Naughty!Bad!Wrong! Porn: You Know What I Want 01/02
Happy Monday, all and sundry. This is the much-delayed dirty!bad!wrong porn to help start your Christmas season off right.
It's dedicated to Maudgonne, who asked for it so long ago that I can't remember when, and while it's not the continuation of After the Fall, it does feature bad, bad, bad wrong parings. To wit: Ryan/Caleb. Ryan/Other. Ryan/Sandy. Ryan/Sandy/Seth. Non-con. Do not say I didn't warn you.
It is, it goes without saying, for adult eyes only.
Also, my beloved beta is off frolicking this week with her own family, so all mistakes, even more than usual, are mine. Feel free to point and laugh, and laugh and point.
This is part one of two.
Summer was still unsure of how it was that she and her ex-boyfriend had been roped into retrieving the last of Marissa’s things from the house she sneeringly called “the mansion on the hill.”
She claimed that she had to look for a job before Alex really got on her about the rent, but when Summer had left her that morning, she was still trying to clean up the remains of their party the night before. How Seth had gotten roped in, Summer still didn’t quite understand, but she was sure that Ryan had missed it only because he’d been muttering for the past hour about “betrayers” who left their pool houses for “mysterious appointments.”
As frustrating as it was to give up her Saturday morning to spend with Cohen, she could understand Marissa’s reluctance to return to the Cooper-Nichol mansion. There was something about the house that made her uneasy - it was as cold and impersonal as it was massive and imposing, a Newport Group McMansion on some serious steroids. And with Julie away once again - this time in the wine country, Summer was pretty sure - it certainly wasn’t exactly the most welcoming place on earth. Whatever else her faults, after ten or so years of making herself at home wherever Julie landed, Summer would defend her warmth as a hostess to her death.
At least it turned out that the stuff that Marissa had wanted had been of the hard-to-sneak-out-of-the-laundry-room and not of the massive-boxes-of-stuff-to-carry variety. She didn’t think Cohen would have been much help in that case. However, in finding the back way to nearly anyplace in his grandfather’s mansion, he was an ace.
“Now see, if this had been Grandpa’s old place, we would have been to the laundry room and back in record time, even if it was to get Marissa’s unmentionables. I knew all the secret passages in that house,” he was bragging as the crossed through the kitchen. It was almost freakishly silent - not even the staff seemed to be around - but maybe that was normal for a weekend, when there was just Caleb in the house.
“Now, you see, if this had been my grandfather’s old house, I could have just leaned on this panel here and - Hey!”
While he was still talking, the panel in on the side of the kitchen wall, next to the stove, swung open on silent hinges.
“Cohen! What kind of freaky funhouse is your grandfather running?” Summer demanded. Seth replied from the floor, where he now sat on his ass, rubbing the dirt from his face with far-dirtier hands.
“Wow! I can’t believe he built another one.”
“Another one what, Cohen?”
“Secret passage! It’s so cool. He had one built into the old house - it went from his study to the kitchen and back. Grandma said it was so he could get a sandwich without running into any Newpsies when she was having a party, but it was totally awesome. I wonder. . . ” he trailed off as he noticed Summer’s glare above him.
“Yeah, yeah, Cohen, whatevs. Can we skip the geek tour of Grandpa’s pervy hideouts and get a move on. I’ve got better things to do than hang out with you all day.”
Seth stuck a hand out but, when Summer made no move to take it, reluctantly stumbled to his feet.
“Actually, Summer, funny that you should say that. It just so happens that, if my instincts are in fact correct, and this passage does lead to my Grandpa’s study, it will cut out several tedious minutes of trudging all the way back to the front door the long way. Come on, the faster we get out of here, the faster you can go and feather Zach’s hair, or whatever the two of you have planned for this afternoon,” he sad, mumbling the last under his breath.
“What? Cohen, what did you…. You know what - you’re right. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can deliver Marissa’s unmentionables to her, and the sooner I don’t have to waste anymore time with you. Let’s get out of here.”
She pushed him into the unmarked passageway with a strength borne on the beginning of a really good rage blackout. It had been too long since she had to deal with Cohen on an extended basis, and he was starting to make her blood boil.
It wasn’t until the door had slid shut behind her, leaving them in pitch darkness, that it occurred to her that this was perhaps not the best idea she’d ever had.
“Um, you don’t have, like, a flashlight or one of those geeky laser keychains, do you?” she asked hopefully.
After a moment of total and - for Seth - uncharacteristic silence, he finally answered, his voice coming from further down the hall.
“I used to be able to do it in the dark, but if you’re worried, there should be a little light switch by the door.”
The voice was becoming fainter as she groped along the wall, finally finding a switch nearly flat against the wall. She pushed it, and a row of tiny lights appeared, lining the floor on either side of the hall, making the passage look like a landing strip. A landing strip that Cohen was rapidly disappearing down and around the corner.
“Hey! Hey!” she called in a loud whisper, unsure of why she was so reluctant to shout in the seemingly empty house, “You could at least wait for me!”
She hurried down the passage as quickly as she could in the dim light and her three-inch heels, keeping the back of Cohen’s Converse sneakers barely in sight until they came to an abrupt halt several minutes later.
“Jesus, Cohen! Did you turn into an Olympic sprinter in Portland or what?” she demanded, but to her surprise, he spun around and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Shh. Listen. I think my Grandpa just got home - and I think there’s somebody with him. We’re going to have to go back the way we came,” he whispered in his ear.
Indeed, Summer could hear the soft rumble of Caleb Nichol’s distinctive tenor in the distance. She started to nod her agreement, when Seth suddenly went rigid beside her, his fingers digging into the soft tissue around her mouth painfully.
“Ouch! Ow!” she protested, but he simply tightened his grip.
“Shh! Shut up! Listen,” he ordered.
There was a second voice answering Caleb in low, indistinct tones, one which, after a moment, started to feel vaguely familiar.
She shook her head fiercely until Seth finally loosened his grip, still standing only inches away in the corridor.
“Is that - Ryan? I thought you said he had an appointment this morning?” she whispered in his ear.
“He did. Maybe he finished early and wanted to catch up with us,” Seth answered, just as low.
“He didn’t know we were coming here, remember? He was already gone before Marissa called.”
Summer sighed, and felt Seth slip away from her, groping for the other light switch at this end of the passage as the indistinct voices drifted more strongly towards them.
“I don’t know. Since Lindsay left, he’s been - weird. I didn’t ask too many questions,” Seth admitted in a whisper.
They turned to go, but before either of them could take a step, the faint sound of Ryan’s voice, suddenly clear, and closer, drifted into the hidden space.
“I thought you said this was over,” he said, and Summer could hear the anger and the pain in his voice.
Whatever was going on, she had the feeling that it wasn’t good.
Behind her, Seth has frozen again. She turned and groped her way towards him, and noticed a square of glowing daylight on the wall behind him.
“Seth? Seth!” she whispered, finding his ear again, “Can we see out into the other room?”
It took him a moment, but she felt his head nod up and down against her cheek in assent.
The two crept over to the bar of light. There was a sort of window cut into the door, covered by a heavy mesh screen, just long enough for the two to stand crowded close together side by side. From wherever they were behind the room, they has a view of about three-quarters of it, including Caleb’s massive executive desk and the wall of windows, with their heavy velvet drapes, out of place for California, on the opposite side. There were two spindly-looking elaborate armchairs placed on either side of a bar cart in front of them, each with a stiff velvet seat that matched the drapes, and it was into one of them that Caleb dropped heavily, startling Summer into a sudden thought.
“We’re not, like, looking through the goofy eyes of some painting right now, are we?” she hissed into Seth’s ear, and again she felt his head against hers as he quickly denied it.
“No. Speakers, I think, on either side of the fireplace. Shh.”
Of course. This was a Julie Cooper-Nichol special - a heavy, clichéd study for a California land baron, done in the Continental baronial style. They were behind a huge stone fireplace, faux, of course, with a gas log. The secret-passage door probably opened right into the firebox itself.
Summer was startled out of her thoughts by the appearance of Ryan in her field of view. He stood facing Caleb, his back to them, a shadow in the bright sunshine streaming through the windows, reflecting off the water.
