fifteen
It was late, but not too late when Ramon flagged down a taxi on Balmes.
Luckily he’d been able to convince the others to go for a burger without going too hard on the beers, and he thought he should be sober enough to drive safely if he waited for a while before getting behind the wheel.
He’d check on Estel to kill some time, and then drive home.
The next day, Saturday, he was planning to head down to his farm, so he wanted his car home tonight to be able to start off early the next morning.
He hadn’t ridden Ferro in weeks, and the poor horse would be desperately out of condition.
Spending the weekend down there would take his mind off Davey and the stables, and give him the chance to get in a couple of good gallops.
He’d text Carme to get someone to walk Estel over the weekend.
The stables were dark when the taxi dropped him off, as well they should be—it was almost midnight.
He used his phone to find the way to Estel’s box.
The horse whickered when it heard him approaching, and he gave the gelding a couple of treats from his pocket.
Then he stood in the dark, his head against Estel’s neck as the horse dozed off again.
Was he sober enough to drive? He thought so.
His third and last beer was before the hamburger more than a couple of hours ago, and he’d been drinking low-alcohol lager.
Another half-hour and he should be fine.
So he stayed there, feeling Estel’s heat against his face, and listening to the sounds of the night.
He could faintly hear the nightingales down near the pond, and the rustling and swish of horses occasionally moving around in their boxes. But other than that it was quiet.
And then he heard a sound. One that stood out because it wasn’t a sound he should be hearing.
Not on Friday night, not with all the grooms at home sleeping soundly or out partying.
Someone was speaking softly, somewhere not too far away.
He listened for a while. It went on, a low murmur.
Was it a conversation? It didn’t sound like it, more like just one voice.
Maybe someone on the phone? Gently he separated himself from Estel without waking him, and moved stealthily toward the quiet mumbling.
Apparently it was coming from another of the boxes to the rear, and the tone sounded familiar.
With the stables in absolute darkness, he used the dim light from his phone screen to see by, keeping it shielded from whomever was there.
Before turning the last corner, he stopped and listened.
The intruder seemed to be at Boira’s box.
He could hear him more clearly now—it was definitely a him—though not the actual words.
That gentle monologue was like someone having a conversation with themselves, but they must be talking to the horse.
What to do, confront them? Why was he standing here in the middle of the night, talking to a horse?
He killed the light from his phone and turned the corner.
It was now pitch black, but he could just make out a shape in the dark, in front of Boira’s box, talking to her softly.
“David?”
Absolute silence. He turned his phone’s torch function on and shone it toward him. David was standing beside Boira’s box, the young filly with its head over the door, just as he’d been doing with Estel. David held up a hand to shield himself from the light.
“Can you turn that off?”
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing… I… I came to say goodbye to Boira.”
“Are you leaving?”
Ramon stepped toward him, still shining the light on the two of them, horse and man, as if they were lovers he’d caught in flagranti.
“What’s it—?”
“Tell me.”
“I… It’s best.”
“At midnight you come to say goodbye to a horse?”
“I thought no one would be here. That’s all I was doing. Honest.”
Now they were facing each other, watched by Boira, who’d never seen this much activity at night in her young life. David was dressed in dress jeans and a clean white dress shirt, as if he’d come from dinner or some event.
There was a single question Ramon needed to ask: Why are you running?
He only needed to ask it, and then their relationship would fall one way or the other.
Either on the side of the law, and then things would play out in a carefully ordered sequence, involving other police, lawyers, plea bargains, and possibly…
but he could barely let himself think it: jail time.
Or it could fall the other. There would be a simple, above-board explanation.
They could be together. Ramon wouldn’t be putting his career on the line.
Everything would all work out like in a fairy story.
However, he knew the chances of the penny falling that side were slim.
So instead of asking the question, he did a really stupid thing: he surged forward and kissed him.
Letting his phone light die as his arms went around Davey, he grabbed him and held him.
