Coach Assistant

By: Tim
(© 2015-2016 by the author)

The author retains all rights. No reproductions are allowed without the author's consent. Comments are appreciated at...

Chapter 52  

[In Nick’s bedroom, Nick narrating]

I woke up, at first not completely aware of where I was.  But the bed and the surroundings felt familiar.  At least that was positive, I thought.  I hadn’t had a nightmare … I think that was the first night I’d gone without one.  Everybody asked each morning if I’d had a good night, and I always said yes.  But most nights, I was awakened at least once or twice by the same nightmare, ending in a hard dick and very sore balls.

Not this morning!  I rubbed my dick, as it was itching.  I slowly looked at the clock to see how late it was.  Hmmm, only 8 a.m. and there weren’t many sounds in the house yet.  That probably meant that everyone was sleeping in this morning.

We hadn’t talked about it yet but I knew that my dad wouldn’t want me to go to school today.  But I knew I had to get back to school at some point.  Then there was the situation with the police, who’d be around for sure today.  I know my dad (or even I) had to talk with the press at some point, too, but I thought that that could wait for a few days.  They’d persist, but could be dealt with easier than the police.

What more, I thought.  Francis … yea, I knew he probably would want to talk, too, and I think it should be sooner rather than later.  But not today, I thought … no, not today.  The shrink then … maybe he could help me with some of the issues I was dealing with.  Or at least get my mind clear of all those questions people had.

I know that dad and Alexei had seen me when they’d found me.  Neither would probably tell anything, but I’d better make sure today that they both would keep their mouths shut.

I know that David wanted to know more, and I would have told him a few things, but not with Francis around. 

So I decided I’d visit David to start.  I slowly got up, realizing that every move I made was one too many for my balls.  It had been the same the day before, but it was getting better during the day, so I tried carefully to give them some support as I got up, and put on one of the loose but supportive briefs I had.  Putting on my bathrobe, I stumbled towards David’s room.  I knocked on the door, but there was no answer.  I nudged the door and looked in.

I saw that he was slowly opening his eyes.

“Sorry to wake you, David.”

“No, that’s fine, Nick.  Come on in.  Just give me a minute to get awake first.”

He raised himself and sat up, more or less upright.  “Take a chair if you want.”

“Thanks,” I said and sat down beside the bed.

He kept looking at me, waiting for me to start.  But now I was there, I just wasn’t sure where to begin.

“It’s alright, Nick.  If there is anything you want to say, just ask … or anything you want to discuss.  I’m here for you.  I won’t tell anyone else, if that’s your worry.”

“Well, I’m not sure what to say, David.”

“You had a good night then, Nick?”

“Yea, not too bad, thanks.  No nightmares or anything.”

“You’ve been having them?”

I just nodded.

“I’d be having them, too, I’m sure,” David said.

I looked at him.

“Do you think I’d be feeling safe, happy, glad if something like that had happened to me? Never, Nick, and I’m sure that I’d be as unwilling as you are to discuss it with anyone.”

“Would you, David?” I said, hoping he would catch on.

“Would I what, Nick?”

“Not tell any one.”

“Oh, now I get it … you’re afraid that I’ll start talking to others about it?”

I looked at him.  “You can trust me, Nick.  I’d never say anything about this whole situation to anyone.”

“Not even to Francis?”

“What more do I know than he does, Nick?”

“I have no idea but there might be things you might stumble on or have already stumbled on through dad.  I just  … damn!  I just don’t want Francis to find out anything except from me.  It won’t be easy to tell him anything but the last thing I want is for him to hear anything from someone else.”

“You realize you need to talk with him at some point?”

“Yea, I do, but not now.”

“And dad and Alexei?  Did you ask them the same question?”

“I’ll go and do that in a moment.”

“If that’s what you wish, Nick.  But, to be honest, if you want this thing with Francis to work, you’d better not wait too long to discuss it with him … and you’d better start to try and deal with it, as there is a good chance with so many people involved that it’ll come out eventually.”

