Race With a Heart
Chapter 150: Sweeten the Bitter Taste of Failure

Martin’s private life, of course, belonged exclusively to him. Dave and Sid had no right to interfere. Martin dated and slept with whoever he wanted, but Sid actually understood Dave. For Dave, homosexuality was not an ideological or religious problem. For him, it was a constant reminder of the pain he had experienced and continued to experience. It’s a bit like telling someone who is afraid of dogs to live next to the kennel. Apparently all animals are closed, but the mere awareness that they are nearby and one day, through the caregiver’s neglect, they can get out into the wild and attack ...

Sid knew what it meant to live in constant fear. He knew what it was like to expect an attack even when it was unexpected.

Perhaps Dave felt something similar to Martin that Sid felt about his father?

Despite all the suffering and pain inflicted on him, Sid loved his father. After all, it was his father, the man who gave him life and upbringing. Maybe this upbringing was not full of love and parental support, but it was. It wasn’t like his father was hitting him all the time. So the fear of blows and screaming mingled in Sid’s heart with a thirst for love and warmth. That’s why it was so hard to hate his father, but it also got harder and harder to love him. Despite this, they were tied by blood, and these relationships were not so easy to break.

Obviously, Martin was not a relative of Dave, but he quickly became a close friend like a brother, so the relationships, although not the same, were similar. Martin himself had never hurt Dave either, or at least he didn’t do it on purpose, but Sid suspected that just knowing that Martin, almost a brother, was gay was something of a betrayal for Dave. Martin was no longer a great friend, he began to belong to a group of people who, in the Dave’s imagination distorted by earlier experiences, was a monstrosity.

When the person you like very much or even love is also the person who causes you fear or disgust, it is not easy to deal with the situation.

Sid looked at Dave with a worried and sympathetic look. He missed this cheerful friend who was always support and protection for him. But he understood that sometimes even guardians needed to be cared for, so Sid reiterated his resolve to do anything to make Dave smile freely again. He just has to find a way to do it.

***

Martin never have experienced such emotions as that day. He had never before been able to breathe the emotional and adrenaline-filled atmosphere of real car racing. He had never been part of this testosterone-dripping machine before. The experience was completely stunning and the moment Jack Lambert lifted the winner’s cup up was almost as good as having an orgasm during sex. Almost.

Martin felt totally dizzy from the moment he stepped off the plane. He had never been abroad before, so although very similar, everything was intriguing and foreign to him. And that was just the beginning of his incredible adventure.

Great hotel (although not as good as the one where Steve lived), the first visit to the track, the first meetings with other drivers... There was no end to the impressions and the first times. The emotions were so powerful that Martin was absolutely stunned by them.

Jack’s victory caused euphoria in nearly everyone at the Fergus Stables. With his and other drivers’ points spread, Jack moved to the lead, Paxton was relegated to fourth place. Everyone knew Steve was not going to hold his position because he didn’t have much advantage over his rivals yet, so while it was an unpleasant event, it wasn’t a shock to anyone. The mood in the stable was spoiled by something else, namely a very average or even bad attitude on the track presented by Alston. The driver, starting from the eighth position, finished the race in twelfth place.

During this time, when Martin returned to the Fergus Stables, he found that Don’s complaints about mistreatment by his colleagues were to some extent fundamental. Alston had no friends in the stable, and while people tried to treat him fairly kindly and respectfully, his own approach to people made a warmer relationship impossible. Don was just not to be liked.

Jack was a joker, the guy who would give you tips on how to pick up a girl or how to effectively apologize to your wife for drinking with your colleagues instead of going home. Steve was gloomy and dark, he didn’t fraternize with anyone, but if someone made a mistake, he never made a scandal of it. He was not close to anyone, but he respected others and their work, so people respected him and some rumors about Paxton’s personal tragedy made him worthy of sympathy. On the other hand, Alston was provocative, arrogant and unable to admit his mistakes. The mechanics were to blame for everything.

Martin did not know exactly how this hostility between Alston and the mechanics began. Don was always arrogant, but not that arrogant. Either he got crazy when he got a job in a professional and such excellent stable, or in fact there was a conflict in the beginning that Martin did not know about. All he knew was why Jack wasn’t close to Alston and that it was Don’s fault.

After everyone was enjoying Jack’s victory, Martin decided to cheer Don. He still didn’t treat him like a good friend, but they were colleagues and they all worked to achieve success together, so when Alston was struggling with failure, he shouldn’t have done it alone. Martin was just sorry for his friend.

Martin didn’t compete in the race and his emotions filled him so much that he couldn’t concentrate. How stressed did Don have to be for his first race under such strange and sudden circumstances? He must have taken this defeat very personally, especially since there was no one in Fergus’ Stables to pat him on the back and say that nothing happened, that it was his first race and that he would do better next.

Martin found Don somewhere off the beaten path, he didn’t even know exactly what it was. His friend was alone and instead of the champagne that the others on the team drank, he sipped something stronger. He spotted Martin and smiled wryly at him.

"Did you come to make fun of me?" He asked.

"Why would I do this?" Martin answered the question. "If I were in your place, I would have done even worse."

"Thanks," Alston snorted.

"It’s not like that, I mean ..."

"Yea?"

"That I understand that you may have fallen below your own expectations."

"Yeah, I thought that when I got onto the track, I would be first on my debut right away," Don smiled bitterly.

Martin understood his disappointment perfectly well. Who of them has never had similar fantasies? Martin said goodbye to them a long time ago, but Don got a chance to make them come true, so the fantasy carried him completely. Therefore, a painful disappointment came.

"You just had too much of a dream," said Martin. "You made a little miscalculation with him, but after this bucket of cold water, you will be more relaxed to the next race and I’m sure you will achieve a better result ..."

At that moment, Don looked at him strangely. Martin felt somehow strange under that gaze ...

***

Did Don have his dream too high? Yes, maybe. He believed he was good, he believed he was the best, and when he gets the chance to show up on the track he will immediately prove to everyone how great a driver he is.

However, this did not happen.

Don was disappointed at that moment with himself and with the whole world around him. He was full of bitterness and anger. The alcohol he drank to drown them out only made them worse. In addition, Martin suddenly appeared before his eyes.

Reluctance and excitement burst into Don’s heart. Martin was the only man Alston had both pleasantly aroused and a little disgusted to see him. For Martin was the only guy in the world who had aroused in Don these incredible, impossible temptations to crush him in his arms and take him brutally and forcefully and then pour semen on his face ... just like Steve had done before.

Steve... He’s finally out of the way of Alston. At last Don could replace him on the track and show that he is better than him, but something went wrong today. After all, Don knew he could do better. He didn’t understand how he could have fallen four positions when he should have been on the podium! After all, Paxton did much better in his debut!

But Don isn’t Steve. Everyone will say that now. Now everyone will argue that Alston is much worse than his older friend. Now everyone will laugh at him!

Not everyone. Martin wasn’t laughing. Martin left the celebrating crowd and came here to find him and cheer him up. The boy who belonged to Paxton had come to Alston himself.

Martin came to him of his own free will.

"You really think so?" Don asked. "Do you really think I’ll do better in the next competition?"

"Of course!" his colleague assured. "I rode with you, I know what you can do."

Martin’s words were somewhat... kind. His face, his sympathetic smile were... nice. They were also attractive. Did Don just think or was Martin’s behavior provocative to some extent? It’s as if Martin is sending him an invitation to be a little closer ...