Their lips collided in the dark. At first the boy resisted, but not for long.
Soon he was kissing him back. Their bodies pressed together, and he felt Davey give in, his body becoming pliant and tactile, after his initial stiff resistance.
He breathed in Davey’s hot breath, which he’d missed though he hadn’t known how much until this instant.
He tasted once again David’s saliva on his tongue, was overwhelmed by the fragrance of his sweat, a particular tang that was unique to Davey.
The boy’s arms were now hugging him too, his cock hard and pressing into his thigh.
Ramon’s hands came up and his fingers dove into Davey’s tangled hair.
Even as he was kissing him, Ramon knew this was a mistake, but he didn’t care.
Let the future play out however it would, he was damned if he was going to lose Davey again now that he had him, was physically holding him.
And he could feel that Davey wanted him.
That hard cock pushing into him was no figment of his imagination but demanding and real.
His lips were on Ramon’s and his tongue pushed into his mouth, needing Ramon just as much as Ramon needed him.
Ramon stopped kissing him for a moment.
“Is there somewhere…?” he breathed into his ear.
“My old room?”
“No, not there.”
“Then the hay store.”
“Yes, let’s go.”
He turned on his phone’s torch light again and, his arm tightly around Davey, urged them roughly in the direction of the hay store, a room beside the tack room that fulfilled the function of a barn, where they stored about a dozen bales of hay at any one time for the horses.
Davey let himself be led, unresisting. All the time they kept kissing, stumbling without clearly seeing their way, but holding each other up, arms wrapped around each other.
It was a room with no door on it, open to the yard, but at this time of night, no one was around to see them.
Davey flicked a switch beside the door and a weak bulb lit it up, where half a dozen oblong hay bales were stacked two high, forming a rough, scratchy bed.
Looking around, Davey grabbed a canvas horse blanket and threw it over them.
Then the two men turned back to each other, scrabbling at each other’s clothes.
Ramon wanted to rip the buttons off Davey’s shirt and simply wrench it from him, but some small sane part of his mind recognized it was probably his only decent shirt.
Davey pushed him away, dealing with the buttons himself, before tearing it off and tossing it to the floor.
Ramon had already stripped off his tee, throwing it down.
For a moment they stared at each other, mesmerized each by the other’s body: Ramon’s torso lightly covered in dark hair that swirled in whorls around his pecks and down his washboard stomach; David’s smooth body, with its fine, almost invisible, blond chest hair slightly glistening in the dim light.
To David, standing here, shirtless, with this copper—Ramon, his name was Ramon—felt like a dream.
He’d come up here to the stables in the dead of night to do one thing, well, two things, because he’d also wanted to say goodbye to Boira.
He shouldn’t have listened to Ned, just like he shouldn’t have listened to Chris, because here he was again, in the worst place he could possibly be, doing the stupidest thing he could ever conceive of doing—which made two stupidest things in one night.
It’s just that since Ramon had surprised him, he’d been in shock, unable to process what it meant for Ramon to find him here, caught in the act.
Except, Ramon didn’t know—David was fairly sure he didn’t suspect.
But the copper had caught him like a rabbit in the headlights, and all David could do was react, react to Ramon’s voice, to his lips, to his tongue, to his strong arms around him.
And he found himself obeying, going along with what Ramon wanted, just like he did with Chris and Ned.
Except David wanted this too, and if he was going to go down, well then, let it be worth it.
He might not get another chance to do this, not without anyone knowing, not like this, where no one knew him, where there were no consequences—yet.
And Ramon was, it was like something just felt right with him.
David couldn’t say no, and didn’t want to.
He willed Ramon to take charge. He had to know who he was, what he was, for once and for all.
When would he ever get another chance? Not like this.
So maybe this was just a dead-of-night dream, but it was one David was willing to dream, to control and experience as fully as he could.
Tomorrow he’d pay the price, whatever that was.