Despite the fact that it was a warm day, barely fall, he was dressed in his black jacket and grey hoodie, his old Dickies faded to a soft blue. In fact, the only thing on him that didn’t look like they’d come from Chino to Newport with him were the new Khaki Converse sneakers that he wore, uncharacteristically. Summer knew that they had been a gift from Seth - a joke present - on his last birthday to complete the Seth Cohen Advanced Pack; she didn’t think he’d ever worn them.
“Why am I here?” Ryan asked, his voice so again soft that she was straining to hear it.
He stood, unconsciously, at parade rest; his legs spread wide, his arms locked together at the small of his back.
“You know why.”
Seth’s grandfather’s voice was short and dismissive, and despite the close air in the hidden passage, Summer felt a shiver run up her spine.
“But after - after last summer, you said…”
Ryan was tripping over his words, which made her nervous, and shifting his weight subtly from foot to foot. Whatever was going on, this obviously wasn’t the first “appointment” Caleb and Ryan had shared together - and Ryan, equally obviously, didn’t have the upper hand.
“I know what I said, but that was before you started sleeping with my daughter.”
Caleb’s voice was even, steady - he could have been announcing a Newport acquisition, or the direction of the wind out on his sailboat. She felt Seth shift beside her, crowding her closer, trying to find a better angle to view his grandfather.
“I never slept with Lindsay!” Ryan voice rose again, and his flew out from behind him, rising in protest.
Caleb snorted, in response, and settled back deeper into his elegantly out-of-place armchair.
“Well, that’s through no fault of your own, is it?” he asked, this time with a bite in his voice. “ If she hadn’t left with Renee…”
Ryan started to take a half-step forward, then seemed to think better of it and stopped, right back where he started.
“I didn’t do that, either! I wanted her to stay. You’re the one who…”
Ryan trailed off, as if he suddenly realized what he was about to say, and to whom.
Caleb leaned up, placing his elbows on his knees, looking faintly amused.
“I was the one who what, boy? You might as well finish your thought - you’re going to pay for it anyway.”
Summer felt the jolt of Seth reacting to that threat beside her, as his hand flew to his own mouth to keep himself from exclaiming out loud. After a moment, he seemed to gather himself together, and leaned down to hiss in her ear again.
“What in the name of Jesus and Moses is going on here?”
Out in the study, Ryan’s arms drifted back to his sides and he sighed, and looking out of the row of window above Caleb’s head.
“You’re the one who drove her away, “ he finished reluctantly. “She wanted to be with you - to get to know you. She didn’t want your money. Your stuff”
Caleb snorted again, and Summer had a moment to think what a very unattractive noise it was. Seth’s chin was resting on the top of Summer’s head by now, and she could feel her back touch his chest whenever she took a deep breath in. She couldn’t believe that the two out in the study hadn’t heard them yet - hadn’t seen them at all. She was closer to Ryan here than she was in the Cohens’ kitchen, when she sat at the table and he stood, lounging with his cup of coffee, against one of the counters.
“When will you learn?” Caleb sounded honestly disappointed in his young protégé. “Everyone wants the money. Whatever it is they say they want, really -- it’s always about the money.”
Ryan turned his head back to look Caleb in the eye, and rubbed a hand nervously over the short the back of his neck. Summer realized that he still needed a haircut - that he hadn’t had one since he’d returned from the summer - but underneath his shaggy, straw-colored locks lay a darker patch of close-shorn hair, stubbly and soft, and he worried at it as he spoke.
“I don’t want your money,” he gritted, finally, and Summer could hear real, genuine hurt behind it.
Caleb sighed, and stood suddenly, so abruptly that Ryan took an involuntary step back, closer to their hiding place.
“I know,” he said, still sounding faintly disbelieving as he turned his back on Ryan and poured a generous finger of some dark liquid from one of the decanters on the top of the bar cart.
“Still, you want something from my family, don’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. “
Summer was amazed that she could see clearly enough to actually watch the muscles in Ryan’s neck and back tense at the comment.
“You know why I’m here,” he hissed in response, “You called me here.”
Caleb waved him away as he sat back down again with his drink.
“Semantics, boy. You came back to my daughter’s house - even after you disgraced her by knocking up that -that maid’s daughter” he sputtered, as if he could think of no worse insult. “You put yourself in this position. Well, you and that Atwood libido. Can’t keep it in your pants, can you?”
“I told you, nothing happened between Lindsay and me!” Ryan protested again.
Caleb gestured towards him with the heavy cut-crystal glass in his hand.
“And what about my step-daughter? You can’t tell me that purple-haired menaced seduced her into a Sapphic dalliance. You broke her heart - took her virginity. Left her a-a wannabe Gertrude Stein.”
“I did not!” Ryan was beginning to sound frustrated, and Summer watched as his hands slowly fisted at his sides. And either Caleb could sense it, too, or his many years in the boardroom had given him a knack for finding the weak points, because suddenly, he sounded far less amused.
“Oh, really? What would your brother have to say about that?” Caleb asked in a low, deadly voice, and while it seemed like a non-sequitor to Summer, it must have meant something, because Ryan backed down immediately, taking another half-step back towards their hiding again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the quiet voice was back again. “You said you’d leave Trey out of this.”
Caleb nodded in satisfaction, and took a long pull of his Scotch before answering.
“I did. If you cooperated. Which so far, seems not to be the case.”
Ryan took another half-step, then seemed to steel himself. Summer watched as he drew in a tense breath and then carefully exhaled, allowing his shoulders to relax. He bowed his head, looking down at the richly patterned Oriental rug on the floor.
“I’m here,” he muttered, and now Summer and Seth were both straining to hear. She could feel Seth pressed against her, feel his heart racing as he panted almost silently in her ear. She could feel the tension in the room as her stomach flipped, but she couldn’t imagine it was easy for Cohen to watch his grandfather and his best friend caught up in - something - that they’d obviously been through before.
“What do you want?” he asked, raising his head to look at Caleb head on once more.
Seth’s grandfather seemed to like that response, melting back against the cushions of his chair, and placing the heavy glass in his hand on the table after draining it with a satisfied smile.
“You know what I want,” he murmured, and Summer was sure she saw a shudder run down Ryan’s broad back.
There was a pause during which she could only hear Seth’s breaths, heavy beside her, and then Ryan sighed again.
“Same as before?” he asked, and Caleb nodded.
If Summer had thought the scene was bizarre before, nothing would have prepared her for what happened next. Without another word, Ryan crossed over to Caleb’s big desk, and standing in front of one of the visitor’s chairs, he began to shuck off layers of clothes. He removed his jacket and hoodie together, leaving him dressed only in a tight navy t-shirt and his faded jeans.
He kicked the sneakers of his sockless feet, and for a moment he paused, facing them for the first time. He looked oddly vulnerable, standing in his bare feet on the expensive rug that Julie had no doubt picked out on their European honeymoon, on a carpet that no one was ever, she was sure, supposed to feel beneath their feet.
He took a deep breath, staring into the fireplace, and thus right into Summer - and Seth’s - eyes, although she was sure he had no way of knowing that. He wouldn’t be doing what he was doing if he had any idea they were there - of that Summer was sure. His face was utterly blank - devoid of any emotion at all - but Summer noticed that his fingers trembled as he fumbled with the button-fly of his jeans.
“I don’t want this to take all day,” Caleb called out impatiently, and with a vicious yank, Ryan pulled his t-shirt over his head, tossing it atop his jacket, then yanking down his pants with equally brutal force. He wore no underwear. Of course.
She heard Seth’s horrified noise beside her, felt him physically redouble his efforts to keep quiet, even as she held out hope that this wasn’t what it looked like, what it seemed. After all, Caleb Nichol was known for his mind games. He might not be above a little object lesson in humiliation.
Without hesitation, Ryan turned to face Caleb again, and Summer almost felt herself gasp as he walked several steps closer to him, giving them both a full view of his nudity.
Okay, well, Ryan was officially the third boy she’d seen naked, and so far, he was winning the prize. Not that she hadn’t loved Cohen -- with his ropy muscles, and his long limbs that splayed every which way across her bed, and that soft little pocket where his arm met his shoulder that seemed to made for her head - or even Zach, with his chiseled water-polo abs, but really, dismissing Ryan would have been like - dissing the Mona Lisa or something.
