IT WAS A COLDER NGHT than most, and Ben was having more trouble than usual staying warm. He\'d started a fire at the back of the alley, but the flickering flames and promising warmth had drawn some vagrants a great deal tougher than him, who\'d chased him away from the flames and the meal he\'d been cooking, ready to eat. Half a sausage wasn\'t much of a meal, but was all he\'d managed to scavenge that night and now it wasn\'t even in his belly.
He was closer to the mouth of the alley now, away from the flames and huddled in his clothes in the middle of a bunch of discarded printed paper. He wasn\'t schooled in reading, but he knew that the pages would insulate him well if he shoved them down his shirt and kept them to his skin. His feet were freezing and the bindings around his toes were coming loose. He would lose his toes in the next few nights to frostbite, he thought, if he didn\'t get some better bindings soon. He\'d have to run the risk of thievery again, to steal some warmth from those who sold it to those who didn\'t really need it because they had a room to stay in and fireplaces to keep them warm. The last place he wanted to be were the city prisons; he wouldn\'t last in there, he knew.
He could hear people approaching from the street and slunk further into the shadows, against the wall and the garbage along it, keeping out of sight. They were laughing and talking, a couple of males by the sound, and he\'d heard tales of some of them beating up on street trash. Street trash like him. He didn\'t want to attract their attention.
He got it anyway, even though he was in the darkest shadow and curled up into a tiny ball, one of the two men glanced in (and there were a couple of boys his age trailing along after them, and they were all well dressed) and stopped his gait. He was tall and blonde, looking right at Ben even though Ben knew he shouldn\'t be able to see him in the dark, in the shadows, and he entered the alley, while the other man and the other two boys drew to a stop, watching him.
Ben held his breath, lowering his gaze in case his eyes were giving him away in the brief light from the fire further up the alley. Perhaps they\'d glistened and that was what had captured the well-dressed gent\'s attention. Even as quiet as he was, he could feel the other approaching, and the hairs on his nape prickled. His stomach, however, didn\'t sense the danger quite so much as it sensed it\'s lack of food, and so it growled unhappily, reminding Ben that he really had to feed himself.
He looked up to see where the blonde man had gone, just in time to see a flash of a pale hand grip him by his ragged collar and haul him up to his feet by it. Ben released a soft cry of alarm, not daring to yell out. Held with easy strength against the wall while his feet balanced on tip toes, Ben stared at the shadowy figure that was the ponytailed blonde before him. Cold fingers gripped his chin and turned his face to and fro before an invasive finger worked its way between his lips in order to check his teeth.
"Pretty, though dirty," came the critique, and on the street came a few giggles, from the blonde\'s entourage. "How much do you charge, boy?" The man wiped his hand on his vest while Ben struggled to answer.
"I don\'t," he said in a voice just over a whisper. "I don\'t have anything to sell."
The blonde gent scoffed, still holding Ben up by his collar rigidly, so Ben couldn\'t get away even if he bothered to try - and he didn\'t. It would be four against one even if he got anywhere, and there was nowhere to go.
"You have a pretty face and a tongue that seems to work. How much to have you on your knees?" he asked, letting Ben know exactly what his proposition was. The comment attracted a few more sniggers, and Ben wondered if this was something the blonde did often; paying a whore to service him while the others watched for sport.
"I don\'t charge anything. I don\'t do that."
This seemed to give the blonde pause, and Ben was lowered to his feet properly, though the hold didn\'t loosen.
"You live on the street, yes?" he was questioned.
"Yes."
"So how do you get money?"
"I don\'t."
"So how do you eat?"
Ben paused, not wanting to describe how he sifted through other people\'s garbage for scraps, like a mutt would, and how he tried his best not to steal, but sometimes he had to.
"I eat whatever I find," he admitted finally, after a slight shake from the blonde to prompt him.
"So you scavenge. Explains your smell."
More giggles, and Ben turned that way to look at them, except he was stopped by a hand on his chin once more, forced to look in front.
