Author: Tiffany Reisz

A siren blew to alert everyone that the race would start in seconds. Nora grabbed the binoculars from him and turned her attention to the starting gate.

“Watch them burst out of the gates,” Wesley said. “That’s the most exciting part until the finish line. Those horses are so jacked up on adrenaline right now that it’s like a bomb going off when those gates open.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

“It is dangerous. That’s when a lot of accidents happen. Lots of horses have died right out of the gate. Broken ankles, broken legs. Lots of jockeys get hurt there, too.”

“Poor little guys.”

“Some jockeys are women, Nora.”

“Poor little girls.”

“Horse racing isn’t a pretty sport,” Wesley confessed. “The horses are bred for speed, not heartiness. Legs like twigs. They break easy and running that hard can make their lungs bleed. They’re breakable animals.”

“Breakable—just my type. Do racehorses really piss like racehorses?”

“If a horse has bleeding lungs they give it Lasix. It’s a diuretic. They can pee about twenty gallons.”

“Hmm…twenty gallons. Get enough chardonnay in me and I can give them a run for their money.”

“We can stop by the bar later. Or you can. I’m still underage.”

“Rub it in, junior. Seriously. Rub it in.” Nora turned her head and smiled wickedly at him before giving the race her full attention once more. Wesley blushed. He’d been trying not to think about tonight with Nora. He wanted to be able to walk around in public without a visible erection beneath his jeans. “Spanks for Nothing is leading. How much money will I make?”

“Couple thousand dollars. Long odds on him.”

“Sweet. I could use the money. Saw a riding crop in the gift shop I have to take home with me.”

“Nora, how many riding crops do you need?”

“Just one more. Like always.” Nora stood up and shouted “Go Spanks!” but her voice was drowned out by the roar of the crowd as the horses neared the finish. Spanks for Nothing did seem destined for a big win, by a few lengths at least.

Spanks for Nothing crossed the finish line a length and a half before the second-place horse.

Nora stood on her seat, shouted a few “fuck yeah”s that had Wesley both laughing and cringing at the same time.

“Let’s go get your money.” He took her by the hand and pulled her off the seat. They cashed out Nora’s winning ticket and she spent half her take at the gift shop buying T-shirts.

“What are all those for?” he asked. Nora didn’t wear

T-shirts very often and certainly not in size large.

“One for Griffin.”

“Of course.”

“One for Michael.”

“Who’s Michael?”

“His sub.”

“Why do I ask these questions?”

“One for Juliette.”

“Who?”

“Kingsley’s secretary. Well, she’s also his sexual property. He’s white and French. She’s black and Haitian.”

“That should be illegal.”

“They’re so cute together.”

“Your friends terrify me.”

“They’re harmless. Well, as long as you don’t piss them off. This one’s for Talel. He should have a memento of his big win today.” Nora threw the T-shirt over her shoulder and strode from the gift shop.

“He’ll have about a hundred thousand dollars in purse money and a wreath of roses and a trophy. Isn’t that enough of a souvenir?”

“Who would say no to a T-shirt?”

Wesley said nothing more, guessing Nora merely wanted an excuse to go talk to one of her kind again. He led her back to the stables and toward Spanks for Nothing’s stall. They’d be lucky to get to Talel. With that sort of win, he’d probably be surrounded by well-wishers and sports writers and others trying to let a piece of that victory rub off on them. Spanks for Nothing had proven himself a hot property today. The price of his stud fees had probably tripled. At least.

But a scene of celebration wasn’t what greeted them at they neared the stall. Wesley saw uniforms, track doctors, racing authorities... It was a sight he’d seen before.

“Nora…let’s go.”

“No, I want to see Talel. What’s wrong?”

“Something.”

She stopped and gave him a searching look. He took her hand, but she pulled away quickly and forced herself through the crowd ahead.

“Talel?” she called out, and Wesley had no choice but to race after her.

“Nora, let’s go,” he said when he caught up to her, right in front of the stall. “Shit.”

“Wesley…” He heard the heartbreak in her voice, the distress, and he saw the reason why.

Big, beautiful Spanks for Nothing lay on his side in his stall, quiet and unmoving. Nothing seemed to be broken. Nothing seemed to be wrong. A sleeping horse…that was all. Except horses didn’t stay down for long and they certainly didn’t lie like that.

Talel knelt at the horse’s side, a track veterinarian whispering next to him.

“Come on, Nora. We can’t help here.”

Talel looked up and met Nora’s eyes.

“What happened?” she whispered.

“He’s dead.”

NORTH

The Past

He told no one where his injuries came from. All questions he refused to answer. His grandparents came for Kingsley on the last day of school and gasped when they found him in the infirmary covered in bruises, his lip split open, his forehead stitched up, cuts on his knees, welts on his arms and one rib either strained or cracked. And those were only the wounds he let the doctor see. He knew he’d been hurt internally—torn. Definitely torn. But he kept that pain secret, as secret as he kept the little silver cross he’d ripped from Søren’s neck. He clutched it in his hand all night and all day and refused to let it go.