He was compact, and thinner than she would have thought. He had a funny sort of farmer’s tan - his torso was fish-belly white, and he had overlapping tan rings, like an old tree, from short sleeves and wife beaters, and the tops of his thighs were faintly lighter than his calves - but mostly, he was magnificent. He looked like an anatomy model, each muscle group easily defined, but not grotesquely so, like the men in that weird old film Mr. Masters made them watch about the Governor in Health Class.
From their concealed angle, they were exposed mostly to the back of him, and Summer could see the sharp hollows of his buttocks, as well as the weird, almost square scar that sat right in the small of his back. As she looked closer, she could see fainter marks scattered across the rest of it. Right, she’d think about that later - after her nervous breakdown over *this* particular incident was over and done with.
Ryan stood easily, his hands at his sides, his weight evenly distributed on the balls of his bare feet. He wasn’t showing off, exactly, but he wasn’t hiding, either, waiting for Caleb’s next move.
Summer heard an appreciative sigh, and looked beyond Ryan to see Caleb smirk like the cat who ate the cream, and splay his legs out widely, both feet planted firmly on the ground. Yeah, that didn’t bode well for object lesson in humiliation - or at least, for object lesson in humiliation without some other kind of pervy undertone.
“Well, boy,” Caleb said, still impatient.
“What do you want?” Ryan asked, standing totally still.
Caleb smiled again, coldly, and jerked his head in a sort of ‘come hither’ gesture. Beside her, she could feel Seth start to shake.
“You know what I want.”
His voice was soft and throaty, dark with lust, and Summer knew, then, sickeningly, that this wasn’t the first time - wasn’t close to it. Those words had the power of time and ritual behind them, obviously, as Ryan shuddered again, jumping as if shocked.
Without another word, he approached Seth’s grandfather, his bare feet making only a whisper of sound against the carpet. Silently, he sank to his knees before the older man, and when the sharp sound of the zipper exploded in the quiet room, she felt Cohen jump against her as if shot.
This was - without a doubt - the sickest thing she’d ever seen. She knew that she should look away, that she should make Cohen look away, but it was as if they both were paralyzed. The room was silent except for the faint tick-tock of the clock in the hall, and the obscene noises that were coming from across the room.
She felt her bile rise at the sight of Caleb’s face, tilted back towards the ceiling, his eyes half-closed in wordless pleasure, at his hand - expensively manicured and roughened with age - twisted in Ryan’s overlong hair, at the way Ryan’s head bobbed earnestly in front of him, steered by the firm grip.
This was not an act meant to be witnessed - not even when it was an act of love. It was - strange, and off-putting, to see, to hear. As an act of aggression it was nearly unbearable.
They had hardly had time to process the event when it was over. With a vicious shove, Caleb pushed Ryan away, sending him back on his heels.
“Not that quick, boy. You’re not getting off that easy today. You know what I want.”
Ryan took a moment to scrub a hand across his face before rising to his knees, then standing once more, and that tiny gesture of vulnerability nearly undid her. Still silently, he moved across the room again, this time arranging himself behind Caleb’s desk. With his legs ramrod straight, he bent his torso over its broad, flat surface, hissing momentarily as his bare flesh made contact with the highly polished wood in the cool air-conditioned room.
He turned his head to one side, rising up on tiptoes to open himself, unknowingly, to Summer and Seth, even as he stretched out his arms to grasp the sides of the desk in a white-knuckled hold. She put one hand up to her mouth to stifle a cry, the other groping blindly in the dark until she found Seth’s and gripped it nearly as hard as Ryan was gripping the edges of the desk.
It took a moment for Caleb to rise from his seat and make his way carefully across the room, his erect cock, in its nest of iron-grey pubic hair, jutting out obscenely from the fly of his carefully-pressed trousers. Summer still couldn’t force herself to turn away, but she felt Seth beside her bury his face in her hair, unable to watch a moment more.
He came around the desk, behind Ryan, only a few feet from where they were concealed. He opened a small top drawer in the desk, rummaging through, and the noise was loud enough to make Summer bite done on her lip in an effort to keep from crying out again.
She saw the flash of a parti-colored casing, then heard the rip of plastic and smelled the faint, sharp tang of latex. Oh God, they were close enough that she could smell the condom he was about to use.
He moved to put it on, and Summer was grateful that his bulk - his entirely-clothed bulk - screened the pair almost entirely from her eyes, at least until she realized the implications of it. While she certainly didn’t want to be the one to see what Julie was putting up with for her paychecks these days, she hadn’t realized until she saw him loom over Ryan just how purposeful Caleb had been. Ryan was naked, vulnerable - forced against his will to be exposed, while Caleb showed his contempt in every article of clothing he never bothered to remove. It was like a slap in the face.
They were entirely too close for comfort. Oh Christ, she could actually *hear* Caleb enter Ryan, and the grunt he made as he seated himself fully. She could hear, even over Seth’s quiet sobs -- which were soaking her hair and running down the back of her shirt - the one small, breathy sound of pain Ryan made before cutting himself off ruthlessly, biting down on his lip.
It went on far longer than Summer thought Caleb had in him - each thrust accompanied by a grunt from Caleb, by the dull slap of his belt buckle against the top drawer of the desk. When he finished, with a small crow of triumph, he slumped over Ryan’s back, totally obscuring him, then pulled out again so quickly that she heard another tiny whimper of pain from the surface of the desk.
Ryan made no move to shift his position, and as Caleb moved to the side to clean himself up, Summer could see a tiny pool of blood under Ryan’s cheek, from where he’d bitten nearly through his lower lip.
She heard the sharp noise of the zipper again, and felt Seth sag against her. For a moment, they both thought the end had come, but then there was a new sound - the slither of fine, hand-tooled leather against summer-weight wool trousers.
“Tell me, boy - how many times did you and my daughter go out this year?” Caleb demanded softly - the first words either of them had spoken in close to a half-hour.
When Ryan answered, his voice was equally soft, almost broken.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember - maybe a half-dozen.”
Caleb snorted yet again, and moved to center himself once behind Ryan’s back.
“I think it was more than that. I think it was a lot more. Still, let’s split the difference, shall we, since I’ve got things to do this afternoon. Let’s just double your estimate to be on the safe side. “
She heard Ryan make a noise - as though he were going to protest - but Caleb’s hand swung out, tapping him hard on the left flank.
“What’s that, boy? We can triple it if you want.”
Summer held her breath, but there was no answer.
“Smart boy. Double it is, then.”
It was the beating that finally made her turn away, one hand still covering her mouth, the other still locked in Cohen’s death grip. The first blow had landed right above Ryan’s kidney, with whine, and then a crack, and it had raised an immediate welt.
She could hear the whole process - the whine and the crack, Caleb’s heavy breathing at his effort, Ryan’s grunt as each blow struck him in a more vulnerable spot than the last - but she couldn’t make herself watch. She felt it, though, as Seth flinched beside her as each blow landed - an explosion in the whisper-quiet mansion. Luckily, it ended far quicker than the last event had done.
As Caleb redressed for the last time, it was as though a spell was broken. Ryan released his grip on the desk, surreptitiously trying to wipe a spot of blood away from the leather blotter before he stood gingerly, his raw and reddened back still facing them.
“I need a-a towel, or something,” he said softly, never turning to face Caleb.
“What for?”
At that, she felt Cohen go utterly still, his breath sounding harsh in her ears, as though he’d just run a marathon.
“No. Not for that - for there. I-I - Kirsten doesn’t let me do my own laundry anymore. Someone will notice if my - if there are - if there’s blood.”
Caleb made a noise of contempt.
“I didn’t hit you hard enough to make you bleed. I never do.”
“Not from that,” Ryan said, his voice almost a whisper. And indeed, Summer could see a trickle of blood along his inner thigh.
With a sigh, Caleb opened another desk drawer and tossed a handful of cocktail napkins at him.
“Clean yourself up and go. I’ve got guests coming this afternoon, and the staff are due around noon.”