"Never mind them," the blonde hissed, his face immediately before Ben\'s own. "How long have you been on the street?"
"Since... since I was twelve."
"And how old are you now?"
"Fifteen, I think," he said, knowing roughly his age by counting winters. His birthday was always during winter, so it made sense to age himself that way, and knew his age by taking note of each winter he survived through.
"What\'s your name?"
"Ben."
There was another pause, with his face held in place by his chin, and so he kept eye contact with the blonde man even though he couldn\'t properly see him in the dark. He wondered how the blonde had managed to see him so well, and figured there must\'ve been a sliver of moonlight on him to give him away.
"Hello, Ben. I, am Lazarus," he said, announcing himself in a manner that implored Ben\'s response.
"Pleased to meet you," he said as politely as he dared, hoping that Lazarus would show him mercy and release him, though in his heart he knew that the blonde wanted something more out of him. He was entertainment, he knew, and he hoped that the entertainment would end here, with an insult and then to leave him be while he returned with his entourage to his nice, warm home.
Lazarus laughed at the comment Ben made, and dropped his hold on Ben\'s chin, the hold on his collar loosening in order to slide his hand over Ben\'s right shoulder, his thumb at the base of Ben\'s throat. He turned away from Ben, to look at his friend and his boys, and spoke to the other man.
"Rigby, have the coach brought here," he ordered before turning his gaze to Ben, who felt rather than saw the others continue on, leaving him alone in the mouth of the alley with the blonde. His heart began to beat faster for some reason, like Lazarus was more dangerous when he wasn\'t being watched - even by his friends. "Calm down, boy," he was told, like Lazarus knew he was beginning to panic.
"What do you want?" Ben had just enough strength to ask, though he didn\'t have much power in his voice. He had terrible thoughts of being toyed with, murdered and discarded. He was only a street urchin after all, boys like him were found dead all the time.
"I want to take you to my house and feed you, so you\'re not so skinny and your stomach not so loud, and bathe you, so you\'re not so dirty and your smell not so rank," Lazarus said, screwing up his nose which Ben could hear in his tone more than seeing it with his eyes, "and once you\'re pretty, I\'ll have you in my bed."
Ben\'s mouth felt dry and his head swam with the prospect of being raped, his visions of being toyed with and then killed and discarded were becoming more real by the minute.
"I don\'t want to," he said, risking angering Lazarus.
"You would prefer to live on the street than be in my home?" Lazarus challenged.
"I don\'t want to be raped," he clarified, which brought another laugh from Lazarus, while his fingers left Ben\'s shoulder and throat in order to clutch his hair at the back of his head.
"Oho, I won\'t rape you, Ben. I\'ll have you willing. All my boys have come from the street. I give them a nice place to live, to eat and not be hungry, to sleep and not be cold. They do whatever they can to thank me. They love me, for changing their lives for the better."
Ben said nothing, though he suspected Lazarus paused in order for him to. When the silence continued, so did Lazarus.
"Don\'t you want to be off the streets, boy? Somewhere warm, happy and loving? You\'ve been dealt a rough hand, and you\'ve done well to survive so far. I\'m impressed by you, by your honesty, by your cleverness. Don\'t you deserve a chance for something better? You saw those two boys with me, yes?" Lazarus waited for a nod from Ben and got one, though slight. "They were just like you, on the street, too proud to whore until they had to, to survive. I took them away from that, gave them a place to stay in my house, now they\'re happy, with full bellies, warmth, love and laughter around them. Tell me you don\'t want that."
"I..." Ben began, but he couldn\'t say it. He wanted it, oh yes, he did, and the silvery tongued Lazarus knew it. "I don\'t want to sell myself to get it," he whispered.
"You won\'t have to, to get it. You\'ll climb into my bed for no reason other than wanting to," Lazarus promised. "In gratitude."
