Mandy was waiting for him when he got back to the hotel. Brian took one look at her sympathetic expression and hid his face. Without a word, he flew into the bedroom and started packing.

Mandy drifted slowly into the room and observed the speed with which Brian was moving. "What happened?"

"What do you think happened?" Brian snapped, tossing his suitcase onto the bed.

"Did you tell him--"

"I didn't tell him anything, Mandy! Jack was there the whole time. Well, except for a few minutes when Curt apparently let me kiss him."

"Then you still don't know how he feels, Brian."

"Oh, no, I know exactly how Curt feels, Mandy. He told me--" Brian choked on the words that were stuck in his throat. "He doesn't love me anymore," he finally managed to say. The reality of saying those words out loud hit him full force and suddenly he had to sit or fall down.

"So just like that," Mandy snapped her fingers, "you're going to leave?"

"I have to. There's nothing for me here. Not a fucking thing," Brian whispered tearfully.

Mandy pushed the suitcase out of the way and sat down beside Brian. "I'm sorry, love. I thought there was still hope--"

"So did I."

But there wasn't. Now there was just a gaping hole in his chest where his heart used to be.

*****

Curt felt like the consolation prize at the bottom of a box of Cracker Jacks. Although Brian's departure definitely lifted Jack's spirits, it plunged Curt into a dark place that he was convinced he had no hope of escaping.

He was in hell. Or he soon would be.

As delighted as Jack was with the turn of events, he was furious with Curt for daring to thwart his control. "You failed, Curt. You didn't get more than a third of the way through the test, and you failed."

Curt couldn't muster more than a defeated look. His normally sensual voice robbed of its color, Curt said tonelessly, "But I did what you told me to. I sent him away."

"Yes, you did. But why? You kissed him. You told him you still love him."

"I didn't," Curt protested weakly. "I never told him that-"

"You didn't have to. It was in your eyes...your face...and it was most certainly in that kiss," Jack said venomously.

Since it was probably futile to resist, Curt didn't even try. "You got what you wanted, Jack. Let's get it over with."

"Get what over with?" Jack asked in an overly polite voice that ironically betrayed how coldly angry he was.

"You want to fuck me? Go ahead. It won't be the first time I've been raped."

"It's not rape if you want it, Curt," Jack growled.

"Yeah, that's what he said, too. You keep telling yourself that, Jack. Just let me know when it's over."

"Oh, no, I intend for you to be very present during the entire...experience," Jack declared.

Curt merely glared at him with wounded eyes. "You can take my body, but you will never own any other piece of me, Jack."

"I don't have to. Maybe it'll be enough to know that you'll never be with him again."

Curt winced despite his resolve not to let Jack back into his head. Forcing a smile, Curt said, "You think you want me, but you just want to hurt Brian."

"Are you so unaware of your own appeal, Curt? What did they do to you that crushed your soul so?"

Jesus, Jack sounded almost like he regretted what he had done to him. What he was going to do. Curt couldn't allow himself to lose sight of that. No matter how well he thought he could pretend.

"I don't love you, Jack. So I can never be...what you want me to be."

"You're wrong. You'll be whatever I want you to be, Curt."

Jack pressed a soft kiss to the top of Curt's head, and for some reason Curt couldn't quite grasp, that bothered him far more than the idea of Jack beating him senseless. He could deal with physical pain. He'd survived that, lived with its aftermath, too many times to count. But it was the emotional scars that lingered, long after the bruises and the contusions healed.

His heart had been torn apart, incomplete, leaving him unable to love anyone or anything for more than a moment in time. Till he met Brian. Once he met him, something miraculous happened. He fell in love with someone who loved him back. Not in some gruesomely unwholesome way. But in a way that nurtured his battered heart, completed it.

But now even that would be taken away from him.

He wondered how long it would take to bleed to death.

He wondered if he would even feel it when he did.

*****

Curt closed his eyes and let Jack's hands roam all over his body. He was naked, which in and of itself was hardly a bad thing. But Jack was exploiting every opportunity to touch him, and his caresses made Curt feel unclean. He struggled to keep his mind on something else, using the pain that he swore he wouldn't let himself feel be what it was and nothing more.

Jack thrust into his body with minimal preparation. Curt told himself that didn't hurt, not even when his inner passages throbbed, then tore, silently clenching tighter and tighter till he was sure that he would break open, spilling his insides all over the handsomely appointed bed.

