Free Stockholm Syndrome 3 - No Beginning, No End by Richard Rider Page A

only a drawing, not a very good one either."
    "Yeah, well shut up about stuff you don't even know about cos what if that's the last drawing he ever did in his whole life when he was dying in bed and he knew it and he says to his wife like 'Kate just stay right there and let me draw you one last time cos you was always an angel to me' then fucking died and nobody ever knew where the picture went and people thought that cunt Tatham might've burnt it like he burnt other stuff he didn't like cos it was too rude or blasphemy or some shit, yeah?"
    Lindsay's brain never runs fast enough to keep up with Valentine when he's excited over something, and he's never ever going to get used to him liking anything slightly more impressive than old Nintendo platform games. He's starting to get a headache. "Calm down. How many times do you think he drew his wife?"
    "Yeah, but maybe not in the year he died , you mong, he was too busy jizzing in his paintbox over Dante, doing all them illustrations." He shuts up for an impatient few seconds while Lindsay wipes a smudge of semen off the corner of his mouth with his thumb, then grabs Lindsay's wrist and sucks the thumb into his mouth. "Can I have it?" His mouth is hot, tongue sliding across the nail and teeth pinching very gently at the skin. "Please," he says, in his best wheedling voice, slurring around the thumb in his mouth. "I want it. Please can I have it."
"Now who's being nerdy?"
     
"You're a nerd. I'm just an enthusiast. I want it. I don't want nobody else looking at it, I want it, you have to let me keep it." "Do I."
    "Yeah, cos I want it." Amazing how quickly all his new I'll-doit-myself principles go zooming out the window when there's something he can't quite reach. He's acting like he did six or seven years ago, all his same old sly tricks to get his way, twining his arms around Lindsay's neck and making his eyes go big and innocent, slipping into a way of talking that makes him sound very young. It's revolting really how shamelessly manipulative he can be – though whose fault is that? Lindsay's for always indulging him, of course. He still can't say no, though maybe that's partly to do with how Valentine's still sucking gently on his thumb, all flushed cheeks and pink lips and wide makeup-smudged eyes. "I did say please," he murmurs. "I'll be good forever. Can I have it?"
    "Give me back my thumb." He wipes it dry on his shirt. He's too tired for this dreadful sick familiar feeling of disturbingly wrong lust to make as much of an impact as it always used to, which has got to be a good thing. "Let's see how well you can behave between now and your birthday, shall we?"
    "That's like five months away!" He looks horrified and injured by the idea, and this time it doesn't seem like it's for play. " More than five months. I need it now ."
    "You need a slap, that's what you need. Don't be such a brat. I could make a whole career out of these things and I'm giving them to you, don't you understand? I don't think you realise how important all this crazy old man's hoarded junk is."
    Valentine looks sulky and hateful for a moment longer, but then his face smooths out and morphs into a barely-contained grin. "I know how important your old man junk is," he says, and Lindsay slaps him hard on the thigh and pushes him away so he can stand up and rush to the bathroom before Valentine sees him laughing.

7.
    It's so difficult matching up what he knows of the Valentines now with what he thought he knew before. Like Wayne and Waynetta off Harry Enfield , Valentine – Pip – used to insist stubbornly. Thuggish unfeeling chavs who never really wanted him, that's how he put them across. Now, in their house, that's hard to believe. There are photos everywhere, school portraits and holiday snaps and baby pictures and all sorts. Lindsay's looking at them all in turn when Valentine comes back into the room from putting Dory to bed.
    "You know what I look like."
"Not when you're fourteen."
"Pervert."
    That