Chapter 20
Chapter twenty
Thomas made himself scarce as promised, and Scott stayed in the mansion.
Although telling Thomas he had nowhere else to go had been said to hurt him, it rang true.
Scott wondered how Thomas could avoid him so well before remembering the cameras.
One covered the corridor and would pick up whenever Scott left his bedroom. He found himself glaring at each one he passed, hoping Thomas was watching.
His vulnerability the day before had gone.
He’d showered, moisturised, brushed his hair, and perfected his pout in the mirror.
Gone were his casual clothes; he wore tight jeans that looked sprayed on and an oversized white shirt, tucked in at the front, but not the back.
The sheer fabric tickled his skin, and he kept the top three buttons undone, where he’d sprayed Black Opium onto his exposed skin.
For the first time since Thomas had bought them, Scott didn’t wear the pearls. He kept reaching for them, though, only to curse at the lack of them to fiddle with.
His claws were primed to rip into Thomas as soon as they were reunited, and he stalked the mansion, waiting for their confrontation.
It didn’t come.
At one point, Scott hovered outside Thomas’s door, ready to knock and bring things to a head, but he slumped and carried on down the corridor.
When Scott stepped outside, he winced at the brightness after shrouding himself in darkness all morning.
Nothing said he was pissed better than refusing to open the curtains or blinds, and he hadn’t even realised it was a cloudless sky before being blinded by the sun.
The black jeans had been a bad call with the fabric baking his thighs beneath within seconds.
“Going somewhere nice?” Tim called out.
Scott looked down at his over-dressed self. “No.”
“Right…”
Tim took off his flat cap and stroked his fingers through his sweaty white hair. He wore thick gardening gloves and had what looked like half a bramble bush wrapped around his left leg.
“Looks like you lost the fight,” Scott said, gesturing to Tim’s spiky decoration.
“Damn thing.” Tim sighed, pulling it off.
“I can think of a good place to put it.”
Tim scrunched his brow. “Where’s that?”
“Thomas’s bed…”
“Ah, but if you do that, you’ll end up with Lucy in yours.”
It took a while for Scott to remember the identity of Lucy, the highly venomous snake, then he shuddered.
“Want to do the ponds for me?” Tim asked.
“Not really.”
Tim nodded, slapping his hat back on his head. He adjusted it with a wriggle. “I think you should anyway…”
Scott glared at the camera pointed at them. Thomas probably had better things to do than watch his every move, but he broadcasted his anger by flaring his nostrils and refusing to blink in case. Tim followed his line of sight, then sighed. “Of course.”
“What?”
“Something has happened between you.”
“No –”
“Let me guess, he said or did something insensitive, and whatever it was went straight for the jugular.”
Scott bristled. “Something like that…”
“And you’re on the warpath, or your version of it at least.” He twitched his nose. “Which is dressing to seduce and smelling divine.”
“Black opium actually.”
Tim shook his head. “He’s been at us all before, once told me the hedge was on the wonk, told Carly her bolognese tasted too salty and rated Jay’s banana and chocolate chip crumble only nine out of ten.”
“Eeek.”
Tim ignored the sound that had crept out of Scott and continued. “He told Janice she missed the dust on the back of the TV and left smears on the mirrors, and she swore she’d wrap the vacuum cord around his neck and throttle him if he was ever rude to her again.”
“He’s always rude.”
“It’s a different kind of rude. I think it’s a defence mechanism. When people try to get close to him, he strikes, you feel it.” Tim touched his chest. “In here.”
“Why, though?”
Tim smiled. “It’s only you that can answer why it hurts like that.”
“No.” Scott squeezed his eyes shut. “I mean, why does he strike?”
“He’s been let down by those who should care about him the most.” Tim shrugged. “If he keeps everyone away, that can’t happen again.” He turned on his heels and began trudging away. “I’ll fetch your net.”
“I never said I would –”
“You enjoy it. You find it therapeutic, I think.”
Scott followed him. “That’s kind of depressing, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“That I find fishing dead things out of the pond good therapy. That’s my hobby. That’s what I find peace in doing.”
Tim rubbed his head, considering. “I trim, shape, prune, cut, saw, slice, and bend to make these gardens look nice…all therapeutic, but to a plant, I’m a vegetation torturer. It’s all a matter of perspective.”
“A vegetation torturer…”
Tim paused in his stride. He crowded close to Scott and dropped his voice to a whisper. “Sometimes I breed them to eat them. Think how unhinged I must seem to a plant.”
Scott leaned away from him. “Only to a plant?”