Ben said nothing, and they stared at each other until the clip clop of horses distracted both of them, and a coach pulled up directly at the mouth of the alley. He was allowed to look at it, and as he watched, the door swung open and the other man - Lazarus\' friend - peered out, extending an arm that would\'ve been beckoning, except he was holding out an apple for the taking. An apple! In winter. Ben\'s stomach growled again as he thought about biting into the delicious red skin of it.
"There\'s more than apples at my home," Lazarus whispered into his ear, now releasing his hair and stroking his nape in a way that brought a pleasant shiver along Ben\'s spine in spite of his not wishing to be seduced. "Food, and a bed just for you in a room just for you," he said, his cool breath at Ben\'s ear. "How could it be worse than what you have now?" he challenged.
There was a risk, believing what Lazarus said, but he\'d seen those two nicely dressed boys, and wanted to have what they had, wanted to sleep in his own bed, to take a bath, and mostly, to take that apple and whatever else there was to eat.
"Okay," he agreed, and Lazarus put an arm around his shoulders in order to lead him to the carriage, where he took the apple meekly but ate it without delicacy once he was inside.
*
THE CARRIAGE RIDE WAS AN hour into the ride, with Ben tucked against Lazarus\' side, and the man called Rigby directly in front of him, watching him with predatory eyes. Ben\'s own gaze would only meet Rigby\'s shining emerald ones for a moment before sidling away to look at the two boys seated beside one another, who occassionally looked at him, but more often looked out the window or whispered to each other and giggled.
"Boys," Lazarus said suddenly, making Ben jump beside him. The two youths across from Lazarus stared at their master while he spoke his order. "Play with each other."
At first Ben thought it was a kind of social request, for them to include him in their conversation, but when they grinned at Lazarus like he\'d just complimented them, they began nuzzling and kissing one another in an intimate way. Ben stared at them with horrified surprise for a long moment before they began getting a little too heated and he broke his gaze from them, looking down at his hands in his lap, wringing each other.
"Ben," Lazarus was in his ear again, with his insistent whisper. "Enjoy the show, love."
He shook his head lightly, so not to bump the blonde near him.
"Are you embarrassed?" Lazarus asked, a little louder and in a manner that made Ben feel worse than ever. He was already blushing from the early display, he didn\'t dare look up and see what stage the boys were at because of how they were moaning and sighing (though they\'d stopped temporarily and he guessed they might be looking at him).
"Yes," Ben whispered, hoping the admission would make Lazarus order them to stop.
"Why?" Lazarus goaded him, and soon those soft moans began again, and Ben glanced up just enough to see one of them had a hand down the other\'s pants, massaging what lay in there. He quickly looked down again, more embarrassed than aroused by the display (but there was a kind of sick interest to it as well, that he wanted to shy away from). He could only shrug. "Is that why you don\'t sell yourself?" Lazarus continued, wanting to find out what was bothering Ben so much. "Because you lack experience?"
It wasn\'t the only reason, but it was good enough for Ben to nod slightly. The man across him in the carriage - Rigby - expelled a short huff of air, like he was caught between scoffing and surprise.
"Are you a virgin, Ben?" Lazarus all but squealed. Ben\'s cheeks grew redder, and he turned his face away, not wanted to answer, but Lazarus only asked the question again, getting more graphic with each one. "Haven\'t you let anyone touch you? Not been inside you? Haven\'t used your tongue on a gentleman\'s prong nor bent over to be prodded with it?"
"No!" he said, horrified by the descriptions Lazarus was coming up with.
"What about being kissed? Ever been kissed?" the blonde asked. Ben\'s gaze looked up to find Rigby\'s glittering gaze on him before he looked down again. No help there.
"No," he whispered.
The boys giggled but Lazarus rounded on them to shut up, which earned a startled look from everyone in the cab.
"This boy is pure, our Ben," he said, pulling Ben closer to him with his arm about his shoulders. "Makes him a sweet prize," he said, implying that the boys opposite weren\'t so. It killed their mood enough to stop what they were doing, Ben realised, and knew that he hadn\'t been endeared to them thanks to this declaration their master (and now his master, he supposed) had made.