Sex in C Major

Forty-eight hours of having escaped a master, only to get on his knees and serve any man who'd give him booze or weed or worse-anyway.

And it didn't even help.

So when the banging started, sometime in the afternoon, Stefan initially ignored it. He'd been sitting on the windowsill, watching the weather shift from rain to snow to rain again, and smoking the last of the stranger's weed. Just this stuff. And then he'd stop. Stop drinking, too. And start...

Transitioning. Doing it right. Properly. Maybe if he transitioned, all of this would stop.

And if it didn't help, then...then maybe he could smash the glass, and do what his mum had wanted the day she'd kicked him out.

Die.

But the banging wouldn't stop. It just kept going, until Stefan wasn't convinced it wasn't in his own head.

And then he heard metal scrape.

Keys.

In the lock.

He got down off the sill just in time for Daz to crash into the flat and slam the front door again. Before Stefan could so much as open his mouth, the man had stormed across the flat, snatched the half-smoked spliff from his fingers, and doused it under the tap.

"Hey!"

"Shut up. If you bloody well know what's good for you, shut up."

Stefan...shut up. His guts dissolved to water. In an instant, he realised he had seen Daz annoyed, antagonised, aggressive-but never angry.

And he was furious.

He pounded through the flat in a rage, boots hammering on the boards. The bathroom door was nearly smashed off its hinges. The fridge nearly toppled when he wrenched it open. The window banged against the safety rail when he near- punched it open.

And then he stopped.

Snapped his fingers at the bloodied mattress.

And said, "Explain that," in the coldest voice Stefan had ever heard.

"I-it's beginning of the month."

"Funny, Yannis says that's usually stopped by now."

Stefan hunched his shoulders. "Usually. Mine...hasn't."

"Maybe something to do with you buying it over the internet?"

Stefan swallowed.

"There's a bloody knife in your bathroom, too."

"Yeah, well..."

"And it stinks of booze in there."

"I'm allowed to drink."

"Stinks of weed in here."

"I'm allowed to do that, too."

"Like fuck you are!"

It was an explosive response, and Stefan found himself flinching back. Shame blossomed in his stomach.

And...and his first thought was that he'd disappointed Daz.

Not anger at being shouted at like a child. Not indignation at this man bursting into his flat unannounced.

Just a sick swell ofguilt.

"There's nothing in the fridge either. What the fuck have you been doing the last four days?"

Was that all it had been?

Stefan bit his lip, and dropped his gaze.

"Strip."

Tears burned hot at the back of his eyes. Daz would see. See everything. See how totally fucked up and crazy Stefan was. See everything.

"No."

"Is that a checkmate?"

Checkmate. And right now, Stefan knew what it would mean. He'd get what he wanted when he'd run away from the house. He would end this entire arrangement, never see Daz or Yannis again, and be permitted to return to his old life.

Only...

He had.

Four days ago. And in four days, he'd been permanently drunk, almost permanently high, and thrown up so much that he could barely eat and everything constantly hurt.

And thought about jumping out of the window.

Daz was going to enslave him and rent him out to other men, but...

But he'd look after Stefan afterwards. Yannis had cuddled him on the sofa. They let him sleep in their bed sometimes.

They...cared.

And in four days without them, Stefan had blown two guys for drugs, just to stop feeling so utterly lost.

"No," he whispered.

Curled in on himself. Hugged his own frame.

And said it again.

"No."

"Then what the fuck is going on."

Daz's voice was hard.

And the words, when Stefan finally let them out, were harder.

"I'm scared."

They dissolved in a suddenly silent room. Disappeared. And yet lingered, like ghosts.

Daz said nothing.

And the tears spilled over.

"I'm scared," Stefan breathed, and began to cry. "I'm scared. Christmas with Yannis was so intense and he's not just your boyfriend anymore, and I wanted both of you to use me, and who wants that? And then you came home and you you loaned me out to your friends like a whore and I liked it. I shouldn't have liked it! And it hit me, it really hit me, I was really becoming your slave, I was going to be a tool you let your mates use, I was just going to be this thing and it was real and I should hate that and I'm scared, Daz! I'm scared."

Boots creaked.