Summer didn’t see what happened next, because Seth’s legs chose that moment to finally give out beneath him. She lowered him carefully to the floor, propping him up against the stone wall of the passage - the back of the fireplace, she now realized - before returning to their watchpost.
Ryan had redressed, and looked the same as always, as did Caleb. If it hadn’t have been for the careful way Ryan leaned against the desk, she would never have guessed that anything had just passed between them.
“Why are you still here?” Caleb demanded.
“I want to see them,” Ryan said softly.
“I don’t have time for this,”
“I want to see them,” he repeated, gesturing to the far wall, to a portrait of Seth’s late grandmother.
“Why do that to yourself? You know they’re there.”
Ryan laughed dryly, without a speck of humor behind it.
“Call it my insurance policy. I want to make sure you still have them.”
“I’m a man of my word,” Caleb answered, sounding slightly insulted by the implication, “Of course I still have them.”
But he was already moving towards the picture. It swung forward on a hinge, and Summer watched closely as he entered a combination into the keypad at the front of the hidden safe.
From nearly the top of the pile of documents, he pulled out a heavy manila envelope and handed it to Ryan. Without another word, Ryan thumbed through its contents, nodded curtly, and stood to leave.
He handed it back to Caleb, who tossed it carelessly back into the safe before swinging the door and its concealing portrait shut.
“You know, Kirsten could tell you that I’m a man of my word,” Caleb said, and Ryan nodded, his face tight.
“Well, Kirsten thinks you’re a lot of things,” he answered. She could see that it was almost physically painful for him to mention her name in this context. He walked to the door of the study, Caleb close on his heels. “Do you - is this - is it on for next week?” he asked.
“I’ll let you know,” Caleb said with a sharp smile, and the last thing that Summer saw was his smirk as he pushed the boy out the door ahead of him.
She sank down beside Seth and put her head on her knees, counting to one thousand before lifting it again.
By the time she did, Seth had sprung to his feet, searching the panel in front of them for the hidden release.
“Seth! What are you doing? We have to go back the way we came, so no one knows we’ve been here,” she whispered.
Seth’s face, when he turned it her, was completely alien in the gloom. His eyes were hard despite his swollen eyelids, and lips were set in a way that made him look, for a moment, just like his father.
“We have to go. We have to get that envelope - see what’s in it.”
“What? Hunh? Seth, whatever it is, Ryan’s going to a lot of trouble to keep it a secret. Or did you just miss the last hour of BDSM Theater out there?” she hissed.
For a moment, she thought he would hit her, but then he turned back to the wall, redoubling his efforts until the panel swung forward with a well-oiled pop.
“Don’t joke about this,” he said.
“I’m not - I just meant…”
“No. We can’t let this happen. This - this can’t *ever* happen again. Not to Ryan. Not - my grandpa! What the hell am I supposed to do, hunh?”
Summer reached for him, but he’d already stepped through the fireplace and out into the study. The air stank of sex and -faintly - of blood. Summer’s stomach roiled again as she followed him.
“No. Whatever - whatever sick thing Grandpa’s got - we’ve got to get it.”
“How? And even if we do, what do we do with it?”
Seth turned to look at her, wild-eyed.
“I don’t know! Burn it - throw it in the ocean - give it to my father. I haven’t figured it out yet. But whatever it is, it’s bad. And that - that --- my Grandpa - he can’t - Oh, God,” Seth couldn’t finish.
“Even if that’s what Ryan would want, Seth, how do we get it? It’s in a safe - and it’s not like your grandfather won’t notice if we break in.”
Summer stopped in the middle of the room as Seth turned on her again, his eyes bright. She was straining to hear noise elsewhere in the house, but it was as silent as before. Apparently, Caleb was done with his study for the day.
“You have to do it, Summer.”
“What?”
She was startled by the wild look in his eyes.
“I know you can. Remember, when you told me all about your freakish Memory skills? You saw him put the combo in - you know what it is. You just don’t know you know.”
Great. That was the last time she ever shared IQ parlor tricks with Cohen. She was freakishly good at Memory - at all memory games - a product of spending hours with the cards, alone and bored in her father’s office. And she had told Seth that she was great at that stuff - remembering where the car was parked, or how to get someplace without a map --- but she didn’t know if she could remember a combination she’d seen through a screen, on an angle.
She looked up a Seth, watching her so anxiously.
“Please,” he asked softly. “Please try. I don’t know what else to do.”
It had taken her several tries, but finally, by closing her eyes and mimicking Caleb’s body language, she was able to get the safe to swing open for her There were piles of papers everywhere, plus some nice jewelry and a thick stack of cash, but she had seen him toss the envelope they wanted carelessly back in, on top of everything else.
Seth rooted around for a moment fruitlessly, until she reminded him that it could have slid off the slippery pile of blackmail and death warrants and whatever else Caleb was hiding in there. He emerged, a moment later, with a thick and battered manila envelope.
“Is this is?” he asked, holding it by one corner as if it were a snake.
She looked at it - dog-eared and battered. It seemed like a fit.
“I think so. Are you - should we open it?” she asked.
For the first time she could remember, Seth looked uncertain.
“I don’t know. I think we have to. To make sure. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s subtle. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have . . .” he trailed off, unable to make himself say it, and thrust it into her hands.
“Here. Just see if Ryan’s in there, and then we’ll get out of here and decide what to do,” he said. “Quick. Before we change our minds.”
Summer felt the irregular lumps in the envelope. Whatever is was, there was more than one of them. She untied its jute clasp, and opened it up to discover a number of file folders, and a dingy white envelope full of snapshots. She pulled out the pictures and flipped through.
Suddenly, it all caught up - what they’d witnessed, what they now had to do - the fact that they still had to face Ryan. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand to be in this McMansion of horrors one more moment. Without thinking about Caleb or his staff, without thinking at all, she fled, the envelope still clutched in her hands leaving Seth behind to clean up the evidence that they’d been there.
She was impressed that she’d made it all the way to the bottom of the grotesque driveway - in three-inch heels - before having to stop behind a concrete pillar and empty the contents of her stomach.
Seth caught up with her a few minutes later, still, absurdly, clutching Marissa’s forgotten laundry. He apparently hadn’t wanted to leave any evidence behind.
“Summer? Summer! Are you okay? Oh God, what is it?” he asked as he ran up, breathing heavily and clawing at a stitch in his side.
She couldn’t answer. She just thrust the envelope back at him.
The small packet of pictures it contained was clearly from a more extensive - and professional - photo shoot. The snapshots were apparently someone’s private, personal recordings of the same session.
They showed a tow-headed kid in an increasingly explicit series of settings with a variety of faceless adult males. It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth one in, though, before there was a clear shot of the kid’s face. It was Ryan Atwood, his face still soft with baby roundness, although his wiry body suggested and his dead eyes suggested that he was older than he appeared. By the end of the series, his session with Caleb was looking like a walk in the park.
There were several more packs of pictures that Summer couldn’t bring herself to open, and two manila folders. The first was the extensive and heart-rending medical record for a “Brian Gatwood. Aged 12,” that detailed the apparent results of the photographic record.
The second was a cold-case file for the death of a kiddie-porn operator named Gavin Sucre that no one had tried too hard to solve, it looked like to Summer, judging by how thin the file was. But taped to the outside was a clear thumbprint, lifted from the murder weapon, with “Trey Atwood” typed neatly underneath.
“OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod,” Seth was chanting as he flipped through the evidence, “Where did Grnadpa even *find* this stuff?”
That, apparently, was enough for him. He ran off behind the same pillar Summer had visited earlier, and she heard him retching, faintly, for several minutes.
When he emerged, his face was chalk white, and as serious as she’d ever seen.
“Jesus, Summer. How long do you think he’s known?”
Summer wasn’t sure who Seth was referring to - Ryan or Caleb Nichol. She shrugged. She wasn’t sure it mattered either way.
“What do we do? What should we do? What are we going to do?” he asked, still whispering.
She looked sadly down at the envelope still clutched in his hands.
“You know, don’t you, Seth? We have to tell your father.”
To be continued tomorrow - honestly!
