. David had grown up in the care system,
which was a similar experience. And life in Whittingham hadn’t taught them
anything other than how to get each other off – and hide most of what they were
doing from the nurses.
After the first few days of blissfully enjoying each other’s bodies, the pair
had a sharp wake-up. They had no money, and no real idea of how to get any.
They lived on crisps and chocolate pinched from the local newsagents, with the
occasional cold Co-op pasty. The weather was getting colder, and neither of
them even had a jumper, still less a winter coat. David had managed, just
about, over the last few months. But he seemed to have been expecting Ripley’s
arrival to be a magic solution to the problems of being young and homeless. It
wasn’t.
After a couple of weeks, they were cold, hungry and miserable. They’d tried a
bit of begging, but didn’t seem to earn much. Ripley, trusting to luck,
suggested they put everything they’d got so far into the slot machines. It was
in the arcade that David came up with another solution. They’d both heard about
the creepy old perverts who lurked in some of the less popular amusements,
hoping to get lucky with some needy young lad. Why not get paid for it? David
suggested. Ripley baulked at the idea, but it did seem like a relatively easy
way to get some cash. And if they were ever going to get out of Blackpool,
that’s what they needed.
“Close your eyes and think of Vegas!” David joked, squeezing Ripley’s arm.
Ripley swallowed, feeling sick. He couldn’t answer, just walked away from his
boyfriend, finding a machine in the corner of the arcade.
They took opposite sides of the place. Ripley couldn’t see David among the
fruit machines, which made him still more nervous. He glanced around him,
looking for a likely punter. He only had a few coins, so he couldn’t really
hang about for that long. He rubbed a coin between his fingers, hoping against
hope that he could get out of this. He pushed it into the slot, but didn’t
quite dare to start the reels spinning.
“All right, lad?” The sound of a voice behind him made him jump. He must have
been standing there motionless for a while, for someone to have got that close.
Ripley spun round. The man was about forty, slightly overweight and a little
flushed and sweaty, but not too unpleasant looking. He didn’t look like a sex
pest, but then Ripley figured not everyone could fit the trench-coated
stereotype.
“Aye, not bad.” He managed to keep his voice from shaking. “You looking for
someone?” He wasn’t quite sure what to say, but that seemed to work.
“I could be.” The man continued, glancing around him briefly. It couldn’t have
escaped his notice that Ripley was considerably under age. “How much?”
“Twenty quid?” He and David hadn’t really considered how much the going rate
might be. The man frowned, looking Ripley up and down, and Ripley thought for a
moment he’d asked for too much. But then the chap nodded.
“All right.”
No sense leaving without playing, Ripley thought. He hit the button, watching
the reels spin. He was so busy thinking about having to go with this bloke that
he didn’t notice when the first two lined up. And then the lights on the front
of the machine started flashing, and music blared out. Ripley jumped, stunned.
He’d hit the jackpot!
As coins started clattering out of the machine, the pervert beat a hasty
retreat, realising immediately that the jackpot would attract attention. Ripley
stood stunned for a moment longer, hypnotised by the falling coins. Then he
stepped back, realising something.
“David!” He yelled across the arcade floor. “David!!” He caught sight of David
walking towards the doorway, striding confidently despite the fact he too must
have been nervous, an anorak-clad man shuffling a good few feet behind him. He
took another step to the side, not wanting to move away from the machine.
“DAVID!!” He shouted at the top of his voice, and thankfully David heard him,
turning in surprise. When he realised what was happening he started to run,
practically throwing himself into Ripley’s arms. But then everyone expected a
celebration when the machines paid out, so two teenagers hugging each other on
the arcade floor didn’t raise too many eyebrows.
Ripley won £70 that day. That was a lot of money in 1977: a packet of fags was
only about 50p, Ripley remembered. That day was when his luck had changed,
although it wasn’t the last of their problems by a long shot. They’d celebrated
with fish and chips and cider on the sea front, but that still left plenty more
cash. And Ripley was determined they’d never be in the same position again.
That was when he’d first got a taste for business, he reckoned: although their
business had been rather less legal in those days! But the tricks they’d learnt
had certainly set Ripley in good stead when he’d got started in the arcade
business. There was nothing he didn’t know about the ways people cheat the
machines. And little he didn’t know about cheating folk in other ways. David
was right, they had been a good team. It turned out to be easy when you didn’t
look desperate. They both had the gift of the gab, the ability to charm people
into opening their wallets and losing their guard.
