Author: Anna Martin
Category: LGBT
Go to read content：https://onlinereadfreenovel.com/anna-martin/page,10,529683-the_lost_boy.html
“So you figured you’d balance the scales? Pay it forward?”
“Yes, and no.” Stan sighed. “Tone said he thought I could help. I didn’t believe him at the time, but I thought if he was asking me, of all people, to come help you, then I should come. God, Ben, the last thing I ever wanted was for you to hurt like this.”
Ben nodded and stared out across the field. He didn’t say anything until he’d finished eating his lunch.
“I’m really grateful for what you did. Are doing. It’s a lot.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Thank you.”
“You keep saying thank you, and I’m going to start hitting you in the arm.”
That made Ben smile, just a little.
“Come on,” Stan said, standing up and stretching. “Let’s go for a walk.”
“Do I have to?”
“Yes,” Stan told him decisively. “It’ll be good for you.”
Ben grumbled and put his hood back up. When they were a few steps away from the bench, he brushed his hand against Stan’s. Stan could take a hint. Without looking at Ben, he slid their hands together and squeezed.
Ben didn’t let go.
Chapter Twelve
Ben was glad to have gotten out of the flat for something other than his appointment with Dr Greg. That was definitely a psychological thing—knowing he could, and would go out into the world for something other than trying to fix himself. Doing something that was for himself, other than getting drugs, felt nice too.
He was at a point now where he could admit that his sessions with Dr Greg were starting to affect him in a positive way, gently coaxing his mind into a healthier way of thinking. Nothing was instantaneous with therapy, Ben had learned that while watching Stan go to one appointment after another after he relapsed with his anorexia.
Greg didn’t structure their sessions in the same way other therapists Ben had been to. He didn’t have a notepad, or a Dictaphone, and he never seemed shocked by any of the shit that Ben talked about. Maybe that was why Ben wanted to tell him.
“I want to talk to you about something,” Ben said. He’d been thinking about this for a long time, waiting for the right time to bring it up. He’d come to the conclusion that there probably wasn’t a good time to talk about it, and he should just get on with it.
Greg leaned back in his chair and nodded. “Sure.”
“I did some crazy shit for drugs,” Ben said. It was a safe place to start. They were already talking about his addiction.
To take up some time, he pulled off his trainers and tucked his feet up underneath himself. Greg always let Ben walk into the conservatory first so he could pick where he wanted to sit. He always picked the same armchair, the one that was big enough to sit cross-legged in.
“Got mixed up with some shitty people.” Ben pushed his fingers through his hair. He needed to go back and get it cut again. “Look, Greg, I’m going to be honest with you. I got raped.”
Greg’s expression softened. “I’m sorry.”
“Yeah, me fucking too.” Ben’s heart was beating so hard he thought he might throw up. He’d never told anyone else about this. “It started with this guy, Johnny. Probably not his real name. I’m pretty sure he got off on the fact that it was me that he was dealing to. He asked me for so much money… fuck, a ridiculous amount of money, but I always paid him. Thousands, sometimes, for a hit. Then the price changed, and he didn’t want money anymore.
Ben sighed heavily. “He wanted a blow job, and I said no. I didn’t want to. But he loaded me up with some shit and fucked my face. Then he let his friend do me too. And I didn’t even care, because I was so off my face on Mandy it didn’t even occur to me to bite his dick off. I couldn’t breathe. I remember that. I couldn’t breathe. It was fucking disgusting, and my throat hurt…. I couldn’t talk for days.
“And now? I have Stan back. Maybe. We’re working on it. And I don’t know whether I should tell him.”
“Do you want to tell him?”
“No,” Ben muttered. He pushed his hand over his wet eyes and sniffed. “I don’t want anyone to know. It’s fucking disgusting.”
“Rape is a disgusting act. Being the victim of rape isn’t.”
“Being so fucked off your face on drugs that you don’t even care that someone is raping you is pretty damn fucked up, Greg.”
Greg didn’t say anything. He was good at that, not talking until Ben said something to fill the silence.
“I don’t know if I can tell him.”
“It’s your information, Ben. You get to share it with whoever you want. Your romantic relationship with Stan doesn’t mean he’s entitled to know anything about your history.”
“I know he’ll be upset if I do tell him. And I don’t want to upset him, but I also don’t want to keep secrets from him.”
“That’s understandable. Are you in a sexual relationship at the moment?”
“We’re working up to it,” Ben said. He picked at some lint on his socks, because that was easier than looking Greg in the eye.
“Are you in a sexual relationship with anyone other than Stan?”
Ben looked up sharply. “No.”
“Are you in any immediate danger?”
“No,” he said again, softer this time. He understood now. Greg had explained during their first meeting about patient confidentiality, and that he would only ever break it if he thought Ben was in danger.
“I’m okay, now. Being in London is making things better.”
Greg nodded. “That’s good. I’m pleased.” He paused for a moment, and Ben let him think, because Greg was pretty damn good at saying things that helped. “There are some things I’d like to talk to you about, some tools I think might be able to help you. When you talk, Ben, I hear you blaming yourself for a lot of things. It’s not your fault that drugs became the answer when you couldn’t cope with the situation you were in. It’s not your fault that you were raped. Blaming yourself for these things is going to hurt you more in the long run, and I think we need to work on breaking that circle of negative thoughts.”
