Race With a Heart
Chapter 159: Heart to Heart Talk

Chapter 159: Heart to Heart Talk

"Martin, I’d like to talk to you. Will you find a moment for me?"

These were the first words Martin heard as soon as he got to work. He hadn’t expected Don Alston to be waiting for him when he entered the Fergus Stables.

Don’s face didn’t look good, but not just because of the beatings he got. Modern medications worked wonders, so aside from a few vague discolorations and a cut lip and a plaster on the brow bone, Alston barely showed signs of Steve’s anger. Even so, his face looked bad. Even very bad.

These were his eyes, completely different from the ones he had before. There was no more arrogance in them. There was sadness and... shame?

What Alston did during the last car race, at the Fergus Stables was still a secret known only to Don, Martin, Jack and Steve. Even Karl hadn’t been notified yet, or at least Martin thought he was not cont, because Walton hadn’t tried to contact him about the matter. Perhaps Alston was afraid of the consequences for him, which is why he had such a strange expression on his face, and he probably wanted to beg Martin not to escalate the problem.

Martin really didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to put himself in the position of the hurt victim. He did not want the matter to get out of hand, but he understood that the Don had crossed certain limits which he was not allowed to exceed. He had to face the consequences, otherwise he would learn nothing. Someone who sexually harasses his colleague doesn’t deserve to be the driver of the Fergus Stables. But then again, everyone made mistakes in life, and Martin wasn’t a saint either, so if Don’s mistake is going to cost him so much ...

"All right," agreed Martin. He felt a little uneasy at the thought of seeing him face-to-face again, but he was neither a coward nor an intimidated brat. He will face Alston and show him that he is not afraid of him. "But if you start acting weird, you’ll get hit in the teeth."

"I agree" his colleague breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you."

They wandered a bit aside, to a place where they actually had privacy without being able to be overheard, but also anyone could see them there. They did not hide. It was just that two colleagues from work were discussing a topic with each other.

"Martin, I ... I’m sorry," Don began, but he didn’t meet Martin’s eyes. He stared at the toes of his shoes. "When I apologized to you previously, I was lying. I was unrepentant and I was planning to do you, well, honestly, I wanted to fuck you. "

Martin could not help but be upset at such a confession. He felt anger flooding through him. Is Don really crazy?

"Are you sick?" Martin asked, shaking with anger. He himself didn’t know how he hadn’t punched Alston in the mouth. "You wanted me all the time ... Oh God, I’m sick."

Martin actually felt a rush of nausea. So all this time Don looked at him like that? When they talked like colleagues, when they ate or worked together, Alston thought of him as...? He was planning to do with him all the time what?

Maybe, if Don were really his friend, if they were spending more time together privately, and then Don had told Martin that he was attractive and was thinking of having sex with him, such a confession would not be so gross. It sure wouldn’t be. Yes, Martin would have been surprised (and he couldn’t have promised to be surprised positively), but after the two assaults Martin experienced, he would hear from his attacker that he wanted to "fuck him" all the time ...

God! What a disgusting thing!

"I don’t know what’s got hold of me!" Alston exclaimed desperately. "It was like an obsession! I was like an animal! Martin, I ... "

Alston began to wipe his tears away. Martin was too furious for these tears to win his pity, on the contrary, he began to feel satisfaction at the sight of them, but the satisfaction lasted only for a moment.

"What do you want from me?" Martin asked harshly. "Are you trying to soften me up so that I would agree to sweep this under the rug?"

"I’ll beg you if I have to. I’ll get down on my knees before you, if that’s what you want. Martin, I did damn wrong, I know, now I understand and I really regret it. I didn’t understand or regret it earlier, but... Martin, I am begging you, I have already been punished. I ... I got what I wanted to do to you ... "

Martin was so surprised, so shocked that he couldn’t even ask, ’WHAT?’

Alston’s tears, his repentance, his pitiful apologies and the shame in his eyes were real and it was he who was ’fucked’?

Martin stared at him and couldn’t believe his eyes or his ears.

"Are you telling me that someone ... used you like this?" Martin asked deliberately softening his words.

Alston was unable to look at him. He looked away, as if he wanted to turn and run away, but he was standing firmly in front of Martin.

"After I saw you in Steve’s embrace, something changed about me," Don began to explain in a strange voice. "It was like a disease. It’s not your fault, it’s mine. My imagination started to run wild. Someone... someone saw what was happening to me and let me try to pick you up, but if I tried to do something against your will, I was going to be punished... this way. The threat was effective for a while, but in the end I ... I didn’t keep my promise, but he kept and ... "

When the abuser turns into a victim ...

"I’m sorry," said Martin. "I’m really sorry. Did you tell the police about it?"

Alston shook his head.

"No, and I’ll never do that. I won’t tell anyone about this. I told you because..." Don took a deep breath. "Now I know what I wanted to do to you. I understand and I am really ashamed. I swear I’m not obsessed with you anymore. I will never try again ..."

Don Alston was clearly very shaken by what had happened to him. Martin knew perfectly well that such experiences allow to change someone’s perception of the world. Regardless of whether Don had consented to the sexual intercourse or it was against his will, Alston was now in a very difficult place.

Don said he was punished. There was shame in his eyes and there were tears. No matter how exactly his first sexual intercourse with a man happened, it was a shocking and distressing experience for Alston. Martin remembered what it’s like to be touched by hands that you don’t want to touch you. It wasn’t an old memory, after all.

When the abuser turns into a victim ...

Don was really devastated.

Martin no longer felt the anger inside him. He felt no satisfaction that his colleague had met justice. Was that actually justice?

Alston attacked him, tried to hurt him, but it ended with the attempt, while Don received the actual act as punishment. Was this more retaliation than punishment? And who could do that to him? Not Steve, is it?

Of course not him! Paxton would never do something like this. He might, out of anger, beat Alston, which he did, but he would never do anything like that to him. Anyway, being with Martin all the time, Steve didn’t even have the opportunity to do so.

Jack, too, was beyond suspicion.

So ... is this someone from Alston’s side?

"I don’t know what I’ll do," said Martin. "I don’t know if I can work with you. I’m only here for a while, but Jack and Steve ... They too may have a problem with that. Do you understand why? "

"Yes, but ... Only until the end of the season. I swear!" Don begged desperately. "Then I’ll be gone. If you kick me out now, I will lose everything I have and all my future. Even the sponsor will demand breach of contract compensation, and I don’t have that much money. Martin, please! "

Martin knew he was exploitable at this point, but he couldn’t look at those tears and at Don, so desperate, that he actually begged Martin for mercy.

"You know that even if you stay, it won’t be easy for you?" he asked Alston. "I won’t be able to be your friend anymore. When Steve gets back he’ll make you hell. You know about it?"

"Martin, I’m already... I’m already a different person. I really learned my lesson."

"Really? How can I believe you? "

"Because ... Because you are no longer in my interests. This man is. Me and him ... He’s more important to me than I thought. I won’t do anything to make him angry. I think you understand."

Martin didn’t quite understand, but a bit, yes. When there is someone in a man’s life who makes such a great upheaval in him, you can either hate or love him. This man in Don’s life was no stranger to him, and apparently the sex they had together had opened up prospects for new relationships.

Just like it once happened between Martin and Steve.

"All right, I can believe you," agreed Martin. "But you have to answer one more thing for me. Do you have anything to do with what happened to Steve on the track? "

The question fell on Don like a thunderbolt.