Anyhow, thank God my manhood was small. If it had been a hefty seven or eight inches, we’d both have died of malnutrition before I got seated. Not to mention I’d be rendered hoarse, because every millimetre I sunk deeper brought forth a fresh round of wailing. How the fuck did blokes make this look so blooming easy?

  “A little more,” he coaxed with another chuckle. Carefully, he rose to his elbows. “I’m going to get up to my knees now, okay, sweet? Nice and slow.”

  As he got to all fours, I clung to his back like a fucking limpet, still whimpering. Though the tightness was unbearable, I was more than halfway in, past the point of no return. My barbell felt like it was wedged sideways and had grown about a foot wide; any sudden moves from Mungo and I reckoned my dick would have sheared off.

  “Nearly there, sweet,” he crooned. “This is fab, Milo.”

  Fucking petrifying would have been closer to the mark. Sweat poured from my forehead. I wasn’t far from bursting into tears. “I’m too scared to pull out and too scared to move, Mungs.”

  “Right, okay, okay. Listen, let me try something,” he said easily, like he wasn’t bottoming for the first time and didn’t have my dick in a vice. “I’m going to help you out.”

  With that, he sucked in a deep breath, then swiftly pushed back onto my dick, swallowing me up.

  “Ah, fuck!”

  “Breathe through it,” Mungo gasped. “Count with me. Come on, Milo, you can do it. Stay calm. One, two, three…”

  The counting worked. Not immediately. I mean, we got to 95 before I was able to release my death grip on his shoulders, and I made it to 147 before I remembered to check if Mungo was enjoying bottoming for the first time. (Big mistake: he found this fucking hilarious, setting off another ripple effect.) All in all, not my finest hour in the bedroom.

  “I think I’m ready to move,” I panted. “Unless you want to live with me stuck on your back for the rest of your life.”

  Turning his head again so his lips found mine, Mungo kissed me. The guy was a fucking saint. “Even when it’s bad it’s good, right?” I said, with not a small hint of anxiety.

  His eyes filled with so much love I couldn’t breathe. “It’s awesome, Milo. Now come on. Start making love to me.”

  I began slowly. And when I say slow, I mean the earth’s tectonic plates were moving faster. More like an X-rated living statue than a man pleasuring the love of his life, but Mungo was full of so much fucking praise for me. Gradually, my mind cleared of everything except the low moans and tender endearments dripping from his mouth. And when he reached around for my hand and put it on his dick, and I felt how big and hard and needy he was for me, who cared that I was making a total hash of things?

  And some things I truly excelled at, even from a challenging angle and with my dick in a vice. Like hand jobs. When Mungo spilled onto the mattress beneath him, causing his channel to spasm around me, it was all over bar the shouting. And trust me—there was a hell of a lot of shouting.

  “I blame the condom,” said Mungo solemnly when he’d cleaned us both up and positioned my head to his liking on my twin pillows. “Always makes topping trickier. Especially the first few times.”

  God, I loved my man. He’d be blaming himself next. “Absolutely. Like eating a boiled sweet without taking the wrapper off.”

  He chuckled and my pillows wobbled. “Shall we get tested tomorrow and make this our last packet?”

  “What, and then I can try again?”

  Even Mungo couldn’t lie through that. “Um… yeah? Maybe? Or we could switch? You know, we’ve got the rest of our lives to do it any which way we please. There’s no… um, rush.”

  Yawning widely, I cuddled closer. Thank God. Topping was thoroughly exhausting. “Switching sounds perfect.”

  I lay in the comfortable silence, enjoying the sensation of my pillows rising and falling. Such honesty between us was good. We could have bad sex and not give a stuff. Laugh about it, even. So much openness. Absolute trust. No hidden secrets. Not a single one.

  “When were you going to tell me your family were still making unwanted house calls?”

  I tensed. Though Mungo didn’t sound annoyed. If anything, he sounded amused.

  “Who told you?”

  “Tris. Not long after… after I split up with Cav. He came here to see you, and Danny told him about them visiting. I think Danny was worried and looking for advice and knew Tris was one of your closest friends. Anyhow, Tris told me, and Danny and I have been in regular contact since. I’m surprised you can still afford to pay your bills, Milo, the amount of money that flows their way.”