Now, though, Ripley needed to know more about what had happened in Manchester
and how to deflect attention away from David. And, with the police likely to be
on David’s trail soon, he needed to do it now, before it was too late.
Even though it was unlikely Carlisle was following him, he took an unusual
route to the hotel just in case, parking at some distance, ducking through back
streets he knew well, but that could easily confuse someone rather less local.
The same receptionist was on duty, and he nodded at her.
“Room 203, okay?”
“Yeah, he’s still there.” She managed a smile, still not sure if the two of
them were friends or rivals. “He’s looking better.”
David was, indeed, looking better. He opened the door wearing just a t-shirt
and boxers. He was still bruised to fuck, but the swelling had gone down, which
made him look more like his usual handsome and sardonic self.
“Don’t tell me. A delivery of grapes and dirty magazines for the invalid?” He
asked, stepping back to let Ripley in. Ripley laughed.
“I’ve got a bottle of Scotch. Will that do?”
“Ah.” David said thoughtfully. “Then this is goodbye.” Ripley nodded, taking
his jacket off and throwing it down on the back of the single chair by the
window.
“The coppers have got wind of Whittingham. Only a matter of time before they’re
searching for you. Coming here today was a risk. But if I’m going to help you,
I need to know more.”
“Mmm…” David clearly didn’t think that was the real reason Ripley had come in
person. “You could have just phoned.” Ripley raised an eyebrow.
“I could have done, yeah.” They both knew what he meant. They also knew it
indicated that he’d forgiven David, at least to some extent. Or perhaps just
accepted him for what he was.
“So what do they know?” David asked, fetching two plastic tooth glasses from
the bathroom and unwrapping the cellophane. He took the bottle Ripley passed to
him, filling each glass halfway as Ripley threw himself down onto the end of
the bed. He took the glass David proffered him, and David sat opposite, leaning
back slightly in the chair.
“Not much.” Ripley assured him. “They know I was there and why. And they know
when I changed my name. Somehow Carlisle’s got that all tied up with the
murder.” He rolled his eyes, then looked at David for a moment. “The other one,
I mean. And they know your real name.” David shrugged, and Ripley added, “I
take it that’s not what your passport calls you?” David laughed.
“I learnt that trick more than twenty years ago. It doesn’t call me Britten
either, of course.”
Ripley nodded, not surprised.
“When do you go?”
“Tomorrow, probably. Day after at the latest. I need to pick a roundabout
route, so it’ll be Europe first I reckon. We’ll see from there.”
Ripley knocked back a good measure of whiskey, contemplating this for a moment.
Then he said, in quite serious tones.
“You’re not going to Vegas, are you?” David grinned slowly.
“You’re getting quicker off the mark, honey!” He took a slow sip of his drink.
“Vegas is just a convincing destination. At least it is for you to sell to all
and sundry.” Ripley nodded.
“Thought as much.” He held his already nearly empty glass out to David, who
topped it up without another word. They were both silent for a little while.
Then Ripley said. “So, what can you tell me?”
David stretched his legs out, so that they almost touched Ripley’s,
contemplating this.
“They know me as Britten in Manchester.” He began. “That’s why I tossed that
name to that policeman friend of yours. When I say ‘they’, it’s a family
business – name of Donovan. If you hear that name, then keep looking over your
shoulder. My guess is they won’t come near you, though. Got no reason to, and
Carlisle’s interest will help keep you safe. They’re pretty high profile, for a
drugs ring – not scallies, certainly. They have international reach, and rather
good contacts with the cops locally. They’ve no business interest in Blackpool,
though, which is another reason why it seemed a good starting point. They’ll
have no connection to Albright, or even that Scottish fellow that’s come down.
So they’ll be biding their time, right now.”
Ripley nodded, taking all this in.
“Are you going to tell me what you took? Money? Drugs?” He paused a second and
when David didn’t answer, he added. “Both?” David shook his head.
“I’m not going to tell you. If for any reason they get a hint you might know
anything about that, then I wouldn’t count on your family’s safety.” He sounded
so serious that Ripley snorted.
