39. Cursed Heirloom
CURSED HEIRLOOM
ASHER
A fter fucking the pain of the day away, Asher and Lev took turns holding each other in bed while they shared more about their pasts.
Asher curled onto his side and rested his cheek on his hands, watching Lev’s emotions flit across his face as he whispered secrets about Silas—flickers of pride and sorrow, of wistfulness and regret.
“I know it sounds romantic in a way, this brooding young man full of mysteries, but there was nothing romantic about his anguish. Watching him suffer destroyed me.”
When Asher asked how Silas had suffered, Lev answered with a single word—anorexia. Well, that explained Lev’s hypervigilance about Asher’s eating habits.
“Poor Silas,” Asher said.
“Poor Silas, indeed.”
“Was that how he died?”
“No.” Lev grimaced, but didn’t elaborate.
“Do you think I have anorexia?”
Lev sighed. “I must admit, I worried at first, but I’m beginning to realize I overcompensate for my failures with Silas, and that’s not fair to you. Or very healthy for either of us. I’m addressing it in therapy.”
“You talk to your therapist about me?”
Lev laughed. “Of course, I do. I spend most of my waking hours with you, and think of you whenever we’re parted.”
Asher smiled. “Always so flirtatious.”
“It’s not flirting if it’s true.”
The wind wavered. A wave crashed closer than the last. High tide was calling again.
“Darkness and death fascinated Silas,” Lev continued.
“He was a very talented writer, but while Wendell’s prose possessed a weightless poignancy, Silas’s stories were macabre and melancholy.
Sinister dread built as he dragged his characters forward, scratching their fingernails into the floorboards.
“He’d found some success publishing a few short stories under a pseudonym, but after a particularly cruel review, he absconded from Oxford and never returned, only sharing his stories with me after that. Of course, I understood.”
Asher did, too. “Where did he go?”
“Lichenmoor. It was dreadfully lonely for him. Father often traveled.” Lev fidgeted with the edge of his bedsheet. “I couldn’t quit my studies at Oxford.”
“Good, because that would have been a terrible decision.”
Lev laughed. “Thank you for saying that.”
“You’re too hard on yourself.”
“Sometimes I fear I’m not hard enough.”
“Trust me, that’s the last thing you need to worry about.”
After a few minutes of silent contemplation, Lev said, “You were joking about my erection, weren’t you?”
Asher rolled his eyes. “ Psh. You have such a dirty mind.”
Lev smiled knowingly. “It’s your turn now.”
Asher told Lev more about Ben, including the shameful night he’d tried to approach him at home only to discover his wife was there.
“She wasn’t trying to repair things, though. The next man who’d subbed for him—Joel—ended up in the hospital less than a month after we broke up.”
“Christ.”
“Yeah. Ben left him in bondage unsupervised.”
“He did what?” Lev snapped. His nostrils flared as he inhaled slowly. “I apologize.” He cupped Asher’s cheek, such a soft antithesis to the furious glint in his gaze. “How is Joel fairing now?”
“He had some nerve damage, but it healed.”
“What about his head and his heart? Has he struggled terribly?”
“I don’t know him well enough, but if he’s anything like me, he has some PTSD.”
“Ben left you unsupervised too?’
Asher shook his head. “Not in bondage. Probably because I just took it. His methods were more psychological. He locked me in his basement a few times. It turned me on at first.” His face burned with the ache in his chest. “There’s something wrong with me.”
“You didn’t just take anything, and there’s nothing wrong with you, even if you enjoyed it. Ben Twattington is a predatory cunt who took advantage of you.”
Asher laughed, clinging to the only levity he could find. “None of your nicknames for me are that creative.”
Lev pressed his lips together. “I wasn’t trying to be funny.”
“Yeah, because you have a terrible sense of humor.”
“Sod off, Blakely,” Lev teased, sharing the life raft of levity with him. “I reserve creative nicknames for the people I despise.”
Asher rolled his eyes. “You didn’t like me very much in the beginning.”
“ Please . I adored you from the moment you first scowled—a minute or two after we met, if I remember correctly—even when you acted infernally contrary.” Lev kissed his forehead. “Are you alright?”
“Yeah. Thanks. Talking about it helps a lot more than I realized.”
Lev’s eyes turned to crescents. “I’m honored you trusted me with this and that I could help.” He brushed Asher’s hair back from his brow. “You were telling me about Ben’s wife…”
“Sadie, yeah. Joel had called her out of concern for her safety. I should have worried about her safety too.”
“You’re very sweet beneath your sulkiness. I’m sure you would have warned her if it had happened to you.”
