The Silenced Tale, стр. 10

“Yeah, I . . . Juan, I was . . . it was awful.”

“Okay, I’m on your street now. Just . . . stay where you are, okay?”

“I locked the front door.”

“It’s fine. I have my keys.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t come in . . .”

“I’m here, okay?” The sound of a car pulling into his driveway is faint under Linux’s rolling growls. The soft thump of the car door closing makes the cat’s ears twitch. “I’m just gonna . . .” The jingle of keys sounds over the phone.

Elgar holds his breath, fear and shame seizing his lungs. He has a sudden, horrible flash of whatever it is downstairs punching across the room toward Juan. He gags at the thought of a tidal wave of maggots splashing out of the kitchen, swallowing his assistant under their slimy, pulsing bodies.

But as soon as Elgar hears the front door open, Linux’s body immediately relaxes. The cat pricks his ears forward, listening, and sits up primly, wrapping his tail around his paws.

“Boss?” floats up from downstairs.

Elgar ends the call and shoves his phone in his pocket.

“Juan?” he calls down. “Are you . . . ? Is everything . . . ?”

“There’s nothing strange, boss. I mean, your salad is all over the counter. But nothing else is wrong. Good for you, by the way. Salad for dinner. I’m proud of you.”

Elgar sucks on a horrible, choking breath, torn between wanting to chuckle and wanting to scream. He toes the towel out of the way and cracks the bathroom door. Impatient, Linux bolts through the gap, meowing that special chirrupy greeting he saves only for Juan, the man who always gives him a treat.

Elgar sticks his head out of the bathroom slowly, tentatively. The overwhelming fear, the funk of rotting vegetables, and the terror that something is coming to get him have all evaporated. There isn’t even an after-image of the horrible, pungent stink. His house just feels . . . normal. Like it always feels: empty of anything but the three of them, smelling faintly of cat litter, dusty paper, and the “Clean Linen” scented sticks the cleaning company likes to hide in discreet corners.

Cautious, shaky, and exhausted from his fear, Elgar makes his way downstairs. His shoes are silent on the plush gray carpeting, but Juan is looking up at him when he makes it into the kitchen, anyway.

Juan is the epitome of what Elgar thought gay guys were—skinny, tall, with gym-earned muscles and a tanning-bed glow. His teeth are white, and straight, and perfect. His eyes are a soulful brown, and his dark hair is elegantly coiffed. Juan is never less than perfectly put together; it always makes Elgar feel a little wrinkly and schlubby by comparison. For his date, Juan has apparently pulled out all the stops. He’s wearing a pair of designer jeans and a midnight blue velvet smoking jacket with an honest-to-god pocket square.

In short, Juan is the complete opposite of the gay guys Elgar had accidentally written into his novels. Well, Kintyre is bi, Lucy had explained to him. Or perhaps only gay for Bevel, in particular; that wasn’t really clear. But Bevel has been gay the whole time, and Elgar hadn’t known it. Although, in retrospect, it makes sense, what with how unenthusiastic the character had seemed about bedding maidens when Elgar had tried to write the celebration scenes. Elgar isn’t the kind of wishy-washy writer who bows to the whim of muses or uses mumbo-jumbo terms to describe where his inspiration comes from, but he does listen when his characters resist or seem reluctant, or just aren’t working right. He always figured it had been his own subconscious telling him that something wasn’t jiving. Now, he knows that it literally was another person, on the other side of the door of his imagination, digging in his heels and saying, “No!”

Juan smiles at Elgar, and pats his shoulder when he gets close enough. “See? Nothing but salad here. I even think it’s salvageable.” His tone is a little too bright, though, his smile a little too tight, his gestures a bit too deliberate. He’s being patronizing. Whether he realizes it or not.

Elgar bristles. “I didn’t make it up,” he says as Juan fetches down the colander and tosses the spilled salad into it. “There was—”

“I’ll check it as I wash it,” Juan promises, his back to Elgar, and Elgar’s frustration mounts.

“I know you think I get carried away with the things I make up, but I didn’t—”

“It’s cool, boss. It’s cool,” Juan says, rinsing off the veggies and picking through them carefully.

“It’s not cool. There were bugs . . . maggots . . .” He looks at the floor, but even the splattered puss is gone. Linux circles his ankles, meowing up at him, and then butts the cupboard that holds his food cans with deliberate care.

“You hungry, too, little man?” Juan asks the cat. Linux meows again, more pitiful than the last one, and Juan sets the salad aside to dry and gets Linux his dinner, too.

“You don’t have to—” Elgar starts.

“I’m here. That’s what you pay me for, boss. To do stuff for you.”

“Not on your off time.”

“I don’t mind.”

“But I can—”

Juan dumps the can into Linux’s bowl, and then straightens and frowns at what he finds on Elgar’s face. “I don’t think you can, boss. Sit.” He points imperiously at one of the stools tucked under the overhang of the kitchen island. Juan always has impeccable posture, and when he’s feeling imperious, it becomes downright birdlike.

Elgar sits. His face feels cold, and sort of like it’s drooping, and his stomach pools somewhere around his knees when he finally settles.

“You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Juan says gently. He washes his hands, and then puts on the kettle.

“I feel like it,” Elgar says, swallowing down the bitter aftertaste of adrenaline.

Juan sucks on his lips for a second, clearly coming to a decision about something. He