Chapter Twenty-Five
Take a Bite
It was a long night. A very long night. Hilary dozed on and off.
But every time he woke, it was with a jolt that inevitably brought the crying with it.
Exhaustion was doing the man no favors, and the stress of his situation was only making him more and more vulnerable to the pain of it.
It was like watching his friend’s sanity shred to powder in real time.
“I hate you!” Hilary shouted during the peak of it.
Right after a nightmare when the waking was particularly frightening.
“I hate loving you! I hate it!” But of course, that wasn’t like hating at all.
Hilary wouldn’t be hurting nearly this much if he truly hated him.
And Trenton knew it was despicable to find relief in that.
He should have been hoping for Hilary’s hate, for the man to find release in it.
But he couldn’t want that. So long as they were both alive, he would always try to meet him.
Would always try to win him and take that love again.
Always. It was the most important thing.
And Hilary suffered for it. Was suffering right now in front of him.
Trenton gave up trying to unclench his fists. The pain of it was soothing, in a way. Like being punished for his thoughts. But not enough. He kept wishing for Hilary to be closer and not getting it.
The day passed in that way. Hilary didn’t go to work. He wasn’t sure the man even called in to cancel, though he must have, or his phone would have been ringing off the hook. Hilary didn’t eat. He did have some juice, but he threw it up.
Trenton told himself not to panic. Panicking wouldn’t help.
But seeing Hilary in that state and knowing he could do nothing about it was so frightening he was starting to lose it, the black at the edges of his vision warning him that he was hyperventilating.
He promised himself that in the event Hilary did get sicker, he might manage something.
Hilary had taped him all around, and his wrists weren’t just lashed to each other but to his body as well.
It was the same with his ankles and his legs.
It would be difficult even to squirm, never mind cut himself free, so it would take at least a day to manage.
If that was the timeline, then to keep Hilary from the worst of the danger, he couldn’t put off his escape for much longer.
If his beloved hadn’t eaten or drunk anything by that night, he’d make his move no matter what reaction Hilary might have to it.
But Hilary did manage to take in a little something.
Some water at least. Trenton thought maybe there would be food too, but when Hilary finally got up, it was to feed him, not himself, or at least, some version of feeding.
Hilary cut away a little of the tape, enough to expose one of his arms and the crook of one elbow.
And as his friend tied the tourniquet, Hilary spoke to him for the first time that day. “Make a fist.”
Trenton’s hands weren’t quite numb, but they weren’t exactly responsive. Not that he was planning to listen. He jerked his head toward the kitchen and glared.
Hilary glared right back, his eyes still puffy from crying, his mouth bloodless. “I’m not letting you out.”
To be thinking of escape would have put him in the same vile pit as Axel and his cronies.
No, Trenton had no intention of escaping.
He was exactly where he wanted to be, albeit in less-than-ideal circumstances.
He jerked his head toward the kitchen again and made a low sound, trying to issue it like a command.
Hilary turned away from him to prepare the needle.
It wasn’t propofol like he’d threatened, but intravenous fluids—a double standard, and Trenton put his mental commands out on blast the whole time Hilary was hooking him up, which wasn’t for very long.
The man was an uncommonly good stick, even for a hospital nurse with a decade’s experience.
Honestly, Trenton was still waiting for the needle to prick him when he realized it was already over, and the fluid was dripping into him, everything taped neatly down. Hilary had already left the room.
Trenton could only pray it was to go to the kitchen, and he was right.
A few minutes later, the man returned with a peanut butter sandwich.
It was disappointing to see only one when he knew Hilary could put away four, but Trenton did give some allowance for the situation.
Or so he thought, but then the sandwich was set down on the nightstand without a single bite taken.
That brought the glare back to his face in full force, but Hilary didn’t even notice.
He was messing around with yet another thing.
There was a water basin and something Trenton recognized as baby oil once it was close enough.
That was when Hilary took him by the chin—the first deliberate touch (apart from the intravenous hookup, which didn’t count) and said, with draconian seriousness. “One word, any word, and you can forget about me taking it off again. I’ll do tubal feedings. Don’t think I won’t.”
Only then did Trenton process that Hilary meant to remove the tape.
It wasn’t something he was prepared for.
A part of him had already dismissed ever having that kind of freedom again.
Not because he was a dramatic idiot, but because it had seemed impossible to move past the current state.
But here was Hilary, already softening the tape with a wet cloth.
Only the tape over his mouth, of course, but that was still more than expected.
Especially because the man had clearly been thinking about how best to do it.
After the tape was wet, Hilary applied the baby oil, working methodically, using a pair of shears and the oil to dig at a single spot.
Once the first cut was made, and the edge exposed, Hilary worked the oil in from there, peeling back tape as he went.
With such a method, the process went quickly.
It was nearly painless, not at all the full waxing Trenton was expecting.
And then suddenly the air was coming in through his mouth.
It was then that he nearly ruined it, Hilary’s name already in his throat and wanting to burst out, but somehow he held it in.
It burned there, but everything hinged on that one moment of restraint. He remained silent.