Asher skipped over the part where Ben had punched him because Lev’s blue eyes had turned to glaciers and the tightness in his jaw promised murder.
“I was close to her son’s age, and she helped me pack before putting me on a plane back home for my own safety.”
“Where were your parents?”
“Ben didn’t like me talking to my dad, probably because he was afraid of what might happen if I told him more than the fictional story about me dating a man off campus. It didn’t even occur to me to call them.”
“Christ. Thank God for Sadie then. I hope she divorced him?”
Asher laughed. “Yeah. Their differences became pretty irreconcilable after she convinced the man Ben had hurt to file a complaint, then supported him through trial. That was the one I testified in.”
“I see.”
“Watson finally fired him, at least. But it was infuriatingly easy for an expensive defense lawyer to explain everything away under the guise of rough sex taken a little too far.”
Instead of the anger Asher had braced for, Lev blanched. Tears glazed his eyes, but he blinked them back, then asked calmly, “Where is Ben now?”
Asher shivered. Lev’s tightly controlled, frigid fury was far more intimidating than if he’d erupted.
“He can’t hurt anyone anymore. Sadie keeps me updated. ”
“He’s dead?”
Asher winced. Even if he hated Ben now, he’d still loved him once.
“No. After losing his job, and his family—his kids went no contact—he tried to kill himself by overdosing on acetaminophen.” Asher frowned. Did they have that medication in the UK? “It’s an over-the-counter pain medicine.”
“I’m familiar.”
“Okay. Anyway, I don’t think he actually tried to kill himself. He’s a malignant narcissist. If only I’d known that when I met him…”
“Narcissists are good at hiding, and emotional manipulation can be quite disarming.”
Was Lev speaking from personal experience or with the hindsight of being fifteen years older?
“Sadie thinks he did it to get his family back. Not because he loved them, but so he could save face. I don’t know.”
Asher sighed. “The overdose destroyed his liver and kidneys, and he didn’t qualify for a transplant, so he’s in and out of the hospital all the time.”
Lev stroked Asher’s hip. “When was this? I imagine it must have been upsetting.”
Asher nodded. “January. It’s stupid. He ruined my chances at Watson and fucked with my head, but I still care about what happens to him, even if I don’t love him, even after he hurt me?—”
“It’s not stupid. Empathy isn’t a weakness because someone took advantage of it.”
NOVEMBER 11
The next morning, Asher woke alone in an ice-cold bed.
“Lev?” Asher called, breath fogging.
No answer.
A small wisp of smoke waned in the grate. Salty air drafted down the chimney, stirring ash into whirlwinds.
Lev never left in the morning without lighting a fire for him. He checked the nautical wristwatch with a compass that Lev had made him promise to wear.
Three-twenty-nine AM. That was early, even for Lev.
Asher’s stomach twisted. Anxiety tightened his chest. What they’d shared with each other last night was far more vulnerable than sex. Asher felt raw and abandoned—which was irrational.
Lev had probably woken in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back to sleep. Ben had often complained about Asher’s tossing and turning. Sometimes, he’d forced him to sleep on the floor.
But what if Lev regretted telling Asher about Silas? What if Asher’s sniveling attempts to win Ben back had disgusted him?
Asher groaned and scrubbed his face with shaking hands. PTSD was like walking through fog with sharp cliffs and landmines lurking nearby. Every step was treacherous, every trigger potentially explosive, and he couldn’t predict when or where or why.
If only he could take a pill to forget Ben. Anything was better than the uninvited memories that flooded him with panic at the slightest trigger. Anything was better than the greasy sheen of shame he couldn’t wash from his hands.
Anything was better than hating himself, because Asher wasn’t a survivor. He wasn’t a victim. He was something so much worse—a willing participant.
His fingers tingled. Was it because it was freezing as fuck or because at some point he’d started hyperventilating without noticing? Maybe both.
He took a deep breath stolen by the next, and reached for what he could sense.He refused to have a panic attack just because he woke up without Lev.
Raindrops pelted the windows in bursts like buckshot. Lev’s sketchbook rested with the pages down on his desk. He felt slippery luxury sheets with a higher thread count than his rent.
Lev’s pillow smelled like woodsy shampoo and the subtle undercurrent of the jasmine and pepper in his cologne. The ghost of Lev’s scent was nearly as soothing as the man himself.
When his breathing returned to normal, he felt the faintest flicker of pride at defeating the attack, but self-loathing lashed at him not long after.
A real man was never scared. A real man didn’t panic. A real man didn’t let himself get hurt. A real man never needed help.