His grandparents interrogated him as thoroughly as the priests had. Kingsley didn’t even consider lying, although he could have said, “I fell in the woods,” and that would be the end of it. But that night with Søren in the forest…it meant too much to him to sully it with a lie. He simply said, “I don’t want to talk about it. I’m fine.” He took comfort in the words. In two days he must have said them a hundred times, said them until they were the only words he knew. But even those words weren’t entirely true. He did want to talk about it, but with Søren only. And he wasn’t fine. Fine couldn’t even begin to describe the bliss he’d experienced that night Søren had ripped him open and laid him out under the stars. Kingsley had no word for it other than perhaps God. He wasn’t fine. He was God.

And Søren was God and Kingsley had worshipped him and did worship him. But he’d been isolated in the infirmary, not allowed to leave, not allowed to have visitors. He assumed the priests hoped the isolation would force him to open up and explain what had happened. Instead it reinforced his vow of secrecy about that night. He didn’t have the words, not in English or French, to explain what had happened to him in any way that anyone would ever understand. A wall had come up between him and the rest of the world. The priest, his grandparents, the other students…they would say “rape.” But Kingsley knew better. He’d run because he’d wanted to get caught. He’d let himself be stripped and violated. And when he surrendered himself to Søren, that had been the moment he became himself.

“Kingsley…please. S’il vous plaît…” Kingsley’s grandmother laid her hand gently on the unbruised side of his face. He smiled at her attempt at French. It touched his heart that she would plead to him in his language, but still he wouldn’t tell.

On the second night, his friend Christian broke into the infirmary. Kingsley woke from a light sleep to find his classmate staring at him with horrified eyes.

“It’s not that bad, Christian.” Kingsley smiled and yawned, and Christian only stared.

“You look…how are you even alive?”

“By the grace of God, mon ami.”

“Who did this to you? Tell me so I can go kill him and bring you back his heart to eat.”

Christian’s allegiance to him, his friendship and fury…Kingsley wanted to pat him on the head like a loyal dog. Good boy.

“I’m fine, Christian.”

“You don’t look fine.”

Kingsley turned and smiled at the handsome young Christian, who now seemed like a friend he’d said goodbye to long ago.

“I have never felt more fine in my life.” The words were not a lie.

The peace he’d felt lasted until he returned to his grandparents’ house in Portland, and the reality of Søren’s absence surrounded him. After they’d consummated whatever it was they had, Søren had walked away and left him there on the ground. Kingsley hadn’t minded. It was exactly what he’d wanted, to be left alone with his wounds, with his love. He loved that Søren broke him, but he didn’t want Søren to see him broken. Alone, he’d gathered his tattered clothes. Alone, he half coughed, half vomited his dinner and blood on the ground. Alone, he’d cried as he tried to stand up, and landed hard on his knees. He gave up on walking after the third try and crawled through the woods, back to the school, and collapsed on the front steps of the chapel. Father Henry found him there and, with every ounce of the old priest’s strength, lifted him off the ground and carried him to the infirmary.

“Are you all right, son?” Father Henry had asked. “Son? Kingsley…are you laughing?”

But now, at home, with Søren hours away, still at school, Kingsley felt doubt begin to set in, fear. Had it really happened? Yes, and he had the healing wounds to prove it. But would it happen again when he went back? What had happened?

Sex. That had happened. He’d never had sex like that before, and if they were going to do it again, they really needed to find a way to do it without tearing Kingsley open. The pain he cherished, but he wanted to live to be fucked again and again. But the sex…that had been the least of what had happened.

Søren…Kingsley had started a habit of writing the name down on scraps of paper. He’d light a match then and smile as the name burned. The ritual comforted him. He’d seen Søren light little candles outside the chapel, pause and bow his head. That’s what burning Søren’s name felt like—prayer.

Søren…learning the name seemed far more meaningful, more significant than even the sex had. Everyone at the school called him Stearns, apart from the priests, who called him Mr. Stearns. His first name was Marcus. Everyone knew that, although no one dared utter it. But Søren was his name. Kingsley didn’t know how or know why. And he didn’t care. He didn’t care about anything but seeing Søren again.

The days of summer passed and Kingsley did everything in his power to prove to his grandparents that he was well, that whatever had befallen him had done him no permanent damage. He returned to his rakish ways, taking up with all his old girlfriends. During the summer he easily avoided the boyfriends and brothers who’d been the bane of his existence during his time in his Portland high school. He’d let his lovely ladies pick him up, and they’d skip the movies, skip dinner, skip everything but parking the car in the middle of nowhere and letting anything and everything happen in the backseat. But only the backseat. Susan had wanted to lay out a blanket on the ground and have sex under the stars. Kingsley refused. Such a thing he’d reserve only for Søren. He’d told Susan a lie…something about poison ivy, and the girl had surrendered to his superior wisdom and spread her legs gainfully against the leather interior of her father’s Cadillac.