  Danny and I were going to have words. “Barely. Especially as I’ve been feeding Danny, too, because he hasn’t got any money. And it’s become worse recently. My dad’s had a bad run with one of his bookies.”

  “We’re going to have to talk about it, sweetheart. Not now. But soon. You can’t go on like this. I won’t let it. Okay?”

  God, it felt good to let it out. To bask in Mungo’s quiet circle of strength and love. Our circle. Because from now on, we were looking out for each other. I see you. I know you. I love you.

  “I’d like that,” I said. “I don’t have any obvious answers, though.”

  Mungo sighed, which kind of summed up my thoughts on the subject entirely.

  “I know. But perhaps you need to look for a different solution. Maybe if you can’t bring yourself to walk away from them, then your family is simply a truth, a reality needing accepting. Perhaps that’s the only way you’re going to find… I don’t know… peace.”

  “I can’t ever cut them loose,” I confessed, glad my face was buried in his chest hair, so I didn’t have to look into his kind eyes. “I got out, my mum didn’t. Helping them financially makes me feel like… like a better person. And the money I hand over—call it a charitable donation—although I’m fully aware there are more worthy charities. But I’ve picked this one. I have a… a loyalty to them.”

  “You’re confusing loyalty with serfdom, sweetheart. And when Jason used to knock at the door, it upset you for days after.”

  “Oh.” I didn’t have much to say to that.

  “Did you think I didn’t notice?”

  “Yes? Um… maybe?”

  His chest vibrated with his deep chuckle. In the quiet that followed, my mind ticked loudly. Flashbacks of Jason, wired to the gills and pounding on my door, invaded my thoughts. I wished we could choose which memories to remember. I’d delete Jason, that’s for sure.

  “He scares me,” I admitted. “I’m scared that one day he’ll have a knife.”

  There, I’d said it. The truth I’d hidden from everyone. Maybe if I’d shared this level of honesty with Mungo over the last twelve years, my family wouldn’t still have the hold over me they did now. A hold even this short discussion had already diminished. I snuggled deeper into my hairy nest on Mungo’s chest. “You’re right. The doorstepping needs to stop.”

  “Then somehow, we’ll make it stop.”

  I could be quite fussy when it came to spooning, especially as a smaller spoon. In my extensive experience, there were two sorts of big spoons. One employed it as nothing more than a wordless strategy to notify the little spoon when they were ready for sex again, and the remainder, who confused spooning with smothering, their body heat melting my skin off within about twelve seconds of adopting the position.

  With Mungo, however, I discovered a third kind. Safe in his arms, he curled around me tenderly like we were a couple of Pringles, every inch touching but not squeezing. In other words, perfect. If I hadn’t fallen asleep so quickly, I might have shared my perceptive maize-based, snack-related insight with him.

  CHAPTER 25

  MUNGO

  My cup of tea used to be a lean, long guy, with a penchant for fancy tableware and branded sports goods. Someone with his life totally sorted. But these days, cups of tea were off the menu. I only drank champagne now.

  As I sat across from my former abuser, Cav, in the little café opposite my office, I wondered what the fuck I once saw in him and why I’d agreed to meet him here. Lysander had efficiently sorted everything; the final piece of paperwork separating my life from his could have been completed at arm’s length. But maybe an uncharitable part of me wanted Cav to see how happy I was without him, remind the fucker what he’d lost, and regret what he’d never get back. Amongst other reasons.

  Milo knew I was here, of course; the whole thing had been his idea in the first place. Like his favourite vodka cranberry cocktail, he preferred his revenge served ice cold, even if he had been quietly plotting it from the day he discovered the broken shell of me at the penthouse. He had more patience than he gave himself credit. We’d exchanged a goodbye kiss outside the coffee shop, he advised I spit in Cav’s coffee, and then he went home to throw something together for dinner.

  Objectively, Cav looked great. But then, so did avalanches until you found yourself caught up in one. “I hear you’re back to slumming it in Peckham these days,” he opened. “That must be taking some getting used to. Not to mention the dreadful commute.”