“Hmmm, yea, I guess you’re right,” I said quietly.

“I think, Nick, that you’re stronger than you think.  You were able to overcome all that shit a few months ago.  You were able to deal with the pressure of a big championship.  So I assume it’ll take time but you’ll get back to normal again.  Have you thought about going to see the shrink?”

“Yea, I have.  I think an appointment today or tomorrow would be best.  I … there are so many things I want to discuss with him.”

“Well, that’s a good first step then.  And whatever happens, don’t ever think of any of this as your fault, as it isn’t, Nick.  It was that sick fuck, Mike, who got you here.”

I didn’t answer that one.  I knew in my heart that he was right, but my head kept telling me otherwise.

“OK, I’ll go and talk with dad and then I’ll catch you later at breakfast.”

“Sounds like a plan.  I’ll wake Francis and we can prepare breakfast while you talk with dad.”

I left his room and walked to my dad’s bedroom.  I heard David knocking on Francis’s door. 

I did the same on dad’s.  Again, there was no reply, so I slowly opened it.

“Come in, Nick,” I heard my dad say from around the corner where the door to his bathroom was.

“I was just about to go downstairs to start breakfast.”

“David and Francis are going to do that, dad.”

“Good … how are you feeling this morning?”

I looked at him, not certain what to answer.  “OK, I guess.”

“Well, just is honest, Nick.  I’m sure you’re trying to deal here with more then you should.”

“I know, but I’m not sure what to do first.  So many people have so many questions.  After I woke up this morning, I spent some time thinking about what to do with Mike, the police, Francis, the press.”

“Take it one step at a time, Nick.  You can’t deal with them all at the same time and I’m here to help you with it all, if you’ll let me.”

“I’m not sure if you can help, dad.”

“Let’s say, Nick, that I want to try.  If it’s only being there for you to listen to whatever it is you are trying to deal with or giving advice. Or talk tp others if you can’t talk to me.”

“Well, that is part of it,” I said.  I wanted to go on but I was just not sure how to say it.

“You know you can trust me, Nick.  I’ll only do what is best for you.”

“I know, dad, but I feel so out of control at the moment.  Everyone wants something from me.  No one asks what I want, though.  It was like that in the hospital and yesterday … well, I got the feeling that that was happening again.  I’m not sure if I can handle it if that happens, dad.”

He looked at me.  “If you want me to talk with the others, that’s fine … I’ll do that.  If you want me to be there when you do the talking, I’ll do that.  Let’s say that the ball is in your court at the moment.  You decide what you want to do.  If you want to press charges, I’ll be completely behind you, just as I know a lot of others will be.  If not, then I can see your point of view, too.  I’m not sure if I’d like that solution, but I’d support you in your decision.  It is your life.  You’re old enough to handle it, as long as you know that there are friends around you, like Francis, who will be there to help you.  Lord!  That almost sounded like a sermon, Nick.  But I mean it and want to help you however I can.”

I looked at him and wanted to get closer to give him a hug.  I felt I needed one but, somehow, I wasn’t able to move.  Instead, I said. “I know, dad, thanks.”

“OK, now that we’ve settled that, is there anything specific you want to talk about, have advice on?”

“There’re two things I’d like you to do.  The first is to make an appointment for me with the shrink for today and maybe two or three times next week.  I have a lot of questions and I need help to sort them all out.  I know you and Francis and David want to help, but I need someone who I don’t see on a daily basis to help me with it.”

“Sure, no problem.  I’ll give him a ring after breakfast.  And the second thing?”

“Well, I ….”  I blushed a bit before I continued.  “Well, you’ve seen me …,” I said, waiting a bit, hoping he’d go on.

“When you found me, you saw me and ….”   I was stumbling over my words badly at this point.

“I did, Nick.  We can’t change that,” my dad replied.

“I know but what I wanted to ask … can you not tell anybody, dad?”

“Oh!”  He waited for a moment and continued.  “I’m not sure I’ll be able to keep that promise, Nick.  I might be under oath or something in the future.”

“I know, but at least not for the time being, and not before asking me if it is OK.”