“It is my fault, though,” Ben said, and hated how his voice sounded. This was what he’d hated about therapy before—how it made him feel flayed open and exposed. He tucked his knees up under his hoodie.
“It’s not, Ben.”
Ben felt his shoulders start to tremble, and he hated—fucking hated this. Greg was quiet while Ben used one of Greg’s techniques to calm himself down again.
“I hate therapists,” Ben muttered.
That made Greg laugh. “Yeah, if I were in your position, I probably would too.”
Ben wasn’t expecting him to say that. That was probably one of the reasons why he hated Greg marginally less than other therapists.
“I feel like you’re taking all of my issues and unfucking them one by one,” he said. “I don’t want to be the person I was.”
“Then you’re doing the right thing by coming here. Therapy isn’t easy, Ben. Part of my job is to help you with the things that are hurting you, but the way we often do that is by throwing them out there and examining them. That’s a difficult process. But it’s only by exposing those hurtful things that we can find ways to cope with them.”
“Cocaine was a really good coping mechanism,” Ben said.
“It is,” Greg agreed, surprising him again. “Drugs are a great way of postponing having to deal with painful thoughts. But as you’re now learning, eventually those painful thoughts catch up with you. You can’t put it off forever.”
“Yeah. I know.” Ben tipped his head back against the chair and sighed. “The worst thing is, I know stuff is coming. Like the album, and having to play it, and all that shit. Publicity.”
“There’s no reason you can’t get through all of that if you have the right tools to help you,” Greg said. “We can do this without cocaine. I promise you.”
Ben looked at him then, and for the first time in a long time, believed the bullshit a therapist was sel
ling him.
“Okay.”
On his way home, Ben detoured into the market and dropped an obscene amount of money for a huge bunch of pink and white roses for Stan. He’d spent the rest of his session with Greg talking about how he could introduce healthy habits into his life again, a next step after he’d started chugging protein shakes twice a day to try and bulk up again.
“Doing nice things for Stan” came high on the list of things that gave Ben pleasure, so he’d been encouraged to do more of it. Stan was out at a meeting for most of the morning, talking to some magazine bigwig about writing some articles for them, so Ben knew not to expect him when he got into the flat.
He carefully set the flowers in water, then left them on the kitchen counter so Stan would see them when he got home.
Then he poked around the flat.
Despite having lived here for almost two months, Ben hadn’t really looked around much. The bedroom he’d collapsed in when they got back to London had become his by default, and he’d quickly deduced it was used mostly for storage. Not that there was much room to store anything. The built-in wardrobe housed an ironing board and iron, a few boxes of books and knick-knacks, and blankets for the beds.
The whole place was completely devoid of personality, which didn’t seem right for Stan. Even when he’d lived in a flat that wasn’t his, he’d managed to throw together pieces of artwork and rugs and furniture that made it a reflection of his personality. Here, even the plates and cups were plain white.
It was clearly a place to crash rather than a home.
Ben needed a nap, and a cup of tea, and not necessarily in that order. He went through to the kitchen and set the kettle to boil, then tidied up the mess they hadn’t yet cleared away from dinner the night before.
He could identify that he was feeling pretty numb after his session with Greg. All of the relief and exorcism he’d hoped for after finally speaking about what had happened to him was strangely absent. He’d found the empty feeling that came with drugs, without any of the fun of a high, and he wasn’t sure if he liked it or not.
The kettle clicked, boiled, and Ben went to make tea.
Not wanting to sit in silence, he turned on the TV and let the daytime, house-buying programmes run one after another. When his tea was done, he curled up into a ball and went to sleep in the still, silent flat.
“Just thought you’d make a nest in here, hmm?”
Ben nuzzled into the hand that was stroking through his hair and grumbled something in reply.
Stan laughed. “Thank you for the flowers.”
“You’re welcome.” He caught Stan’s wrist and kissed it.
“How come you’re napping out here instead of in your own bed?”
“It smells like you in here,” Ben said, and Stan didn’t push. Instead he sat down next to Ben and wriggled until he was comfortable. “How was your meeting?”
“Good,” Stan said. “I got the job.”
“I didn’t know it was an interview.”
“Neither did I,” Stan said with a laugh. “I just went in to talk to the editor in chief, and she wants me to start a regular column. I guess she liked me.”
“That’s amazing. Congratulations.”
“Thank you.”
“We should go out for dinner or something. To celebrate.”
Stan shuffled back to look at him. “That would be nice.”
Going out for dinner was a concept that posed something of a challenge. They could go somewhere like Pizza Express and hope no one was paying enough attention to anyone else to recognise them. Or they could pay to go somewhere super fancy.
Stan wanted sushi, so Ben decided to go fancy.
Going out like this felt more normal than Ben had allowed himself to feel in a long time. For years, they’d lurched from one crisis to the next, his body never really adjusting to time zones, stress, and highs that were as high as the lows were low. Taking the guy he was really kinda into out for dinner felt like an exhale. Like a relief.