Tim elbowed him. “See, that’s the Scott I know and love.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of secateurs.
“Clearly, not a net…” Scott murmured.
“Nope, but they’re for you to use when you’re sick of those skintight jeans… They’re so last decade anyway.”
“Fashion tips from you? I’m willing to bet my life on that jacket of yours being at least twenty years old.”
“And you’d be right about that, and my boxers are even older, almost half a century.” He pulled at the waistband of his trousers, flashing the top of his burgundy shorts.
“Too much information.”
“I disagree,” Tim replied, not missing a beat. “They started off white…”
Scott recoiled. “White? What the hell happened?”
“My wife’s stockings.” Tim gave him a filthy grin.
“Oh.”
“They were red.”
“I worked out that part.”
Tim waved the secateurs at him. “Take ’em.”
Scott lifted his eyebrows. “You’re suggesting I use them to cut my jeans into shorts?”
“That or to slit your throat with.”
Scott took them. “I can think of someone else’s I’d rather slit…”
Tim gaped. “On second thought…”
“I was joking.”
“Good. Shorts, a skirt, a speedo if you get creative, be careful mind, once you snip below the node, there’s no going back.”
“What the hell is a node?” Scott shook his head when it looked like Tim might launch into a twenty-minute explanation. “These jeans cost me two hundred pounds.”
“And?”
“I’m not going to cut them to pieces.”
Tim patted Scott’s arm. “Keep ’em with you in case. Now, where’s your net at?”
An hour later, and Scott found himself sat on the paving slabs beside the koi pond. He’d long fished out any leaves and petals that had got blown into the water and had left the net, complete with the contents he’d collected by the side.
Scott had cut his jeans, all the way from the bottom to halfway up his thighs.
The relief had been enough for him to sigh in bliss, and it only increased when he dipped his toes into the pond.
The fish came over to investigate but soon lost interest, and Tim strode past to gloat at Scott’s destroyed jeans.
Scott swayed his feet back and forth through the water, allowing another sigh to leave him.
“Can I join you?”
Scott stiffened and, without looking at Thomas, replied, “It’s your mansion, you can do what you like.”
Thomas came closer and knelt beside Scott. He leaned over the pond and took a long, hard look at his reflection before shutting his eyes.
He opened his mouth, but Scott got there first.
“I mean twenty pounds? Are you serious? My mouth is worth five times that after all its practice.”
Thomas pressed his lips into a hard line.
“And I should be paid compensation for having to look at your sneering snake face while I performed oral on you, not to mention your dick is its own terrifying sna –”
Scott froze when Thomas touched his face. Thomas grabbed it with his fingertips, then twisted them slightly.
“What are you doing?” Scott asked.
“Seeing if I can remove that mask.”
Thomas adjusted his fingers, gently pressing them into Scott’s skin. “As I thought, it’s still not fully attached. I think maybe it’s slipping.”
Scott’s brow twitched, and the horrible, itchy feeling of the day before infected his eyes. He pushed Thomas’s hand away from his face.
“Fuck you,” Scott murmured. “I may wear a pretty mask, but I’m still human, and I still hurt. I’d try and remove your mask, but you’ve tattooed it to your face. You’ve modified all the human out of you.”
Thomas turned the other way. Scott didn’t look towards him until Thomas’s grunt.
“You’re right, I can’t remove my mask,” Thomas said. He cracked his neck. “But this is the best I can do…”
When Scott glanced his way, he was confronted with a piercing blue eye. The whites of it were tinged red, and Scott didn’t know whether Thomas was upset or whether the contact had scratched his eye when he took it out.
For the first year of being in Brixton, Thomas wasn’t allowed his lenses. That blue eye had been a part of his past he hadn’t managed to hide. Thomas had hated it.
“I’m sorry about yesterday…” Thomas’s shoulders sagged. “That one act…of paying you, it ripped that mask clean off your face. I hated what I’d done as soon as I’d done it.”
“Then why did you?” Scott asked. “Why did you want to hurt me like that?”
“Because I’m a bastard like you said.”
“That’s not good enough.”
Thomas stiffened his jaw. “I was… I was hoping I wouldn’t like it.”
Scott frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I was hoping it wouldn’t feel good, and I wouldn’t…”
“Come down my throat?”
Thomas winced. “Yeah, that.”
“Why would you hope for that?”
“Not getting aroused would be like a victory in my head.”
Scott recoiled. “A victory against me? I was unaware we were at war?”
“Not you exactly, but…” Thomas gestured to Scott.
“You’re gesturing to me…”
“Escorts.”