It's dedicated to Maudgonne, who asked for it so long ago that I can't remember when, and while it's not the continuation of After the Fall, it does feature bad, bad, bad wrong parings. To wit: Ryan/Caleb. Ryan/Other. Ryan/Sandy. Ryan/Sandy/Seth. Non-con. Do not say I didn't warn you.
It is, it goes without saying, for adult eyes only.
Also, my beloved beta is off frolicking this week with her own family, so all mistakes, even more than usual, are mine. Feel free to point and laugh, and laugh and point.
This is part one of two.
Summer was still unsure of how it was that she and her ex-boyfriend had been roped into retrieving the last of Marissa’s things from the house she sneeringly called “the mansion on the hill.”
She claimed that she had to look for a job before Alex really got on her about the rent, but when Summer had left her that morning, she was still trying to clean up the remains of their party the night before. How Seth had gotten roped in, Summer still didn’t quite understand, but she was sure that Ryan had missed it only because he’d been muttering for the past hour about “betrayers” who left their pool houses for “mysterious appointments.”
As frustrating as it was to give up her Saturday morning to spend with Cohen, she could understand Marissa’s reluctance to return to the Cooper-Nichol mansion. There was something about the house that made her uneasy - it was as cold and impersonal as it was massive and imposing, a Newport Group McMansion on some serious steroids. And with Julie away once again - this time in the wine country, Summer was pretty sure - it certainly wasn’t exactly the most welcoming place on earth. Whatever else her faults, after ten or so years of making herself at home wherever Julie landed, Summer would defend her warmth as a hostess to her death.
At least it turned out that the stuff that Marissa had wanted had been of the hard-to-sneak-out-of-the-laundry-room and not of the massive-boxes-of-stuff-to-carry variety. She didn’t think Cohen would have been much help in that case. However, in finding the back way to nearly anyplace in his grandfather’s mansion, he was an ace.
“Now see, if this had been Grandpa’s old place, we would have been to the laundry room and back in record time, even if it was to get Marissa’s unmentionables. I knew all the secret passages in that house,” he was bragging as the crossed through the kitchen. It was almost freakishly silent - not even the staff seemed to be around - but maybe that was normal for a weekend, when there was just Caleb in the house.
“Now, you see, if this had been my grandfather’s old house, I could have just leaned on this panel here and - Hey!”
While he was still talking, the panel in on the side of the kitchen wall, next to the stove, swung open on silent hinges.
“Cohen! What kind of freaky funhouse is your grandfather running?” Summer demanded. Seth replied from the floor, where he now sat on his ass, rubbing the dirt from his face with far-dirtier hands.
“Wow! I can’t believe he built another one.”
“Another one what, Cohen?”
“Secret passage! It’s so cool. He had one built into the old house - it went from his study to the kitchen and back. Grandma said it was so he could get a sandwich without running into any Newpsies when she was having a party, but it was totally awesome. I wonder. . . ” he trailed off as he noticed Summer’s glare above him.
“Yeah, yeah, Cohen, whatevs. Can we skip the geek tour of Grandpa’s pervy hideouts and get a move on. I’ve got better things to do than hang out with you all day.”
Seth stuck a hand out but, when Summer made no move to take it, reluctantly stumbled to his feet.
“Actually, Summer, funny that you should say that. It just so happens that, if my instincts are in fact correct, and this passage does lead to my Grandpa’s study, it will cut out several tedious minutes of trudging all the way back to the front door the long way. Come on, the faster we get out of here, the faster you can go and feather Zach’s hair, or whatever the two of you have planned for this afternoon,” he sad, mumbling the last under his breath.
“What? Cohen, what did you…. You know what - you’re right. The sooner we get out of here, the sooner I can deliver Marissa’s unmentionables to her, and the sooner I don’t have to waste anymore time with you. Let’s get out of here.”
She pushed him into the unmarked passageway with a strength borne on the beginning of a really good rage blackout. It had been too long since she had to deal with Cohen on an extended basis, and he was starting to make her blood boil.
It wasn’t until the door had slid shut behind her, leaving them in pitch darkness, that it occurred to her that this was perhaps not the best idea she’d ever had.
“Um, you don’t have, like, a flashlight or one of those geeky laser keychains, do you?” she asked hopefully.
After a moment of total and - for Seth - uncharacteristic silence, he finally answered, his voice coming from further down the hall.
“I used to be able to do it in the dark, but if you’re worried, there should be a little light switch by the door.”
The voice was becoming fainter as she groped along the wall, finally finding a switch nearly flat against the wall. She pushed it, and a row of tiny lights appeared, lining the floor on either side of the hall, making the passage look like a landing strip. A landing strip that Cohen was rapidly disappearing down and around the corner.
“Hey! Hey!” she called in a loud whisper, unsure of why she was so reluctant to shout in the seemingly empty house, “You could at least wait for me!”
She hurried down the passage as quickly as she could in the dim light and her three-inch heels, keeping the back of Cohen’s Converse sneakers barely in sight until they came to an abrupt halt several minutes later.
“Jesus, Cohen! Did you turn into an Olympic sprinter in Portland or what?” she demanded, but to her surprise, he spun around and clapped a hand over her mouth.
“Shh. Listen. I think my Grandpa just got home - and I think there’s somebody with him. We’re going to have to go back the way we came,” he whispered in his ear.
Indeed, Summer could hear the soft rumble of Caleb Nichol’s distinctive tenor in the distance. She started to nod her agreement, when Seth suddenly went rigid beside her, his fingers digging into the soft tissue around her mouth painfully.
“Ouch! Ow!” she protested, but he simply tightened his grip.
“Shh! Shut up! Listen,” he ordered.
There was a second voice answering Caleb in low, indistinct tones, one which, after a moment, started to feel vaguely familiar.
She shook her head fiercely until Seth finally loosened his grip, still standing only inches away in the corridor.
“Is that - Ryan? I thought you said he had an appointment this morning?” she whispered in his ear.
“He did. Maybe he finished early and wanted to catch up with us,” Seth answered, just as low.
“He didn’t know we were coming here, remember? He was already gone before Marissa called.”
Summer sighed, and felt Seth slip away from her, groping for the other light switch at this end of the passage as the indistinct voices drifted more strongly towards them.
“I don’t know. Since Lindsay left, he’s been - weird. I didn’t ask too many questions,” Seth admitted in a whisper.
They turned to go, but before either of them could take a step, the faint sound of Ryan’s voice, suddenly clear, and closer, drifted into the hidden space.
“I thought you said this was over,” he said, and Summer could hear the anger and the pain in his voice.
Whatever was going on, she had the feeling that it wasn’t good.
Behind her, Seth has frozen again. She turned and groped her way towards him, and noticed a square of glowing daylight on the wall behind him.
“Seth? Seth!” she whispered, finding his ear again, “Can we see out into the other room?”
It took him a moment, but she felt his head nod up and down against her cheek in assent.
The two crept over to the bar of light. There was a sort of window cut into the door, covered by a heavy mesh screen, just long enough for the two to stand crowded close together side by side. From wherever they were behind the room, they has a view of about three-quarters of it, including Caleb’s massive executive desk and the wall of windows, with their heavy velvet drapes, out of place for California, on the opposite side. There were two spindly-looking elaborate armchairs placed on either side of a bar cart in front of them, each with a stiff velvet seat that matched the drapes, and it was into one of them that Caleb dropped heavily, startling Summer into a sudden thought.
“We’re not, like, looking through the goofy eyes of some painting right now, are we?” she hissed into Seth’s ear, and again she felt his head against hers as he quickly denied it.
“No. Speakers, I think, on either side of the fireplace. Shh.”
Of course. This was a Julie Cooper-Nichol special - a heavy, clichéd study for a California land baron, done in the Continental baronial style. They were behind a huge stone fireplace, faux, of course, with a gas log. The secret-passage door probably opened right into the firebox itself.
Summer was startled out of her thoughts by the appearance of Ryan in her field of view. He stood facing Caleb, his back to them, a shadow in the bright sunshine streaming through the windows, reflecting off the water.