“And what about Francis, Nick?  I’m sure he wants to know more, but it might be too difficult to talk with him about it now.”

“Especially with Francis, dad.  I know I’ll have to deal with everything and with Francis at some point, but not now.”

“OK,” he said quickly as he could tell from my voice that I was quite firm about this.

I could feel he didn’t agree with me.  I felt like defending my decision, something I didn’t want to do.  “Sorry, dad, I know you probably don’t agree with me.  I feel this is something we need to do together but not before I’m ready for it.  I have too many things to deal with and I’m not sure I can deal with them all at the moment.”

“OK, it’s your call but I expect that Francis will start asking you about it, so you’d better talk with him before he wants to talk with you.”

“Hmmm, I might do that,” I answered.  “Do you think that there will be other stuff to deal with today?  I just don’t feel like being surprised by anything, I guess.”

“Well, the police might join us at some point today.”

“Yea, I thought they would.  Well, I can deal with that later.  Let’s get breakfast,” I said as I stood up.

We had breakfast.  Francis said “good morning,” but left me on my own most of the time.  I felt his reaction both reassuring and a little disturbing.  Just as we were finishing, my dad got a phone call.  He listened carefully but didn’t say a lot.  When he was finished, he called the shrink and made an appointment for me around 11 a.m.  It took him some convincing the nurse, but he managed to get it done.

“OK, Nick, that’s done.  You have an appointment at 11 this morning.  I think that it’d be a good idea if you could take him, Francis.”

Francis just nodded and looked at me.  I said, “yea, fine.”

We didn’t do a lot after breakfast.  Around 10.30 we left in Francis’s car to go to the shrink.  We arrived about ten minutes early and sat down in an empty waiting room.

“You’re sure you don’t want me to go in with you, Nick?”

“No, sorry, Francis.  This is something I need to do on my own.”

“OK, as long as you know I’m here for you.”

“I know, my love.”  Saying those words felt right and I could see sparkling in the corners of Francis’s eyes.

I continued: “I know that you want to know what happened and you want to help, but this is something that I need to do alone to start with.  At least that is something I learned from my last experience.  I appreciate every bit of support you gave me then.  I don’t know if I’d have made it through it if you had not been there, but this whole process was something I need to do on my own.”

I saw that he was looking intensely at me, but he wasn’t ready yet to say anything as I suspected I’d more or less caught him by surprise.

“I want you to trust me when I say that, when I want to talk about it … and I know I will … you’ll be the first and only one that I’ll feel safe enough to talk to.  But first I need answers, sort of like an emotional painkiller.  Just to make sure that, when I do tell you, I’ll be able to handle it.”

“You know you can trust me, Nick.”

“Yea, I know, Francis.  I’ve always known that but this isn’t only about trust … this is about who I am, why this is happening, and more.  But I know that you’re as much a part of me as any other part … so, at some point, I’ll want to heal, make myself a whole person again.  But healing can’t happen until I’ve found all the pieces again.  At least I know where that big piece I love is and where to find him.  I think that he’s the easiest one to be found,” I said with a big smile on my face.

He continued to look very intensely at me.  But when he saw me laughing, he joined in and said, “I love you, Nick, and you keep surprising me with how incredibly strong you are.”

Before I could answer, the shrink walked in.  “Ah, I see you brought your boyfriend this time, Nick.  Francis, isn’t it?” he said to me while he took his hand.

“Yea, that’s me.”

“So, I hope you didn’t have a row or anything.  I felt last time we were getting somewhere, Nick.”

“We were, doc, but something has come up.”

‘OK … well, you can go in.  I’ll get some coffee and we can start.”

“Ahhh, sorry, but I’m staying here,” Francis said.

“Oh!  I thought this was the session with the two of you?”

“No, not yet,” Nick answered this time.  “I’ll explain in a moment.”

“OK, you can wait here if you want, Francis.”

I went into the doctor’s office, leaving Francis behind.  I knew that my dad was right: it had been a good thing to tell Francis that I would tell it him everything, but just not now.

