Page 52 of A Life Imagined
Then one evening, he was downtown with his brother, who was high off his face, when Rayan saw Clément cross the street and head toward him.
“You’re a fucking addict,” Clément hissed, wrenching at Rayan’s arm as if to confirm his suspicions.“Oh God—I let you into my house!”
He looked at Rayan like he was shit stuck to the bottom of his shoe.Rayan yanked his arm back, horror and humiliation churning in his gut.
“I know how this works,” Clément went on.“You prey on unsuspecting men and get them to fund your habit.”
Rayan had never asked the man for money.Never asked him for anything.All the assumptions about who he was hurt.It didn’t matter if he refuted them—they were there now, lodged between them.
Rayan refused to allow the pain to register on his face.Instead, he let out a scornful laugh.“Don’t flatter yourself.You were just an easy lay.”
After Clément, there were others, but he knew not to stay.It was safer to keep the sex separate from the rest of his life.Still, the need ate at him.He wanted someone to throw himself against, confident they wouldn’t sag under the weight.Rayan felt as though he was chasing a feeling, his fingers brushing the edge of it only to have it slip from his grip.It wasn’t so much that he liked to be hurt but that he liked to be conquered, rendered obsolete.He’d grazed against it with some men, but never like with Mathias.
Mathias wielded power like it was his birthright, and Rayan had been drawn to his control, his purpose.With Mathias there was no hesitancy.Nothing about Rayan made Mathias so much as bat an eye.Mathias had owned him from the moment Rayan first reported as his second—long before the man ever laid a hand on him.For years, he’d been content to simply remain by Mathias’s side.Rayan had never believed their relationship could be more than that.
As it turned out, that was only the beginning.Somewhere along the line, things began to change between them.The urge to be obliterated gave way to other desires, and they navigated these with a cautious back-and-forth.He discovered that Mathias’s own needs were liable to bend and transform as he let Rayan in.It wasn’t until they’d come to Calais that Rayan had started to believe that maybe life’s simple pleasures weren’t entirely out of reach.
Beside him, Mathias shifted, and Rayan felt his eyelids droop.He pressed himself against the man’s warm body and let sleep come.
Chapter Eighteen
“What does it mean?”Rayan flicked through the menu, preoccupied.“Bougnoule?”
Mathias looked up.“Someone said it again?”
Rayan nodded, and Mathias exhaled loudly.He had no interest in validating the ramblings of some small-town zealot.“It’s not worth wondering.”
He didn’t expect the flash of anger that crossed Rayan’s face.Rayan put down the menu.“I told Farhan his daughters would be safe here.Safe from some things but clearly not others.”
Mathias shrugged.“That’s true of everywhere.France, Canada—take your pick.The world’s got more than its share of bigots.”He closed his menu and signaled to one of the waitresses.
The restaurant was several blocks from the house, and they came here sometimes when they got tired of cooking.Mathias suspected it was also because the place reminded Rayan of the restaurants in Montreal that offered classic country fare:pate Chinois, poutine,fèves au lard.While they didn’t serve those dishes here, the hefty portions of meat, potatoes, and gravy had a similar affect.
It was still early, and the restaurant was not as crowded as it usually got during the dinner rush.Above the bar, a television played one of the mandatory weekend football matches on mute.It was hard to find a place in the city that didn’t make a point of broadcasting the game.
Mathias glanced over at the older man seated at the bar across from them, shoveling a plate of fries into his mouth and washing each mouthful down with a swig of draft beer.Calais certainly doesn’t lack for fine-dining establishments.
When the waitress arrived at their table, Rayan spoke carefully, consulting the menu as he ordered.Mathias noted how the woman, young with curly brown hair, shifted to look at Rayan, tucking her hair behind her ear.In an attempt to blend in, Rayan had begun eschewing certain Quebecois words in favor of the formal French equivalent—a futile pursuit, as it was clear as soon as he opened his mouth that he wasn’t from around here.The locals seemed to find his dialect endearing, especially when the occasional Quebecois word slipped through.Then there were the words that meant something different.Rayan had been alarmed to discover that in France,gossemeant child and not—as in Quebec—a particular part of the male anatomy.
The food arrived quickly, and after the waitress had set down their plates, she lingered by the table, commenting on the weather and the local football team.Mathias found her blatant flirting amusing, particularly because Rayan appeared oblivious, as he often was about these things.She left the bill by Rayan’s elbow, and Mathias saw she’d scrawled her number along the bottom.
“Seems not everyone’s deterred,” Mathias remarked, picking up his knife and cutting into his meat.
Rayan eyed the phone number like a message in an alien language.He picked up his utensils and began carving into his chicken then stopped abruptly.“Tony once told me you kept me on as afuck youto the establishment.Was that why—because my otherness was a tool?”
“It is a tool.When someone doesn’t know what to expect, it’s easy to throw them off.”
Rayan stared back at him, his expression guarded.
Mathias set down his knife.“Here’s the thing about belonging, Rayan.It makes you complacent.You get used to believing you deserve things by the very fact that you showed up.The men in the family were like that.I worked with soldiers who heard their orders through a thick layer of entitlement.That wasn’t the case with you.That’s why I kept you on.You were more like me than they were.”
“You never told me that.”
Mathias returned to carving his beef.“That being said, I did enjoy ruffling a few feathers.”
Rayan cocked an eyebrow.“A few?”
Mathias smirked.“You and Tony sat around gossiping about me like a pair of old women?”