“As if you give a monkey’s about my family’s safety!” His words were rather
bitter. David started, actually looking surprised for a moment, and then his
face crinkled into a smile.
“Maybe I have hidden depths.” He wiggled his eyebrows, and Ripley laughed
despite himself.
“Aye, I’ve explored most of them, you dirty bastard.”
David picked up the whiskey bottle, shifting his chair a bit closer to the bed.
His leg brushed against Ripley’s as he re-filled their glasses. Ripley found
himself shivering a little. There was something about this moment: knowing that
this was it, the last time. He swallowed.
“So every little seed you want me to sow goes via Carlisle, is that it?” He
tried to pull them back on track. David nodded.
“They’ll never realise it's a con that way. The best part is I can tell that
detective gets right up your nose. So you’ll make him work for the
information.” He laughed. “That’ll keep them on their toes!” Ripley nodded.
“And that’s it? That’s your entire work of evil fucking genius?” He teased.
David pulled a face.
“Best to keep things simple. That’s where most evil geniuses go wrong, after
all.” His face was creased with amusement.
“True enough.” Ripley agreed. Then he tilted his head, looking at David a
moment. “And what do Iget out of it?”
David leaned forward, his voice throaty.
“What do you want to get out of it, baby?”
“Let’s see…” Ripley pretended to consider. “How about 100 grand, for starters?”
He fixed David with a look, and David rolled his eyes.
“You know full well the con doesn’t work if there’s any evidence you get
anything.” He pointed out. He reached forward, placing his hand on Ripley's
leg, fingers stroking gently up the inside of Ripley’s thigh. “What happens in
this room, however…” Ripley shrugged carelessly.
“Well, in that case, you can top the glass up and suck my cock.” He held the
cup out towards David. “For starters, mind.”
David chuckled, and reached for the bottle.
                                       *
In some ways, Ripley could hardly believe that David was the same man as the
smooth yet viciously unhinged kid of a quarter-century ago. When he was here,
with David, it was hard even to remember Mike Hooley’s body, lying cold and
bloody on the arcade floor. The fight of a few days back seemed aeons ago as he
relaxed back onto the bed, eyelids fluttering. Although he’d asked for more
whiskey the cup was forgotten, just about remaining upright as it rested in the
hand he had flung out beside him.
When he felt David’s breath, warm on the soft skin of his penis, Ripley sighed
a little. His cock swelled rapidly, David’s tongue brushing along it. David’s
lips met his balls, sucking slightly against the skin and Ripley groaned. Most
of what they’d learned, back in the day, they’d learnt from each other. David
had certainly had practice since, though. The cup crinkled in Ripley’s hand as
he clenched his fingers, the plastic making a sharp cracking sound as David’s
mouth slid over his cock, taking it right down so that his nose was almost
buried in Ripley’s pubic hair.
Every moment with David seemed to bring back a host of memories: the unwanted
as well as the pleasurable. Right now, however, all Ripley could think about
was the countless times they’d been in this situation before. Fleeting images
of their young bodies writhing, entwined together on a dirty mattress, of going
down on David in a less than pleasant public toilet, and barely even noticing
that his knees were damp on the grimy floor... Ripley groaned again, the cup
cracking in his hand, sticky, sweet whiskey covering his fingers.
He looked down at David, watching through half-lidded eyes as his cock emerged
from David’s mouth only to disappear again, the warm cavern of David’s throat
enveloping him. His body felt too warm, every nerve on edge, every hair
standing on end. He reached down, running his fingers through David’s hair.
David tilted his head, glancing up at Ripley from a rather awkward angle as he
reached the tip of Ripley’s penis, letting it slip from between his lips. And
then he smiled. That same smile Ripley remembered from the day he first met
David; from when he had run into him again in the pub a few nights back; from
every occasion when they’d rowed and David had got round Ripley somehow. He
groaned. It was all too much. As David swallowed Ripley’s cock one last time a
wave of pleasure crashed over his body, and he came, the last remnants of the
broken plastic cup slipping from his fingers.
                                       *
The rest of the evening passed in a blur. There was more whiskey. There were
hands and tongues running over naked bodies, all slightly whiskey soaked. The
last time Ripley remembered it quite that intense was the night after they came
back from London, when they’d both been so grateful to be back in familiar
territory that they’d spent a good twelve hours lost in each other’s bodies,
barely pausing to eat or sleep.