[In the meantime, at Nick’s house, David narrating]

I’d seen some strange looks on my dad’s face while he talked on the phone at breakfast.  I know that Nick hadn’t seen his face and I think that that was good.  The moment they’d left the house, I spoke to him.

“So, who is coming over at 11 and why did you want Nick out of the way?” I said, more or less following my instincts on this matter.

“Oh, damn!  I hope Nick didn’t read me as well as you did.”

“No, don’t worry, he didn’t see your face while you were on the phone.”

“Good!  Alexei is coming over here and he’ll be bringing quite a number of people with him … but only if I could find a way to get Nick out of the house.”

“Oh!  The police?”

“He said he’d try, yea.”

“Damn!  What happened?  Did he find something out?”

“I think so.  He was with Brian and Andy … remember, they called to tell us where we could find Nick.”

“OK.  I’d better go and make some coffee then.”

While I was doing that, the doorbell rang and my dad opened the front door.  A moment later the room was filled with people, more than I’d thought would show up.  Beside Alexei, Brian and Andy, Peter and Andrew were there and … my biggest surprise … even Randy was there.  It looked more like the Nick support group then anything else.

After hugs were given out and received, Alexei got down to business.

“The police should be here in 15 minutes.  Before they arrive, we want to discuss something with you guys.”

A bit puzzled, we looked at him.

“I know this might sound strange but both Peter and Andrew wanted you to know the truth before the police arrived as (and I agree with them) it might be better for all of us if we can leave them out of this.”

I saw my dad looking at Peter and Andrew who were definitely seeking protection behind Alexei’s back.   “What, are you two in this as well?”

“I guess,” Alexei said.  “In a way, yes, but they’re not responsible for it all.  They were just part of Mike’s blackmail.”

“How?” my dad asked.

“Maybe one of you can answer that,” Alexei said to Peter and Andrew.

“Sir, first of all, if we’d have known that Nick had been abducted, we wouldn’t have gone through with it but we were blackmailed by Mike.”

“Oh, did he threaten to out you at school?” my dad said.

“Yea, he did and we’re not ready for that … or maybe we weren’t ready for that just a few days ago.”

“You changed your mind about this so quickly?” my dad said.

“Yes, I think we have, if it means someone else will get hurt because of it.  No secret is worth that much to keep secret.”

“OK, so what did he blackmail you to do?”

“Hmmm, well let’s just say that we knew where Nick was all along because we’d been there in the room with him,” Andrew said.  He looked very uncomfortable while saying that.

“Oh, so that’s who you got the information from, Brian?”

“Yea, they came to us last week after they read in the newspaper that Nick was missing.”

“OK, I can see that, but what did you do in the hotel room?  Did you help Mike?”

“Yea, sort of,” Peter whispered.

“So you abused Nick as well?” my dad said, barely controlling the anger in his voice.

“I’m really sorry, sir.  Mike told us that Nick was one of those guys who liked it, who loved it, and when Nick didn’t say anything, we went along with it.  It’s something we both regret and will have to live with for the rest of our lives.”

I looked at my dad, not sure if he believed this or was going to explode.  I just wanted to be ready for an explosion if that was going to happen.

“You have to believe us that we left before midnight, and we have no idea what he did to Nick afterwards, but we did no damage to Nick, nothing that would stay, I’m sure of it.”

“Yea, think again!  You thought that those machines wouldn’t hurt him?  My god, I thought you were both science majors!  You must have known what the result would be.”

I saw them both looking kind of surprised at my dad.

“If you mean the electricity, yea, we saw it but we never saw Mike using it.  We thought it was just for show, that he’d never use it.”

“Well, he did,” my dad said harshly.  “And it will be something I know I’ll never forget and I think Nick might not, either.”

This outburst by my dad made them seek protection behind Alexei again.

“We know now, sir, that we were wrong and we have to live with that.”

“So, Alexei,” said my dad, ignoring what Andrew had said.  “And this information, you want me to keep it from the police?”