He buried his face against his criss-crossed arms, his ass held high in the air for Jack to plunder ruthlessly, relentlessly. When Jack climaxed, his come burned a path so far beneath the surface of what Curt showed to the world that he was lost. Hopelessly lost.

Maybe he was insane, he sobbed, so quietly that he couldn't be heard. Maybe he could stay where he was and never have to feel again.

Maybe he would never come out.

*****

There was something to be said for being fucked within an inch of one's life. It made it impossible to be taken by surprise ever again.

Curt lay on his stomach, sprawled across Jack's bed, his body a mass of black and blue. When he woke, he opened his eyes, which were crusted shut from crying in his sleep, and noted that Jack was nowhere to be seen.

Maybe he could escape. Maybe...

Jack emerged from the bathroom, drying his long auburn hair with a towel. As he passed the bed, he slapped Curt's ass with the wet towel, and Curt yelped. "Get dressed. We have an appointment."

Curt barely managed to sit up, the change in position making his entire body ache. "Wh-where?" he asked through cracked lips. A bruise blackened Curt's right cheek and his mouth was swollen, making it difficult to speak.

"The doctor. It's no fun playing with your favorite toy if it's broken, is it?"

Curt didn't answer. He simply sat there, his features curiously blank. Jack helped Curt into the shower, though he clearly found the task distasteful. With Jack's assistance, Curt looked presentable. On the outside.

The inside, however, was a different matter.

Curt was torn up in more ways than one. His heart hurt, his soul felt disconnected from the rest of him, and suddenly he couldn't feel his body. Which was undoubtedly a saving grace. For as long as it lasted.

*****

Jack had connections. That much was obvious. He dragged Curt to see his doctor, someone he trusted to keep Curt's condition confidential. But he hadn't reckoned on Curt's reputation preceding him.

The doctor was a middle-aged man of uncertain origins who happened to like Curt Wild. Curious about what he'd heard about Curt's break-up with Brian Slade, the doctor wanted to speak to Curt alone. That didn't sit well with Jack.

"Just stick a needle in his arm and we'll be on our way," Jack grumbled.

"If you want him to be taken care of, wait in the other room."

Jack realized that he was between a rock and a hard place and gave in with a petulant look. But he bent over on the pretext of giving Curt a kiss and warned him, "Remember to tell the doctor about how clumsy you are, love."

Curt grimaced at the endearment and averted his face when Jack tried to kiss him. Jack's eyes flashed. "He's shy," he explained to the doctor who regarded him with suspicious eyes.

"Shy? Curt Wild shy?" The doctor would have laughed, but one look at the parts of Curt's battered body that he could see without removing his clothes took care of that.

He shooed Jack into the other room, but he was sure he wouldn't get the truth out of Curt. Whatever had happened, it hadn't been pretty. And somehow the doctor doubted it had been consensual.

But he wasn't paid for his opinions, just his services. So he set to work with a grim expression. "I'm going to give you some Demerol. Some of those tears look fairly painful," he said, drawing up a syringe of the narcotic painkiller.

"No!" It was the first time Curt had spoken since he came in with Jack, and the roughness of Curt's voice took him by surprise. He sounded like someone who either hadn't used his voice in a very long time, or who had screamed himself hoarse. Given the noticeable tremors that wracked Curt's body when he examined him, he feared it was the latter.

Curt continued more softly, but the strain of sounding calmer than he really was became readily apparent. "No drugs. I'm off that stuff."

"You've got to be hurting badly, Curt," the doctor began.

"I can handle it," Curt said, too quickly not to be lying.

"You'll heal faster if you let me-"

"It's okay. I'm used to...feeling this way."

The doctor visibly reacted to that last statement. "Curt! You shouldn't have to suffer like this. Let me help you."

"The only way you could help me, Doc, would be to get involved, and that might get you hurt."

"There must be something I could do."

"Just fix what you can fix, Doc," Curt said wearily, exhaustion taking its toll on his weakened body.

*****

The doctor did what he could. Then he did what he shouldn't have. He let his concern for Curt override everything else. After looking up the address of Brian Slade's management company, the kindly man sent a message to him, alerting the musician to what had become of his former lover. It never occurred to him that what he was doing could be dangerous, to Curt as well as Brian, or he would never have risked it.

Jerry Devine fingered the plain white envelope and smiled. Brian would never know that Jerry had intercepted the message. Too bad. Curt would probably die of old age before his ex-boyfriend saved him.

He took out his lighter and lit one corner of the envelope. Rather predictably it burned. He smiled again. He liked things to burn.

*****

tbc