London… As Ripley lay in a half-conscious daze in David’s arms, he couldn’t
help but re-live it. Meeting Brian had spurred them into leaving Blackpool.
Seeing him again reminded them both of the plans they’d once had, the scheme
that had somehow got lost in nearly two years of con tricks and petty theft, of
sex and fraud and more sex. They both wondered why they’d forgotten their
determination to escape.
So London had seemed like the obvious first step in resurrecting their dreams.
They both thought they could make money more quickly in the big city. And then
the next stop was Vegas! They even had passports, issued in the names of long
dead children and obtained via a new network of contacts that gave them both a
burst of pride. They weren’t penniless and naïve now – far from it! They
travelled to London on train tickets purchased in cash, with a small amount of
luggage and a cheap hotel at the other end.
They lasted a little more than a month. What they hadn’t anticipated was that
London already seemed to be divided up into an intricate network of
territories. There was much more and well-established competition than in
Blackpool, where they knew all too well where to work and who to sell on to. In
London, they didn’t know a soul. They got driven on several times and, despite
bloodied knuckles and battered faces, they couldn’t seem to find a niche. David
wasn’t the only person who was handy with a knife, and on one occasion they
even got threatened at gunpoint into handing over nearly everything they had.
In just over a week they were sleeping on the street, sheltering from the rain
in doorways and under bridges.
This was homelessness of a far more dismal quality than their Blackpool squat.
Huddled in the same sleeping bag, each day left them more depressed, more
frustrated. Sex was a near impossibility. David became a ball of pent-up fury,
nearly getting himself killed in one fight before Ripley dragged him away,
taunting passers-by in a constant stream of bitter provocation. Ripley was too
dispirited to do much more than beg a few quid to spend on cider. Vegas seemed
further away than it had done even in Blackpool. When Ripley heard the rumble
of a train passing nearby, the noise seemed to beckon him, once again hinting
at a way out.
The worst of it was that David refused to give up. Ripley alternately pleaded
with and railed at David to come back to Blackpool but David flatly refused,
saying that if Ripley was going to chicken out and return then it would be
alone. And Ripley couldn’t imagine being alone, not after all that time.
The end came unexpectedly, in the guise of the sort of fight they’d tried to
provoke often enough in Blackpool. It had been a grey, drizzly day, and they
were curled up together in a doorway a few streets off the South Bank. They’d
been begging out there earlier but had given up to try and get some rest,
huddled exhausted in each other’s arms for warmth.
“Look, Tom! A pair of queer tramps!” A jeering voice called out. A stocky man
somewhere in his late twenties with a shaven head was standing a few feet away.
His friend laughed.
“It’s a sad fucking sight, innit, Kev?”
“Sad? It’s fucking disgusting!” The man approached them, still talking about
them rather than at them. Ripley was too tired to respond: he simply rested his
head against David’s shoulder with a sigh. It seemed like David, too, wasn’t
going to do anything, although his body had tensed against Ripley’s. He merely
glared silently at the newcomers, which set them off again.
“You don’t like being talked about, poof?” The first man – Kev – took another
step closer. “Well, what you gonna do about it?”
And then he spat on them.
David was on his feet in a split second, surging towards the man so quickly
that he knocked him down before the skinhead could do anything to protect
himself. Of course, Tom weighed in then, dragging David off his mate. Ripley
staggered unwillingly to his feet, going after Tom and getting a good punch in
that made him let go of David.
It felt good to do something after so long moping. The adrenaline coursed
through Ripley’s body and he found, despite his initial reluctance, that he was
actually enjoying the fight. He got another punch in, and he and Tom were
grappling on the floor when they heard a scream, gurgling and desperate. He
wrenched himself away from Tom, both shocked out of their fight by the sound.
When the pair staggered around, there was blood running over the pavement.
David had a knife in his hand, and Kev’s jeans were soaked in blood, coming
from a deep wound in his thigh.
“Jesus, fuck!” The skinhead gasped, staring helplessly at David for a moment.
“Who’s fucking disgusting now?” David sneered, and then he slashed the knife
across the man’s face. Blood sprayed, and the skinhead fell to his knees,
clutching both hands to his ravaged face. Christ,David! Ripley thought.