“Yea,” Alexei answered.  Before he could go on, my dad said, “You really think I could let that happen?  This might just be the proof we need so Nick doesn’t have to testify in court, but Mike will still be convicted.”

“I know, sir, but there’s more … but we’ll want to wait until the police arrive, otherwise Randy will have to tell his story twice.”

“Oh!”

[In the meantime, back in the psychiatrist’s office]

“My god, Nick, considering what you’ve told me, it’s a good thing you called me.  But it seems you’ve worked out a lot already.”

“I might have, doctor, but there is so much more I wonder about.”

“How to tell Francis?” he asked.

“Yea, for a start.  But also, why didn’t I fight this more?”

“Hmmm, yes.  That was one of the questions you already had before all this happened, I must admit.”

“I know … but I thought about it more and more while I was in hospital.”

“Well, we’ll need to work on all of these things and more, as I’m sure more will pop up in the next few weeks.  What do you think about two sessions a week to start with until the holidays?”

“Yea, I think so.”

“OK, I’ll tell my secretary to contact you later today when I’ve opened up my schedule for the next week … as I’m fully booked for then already.  So how are you feeling at the moment?”

“Hanging on by a thread.  I know the police will want to know if I’m going to press charges against Mike.  It seems he isn’t cooperating with them and, if I don’t come forward and testify, it’ll probably be a lost case.  He might be found guilty if I could find who helped him but I have no idea who they were.”

“Yea, that is kind of a mystery, all in all.  You’re not afraid of the fact that he put it out on the Internet?”

“Of course, but I’m trying not to think about that too much.  It’d be very strange if someone came up to me and said. ‘I saw you on the Internet.’  It’s something I’d rather not think about, to be honest, doc.”

“I can see that.  But, as I said before, you’ll have to rebuild your trust slowly.  Can you have physical relations with Francis?  Or are you afraid to be touched?”

“The latter.  He tried a few times, but I feel I need time.  It’s strange but I have the feeling I don’t deserve his comforting touch.  My body is too filthy for that.”

“You just have to remember that you made it through last time, and you’ll be able to do that again now.”

“I know, but it’s a bit different this time.”

“Yea, well, you can do it … I know it’s hard but just be positive towards yourself, confident you can do it and, in time, it will sort itself out.  For next time, can you think of which question you want to attack first?”

“Hmmm, yea, that won’t be a problem.”

“OK, I think that’s enough for now.  Let’s see where Francis is and you two can be on your way again.”

“Thanks, doc.”

“You’re welcome, Nick.  You deserve better than you’ve had so far.”

We walked out of his office and Francis joined us at the reception desk when he saw us standing there.

“You’re OK, Nick?”

I answered him positively, but I still saw concern on his face as well.

We left a minute or so later.  “Where to now, Nick?  Home?” Francis asked.

“Let’s go for a walk somewhere, Francis.  I can do with some fresh air.”

“OK, sounds like a plan.  Anywhere special?”

“No, just make sure that it’s not in an area where we can bump into people we know.”

“OK, I think I know the perfect spot.”

We got into his car and drove off.  I didn’t realize where we were going as I was focused on thinking about what I’d talked about with the doctor.  I’d told him most of the story, including the electricity, but not what Mike had done to me with it.  That was something I’d never tell anyone except maybe Francis.  I looked at him.  He still could make me smile.  Just seeing him was enough to get a feeling of love and tenderness coursing through my body.  I knew my love for him hadn’t changed, and I felt that he was feeling the same.  I let out a deep sigh as I realized I needed to trust him.  He’d always been there for me and now I needed him more than ever.

My deep sigh had made Francis look at me.  When our eyes met, I turned away, feeling tears coming into my eyes.  He didn’t say anything, just continued focusing on the road.  I just sat there, waiting for our walk.  I knew he would understand but I needed to share the story with someone I trusted, even though this morning I’d told him I wasn’t ready to tell him.  Being loved so completely by him, I felt now that he deserved more and that I needed to share some of it with him.

To be continued...

Posted: 07/22/16