Stan had done something with his hair that morning that made it look very shiny but also wavy as it fell around his shoulders. Ben stared at it while Stan ordered for both of them, trusting that Stan, of all people, knew what Ben liked to eat.
“You look really pretty today,” Ben said when the waitress walked away.
Stan smiled. “Thank you. You’re looking pretty too.”
That made Ben laugh. “I have a question for you.”
“Okay.”
“Do you like living at your flat?”
“It’s a roof over my head,” Stan said with a shrug. “I loved my apartment in New York. Even though I had three roommates.”
Ben tucked his foot around Stan’s under the table.
“You did? I didn’t know that. Where were you living?”
“Washington Heights. It’s a nice area. I think one of our friends wants to move in when I move out, so the others won’t be short on rent or anything.”
“We should arrange for you to go back sometime. To visit.”
Stan nodded. “I’d like that.”
“So I got an email today. Well, they sent it a few days ago, but I only read it this morning. The estate agent sold my old flat.”
“Already? That was quick.”
“I told them to price it stupidly low to get rid of it. I have to go to my solicitor and sign some paperwork, but it’s gone.”
“You sound relieved.”
Ben nodded. “I am. That place was a pain in my arse from the moment I bought it. So now I’m almost thirty-two, homeless, and living with my friends again. The more things change….”
“The more they stay the same,” Stan finished for him in a quiet murmur. “It’s funny how life can go in circles.”
“Yeah. I’m going to start looking for somewhere, I think.”
“Oh, no,” Stan said, leaning back and crossing his arms. “This isn’t where you tell me you want to move to the countryside and get a little cottage and start raising chickens and goats, is it? Because I am not cut out for livestock, Ben.”
It took Ben a long time to stop laughing. “I’m pretty sure there are people in London who have chickens.”
“Those people are not our friends,” Stan said seriously.
“I was thinking we could maybe get a cat.”
“I like cats.”
“Me too. We’d need a garden flat, though. I don’t want something big and obnoxious like the Marylebone place. Just something big enough for both of us. If you want that.”
“Is this a pipe dream?” Stan asked, fiddling with his chopsticks to make them sit flat.
“No. It’s kind of…. I was talking to Greg about our relationship before. We never got to live together, just the two of us. There was always at least four other people breathing down our necks at all times, and I think that probably affected us.”
“Yeah.” Stan nodded. “It was good, at the start, to have the support. But after a while….”
“It was oppressive. I love the guys, I really do, but I don’t really want to live with them. We’re not poor anymore,” he said with a laugh. “If I can figure out how to give us a really nice life together, that would be amazing.”
Stan was thinking, so Ben gave him some space to do that and tried not to let his traitorous, negative thoughts run away from him.
“I’m not saying I don’t like your idea, because I do,” Stan said after a while. “It’s just… this is still very new. Again. And we already spoke about treating it as something new and figuring out if we even work together any more, rather than diving back in and picking up where we left off.”
Ben nodded. “Okay. That’s fair.”
“So yes, to your idea, that sounds good. More than good. I want it too. And I don’t want you to live on your own, because I think that might not be the best thing for you right now. But I also get what you said about being thirty-two and feeling like you’re going backwards.”
“Almost thirty-two,” Ben corrected. St
an rolled his eyes. “I can deal with living with everyone for a while longer. It’s not the end of the world, and it is useful to have all of us close to each other when we’re working on an album. That’s the only reason why we got the house in LA—so we didn’t have to round everyone up every time we wanted to sit down and get some work done.”
“You spend a lot of time with them.”
“Yeah. That’s why we need to have our own houses—because we drive each other fucking crazy,” Ben said with a laugh. “It’s going to be weird, though. I know we’re all probably going to want to work on our own projects next year.”
“And that’s scary,” Stan offered.
“Well, yeah. I’ve pretty much lived in their back pockets for nearly seven years now. I’m trying to figure out if I want to have a solo career, and I’m pretty sure I don’t.”
“You don’t?”
“No.” He closed his eyes. “It’s hard to explain sometimes. Ares is magic. I’ve said that since we started, when we were still practicing in Sherrie’s basement and in Buck Shot. I don’t want to be someone who’s ignorant or arrogant enough to think that I’m the reason for it rather than just a little part of that magic.”
“You’re pretty magic on your own.”
“Thanks.”
Ben stopped talking when their food was delivered, then tucked in, not realising how hungry he was. That was something else Greg had suggested—getting a food-tracking app, because he was terrible at remembering to eat. At least until his body started sending him hunger cues again.
Sharing sushi with Stan was something they’d done so often before it had become almost boring. Now it wasn’t boring at all. Just sitting opposite Stan, watching him delicately work his chopsticks, filled Ben with a kind of warmth he hadn’t felt in so long.
He understood why Stan was hesitant to dive straight back into a serious relationship—their last one hadn’t exactly ended on a positive note, and there had been a lot of water under the bridge since then.
Ben struggled with keeping anything light, though. Especially when it came to Stan. He felt like he’d stumbled, tripped, and fallen back in love the moment Stan kissed him again. They weren’t rushing or pushing anything, but Ben wanted that happy place back.