Page 45 of Everything That Kills Me
“Yes,” he whispered back. Did he? He needed to say he did to make Kubat feel on more secure ground.
When Thomas finally rose to his feet, so did Rafa.
“You don’t need to wait,” Jack said. “Make sure you don’t eat all the baklava and Turkish Delight.”
“I’ll be in the lounge. Just down the corridor,” Thomas told him.
“Okay.”
“Our turn,” Kubat said.
Kubat removed his peshtemal but Jack didn’t. For a while, the attendants worked on both of them. Jack expected Kubat to dismiss them and suggest he did the massaging. Jack needed to be the one doing that. When the attendants left, he wasn’t surprised. He lay on his stomach with the syringe pressing against him and looked across at the Turk.
“Can I give you a massage?” Jack sounded as shy as he could manage.
“Yes. I would like that.”
Kubat began to turn over but Jack moved to stop him. “I’ll do your back first.”
“Okay, beautiful English boy. What’s your name?”
“Alex.”
“I’m Hakan.”
“No one will come in, will they?” Jack asked, making himself sound nervous. “I don’t want my father…”
“No. Quite safe.”
Jack climbed on the slab, his knees either side of Kubat’s arms and pulled off his peshtemal. Kubat was so fixed on theway Jack dropped it within his eyeline that he didn’t register what he’d put at the side of his knee. Kubat groaned as the massage began.
As Jack squeezed muscles, pressing into his shoulders with his thumbs, he took a risk and rocked lightly against the guy’s backside. It was tricky figuring out how far to go.
Kubat let out a long sigh. “Are you a masseur?”
“I want to be a nuclear physicist.”
“A waste.”
Jack wished he could have saidassassin.He pressed hard over the vertebral artery as he drove the needle into Kubat’s neck and pressed the plunger.
“Arrgh!”
“Sorry! Sorry!” Jack tucked the empty syringe into the waistband of his underwear and massaged lower down Kubat’s back.
“Are you okay? I don’t know my own strength.”
“Okay.”
Not for long, Jack hoped.
“That’sss gooood.” Kubat was slurring his words.
The next sixty seconds felt like the longest of Jack’s life. But when he heard the sounds of Kubat struggling to breathe, he climbed off. He wrapped the peshtemal around his hips. As yet, there was no visible puncture wound. Hopefully it would be hidden by Kubat’s hair.
He moved so that the man could see his face and gave him a stricken look. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
He couldn’t answer. Nor could he move. His eyes were wild with fear.
