(no subject)

[sekritomg]

Continued from here.

By 5 a.m., most of Camp had emptied out. Butters had long since departed, claiming he had to go home and look after Desdemona, his pet bulldog. Kyle had left with old Clyde, and I wasn’t sure where they’d gone — Kyle’s flat? Clyde’s parents’ again? Maybe they were just sloppily humping in someone’s private garden; maybe they had been arrested for it. The thought of Kyle out there with old Clyde made me incredibly sad, and a little bit angry, both at myself for letting it happen and at Kyle for being too stupid to control himself despite my best attempts to halt it. I think I was most furious at old Clyde, however, for absconding with my boy and being so innocently clueless about how horrible the whole thing made me feel. It was hardly worth making a great fuss over, but I made sure to heave as many whimsical sighs as I could fit into an hour.

 

Eric was passed out and slumped over the tabletop, drool puddling from his greedy lips in an incandescent blob. This left myself — and Kenneth, of course, who was contractually (despite the absence of a contract) bound to remain wherever Eric had passed out until Eric woke up again. I was beginning to see the upshot of this deal — the boy received a place to live, top-notch rations, entry into posh locales, pricey narcotics, and some pocket money each week, and all he had to do was wait around while the great lout exhausted himself by overindulging. Perhaps once in a while Eric would want to have sex, but it seemed like a lovely little deal to me. I was beginning to wonder why I hadn’t eschewed an education and run off to the capital to find a desperate older man to dote on me and essentially pay me to look pretty back when I was Kenny’s age — however old that was. Then again, of course, my youth had been splotchy, gawky, and full of self-doubt and self-loathing. (Photographic evidence had long since revealed Kyle’s years from puberty up to our meeting as bespectacled and full of really horrific-looking dental contraptions, the same type that made my sister so angry in her day.)

 

I don’t know what moved me to sit there with Kenny while he waited — for that matter, I wasn’t so sure what he was waiting for. Why not just take Eric back in a taxi? No matter. I kept ordering whiskies, and the edge had come off his high by then, so that we were having a rather lucid conversation that was only slightly influenced by intoxicants.

 

“You lot and Eric aren’t so chummy, are you?” he asked.

 

“On the contrary, I think we’re quite chummy.” I tried to explain the difference between a friendly acquaintance you denigrated yourself to go out with, and an actual friend. “What we aren’t is mutually respectful. Or, well … I suppose there is a lot of tension in the group, or rather, between him and everyone he’s ever met. But you don’t throw your friends off after 20 years, ducks, you just don’t do that. It’s so much neater to meet once a week to drink together and very tensely disagree about everything.”

 

“Well, if you don’t mind me asking.” He drew a cigarette out of his back pocket and put it to his lips. “Do you smoke?” he asked, nudging the pack toward me.

 

“No. Sort of stopped that when I graduated and had no pocket money.”

 

“None of you smoke, besides Eric?” he asked.

 

Eric was a great admirer of cigars, but cigar smoke was rather masculine for a night out at Camp, so he tended to keep it to his office and den. Possibly the park, too, although I tried to confine the time we spent together to Camp, so I didn’t really know. “Well, Miss B is too uptight for nicotine. Kyle does tend to go on and off depending on whether he thinks it’s liable to get him into or out of a relationship.”

 

“Ah.” He inhaled and exhaled, smoke circling his lips in great lashes and tendrils. “And is Kyle trying to get into or out of a relationship at the moment?”

 

“Honestly?” I sighed. “I don’t know what the fuck he’s doing. But then, neither does he, I’m sure.”

 

“Ah.”

 

“Ah,” I repeated. “You … earlier. Eric wasn’t really looking for me earlier, was he?”

 

“What?” Kenny tapped some ash off of his cigarette and onto the floor. “Oh, no. He wasn’t.”

 

“So why did you come get me?”

 

“You looked miserable, is all.” He gave me a grin, then stuck his cigarette back between his lips to take another drag. I looked down at his little mess of scattered ashes on the laminate bar floor, and I noticed there were holes in his black canvas trainers. He caught me doing this, and asked, “What?”

 

“Oh.” I shook my head. “Sorry. Just staring off.”

 

“Yeah, you look about as pleased when you were talking to that Clyde bloke while he was making out with your boyfriend.” He must have caught my pained expression after this, because he immediately appended, “I’m sorry, my mistake. Friend.”

 

“Yeah, well. You might take some care with that.”

 

“Uh huh.” He jammed his cigarette butt out on the bar. “So, what do you got against Clyde?”

 

I shuddered. “He’s just boring, boring and awful. Haven’t you ever known anyone who sucks the enjoyment out of any given situation? He’s like that. We’ve known him since school, and he’s always been like that. It’s like he hasn’t developed at all since he was 18.”

 

“And you’re just so evolved.”

 

“No, I’m not. We read together, you know, we all had the same tutor at school. Me and Kyle and Butters and Eric and — and Clyde, and the rest of them.”

 

“The rest of who?”

 

“Ugh.” I waved my hand around. “Practically everyone. That tall bloke with the blond on his arm, did you see him?”

 

“Who, the two who were snogging in the bathroom stall when I went in there?”

 

“The one with the short hair who was wearing a suit, who is always accompanied by a nervous-looking boy. I don’t know the boy’s name, but the bloke’s name is Craig. He was in the same year as us. My friend Wendy’s husband, Token, he was in the year, too. Token, I mean — Lord Black. And Craig he’s — his father is … well, he’s a peer, that’s all you need to know. These are powerful people, you know.”

 

“See, in my position...” He cleared his throat. “When you’re the one taking money for sex, you know, you’ve got all the power.”

 

“Oh, I don’t think that’s true.”

 

“Yeah, well. Give it a go and see how things change. Except I imagine you’re above it, really.”