“Tom!” The skinhead was wailing, unable to fight back because he couldn’t even
see with the blood in his eyes. “Kill the little bastard, Tom!” David raised
the knife again, but Ripley was at his side, grabbing his arm. David turned to
look at him, and Ripley shook his head.
“Run.” He said.
This one word seemed to break the spell. David’s eyes widened slightly, and
they both pelted out of there, leaving Kev’s mate yelling for the police,
ambulance, whatever. Ripley had the presence of mind to grab his old hospital
bag, which was stuffed with their fake passports and one or two potential forms
of identification – those old love letters, for one. But they left the sleeping
bag and most of their other meagre belongings, simply trying to put as much
distance between themselves and the scene of the crime as they could. Ripley
snatched a coat off the back of a chair as they passed a café, its owner too
deep in conversation to even notice the teenagers hurtling past. He shoved it
at David, who hauled it on as they ran, covering his blood splattered jumper.
They ran until they couldn’t run anymore, and then they walked the rest of the
way to Euston. There were showers at the station, and David managed to wash
most of the blood off. They had enough money to get a cheap single to Stafford,
and then they dodged the guard the rest of the way to Preston. When they
finally got to Blackpool the lights along the seafront, blurred as they were by
the persistent drizzle, seemed like a welcome home.
Ripley had never left Lancashire since, other than on holiday. He took the
whole escapade as a sign that Blackpool was where he belonged, that the town
would bring him luck and keep him going. Nonetheless, he’d worked hard to get a
place on the seafront where he belonged, a largely legitimate business and a
veneer of respectability. Would he be able to stay there, when all this blew
over? He sighed softly, and felt David stir beside him, though he didn’t wake.
Ripley turned his head, gazing at David’s sleeping face for a long moment. He’d
just have to see how things panned out.
                                       *
The next morning, Ripley woke slowly, his head fuzzy from the whiskey. For the
first time it wasn’t a surprise to find David’s solid body lying alongside him.
He rolled over, sliding an arm around David’s semi-conscious form and kissed
his naked shoulder fondly.
“I’m going to have to get going before too long.” He murmured. David stirred,
turning towards Ripley and running a hand down Ripley’s side.
“I’ll have to make a move as well.” He agreed, pulling Ripley closer despite
his words. Ripley’s eyes travelled over David’s face, taking in every detail:
square jaw, broad cheeks (still rather bruised), dark brown eyes that were
piercing in their intensity, even when hooded with tiredness as they were this
morning. Was this the last time he’d ever see David? It didn’t seem sad,
somehow – but then maybe that was the hangover. He pressed his lips softly
against David’s for a moment, eyes closed.
“I suppose this is goodbye.” He murmured, drawing back a little. David grinned,
an expression so familiar it was burnt into Ripley’s memory.
“Honey, you’re not leaving without screaming my name one more time.” He pressed
forward again, tongue teasing Ripley’s lips apart. Ripley shivered, pulling
away slightly.
“Maybe I’ve lost me voice.” He teased. David laughed.
“Maybe you will have, by tomorrow.” His eyes were dancing, just inches away
from Ripley’s, the solid muscle of his biceps holding Ripley close. Ripley
shrugged, and then he leaned in and kissed David back. Their tongues glanced
against one another, twining together in a kiss that seemed somehow languid and
urgent all at once. David’s teeth glanced Ripley’s lip and then tugged it
again, more sharply. Ripley closed his eyes. He felt David’s hands pressing
against him, pinning him down. He knew the movement was relatively innocent,
nonthreatening, and yet he pushed back all the same, shoving David over onto
his back. Their mouths lost each other as they moved and then found each other
again, Ripley deepening the kiss with grim determination.
David chuckled, a little breathlessly, managing to pull his face away from
Ripley’s.
“So, is that your goodbye? Are you gonna fuck me, baby?” His tone was mocking,
and this irritated Ripley.
“You gonna stop me?” He challenged. David laughed again.
“Oh no.” He said, almost casually. “I’ll let you do whatever you like to me.”
His voice was soft and even – almost hypnotising. Ripley found himself staring
down at David, eyebrows slightly raised, a little quizzical. David grinned
slowly. “I’ll let you do what you like and then I’ll give you what you really
want, sweetheart.” He paused, staring at Ripley for long moments. “If this is
the last time, what do you want to remember me by, darling? The ache in your
heart, or the ache in your guts?”
