Page 27 of No Man's Land

“It didn’t bite my prick. I’ll tell you that for nothing.”

A twitch of Alex’s mouth. “I need to see for myself. Not just your—” He gestured towards Alex’s groin. “I need to check everywhere. I’m sorry, but to do otherwise would be reckless.”

“I swear to fucking God,” Josef said as he began unbuttoning his waistcoat, “if you don’t tell me what the hell is going on, I’ll drown you in your own bloody bathtub.”

“I do understand your frustration,” Alex assured him. “And if I could say more—”

“Oh, you will say more.” Josef threw his coat and waistcoat onto the floor and started on his shirt buttons. “Because if you don’t, I’m printing this whole bloody story.”

“That would be unwise.”

Josef smiled, angrily. “Why? Because your friend will finish me off?”

“Because nobody would believe you.”

“They will when I publish the photographs.”

Alex stared, eyes suddenly very wide and dark. Behind him the bath continued to run, filling the air with fragrant steam. “What photographs?”

Ah, so that was interesting. Josef felt the power shift between them and stopped his angry disrobing, letting his shirt hang open. “That’s for me to know and you to find out when I publish them.”

“You can’t.”

“It’s a free country. Well, it used to be. But sod DORA—the people have a right to know.” He paused, made a show of consideration. “Unless, that is, you want to give me a good reason not to.”

Alex briefly closed his eyes. “Take off your clothes. I’m not doing anything until I’m certain you weren’t bitten.”

Although he was sure he’d have noticed if a chunk of him was missing, Josef hesitated before he carried on stripping. “What happens if I was?”

Alex looked grim, face colourless save the dark pits of his eyes. Eyes which flitted to the Webley now sitting atop a wicker laundry hamper.

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me.”

“I think we’d know by now if you were…infected.”

“Would we? How?”

“You’d be dead. Or…worse.”

There are worse things than death.

Josef had a vivid memory of Alex saying those precise words as he’d gazed down at the boy who’d breathed his last that morning in the dressing station. They took on a horrifying new meaning now.

In silence, Josef pulled off his shirt and sat to unlace his boots. They were filthy. He and Alex had both tramped dirt all the way through his fancy flat. Should have taken them off at thedoor instead of creating more work for the maids, not that Alex would ever consider the maids. His sort never did. Josef tugged off his boots, saw his big toe sticking through the end of his sock—he kept meaning to darn it—and glared up at Alex, daring him to judge. Alex watched him with that same stony expression, face like marble. No sign he was enjoying this humiliation, at least.

Josef wasn’t shy about nakedness. True, he was scrawny and rather underfed, but after spending ten months at the front, he wasn’t shy about anything. Besides, he swam—and did other things—in the bathhouse on a semi-regular basis. But under Alex’s stern observation he was irritated to discover that he did feel self-conscious. Perhaps because, last time he’d been naked with the man, circumstances had been so very different. But, like most things in his life, he brazened his way through the discomfort. When he was down to his underwear, he got to his feet. “You really think he bit me on the arse?”

“I just have to see for myself.”

“I bet that’s what you tell all the boys,” Josef said, unbuttoning his underwear and letting it slide down until he was stark bollock naked. “Want me to do a twirl?”

Alex drew closer, eyes running over Josef’s body. A clinical examination, nothing intimate at all, as he circled him. At least, that was how it began. But when Alex walked behind him, Josef felt a gentle touch on his back, fingertips tracing down his spine. “You’re bruised here.”

Goosebumps rose across his skin, coaxed out by that soft touch. Naked as he was, his physical reaction was painfully obvious. Cursing silently, Josef closed his eyes and willed his prick to behave. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

No immediate answer, but Alex’s hand didn’t leave his back. After a silence filled only by the slow running of the bath, Alex said, “I wish you’d taken my advice and left this alone.”

“I bet you do.”

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