 

“I should think so, or at least hope so. I’m your senior, for one thing, and a baccalaureate, and a published author. I’ve my own flat and I’ve had a handful of serious relationships. So really…” I took a sip of my drink — more for punctuation than for thirst. “Don’t take it personally.”

 

“No offense taken. I’ve gotten a lot of shit in my time, though, and I know how to handle it. Do you know what I mean?”

 

“Shit for what? I mean, what for? For being a prostitute?”

 

“Oh.” He sighed. “You’re a nice man, aren’t you? Caring all about me? I’ll tell you, not many people are this concerned about me back home.”

 

“Home? Where’s home?”

 

“Guess,” he said, slamming his fist on the bar.

 

“Well, you obviously sound Irish.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“So, that’s where you’re from?”

 

“The streets of Dublin,” he said with a smile. Then he added: “Or the slums of Dublin. Whatever’s the nasty part of Dublin, that’s all you need to know.”

 

“Don’t you have a family?” I asked. I immediately regretted my phrasing, because I knew well enough that everyone has a family; does one get on with his family, is the better question.

 

He rolled his eyes at me. “Well, yes, I’ve got a family. Haven’t spoken with them in a bit, but they’re all out there somewhere. … I suppose by ‘somewhere’ I mean Dublin, because it’s not like they’ve got the means to get the fuck out.”

 

“And how’d you get here, then?” I asked.

 

“Well, I’m a fucking prostitute, how do you reckon I get places? A businessman from London wanted to fuck me, and I told him I would if he took me over. It’s the only time I ever took something other than cash for my services, by the way. And you know what? Best pay I ever got.”

 

“Wasn’t Eric, was it?”

 

“God, no. I’ve been here for like nine months now. I just met Eric on Monday.”

 

“Oh? And how did that go?”

 

“That?”

 

I nodded.

 

“Yeah, that was fine. I was blowing a bloke in the loo at the London Stock Exchange — oh, don’t make that face at me.”

 

“What face?”

 

“That face! You think I don’t know what that face means?”

 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I was telling the truth.

 

“That judgy, ‘You’re a whore’ face. I know what face.”

 

“I wasn’t making any such face!”

 

“All right,” he said with a smirk. “You don’t know you’re making it, perhaps. Point is, I was blowing a bloke in the last stall, and he left before me, and when I came out a few minutes later, Eric was standing there, and he gave me a round of applause, and asked how much for a go, right?”

 

“Oh, god.” I rolled my eyes.

 

“Yeah, so, you’re making me drag this story out for forever. I give him one, and he pays me double, and he asks me where I’m living. So I tell him I’ve been renting a room in Bethnal Green. We get to talking, he asks me if I’d like to move in, and he’ll pay me steady wages, plus room and board, to come on as his ‘assistant’ — only, see, the thing I’ll mostly be assisting him with is erections.”

 

I shuddered. “Yes, thanks. Think I got it.”

 

“Wonderful.” He sighed, and extracted another fag from his packet. “Sure you don’t want one?”

 

“Yes, positive,” I said.

 

So he shrugged, and began to smoke. “I meant a blow job.” He shrugged again. With the cigarette in his mouth, he brushed his hands together. “Well, Stan, it’s sure been a treat.”

 

“Stanley,” I corrected him. “It’s never ‘Stan,’ just Stanley. I cannot stand that first syllable on its own. It makes me feel like a bad stereotype of a postwar American husband, driving home from the city after a lengthy toil at the office.”

 

“Oh, fine then, Stanley.” There was a willful, snooty jab in his flat-tongued pronunciation. “No husbandry for you. Or wifery, I suppose,”

 

“Nope,” I said with a grin. “None for me.”

 

“Well.” He finally stubbed the end of his cigarette out on the bar. There was no harm in this; it was a glass surface. “Be seeing you around, Stanley. I take it you don’t see Eric outside of this place?”

 

I shook my head.

 

“Well then, it’ll be until next week, won’t it? Unless, of course, I run into you in some backroom cottaging.”

 

 “It’s possible.” I shrugged. “Doubt Eric would like it, though.”

 

The last thing he said to me was accompanied by a downright sinister smirk: “Eric doesn’t like most things. But that doesn’t mean I won’t do them.”

 

For his sake, I hoped that he wouldn’t. Eric was ruthless, and I wished this boy understood that. At the same time, though, a great part of me wished that he never had the misfortune to discover it.

Comments

[orphansock.livejournal.com]

I am really enjoying this story so far, and I'm really impressed by your ability to transpose the characters into such a different setting and have their canon personalities remain intact. And the fact that you're saying that it might go on for up to eight more chapters - oh, happy day. <3

p.s. this is what I'm going to be attending on Friday. Felt like sharing. lulz.

(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v51/saufragettecity/?action=view&current=HPIM0174.jpg)

[orphansock.livejournal.com]

uh, yeah, wrong picture. that's my dead cat. here's what i meant to post:

(http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v51/saufragettecity/?action=view&current=n13618474_40716779_1035253.jpg)

[sekrit-omg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, for a minute I was like, "Hey, this cat is awesome. Wait, what?"

Awwwwww, Butters. He does love sextapes.

[orphansock.livejournal.com]

of course he loves sextapes. especially when they involve urine, midgets and women with six penises in them.

[sekrit-omg.livejournal.com]

Of course, his interest is entirely academic.

[sekrit-omg.livejournal.com]

OMG, thank you. I really like this story, but it's so freaking weird and about as AU as you can get in SP fic that I don't know what other people make of it.

[orphansock.livejournal.com]

I'm an anglophile who's obsessed with the 80's, so it's of particular interest to me!

[sekrit-omg.livejournal.com]

Come sit next to me and let us discuss the Smiths and Margaret Thatcher.