  I had many descriptors for the life I’d settled back into with Milo in his cosy, scruffy corner of London. Slumming didn’t come close. And this morning’s packed commute had flown by in a dreamy haze, each sway of the Tube carriage nudging me ever closer into Milo’s taut body, until we were happily sardined against each other. There were worse ways to travel.

  “I’m coping,” I said, regarding him coolly.

  “Piling on the pounds, too.”

  “Milo is very happy with my body. And the beard, before you bother. As am I.”

  Cav’s handsome mouth twisted into a smirk. “You think he loves you, but it will pass, especially when he works out how dull you are. Peacocks like him only love themselves.”

  Takes one to know one.

  “He’ll move on to someone else soon enough,” he added with satisfaction. “I have, by the way. A super chap. You did me a favour, Mungo. Oliver works in finance—he’s a Cambridge graduate—and is already making a name for himself.”

  Poor bloke. No doubt Oliver was still in the honeymoon phase of the relationship; Cav putting him on a pedestal, making him feel like the most special man alive.

  “Funny, it took me no time at all to replace you. But you’ll never find anyone to replace me.”

  That was kind of the point. I smiled to myself. I thought about Danny, how Milo had taken him under his wing. The free legal advice he gave to the Erdogans when their landlord threatened not to renew their lease. The endless cash he handed over to his family, hoping one of them would use it for the good. The unconditional love he showed me.

  For me it’s always been you.

  Milo wasn’t going anywhere. “We’ll see.”

  He handed me the paperwork, and I signed, hardly reading it. I’d entered our relationship with only a handful of belongings and some modest savings. I was leaving it with even less. But not all riches were measured in pounds and pence or fancy apartments. I had something money couldn’t buy, and he was at home, waiting for me. Which begged the question why I was here, wasting another minute of my time with Cav.

  “Have you thought of getting some professional help?” I suggested. “A psychologist, for anger management?”

  He scoffed. “No. Why the hell would I? I don’t have a problem. Not now I’ve found a partner that isn’t quite so inconsiderate. Someone smart, that doesn’t fuck up quite so much.”

  “Someone less human, you mean?” I laughed humourlessly. This meeting was going to be extremely cathartic after all. “Good luck with that.”

  His fingers clenched around the coffee mug, the rage he denied simmering close to the surface. “Still a cunt, I see, Mungo.”

  I tutted. “Do your fancy friends know you throw that word around so easily, or do you just save it for your boyfriends when they piss you off?”

  “What?” He scoffed again. “You’ve become a prude now, have you, Mungo? You didn’t used to be.”

  I leaned in closer to him across the table. The place was busy, but even so, some conversations were best kept private, and I wanted to catch every word of his answer. “Can I ask you something, Cav?”

  He gazed at me in that superior way he had. Like he was untouchable. But it would be for the last time ever because we were almost done. Only the tricky part remained. “If it’s about me returning some of the stuff we bought together, then no. After what you did to me in the restaurant, you’re having nothing.”

  I ignored him. He could take his scented candles and shove them up his arse. Sideways. I lowered my voice. “When you used to push me around. When I did little things that riled you, like that time I forgot to pick up a loaf of bread on the way home and you pushed me into the kitchen cupboard. Why did you do it? Did you enjoy it?”

  Cav sat back with a smug smile. “What on earth are you talking about?” He folded his arms, like he didn’t have a fucking care in the world. “I might have accidentally knocked into you once or twice, maybe. Your big lumbering body was hard to avoid. But I certainly never hurt you on purpose.”

  “I think we both know you did.”

  As if I was stupid, he shook his head. “You’re very much mistaken, Mungo. I remember you tripping, once or twice. You always have been clumsy. But I never pushed you around.”

  “You’re joking, right? Don’t you remember after Krav Maga, that time you gave me a dead arm? And a bruise lasting a week?”

  “No.” He scoffed again. “I always said you should drink less wine. It makes you misremember stuff. I do recall coming back from class and showing you a few new techniques I’d learned. But I never practised them on you.”