Despite the fact that it was a warm day, barely fall, he was dressed in his black jacket and grey hoodie, his old Dickies faded to a soft blue. In fact, the only thing on him that didn’t look like they’d come from Chino to Newport with him were the new Khaki Converse sneakers that he wore, uncharacteristically. Summer knew that they had been a gift from Seth - a joke present - on his last birthday to complete the Seth Cohen Advanced Pack; she didn’t think he’d ever worn them.
“Why am I here?” Ryan asked, his voice so again soft that she was straining to hear it.
He stood, unconsciously, at parade rest; his legs spread wide, his arms locked together at the small of his back.
“You know why.”
Seth’s grandfather’s voice was short and dismissive, and despite the close air in the hidden passage, Summer felt a shiver run up her spine.
“But after - after last summer, you said…”
Ryan was tripping over his words, which made her nervous, and shifting his weight subtly from foot to foot. Whatever was going on, this obviously wasn’t the first “appointment” Caleb and Ryan had shared together - and Ryan, equally obviously, didn’t have the upper hand.
“I know what I said, but that was before you started sleeping with my daughter.”
Caleb’s voice was even, steady - he could have been announcing a Newport acquisition, or the direction of the wind out on his sailboat. She felt Seth shift beside her, crowding her closer, trying to find a better angle to view his grandfather.
“I never slept with Lindsay!” Ryan voice rose again, and his flew out from behind him, rising in protest.
Caleb snorted, in response, and settled back deeper into his elegantly out-of-place armchair.
“Well, that’s through no fault of your own, is it?” he asked, this time with a bite in his voice. “ If she hadn’t left with Renee…”
Ryan started to take a half-step forward, then seemed to think better of it and stopped, right back where he started.
“I didn’t do that, either! I wanted her to stay. You’re the one who…”
Ryan trailed off, as if he suddenly realized what he was about to say, and to whom.
Caleb leaned up, placing his elbows on his knees, looking faintly amused.
“I was the one who what, boy? You might as well finish your thought - you’re going to pay for it anyway.”
Summer felt the jolt of Seth reacting to that threat beside her, as his hand flew to his own mouth to keep himself from exclaiming out loud. After a moment, he seemed to gather himself together, and leaned down to hiss in her ear again.
“What in the name of Jesus and Moses is going on here?”
Out in the study, Ryan’s arms drifted back to his sides and he sighed, and looking out of the row of window above Caleb’s head.
“You’re the one who drove her away, “ he finished reluctantly. “She wanted to be with you - to get to know you. She didn’t want your money. Your stuff”
Caleb snorted again, and Summer had a moment to think what a very unattractive noise it was. Seth’s chin was resting on the top of Summer’s head by now, and she could feel her back touch his chest whenever she took a deep breath in. She couldn’t believe that the two out in the study hadn’t heard them yet - hadn’t seen them at all. She was closer to Ryan here than she was in the Cohens’ kitchen, when she sat at the table and he stood, lounging with his cup of coffee, against one of the counters.
“When will you learn?” Caleb sounded honestly disappointed in his young protégé. “Everyone wants the money. Whatever it is they say they want, really -- it’s always about the money.”
Ryan turned his head back to look Caleb in the eye, and rubbed a hand nervously over the short the back of his neck. Summer realized that he still needed a haircut - that he hadn’t had one since he’d returned from the summer - but underneath his shaggy, straw-colored locks lay a darker patch of close-shorn hair, stubbly and soft, and he worried at it as he spoke.
“I don’t want your money,” he gritted, finally, and Summer could hear real, genuine hurt behind it.
Caleb sighed, and stood suddenly, so abruptly that Ryan took an involuntary step back, closer to their hiding place.
“I know,” he said, still sounding faintly disbelieving as he turned his back on Ryan and poured a generous finger of some dark liquid from one of the decanters on the top of the bar cart.
“Still, you want something from my family, don’t you? Otherwise, you wouldn’t be here. “
Summer was amazed that she could see clearly enough to actually watch the muscles in Ryan’s neck and back tense at the comment.
“You know why I’m here,” he hissed in response, “You called me here.”
Caleb waved him away as he sat back down again with his drink.
“Semantics, boy. You came back to my daughter’s house - even after you disgraced her by knocking up that -that maid’s daughter” he sputtered, as if he could think of no worse insult. “You put yourself in this position. Well, you and that Atwood libido. Can’t keep it in your pants, can you?”
“I told you, nothing happened between Lindsay and me!” Ryan protested again.
Caleb gestured towards him with the heavy cut-crystal glass in his hand.
“And what about my step-daughter? You can’t tell me that purple-haired menaced seduced her into a Sapphic dalliance. You broke her heart - took her virginity. Left her a-a wannabe Gertrude Stein.”
“I did not!” Ryan was beginning to sound frustrated, and Summer watched as his hands slowly fisted at his sides. And either Caleb could sense it, too, or his many years in the boardroom had given him a knack for finding the weak points, because suddenly, he sounded far less amused.
“Oh, really? What would your brother have to say about that?” Caleb asked in a low, deadly voice, and while it seemed like a non-sequitor to Summer, it must have meant something, because Ryan backed down immediately, taking another half-step back towards their hiding again.
“I’m sorry,” he said, and the quiet voice was back again. “You said you’d leave Trey out of this.”
Caleb nodded in satisfaction, and took a long pull of his Scotch before answering.
“I did. If you cooperated. Which so far, seems not to be the case.”
Ryan took another half-step, then seemed to steel himself. Summer watched as he drew in a tense breath and then carefully exhaled, allowing his shoulders to relax. He bowed his head, looking down at the richly patterned Oriental rug on the floor.
“I’m here,” he muttered, and now Summer and Seth were both straining to hear. She could feel Seth pressed against her, feel his heart racing as he panted almost silently in her ear. She could feel the tension in the room as her stomach flipped, but she couldn’t imagine it was easy for Cohen to watch his grandfather and his best friend caught up in - something - that they’d obviously been through before.
“What do you want?” he asked, raising his head to look at Caleb head on once more.
Seth’s grandfather seemed to like that response, melting back against the cushions of his chair, and placing the heavy glass in his hand on the table after draining it with a satisfied smile.
“You know what I want,” he murmured, and Summer was sure she saw a shudder run down Ryan’s broad back.
There was a pause during which she could only hear Seth’s breaths, heavy beside her, and then Ryan sighed again.
“Same as before?” he asked, and Caleb nodded.
If Summer had thought the scene was bizarre before, nothing would have prepared her for what happened next. Without another word, Ryan crossed over to Caleb’s big desk, and standing in front of one of the visitor’s chairs, he began to shuck off layers of clothes. He removed his jacket and hoodie together, leaving him dressed only in a tight navy t-shirt and his faded jeans.
He kicked the sneakers of his sockless feet, and for a moment he paused, facing them for the first time. He looked oddly vulnerable, standing in his bare feet on the expensive rug that Julie had no doubt picked out on their European honeymoon, on a carpet that no one was ever, she was sure, supposed to feel beneath their feet.
He took a deep breath, staring into the fireplace, and thus right into Summer - and Seth’s - eyes, although she was sure he had no way of knowing that. He wouldn’t be doing what he was doing if he had any idea they were there - of that Summer was sure. His face was utterly blank - devoid of any emotion at all - but Summer noticed that his fingers trembled as he fumbled with the button-fly of his jeans.
“I don’t want this to take all day,” Caleb called out impatiently, and with a vicious yank, Ryan pulled his t-shirt over his head, tossing it atop his jacket, then yanking down his pants with equally brutal force. He wore no underwear. Of course.
She heard Seth’s horrified noise beside her, felt him physically redouble his efforts to keep quiet, even as she held out hope that this wasn’t what it looked like, what it seemed. After all, Caleb Nichol was known for his mind games. He might not be above a little object lesson in humiliation.
Without hesitation, Ryan turned to face Caleb again, and Summer almost felt herself gasp as he walked several steps closer to him, giving them both a full view of his nudity.
Okay, well, Ryan was officially the third boy she’d seen naked, and so far, he was winning the prize. Not that she hadn’t loved Cohen -- with his ropy muscles, and his long limbs that splayed every which way across her bed, and that soft little pocket where his arm met his shoulder that seemed to made for her head - or even Zach, with his chiseled water-polo abs, but really, dismissing Ryan would have been like - dissing the Mona Lisa or something.