There were no congratulations. Hilary retrieved the sandwich and held it up to his mouth.
For a moment, he thought of refusing. But then he came up with a different strategy.
He took the first bite. His mouth was drier than he realized, and the peanut butter gummed it up at once, making it nearly impossible to swallow.
But Hilary had anticipated that and had the milk ready for him, complete with one of those pink and silver straws.
Trenton remembered now that they were left over from a party he himself had organized, yet another thing that had failed to trigger his memories.
The entire apartment was full of such triggers.
Maybe Hilary thought he’d given up on trying to make him remember, but considering the surroundings, persistent habits and familiar language, the man seemed just as determined as ever.
Trenton almost couldn’t bear to put his mouth on the straw, such a precious thing now.
Concrete evidence of Hilary’s devotion and refusal to remove even a single trace of him.
Hilary held up the sandwich again and waited for Trenton to take the second bite. He didn’t.
It was as if his beloved had been waiting for such a resistance, though. In a flash, Hilary’s expression darkened, and he pushed the sandwich up against his mouth with some force. “You won’t like tube feedings, I promise.”
Trenton kept his mouth firmly shut, and let Hilary mash the bread against his lips. It was a good thing he’d given up on things like dignity a long time ago. Hilary was furious. “You think I’m bluffing? I can have an NG tube down your nose in less than ten minutes.”
Trenton was sure he could, if those needle skills were anything to go by. “Take a bite.”
It was risky to use the words. Hilary had forbidden him from speaking, and he was sure that if he’d tried for something personal—a desperate confession maybe, or some plea to hear him out, he’d have had the tape back on so fast he really might have said farewell to language for life.
But he kept his voice as calm as possible and said only those three words, shutting his mouth again as soon as he was done.
Hilary froze with the threat still in his throat. For a moment, disbelief fought with the outrage for dominance, but in the end, the outrage came out on top. “You think you’re in a position to negotiate?”
Trenton said nothing. They were at the most dangerous part of the transaction now. He had everything to lose and no bargaining chips. He kept his mouth shut and his eyes level.
The sandwich crumpled in that grip. He thought maybe it was about to meet the wall, but then, with a savagery that had the poor thing torn asunder, Hilary shoved half the sandwich into his own mouth.
“Careful—!”
“One more word.” Hilary was entirely iron, a creature so dangerous that only the greatest fool would dare take him on. “One more. Try me.”
When Hilary held the sandwich back out to him, Trenton bit down and said no more.
He had accomplished what he wanted. Or at least, the bare minimum of what he wanted.
He didn’t think peanut butter was the best choice for a man who had thrown up the few liquid calories he’d tried to ingest, but it was still a step in the right direction.
They shared a second sandwich as well, Hilary matching him bite for bite.
But the moment it was finished, back the tape came, and just as secure as the first time.
Trenton told himself not to despair. Even if the situation didn’t look any different from before, it was different.
Hilary had spoken to him, had eaten, and wasn’t shaking nearly as badly.
The man still wore panic in his eyes and had yet to sleep more than an hour or two at a time, but it was an improvement. Baby steps, Trenton told himself.
He had to pee because of the fluids, and his discomfort must have shown, or maybe Hilary anticipated the need, because he came back with an empty pitcher meant as a kind of urinal. “I can put in a Foley,” he threatened at the first sign of hesitation. “No difference to me either way.”
A Foley. By that, he meant a catheter. Maybe it didn’t matter to Hilary, but Trenton wanted a tube up his urethra even less than he wanted one down his nose.
So he said nothing as the man got his pants open and reminded himself that this was the same Hilary he had made love to already, and a trained nurse who did things like this every day, besides.
But in his mind, he kept seeing the boy dragged into the warehouse.
The one pinned down with crushing strength, his screams choked off, as they forced him open.
“Trenton.” Hilary was firm, but that’s all it was. He didn’t put anger into it. “Do you need me to leave for this?”
It was that misunderstanding again. This strange worry over the sound of his peeing.
It was only after he’d emptied his bladder, and Hilary had left to dump the contents of the pitcher in the toilet, that he remembered the source.
It was the urinal thing. He’d gotten so used to not using them he no longer did it consciously.
Whale dick preceded his meeting with Hilary.
It had been the end of middle school, maybe.
It wasn’t like his penis was that big, but he’d gone through puberty earlier than the other kids, so he supposed it had seemed that way in comparison.
It wasn’t until later that it occurred to him that ‘whale dick’ might actually have been a compliment just a few years later, but by then the shame had settled in too deep for him to consider that.
In either case, he didn’t have a shy bladder, though he kind of liked the idea of Hilary thinking so.
It seemed much cuter than the real reason.
Maybe one day he’d tell him. It was a nice thought to hold on to.
That there might be a time after this one.
A time when they could laugh over something stupid like whale dick.
It seemed impossible now, but maybe it wasn’t.
But then Hilary returned, and that dark and locked-away expression had Trenton shutting down all thoughts of the future. He couldn’t afford any distractions. One mistake, just one small thing now, could break whatever they had between them forever.