  As he nodded to himself, I stared at him in wonder. Like he actually believed his own bullshit. There was a word for it; Milo and I had read about it, thank God. Gaslighting. Rewriting history so credibly in your head your own version of the truth became the reality you told yourself. And also repeatedly told the victim, until they started to question their own version of events. And their sanity.

  How the fuck had I ever found this man attractive?

  Milo had warned me he’d be like this. That he’d probably boast about a new upgraded boyfriend and deny everything regarding the abuse. And why wouldn’t he? It wasn’t like I could prove anything. As far as Cav knew, it was his word against mine. And the guy was the head of a department in a prominent London senior school, for Christ's sake! A pillar of society. And articulate, well spoken. Not the sort of person anyone would put at the top of their list of likely abusers.

  I ploughed on, determined to see it through. Because Milo also warned me nobody could be riled as easily as a narcissist trying to deny something they definitely did. We'd read about that too. “What about the last time, then? At Frankie’s place. You could hardly say that was an accident.”

  Again, he shook his head, like I’d told him the funniest joke ever. “Babe, you must have tripped on that slippery floor. I didn’t hurt you.”

  Sweat dripped down my back. I was safe here, in a public place on a busy street, and he’d never touch me again, but I still felt sick as a dog. I reached for my phone, hoping he wouldn’t notice my hand shaking, and after a few swipes turned the screen to face him. “I don’t think a slippery floor can cause this sort of damage, do you?”

  The day after, I hadn’t wanted to have all my injuries photographed. It felt like reliving the humiliation all over again. But Milo insisted, switching into professional, hotshot lawyer mode. And whatever Milo asked from me, I’d never refuse him. With each bruise exposed with utmost care, then captured on camera, he vowed to take care of me. He had kissed each one and promised I’d never be hurt again.

  Cav’s face whitened. For a second, he almost seemed fearful. His gaze darted around the packed café as he pushed the phone back at me. “A hard game of rugby can do that to a man, Mungo.”

  “I stopped playing rugby three years ago. Milo marked the date when he took these pictures, and he also knows it wasn’t rugby. Just like he knows about all the other times you hit me. Dates, triggers, injuries.”

  At mention of Milo, his jaw tensed. “You deserved it,” he spat out. “I should have hit you harder, for what you did to me in that fucking restaurant. And when I realised you wouldn’t hit me back.”

  “I would never have hit you, Cav.” I was glad I’d done this sitting down; under the table, my legs trembled.

  “You’re a pathetic excuse for a man, Mungo. And such a fucking doormat. I bet that Milo walks all over you. I’ve a good mind to fucking lamp him, too. Teach him a lesson.”

  I’d heard enough. He couldn’t hurt me again, but his hatred for Milo, the venom, like a living, breathing thing inside him, still hit home. I thumbed another couple of buttons on my phone then slotted it back into my jacket pocket.

  “I think we’re done here.” Standing on wobbly legs to leave, I took in a deep breath. “And don’t threaten Milo again. I really don’t like it.”

  He snorted. “Ooh, and what are you going to do about it?”

  I pretended to think, scratching my head. “Um… well, quite a few things, actually. For one, I might lodge a complaint down at the local nick. Then get myself some legal representation, maybe? Show them the photos, perhaps a statement I wrote straight after the attack? Several statements actually, recorded in the days after. About all the other times I’d… accidentally tripped. Milo was very thorough. Maybe I could send one in the post to the school governors.”

  Granted, Cav wasn’t bad at manipulating people. He made control and belittlement feel like love. Sharp-witted and a decent liar, he also had a knack of subtly twisting events to somehow make everything seem like it was someone else’s fault. Another form of gaslighting I’d read about. And a nice, naïve middle-class boy like me had fallen for it.

  But, in all his machinations, he hadn’t accounted for Milo. And as Milo was quick to tell anyone, he wasn’t just another pretty face. He’d crawled out of the gutter to join the ranks of the chattering classes, but not before learning a few tricks on the way. Emotional blackmail was his family’s currency, and he was putting his knowledge to good use. I hated telling my sad, pathetic little tales as we huddled together on that park bench. I’d been in tears most of the time.