WARNINGS: Some violence, some dub-con, and a lot of denial.
Doesn't count...
It doesn’t count the first time.
Because Louis’s hands trailing over his skin had left white-hot trails of feeling, feeling that he never got with any of the girls he’d randomly groped after dances (because that was what you did with girls). Louis’s breath panting against the side of his face had made his breath catch in his throat and his heart had almost stopped when Louis’s hands fluttered their way over his belt and headed downwards. It had hurt, of course it had, but it hadn’t mattered at all until afterwards when they woke up the next morning and hastily hurried off in opposite directions, embaressed sore and awkward.
And he’d told himself: It doesn’t count if you only do it once.
It doesn’t count if you’re drunk.
They’d been high on Canadian whisky and the success of their first bootlegging run together; and he’d been too drunk and happy to protest when Dominic’s lips met his, growing more certain when he didn’t push away. The kiss had lasted far longer than it should have, broken only when they both toppled backwards off the crate onto the straw-strewn floor. He’d giggled, and Dominic had laughed in that funny breathless way he had of laughing, and then the laughter had changed into panting, and moaning and struggling with braces that got tangled up in everything. They’d both been drunk, the whiskey was in and the next morning he’d felt an almost loving feeling towards beautiful Dominic, which turned into a shameful hate when he was shot two days later in a whiskey-run that went sour.
But he’d told himself it didn’t count, after all, they’d been drunk.
It doesn't count if it’s a bet.
He’d called the bluff, but it had turned out that “Well wager that sweet ass of yours” wasn’t a bluff at all, and it was meant for deadly serious. He’d lost all his money, money that had come out of blood and sweat and Dominic’s life, and then they’d bent him over the shallow table and he’d just squeezed his eyes shut and let the guy get on with it. A bet was a bet after all. He dug his nails deep into the wood and blamed the tears on Dominic.
That one definitely didn’t count.
It doesn’t count if it’s a bribe.
He’d grown more savvy by then, enough to realise that some men were what he clearly, obviously wasn’t (because it didn’t count) and to notice them; notice when sometimes a smile and some harmless flirtation could be used to smooth deals along. And Sergeant Kelly had been almost laughably easy to manipulate, the look in his eyes when he’d realised that the man in front of him a) had no money and b) was willing to explore monetary alternatives had been priceless. Kelly hadn’t been that bad looking either, and he’d known a lot for a man with three children waiting back at home. It hadn’t been a relationship, how could it be when Kelly called all the shots, but he’d probably paid his bribe a lot less frequently that most other men in the business, and had certainly grumbled about it a lot less.
So none of it had counted really, even though they’d kept it up for almost a year.
It doesn't count if you don’t want it.
Valentino, he decided, was a bastard, who should just die already. And leaking hurt angry tears onto the pavement was not a good time to remember that it was already too late to tell anyone that Valentino now knew where most off the stash was kept. He’d limped home later, trying to feel grateful for being alive, and wishing that Kelly hadn’t been transferred to the other side of the country.
There was no way in heaven or earth that that one counted.
It doesn’t count if it’s just a favour.
There were times when you said no and times when you said yes (although he’d never said yes because he wasn’t like that, apart from a few times when it hadn’t counted), and when a six-foot Irish man comes onto you on St Patrick’s Day, ‘no’ just isn’t an option. The drinking afterwards had stopped things hurting, or mattering, or meaning anything at all. Thankfully, he hadn’t remembered much of it, just brief flashes of sweat and muscle and a thick Irish accent screaming religious obscenities into his ear.
It was a favour, for a friend, a very recently acquired friend. Definitely didn’t count.
It doesn’t count if you’re in prison.
There were no women in prison after all, although he hadn’t had a woman for a while, and didn’t really think he wanted one. In the cell next door was Ike, who was strong enough to keep unwanted attention away, even if he did have the habit of accidently calling him ‘Rebecca’ at unfortunate moments. He didn’t even mind it when Ike took another man either, a scrawny ex-con called Isiah, who pissed everyone off by insisting he was innocent and spent the time he wasn’t asleep complaining about everything. They shared Isiah sometimes, pounding his skinny ass into the sheets and for the first time he knew how it felt to take instead of being taken.
But it was all just substitution, it didn’t count.
It doesn’t count when you’re about to die.
It was Valentino of course, the bastard, who’d thrown him in here naked, with some terrified young cop and the promise of a bullet in the morning. The boy had been shaking and gasping like he was going to puke, but he’d calmed right down when they’d started hugging, or calmed down enough to mumble that his name was Michael and were they really going to die? There hadn’t been an answer to that, so he’d just hugged Michael harder and send up a basketful of prayers to heaven when the boy’s body had responded quickly and eagerly.
“But,” Michael had managed about half an hour too late, “Won’t...won’t we go to hell for that?”
He shrugged, and then, because it seemed appropriate said the first thing Louis had ever said to him, all those years ago, “You’ll be fine, kid, its your first time. It doesn’t count.”