He was compact, and thinner than she would have thought. He had a funny sort of farmer’s tan - his torso was fish-belly white, and he had overlapping tan rings, like an old tree, from short sleeves and wife beaters, and the tops of his thighs were faintly lighter than his calves - but mostly, he was magnificent. He looked like an anatomy model, each muscle group easily defined, but not grotesquely so, like the men in that weird old film Mr. Masters made them watch about the Governor in Health Class.
From their concealed angle, they were exposed mostly to the back of him, and Summer could see the sharp hollows of his buttocks, as well as the weird, almost square scar that sat right in the small of his back. As she looked closer, she could see fainter marks scattered across the rest of it. Right, she’d think about that later - after her nervous breakdown over *this* particular incident was over and done with.
Ryan stood easily, his hands at his sides, his weight evenly distributed on the balls of his bare feet. He wasn’t showing off, exactly, but he wasn’t hiding, either, waiting for Caleb’s next move.
Summer heard an appreciative sigh, and looked beyond Ryan to see Caleb smirk like the cat who ate the cream, and splay his legs out widely, both feet planted firmly on the ground. Yeah, that didn’t bode well for object lesson in humiliation - or at least, for object lesson in humiliation without some other kind of pervy undertone.
“Well, boy,” Caleb said, still impatient.
“What do you want?” Ryan asked, standing totally still.
Caleb smiled again, coldly, and jerked his head in a sort of ‘come hither’ gesture. Beside her, she could feel Seth start to shake.
“You know what I want.”
His voice was soft and throaty, dark with lust, and Summer knew, then, sickeningly, that this wasn’t the first time - wasn’t close to it. Those words had the power of time and ritual behind them, obviously, as Ryan shuddered again, jumping as if shocked.
Without another word, he approached Seth’s grandfather, his bare feet making only a whisper of sound against the carpet. Silently, he sank to his knees before the older man, and when the sharp sound of the zipper exploded in the quiet room, she felt Cohen jump against her as if shot.
This was - without a doubt - the sickest thing she’d ever seen. She knew that she should look away, that she should make Cohen look away, but it was as if they both were paralyzed. The room was silent except for the faint tick-tock of the clock in the hall, and the obscene noises that were coming from across the room.
She felt her bile rise at the sight of Caleb’s face, tilted back towards the ceiling, his eyes half-closed in wordless pleasure, at his hand - expensively manicured and roughened with age - twisted in Ryan’s overlong hair, at the way Ryan’s head bobbed earnestly in front of him, steered by the firm grip.
This was not an act meant to be witnessed - not even when it was an act of love. It was - strange, and off-putting, to see, to hear. As an act of aggression it was nearly unbearable.
They had hardly had time to process the event when it was over. With a vicious shove, Caleb pushed Ryan away, sending him back on his heels.
“Not that quick, boy. You’re not getting off that easy today. You know what I want.”
Ryan took a moment to scrub a hand across his face before rising to his knees, then standing once more, and that tiny gesture of vulnerability nearly undid her. Still silently, he moved across the room again, this time arranging himself behind Caleb’s desk. With his legs ramrod straight, he bent his torso over its broad, flat surface, hissing momentarily as his bare flesh made contact with the highly polished wood in the cool air-conditioned room.
He turned his head to one side, rising up on tiptoes to open himself, unknowingly, to Summer and Seth, even as he stretched out his arms to grasp the sides of the desk in a white-knuckled hold. She put one hand up to her mouth to stifle a cry, the other groping blindly in the dark until she found Seth’s and gripped it nearly as hard as Ryan was gripping the edges of the desk.
It took a moment for Caleb to rise from his seat and make his way carefully across the room, his erect cock, in its nest of iron-grey pubic hair, jutting out obscenely from the fly of his carefully-pressed trousers. Summer still couldn’t force herself to turn away, but she felt Seth beside her bury his face in her hair, unable to watch a moment more.
He came around the desk, behind Ryan, only a few feet from where they were concealed. He opened a small top drawer in the desk, rummaging through, and the noise was loud enough to make Summer bite done on her lip in an effort to keep from crying out again.
She saw the flash of a parti-colored casing, then heard the rip of plastic and smelled the faint, sharp tang of latex. Oh God, they were close enough that she could smell the condom he was about to use.
He moved to put it on, and Summer was grateful that his bulk - his entirely-clothed bulk - screened the pair almost entirely from her eyes, at least until she realized the implications of it. While she certainly didn’t want to be the one to see what Julie was putting up with for her paychecks these days, she hadn’t realized until she saw him loom over Ryan just how purposeful Caleb had been. Ryan was naked, vulnerable - forced against his will to be exposed, while Caleb showed his contempt in every article of clothing he never bothered to remove. It was like a slap in the face.
They were entirely too close for comfort. Oh Christ, she could actually *hear* Caleb enter Ryan, and the grunt he made as he seated himself fully. She could hear, even over Seth’s quiet sobs -- which were soaking her hair and running down the back of her shirt - the one small, breathy sound of pain Ryan made before cutting himself off ruthlessly, biting down on his lip.
It went on far longer than Summer thought Caleb had in him - each thrust accompanied by a grunt from Caleb, by the dull slap of his belt buckle against the top drawer of the desk. When he finished, with a small crow of triumph, he slumped over Ryan’s back, totally obscuring him, then pulled out again so quickly that she heard another tiny whimper of pain from the surface of the desk.
Ryan made no move to shift his position, and as Caleb moved to the side to clean himself up, Summer could see a tiny pool of blood under Ryan’s cheek, from where he’d bitten nearly through his lower lip.
She heard the sharp noise of the zipper again, and felt Seth sag against her. For a moment, they both thought the end had come, but then there was a new sound - the slither of fine, hand-tooled leather against summer-weight wool trousers.
“Tell me, boy - how many times did you and my daughter go out this year?” Caleb demanded softly - the first words either of them had spoken in close to a half-hour.
When Ryan answered, his voice was equally soft, almost broken.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember - maybe a half-dozen.”
Caleb snorted yet again, and moved to center himself once behind Ryan’s back.
“I think it was more than that. I think it was a lot more. Still, let’s split the difference, shall we, since I’ve got things to do this afternoon. Let’s just double your estimate to be on the safe side. “
She heard Ryan make a noise - as though he were going to protest - but Caleb’s hand swung out, tapping him hard on the left flank.
“What’s that, boy? We can triple it if you want.”
Summer held her breath, but there was no answer.
“Smart boy. Double it is, then.”
It was the beating that finally made her turn away, one hand still covering her mouth, the other still locked in Cohen’s death grip. The first blow had landed right above Ryan’s kidney, with whine, and then a crack, and it had raised an immediate welt.
She could hear the whole process - the whine and the crack, Caleb’s heavy breathing at his effort, Ryan’s grunt as each blow struck him in a more vulnerable spot than the last - but she couldn’t make herself watch. She felt it, though, as Seth flinched beside her as each blow landed - an explosion in the whisper-quiet mansion. Luckily, it ended far quicker than the last event had done.
As Caleb redressed for the last time, it was as though a spell was broken. Ryan released his grip on the desk, surreptitiously trying to wipe a spot of blood away from the leather blotter before he stood gingerly, his raw and reddened back still facing them.
“I need a-a towel, or something,” he said softly, never turning to face Caleb.
“What for?”
At that, she felt Cohen go utterly still, his breath sounding harsh in her ears, as though he’d just run a marathon.
“No. Not for that - for there. I-I - Kirsten doesn’t let me do my own laundry anymore. Someone will notice if my - if there are - if there’s blood.”
Caleb made a noise of contempt.
“I didn’t hit you hard enough to make you bleed. I never do.”
“Not from that,” Ryan said, his voice almost a whisper. And indeed, Summer could see a trickle of blood along his inner thigh.
With a sigh, Caleb opened another desk drawer and tossed a handful of cocktail napkins at him.
“Clean yourself up and go. I’ve got guests coming this afternoon, and the staff are due around noon.”
