Page 43 of Fe
Fen took the book, toothbrush, condoms and lube from his pocket and got ready for bed.
Even when he was curled up under the covers, he cycled repeatedly throughsay yesandsay no.
Sleep didn’t happen. Well, not deep sleep. There was no sliding into comforting dreams.
Fen would have said yes if Ripley had asked him to be his boyfriend. So why not be his boyfriend and have a whole lot of money at the end of six months? He’d wanted his life to change and he was being offered the chance to change it for something he’d have been happy doing anyway.
But why six months? Why pay him at all? What was wrong with the guy?
Fen rolled over, then rolled back, turned his pillow, thumped it, turned it back. The same thoughts kept churning in his head. For whatever reason, Ripley needed to control everything. The start and the end. He didn’t want to get hurt because he’d been hurt before and was protecting himself. He didn’t want to fall in love because love had ended badly for him. Maybe it had something to do with the death of his father. Maybe Ripley couldn’t risk falling in love with him because Fen was dying.
Whatever the reason, Ripley didn’t want the complexity of a relationship, didn’t want the love that might develop. Fen had a choice. Delete those photos, say no and forget he ever met him. Or use the six months to make Ripley see he was wrong. Six months to make Ripley fall in love with him. Except it would be a love that couldn’t last.
As Ripley watched Fen walk out of the restaurant, he’d registered the slump of his shoulders, known how much he’d hurt him and found himself grinding his teeth. That had not been one of his finest moments. Considering what he did for a living, it had been a spectacular fail. And it fucking hurt. And he was an idiot because he’d probably fucked up everything and there had been no need.
Ripley took a deep, shaky breath.
Why hadn’t he just let things unfold and allowed the six-month deadline to remain in his head?Thatwould have been the sensible thing to do. Deceitful yes, but less painful for Fen.
Although, was that true? Dumping him after six months when he hadn’t known it was coming? The theory behind his proposal was Fen would know where he stood from the outset, they’d have fun for six months, and Fen would come out of the arrangement with a substantial sum of money. Ripley thought he’d be doing Fen a favour as well as keeping things honest and open between them. He had the money. Fen didn’t. But if Fen thought he felt sorry for him…Fuck.Of course he thought that and he was offended.
Now he needed to put things right, though he wasn’t sure how. He paid the bill and left.
Harry was waiting and Ripley slid into the back of the car. “Home, please.”
Despite what Fen had said, if he said yes on Friday, every future interaction between them would be marred by what he’d offered. Would Fen be mentally calculating how much he earned each time they fucked? What price Ripley put on a blow job? Would he be worrying whether Ripley would get his money’s worth? His head throbbed. He’d let lust and loneliness and a touch of insecurity get the better of him. Something else too, a feeling he couldn’t identify. Or maybe didn’t want to.
Ripley knew he wasn’t relationship material. He had devastating proof of his inadequacy in that regard. Alejandro had complained Ripley was too self-centred, too focussed on his time-consuming job, too unwilling to take a risk, too buttoned up, too… a whole lot of othertoos. And he was right. Ripley was well aware of those character flaws, but he was what he was. Nurture and nature had both played their part, as had the death of his father.
Prior to Alejandro, steering clear of any emotional attachment had led Ripley down a dangerous path for a while, experimenting in a dark world he’d eventually walked away from. He’d failed to see BDSM wasn’t the unemotional arrangement he’d imagined. It had its attractions, but it was not for him. Pain cured nothing. Not his nor anyone else’s.
One-night-stands had avoided the need to expose his failings. He’d thought he was lucky to be gay because women, more than men, were looking for long term. There were plenty of gay men who just wanted to fuck. He avoided those who looked for more. Sex mattered to him. Being friends didn’t. It had been easier to fuck someone and move on to the next. Until Alejandro. The person who’d made him see things differently. The person whose actions had destroyed him. Ripley’s lungs locked as he remembered. He’d opened his heart and paid a heavy price. Ripley didn’t want to be in the position where he’d risk his heart. Not again.
Maybe Fen would assume he wasn’t willing to take a chance because he’d been hurt in the past. Maybe Fen would even think he could change Ripley’s mind and at the end of the six months, they’d stay together, living happily ever after because they were in love. Too many things stood in the way of that ever happening. All of them down to Ripley. Nothing to do with Fen. At least Fen would walk away with a sum of money to help him forget.
Sometimes, having a brain that worked at a hundred miles an hour was a disadvantage. Ripley had good reasons for approaching this in the way he had. He hadn’t wanted to hurt Fen, but help him. Except being totally open about his reasons had been a step too far. Ripley couldn’t admit to that level of vulnerability, the extent to which he was…emotionally stunted. He could never admit that to anyone. His pride wouldn’t let him. Even before his father had been killed, they’d been a family who didn’t talk about problems.Never complain, never explainwas the family motto.
Who’d have thought the concept of astiff upper lipstill existed? But it had and it did. When he was a child, if someone or something upset him, Ripley was expected to deal with it himself. Definitely not show his feelings or share them. Not with his teachers or his parents or his friends.
Lost your teddy? Then look for it.
Hurt your knee? Clean yourself up and stop crying.
Someone been mean to you? Stand up for yourself.
Don’t snitch. Cowards snitch.
Be a man.When he was still a little boy.
Would it kill you to make an effort?
His father was nowhere near as unfeeling as his mother. But he was so late back in the evenings, Ripley really only saw him at the weekend. At the age of seven, Ripley had become a weekly boarder at a school in Richmond. He was collected on Friday afternoon by his father and taken back by him on Sunday night. He used to love those car journeys when he had his father to himself. He remembered how he’d been asked if boarding school was what he wanted and understood he could have said no and he wouldn’t have had to go. But Ripley had been happy to board. It meant less time with his cold-hearted mother. Even though he’d not been happy at school, he’d have been a lot less happy at home.
He’d never seemed to develop the ability to make friends. Not at school, university or work. He had friends but notrealfriendships. There was a barrier he couldn’t shift. He’d learned to repress his emotions, to hide how he felt. To be neither seen nor heard by his mother made for an easier life. All he wanted was his father, though even his father’s style of parenting wasn’t perfect.
After his father had died, Ripley had buttoned himself up, trained himself not to react. But that didn’t stop him feeling, and when anger, jealousy, irritation, and feelings of injustice took root, in hiding them, he’d allowed them to fester. They grew like cancers, morphing into feelings totally out of proportion to what had caused them. Sometimes Ripley exploded, but only with his face pressed hard into his pillow, only when he was sure he was alone. No one knew. No one cared. He still screamed, but only in his head because his mask was firmly in place.
If he’d not lost his father… He’d kept Ripley balanced. He was fun where his mother was not. He always made time to talk to him. Then, in a blink, he was gone and Ripley had fractured. His link to normality gone. For a long period, not helped by his mother part-blaming him, he’d felt responsible for his father’s death. He’d been a small boy. He knew it wasn’t his fault and yet a little part of him still wondered. If he’d not hidden, if he’d stayed at his father’s side, then maybe the burglar wouldn’t have hurt him. If he’d come downstairs sooner…What ifhad to be the most unhelpful words in the English language.
