The Hardest Thing

being busted. For the first time in my life I was where no one could get me, no rules could threaten me, with a man in my arms. Thirty-seven years old, and this was my first taste of
freedom, in one anonymous motel room after another, as a bodyguard who’d overstepped his job description. I was well aware of how pathetic that seemed. I don’t need anyone else to put me down; I can do that really well myself. But here’s something new: I didn’t give a shit. Yeah, it could all end tomorrow. Yeah, the whole situation was probably criminal. But Stirling… Stirling did things to me… Stirling made me feel…
    Love ? No—love was buried in a military graveyard down in Knoxville, Tennessee. Love was over for me; I’d known it once, and I’d never know it again. Love died when a sniper’s bullet found its target in Helmand, and Will Laurence was taken away from me in a body bag. That was love: nights by the lake, stolen kisses in the shadows, fucking in outbuildings or offices or empty shower blocks, risking everything for each other. Love was Will deciding to put in for a transfer to Afghanistan when I was posted there, following me no matter what the risks. And it was love that made me forget my training, forget the future and everything I’d worked for and tell those granite-faced bastards with medals where their hearts should be that I was cracking up because Will Laurence had been killed, that I was grieving because the man I loved was dead. Love that left me empty and drifting, unable to go to his funeral, unable even to visit the damn grave…
    Stirling was a distraction. A job. A very enjoyable job, for sure; when my cock slid into his silky ass I think I’d have handed back Ferrari’s ten grand, it felt so good. And maybe, when the bleach grew out and his body hair came back… But by that time, I’d have delivered him safe and sound to whoever wanted him, and I would
never see Stirling McMahon again. Save those fantasies for a rainy day, Stagg. Think about that sweet ass and that pretty mouth on your dick when you’re alone in a cruddy rented room in Harlem. You’ll need those memories when the money runs out.
    We crossed into New Hampshire at midday Friday and drove up into the woods. We had time to kill, and the weather was fine, so I thought we’d spend some time in the great outdoors. Stirling slept most of the way, and when I parked he stayed in the car. Well, I didn’t get out of town so often that I was going to miss a chance for a walk in the woods. Stirling wouldn’t stray, and if any assassins were smart enough to find him out here in the middle of nowhere, they deserved him. I wouldn’t go out of hailing distance.
    One New England forest is much like another, and by the time I’d scrambled up a few root-entangled pathways and over a bunch of boulders I’d had enough. I found a clear spot that gave me a view of the sky above and our car below, and I could see Stirling sprawled out in the backseat. In a while I’d wake him up by slapping my cock around his face. He’d like that.
    I checked my cell phone. Signal strength had been intermittent, but up here it was clear and strong; I might as well call Ferrari while I had the chance. If we carried on driving, we could be in the White Mountains by evening.
    There was only one number in my contacts list, and I hit it.
    No answer. The number you have dialed is not available, please try again later.
    Weird; the whole point of having this damn phone
was to report any problems. For all Ferrari knew, Stirling could have been abducted, shot, strangled, whatever. Await instructions, I’d been told. Report whereabouts, report anything suspicious. Well, this seemed suspicious to me, but who the hell was I going to report it to?
    I walked back down to the car; Stirling was still there, fast asleep, looking like something dreamed up by an advertising agency with the Gay Sex account. My dick was stirring— mouth or ass , it was thinking, and that’s pretty much the extent of its ideas. But my brain was ticking over too.
    Who are you, Stirling?
    What game are we in?
    I knew nothing about him—only what Enrico Ferrari had told me. Stirling was 23, a rich man’s son, employed as a secretary by a nameless millionaire who had some very bad enemies. Enemies who wanted to kill the people close to him.
    Now, for ten-thousand bucks, let alone the next two installments, I was willing to curb my curiosity and accept things at face value, no matter how