Summer didn’t see what happened next, because Seth’s legs chose that moment to finally give out beneath him. She lowered him carefully to the floor, propping him up against the stone wall of the passage - the back of the fireplace, she now realized - before returning to their watchpost.
Ryan had redressed, and looked the same as always, as did Caleb. If it hadn’t have been for the careful way Ryan leaned against the desk, she would never have guessed that anything had just passed between them.
“Why are you still here?” Caleb demanded.
“I want to see them,” Ryan said softly.
“I don’t have time for this,”
“I want to see them,” he repeated, gesturing to the far wall, to a portrait of Seth’s late grandmother.
“Why do that to yourself? You know they’re there.”
Ryan laughed dryly, without a speck of humor behind it.
“Call it my insurance policy. I want to make sure you still have them.”
“I’m a man of my word,” Caleb answered, sounding slightly insulted by the implication, “Of course I still have them.”
But he was already moving towards the picture. It swung forward on a hinge, and Summer watched closely as he entered a combination into the keypad at the front of the hidden safe.
From nearly the top of the pile of documents, he pulled out a heavy manila envelope and handed it to Ryan. Without another word, Ryan thumbed through its contents, nodded curtly, and stood to leave.
He handed it back to Caleb, who tossed it carelessly back into the safe before swinging the door and its concealing portrait shut.
“You know, Kirsten could tell you that I’m a man of my word,” Caleb said, and Ryan nodded, his face tight.
“Well, Kirsten thinks you’re a lot of things,” he answered. She could see that it was almost physically painful for him to mention her name in this context. He walked to the door of the study, Caleb close on his heels. “Do you - is this - is it on for next week?” he asked.
“I’ll let you know,” Caleb said with a sharp smile, and the last thing that Summer saw was his smirk as he pushed the boy out the door ahead of him.
She sank down beside Seth and put her head on her knees, counting to one thousand before lifting it again.
By the time she did, Seth had sprung to his feet, searching the panel in front of them for the hidden release.
“Seth! What are you doing? We have to go back the way we came, so no one knows we’ve been here,” she whispered.
Seth’s face, when he turned it her, was completely alien in the gloom. His eyes were hard despite his swollen eyelids, and lips were set in a way that made him look, for a moment, just like his father.
“We have to go. We have to get that envelope - see what’s in it.”
“What? Hunh? Seth, whatever it is, Ryan’s going to a lot of trouble to keep it a secret. Or did you just miss the last hour of BDSM Theater out there?” she hissed.
For a moment, she thought he would hit her, but then he turned back to the wall, redoubling his efforts until the panel swung forward with a well-oiled pop.
“Don’t joke about this,” he said.
“I’m not - I just meant…”
“No. We can’t let this happen. This - this can’t *ever* happen again. Not to Ryan. Not - my grandpa! What the hell am I supposed to do, hunh?”
Summer reached for him, but he’d already stepped through the fireplace and out into the study. The air stank of sex and -faintly - of blood. Summer’s stomach roiled again as she followed him.
“No. Whatever - whatever sick thing Grandpa’s got - we’ve got to get it.”
“How? And even if we do, what do we do with it?”
Seth turned to look at her, wild-eyed.
“I don’t know! Burn it - throw it in the ocean - give it to my father. I haven’t figured it out yet. But whatever it is, it’s bad. And that - that --- my Grandpa - he can’t - Oh, God,” Seth couldn’t finish.
“Even if that’s what Ryan would want, Seth, how do we get it? It’s in a safe - and it’s not like your grandfather won’t notice if we break in.”
Summer stopped in the middle of the room as Seth turned on her again, his eyes bright. She was straining to hear noise elsewhere in the house, but it was as silent as before. Apparently, Caleb was done with his study for the day.
“You have to do it, Summer.”
“What?”
She was startled by the wild look in his eyes.
“I know you can. Remember, when you told me all about your freakish Memory skills? You saw him put the combo in - you know what it is. You just don’t know you know.”
Great. That was the last time she ever shared IQ parlor tricks with Cohen. She was freakishly good at Memory - at all memory games - a product of spending hours with the cards, alone and bored in her father’s office. And she had told Seth that she was great at that stuff - remembering where the car was parked, or how to get someplace without a map --- but she didn’t know if she could remember a combination she’d seen through a screen, on an angle.
She looked up a Seth, watching her so anxiously.
“Please,” he asked softly. “Please try. I don’t know what else to do.”
It had taken her several tries, but finally, by closing her eyes and mimicking Caleb’s body language, she was able to get the safe to swing open for her There were piles of papers everywhere, plus some nice jewelry and a thick stack of cash, but she had seen him toss the envelope they wanted carelessly back in, on top of everything else.
Seth rooted around for a moment fruitlessly, until she reminded him that it could have slid off the slippery pile of blackmail and death warrants and whatever else Caleb was hiding in there. He emerged, a moment later, with a thick and battered manila envelope.
“Is this is?” he asked, holding it by one corner as if it were a snake.
She looked at it - dog-eared and battered. It seemed like a fit.
“I think so. Are you - should we open it?” she asked.
For the first time she could remember, Seth looked uncertain.
“I don’t know. I think we have to. To make sure. Whatever it is, I don’t think it’s subtle. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have . . .” he trailed off, unable to make himself say it, and thrust it into her hands.
“Here. Just see if Ryan’s in there, and then we’ll get out of here and decide what to do,” he said. “Quick. Before we change our minds.”
Summer felt the irregular lumps in the envelope. Whatever is was, there was more than one of them. She untied its jute clasp, and opened it up to discover a number of file folders, and a dingy white envelope full of snapshots. She pulled out the pictures and flipped through.
Suddenly, it all caught up - what they’d witnessed, what they now had to do - the fact that they still had to face Ryan. Suddenly, she couldn’t stand to be in this McMansion of horrors one more moment. Without thinking about Caleb or his staff, without thinking at all, she fled, the envelope still clutched in her hands leaving Seth behind to clean up the evidence that they’d been there.
She was impressed that she’d made it all the way to the bottom of the grotesque driveway - in three-inch heels - before having to stop behind a concrete pillar and empty the contents of her stomach.
Seth caught up with her a few minutes later, still, absurdly, clutching Marissa’s forgotten laundry. He apparently hadn’t wanted to leave any evidence behind.
“Summer? Summer! Are you okay? Oh God, what is it?” he asked as he ran up, breathing heavily and clawing at a stitch in his side.
She couldn’t answer. She just thrust the envelope back at him.
The small packet of pictures it contained was clearly from a more extensive - and professional - photo shoot. The snapshots were apparently someone’s private, personal recordings of the same session.
They showed a tow-headed kid in an increasingly explicit series of settings with a variety of faceless adult males. It wasn’t until the fifth or sixth one in, though, before there was a clear shot of the kid’s face. It was Ryan Atwood, his face still soft with baby roundness, although his wiry body suggested and his dead eyes suggested that he was older than he appeared. By the end of the series, his session with Caleb was looking like a walk in the park.
There were several more packs of pictures that Summer couldn’t bring herself to open, and two manila folders. The first was the extensive and heart-rending medical record for a “Brian Gatwood. Aged 12,” that detailed the apparent results of the photographic record.
The second was a cold-case file for the death of a kiddie-porn operator named Gavin Sucre that no one had tried too hard to solve, it looked like to Summer, judging by how thin the file was. But taped to the outside was a clear thumbprint, lifted from the murder weapon, with “Trey Atwood” typed neatly underneath.
“OhGodohGodohGodohGodohGod,” Seth was chanting as he flipped through the evidence, “Where did Grnadpa even *find* this stuff?”
That, apparently, was enough for him. He ran off behind the same pillar Summer had visited earlier, and she heard him retching, faintly, for several minutes.
When he emerged, his face was chalk white, and as serious as she’d ever seen.
“Jesus, Summer. How long do you think he’s known?”
Summer wasn’t sure who Seth was referring to - Ryan or Caleb Nichol. She shrugged. She wasn’t sure it mattered either way.
“What do we do? What should we do? What are we going to do?” he asked, still whispering.
She looked sadly down at the envelope still clutched in his hands.
“You know, don’t you, Seth? We have to tell your father.”
To be continued tomorrow - honestly!