Page 17 of The Gods of Chaos and Chance

‘Oh, no need for us to go. He’ll be fine. He’ll be here soon.’

‘Oh. Okay. I kinda got the impression you were angling to go.’

‘Not at all. What a strange brain you do have, Benjamin. Speaking of angling…ahh…’

‘Good?’

Aleksey closed his eyes and tipped his head back to rest on the rim of the tub. Good? Yes, despite a few speed bumps currently in his path, life was very, very good indeed.

* * *

Even curling together in bed had to be done carefully these days. They’d discovered it was safest if Ben lay semi-prone in the recovery position, which enabled Aleksey to lie against his back with his aching leg lifted and supported over Ben’s strong, healthy ones. This position put Aleksey’s face into the back of Ben’s head, and he subsequently fell asleep to the feel and smell of it, to a sense of security and warmth which enabled him to stay asleep for a couple of hours until, in the early hours of the morning, one of them inevitably moving would wake him. He used to sleep utterly silent and still, according to Ben. Dead to the world. Now he tossed and turned, awake, yet not wanting to disturb Ben, at the same time as wishing very much he could. Sometimes, Ben would rouse, perhaps sensing the warm body turning away from him, trying another position, and would then get up and make them some tea, and they would share the dawn together, watching the effect of pink sunlight on the tor above them, using its course as a sundial to gauge the slow passage of time in this early-hours dream world.

That night, Aleksey woke at three, which was the worst time to lose the blessed relief of sleep. It was a long time now until morning. He eased away from Ben and thought about the sad emptiness of his bedside table. Which depressing contemplation led him to recall his joke to Ben earlier. Not that Ben had got it. Or at least he hoped he hadn’t or his diversification into pharmaceuticals and property would be very swiftly curtailed. He smirked, then yawned. The professor had suggested he listen to audio books when he woke thus. Which was a surprisingly thoughtful suggestion, but he was reluctant to indulge this weakness, this fucking…insomnia. Old people were the ones who couldn’t sleep! Because they were old! And sat around all day being, well…old.

Ben wanted to learn to fly.

How timely could something be?

Aleksey then pursed his lips and thought harder about Ben and speed. Ben a hundred and twenty miles an hour in the outer lane of a motorway, speeding up to undertake a rogue car that dared get in front of him. Ben, bike tipped so far over cornering that the knees on his leathers were scuffed.

Ben…flying a plane…

Ack, he’d survived one crash already. Statistically, Aleksey reckoned they were now extremely safe.

Ten minutes passed. He yawned again.

Ben was hot.

Aleksey held his hand close to the bare skin on Ben’s back. He could feel heat radiating off him.

Maybe Ben would allow him some sleeping pills.

After all, you couldn’t get addicted to them, could you?

* * *

Chapter Eight

But of course, once the bad hours were over, Aleksey would then find himself re-waking, but apparently now in the middle of the day. Ben’s side of the bed would be empty, and familiar family noises sounding from the other half of the house.

He was becoming almost completely nocturnal.

But what else was there to do all day if he did stay awake?

There was even a hiatus in the trial now, apparently. Even that minor entertainment was forbidden him.

Given that, he wondered idly what the moron was doing to fillhisdays.

Occasionally, taking his research on this celebrity debacle seriously, he listened to clever people with letters after their names discussing things likeborderline personality disorder. Madness, in other words. It amused him, and he wondered more than once what one of those same experts would say had they witnessed life in the Mikkelsen household on Aero. Or in the Primakov one in Russia, come to that. As he’d often thought, although having no letters after his name to give this speculation credibility, if you watched someone swimming in shit, you should concentrate more on that substance’s toxic qualities and less, perhaps, on what the swimmer was doing to survive it.

But what did he know? Every single woman he’d ever met had betrayed him or been destroyed by him. Except one. He pondered this woman that lunchtime, lying idly in the crumpled sheets, knowing that Ben would arrive fairly soon either with some food or to tell him to get his lazy, fat arse out of bed. He grinned, fished for his phone and punched in her number.

‘Oh, God. What the bloody hell do you want? I told you to delete this number.’

‘No, you told me you’d deleted mine. And you don’t have to call me God.’

‘I’m busy Nikki. I’m picking up today.’

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