David’s eyes were dancing. He knew exactly which way this would end. Ripley
paused, his arms out in front of him, muscles tense as he pinned David down.
Then he shrugged his shoulders slightly.
“I wouldn’t want it if you didn’t have to fight me for it.” He admitted. David
chuckled again, not moving for a moment. And then he shoved upwards and right,
forcing Ripley sideways onto the bed in a movement that allowed him to roll
awkwardly sideways. Ripley fought back just enough to keep his pride. David was
right, though. He didn’t want to win. He’d never wanted to win, not where David
was concerned.
Despite the mock struggle, David was gentle as he slid his hands under Ripley’s
knees to drag his legs upwards: his lover spread out awkwardly beneath him.
Ripley gave a half smile, letting David do what he liked. He was glad really,
despite everything, that this last time together was going to mean something.
And it really did mean something. He had loved David: loved him more than
anyone else in the world his entire life. No matter how David used him, that
would never stop being the case.
Ripley felt David’s fingers tease at an arsehole already sticky from the
previous night’s lubrication. He gasped, head tilting backwards. He could see
David above him, his expression concentrated, almost stern. That was when he
realised that this was important to David too. And, with that, a sense of
relief flooded through him: relief and adoration. David might be a vicious
bastard, but he cared what impression he left Ripley with – cared probably more
than he had ever cared about anyone else.
A slight hiss escaped from between Ripley’s teeth as he felt David’s cock nudge
between his buttocks, pushing slowly up between them. He wrapped his hands
around David’s shoulders, holding him close, running them down David’s back to
draw him deeper. Wanting David didn’t make him a victim, like Brian had always
thought. This was what they bothneeded. He groaned, soft and low.
“I fucking love you.” He murmured into David’s shoulder. David laughed and so
he said it again, more fervently. “I fuckinglove you!”
“Yeah. I know you fucking do.” David raised himself up on his arms, his cock
sliding easily in and out of Ripley’s well-greased arse. Their eyes met, and
David’s were still twinkling. “I’ve known it all this time.”
“Fuck you, I was trying to be deep!” Ripley mock-reprimanded him.
“I’m the one who’s fucking deep, darling.” David was still grinning, and he
drove his hips forward at the word ‘deep’, forcing himself further inside
Ripley. Ripley laughed breathlessly, his eyelids fluttering as David pounded
into him.
“You always knew how to hit the spot.” He drew in his breath through his teeth
with a hiss as David’s movements became more rapid, the steady rub of his cock
back and forth leaving Ripley teetering on the edge. He grabbed onto David’s
buttocks. “Just fuck me, you bastard! It’s the last fucking time, for Christ’s
sake!”
David quickened his movements, his cock stabbing into Ripley, harder and
harder. He would feel this, the next day. He would feel it in two fucking days’
time! But that was what he wanted. An ache for two days was a small price to
pay for a fleeting memory of the love of his life. Jesus, what if he asked
David to really hurt him, something that would last – to bruise him, to cut
him… Ripley squeezed his eyes shut. That was foolish pre-orgasm thought. He’d
never let David do that, not to him. Maybe that was the real difference,
between him and all the others... He shook his head to clear it, not wanting to
think about that now, his fingernails digging into David’s buttocks, spurring
him on.
“I’m nearly fucking there, you cunt.” His words were spat out in panting gasps,
tinted with anger from those fleeting thoughts of violence, of David's other
pursuits. But David wasn’t really listening to him now, jolting back and forth
as his own orgasm neared and burst over him.
“Fucking hell! Oh, Ripley, fucking hell!” He groaned. And the words washed
through Ripley, the sound of David calling out his name…. He wanted to tell
David he loved him again but instead he closed his eyes and grit his teeth, his
own orgasm tearing through him. His entire body shuddered as his cock spat
between them, spraying come across David’s stomach.
Ripley drew a deep, shuddering breath. And then he reached up to grab the back
of David’s head, dragging it down towards him and kissing him fervently. And,
despite himself, he said.
“I fucking love you.” And David grinned again.
“I fucking know.” He said, for the second time. But this time his words were
fond.
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