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sekritomgContinued from here.
We all took a cab to Camp, Eric squashed in the back with Kenny and Butters on either side of him. Butters had to roll down the window to get the faintest bit of O\oxygen. Kyle and I sat in the jump seats, and he kept staring at me with these meaningful glances. I wondered if he was annoyed about the champagne, but there would be more champagne, and going out was the last thing I wanted to do, anyhow. The streets felt foreboding, with their yellow lamplight reflecting off the shuttered shop windows. We rode down around the park, down Pall Mall and somehow, up Shaftesbury. Butters had done a superior job with the face makeup, and indeed you couldn’t make out my handiwork, especially not in the dim cabin of the taxi. It was sort of sad — I wanted to mark Kyle, somehow, in a way others could see. Very bothersome.
It was too early for a line. For about five minutes it seemed as though the night were about to become really enjoyable again after the stuffiness of the cab ride, but of course there in a cluster near the entrance stood Token, Craig, Craig’s catamite, and old Clyde; Token looked sharp in a tight pair of seersucker trousers, which was unusual for him. (Whenever Token wore any kind of impeccable outfit, I had to assume it had been purchased, fitted, and assembled by Wendy, herself a devotee of French couture and British tailoring.)
I didn’t notice them at first, but when the five of us walked into Camp someone shouted “Oi!” at our group from a few feet behind. At first when I turned to source this interjection I spotted Token and Craig, but it couldn’t have been either of them shouting something so crass across a crowded room. (And I couldn’t believe that the quivering slip of a boy Craig had with him was able to vocalize anything, let alone project to five feet away.) Then of course I realized that the drab-looking fellow with garish stitches down his forehead and brow must be Clyde; figures he would blend in with the crowd.
“Ohhhh, it’s Clyde, is it?” Kenny noted. “Yes, I remember. From Her Majesty’s Home Office.”
“Indeed,” I said quietly.
“Among other places,” Kyle added.
“Oh, to hell with this,” Eric whined. “We’re not dealing with Craig. I hate Craig!” With one arm, he shoved Kenny in front of him, and made him march toward our usual table; Kenny spared a backward glance at me, pressed his lips into a mocking goodbye pucker, and followed orders.
Butters, with a quaint shrug, said, “This just looks bad. If you’ll excuse me?” And he set off after Eric and Kenny. “Come find us!” was the last thing we heard him cry.
So now there was nothing left to do than to approach them. Kyle took my arm, clinging to my slack bicep as we strode over.
Briefly, on the subject of His Grace, the Duke of Nommel: Craig Tucker had worn a bespoke suit each day of his life, or at the very least on each occasion of our meeting, which at Oxford was unfortunately quite nearly each day. He was wearing one tonight, and it made him look dignified and handsome, the gray color of the fabric so subtle it brought out the redness in his sharp, tawny eyes. But in no way was this fitting or appropriate attire for Camp, or indeed any nightclub, and I suppose it was just as well; Craig did not generally game anyone, save likely his little clique. I think the closest he had ever come to an actual affair may have been Kyle, after Kyle and Eric split up in our final year. Yet flirtatious as he could be, Craig was resistant to Kyle’s every machination, and married a Lady Anne Polk one year after our graduation. She was dreary and grating, and got along much better with Bebe than Wendy, so I did not have to see much of her at luncheons.
Having been raised in Edinburgh as the son of a very important Scottish peer, Craig spoke with an infuriating lilt to his nasal, lifeless voice that often brought me close to slamming a fist into his mouth. I am sure the fact that he had only ever nasty things to say was no help in this regard. He was also very active in the House of Lords, and in fact held a prominent position I could not name, such as I did not follow politics except in the Guardian. He tossed around casual threats like change in his pocket and often bragged of the summers he spent as a guest at Balmoral. Often I had wondered what Token saw in Craig, to the effect that they were so close. I had to assume it was the binding of some shared experience I was not privy to.
Craig, being horrible, was not bothered to say hello to Kyle and me. But Token greeted us warmly: “Evening, Stanley.” He nodded his head in my direction, then Kyle’s. “…Kyle.”
“Hello Token,” Kyle said, wary. “Been a while. Craig. Clyde. Er — I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”
“It’s Tweek,” Craig barked; Tweek was hanging off Craig’s arm as if it were a life preserver. His eyes were heavy-lidded and he seemed socially anxious. “And you’ll address me as your better, Broflovski.”
“Apologies, your grace,” I sneered. “As always it is a delight to see you. Truly I could not have asked for a lovelier occurrence this evening. What brings some of our betters out to a lowly gay nightclub?”
“This is ridiculous,” Token muttered.
“Clyde wants a word with you, Broflovski,” Craig said, as if he were dictating.
At this point Kyle felt indignant enough to drop my arm and cross his. “Well, I haven’t got a thing to say to him!” he cried. “I only have adult conversations with adults, thank you.”
“You threw a shoe at my face!” Clyde finally deigned to interject. “And six stitches, I needed! Six! What sort of depraved woman throws a shoe at somebody?”
“What kind of man can’t be bothered to treat his sex partners to a few minutes of civility?”
Clyde gasped, horrified. “You call throwing a shoe civility?”
“Oh, this is indecency,” Craig drawled. “I don’t want to hear it. Clyde, take your dramatics elsewhere.”
“Not if he’s going to chuck another shoe at me!”
“He won’t.” Craig’s glare was boring down on Kyle as he said this. “Or who knows what.”
“Who knows?” Tweek yelped. “Who knows what? Who is knowing what?”
“Oh, my dear.” With a deft hand, Craig stroked the boy’s shoulder — well, boy was, again, a possible misnomer. Even with deep, dark rings around his eyes and the barest hint of a day’s worth of stubble, he seemed young. Not youthful, but young. Green. Nervy. His constant trembling may have been a serious drug problem, or perhaps just some kind of anxiety manifesting itself. It wasn’t really my concern. He may have been as young as 22 or as old as 30. It was difficult to tell.
So I looked to Kyle and asked him what he wanted to do.
He sighed. “I fear this night is ruined. Well, come on, Clyde. Let’s talk.”
“I expect there’ll be a distinct deficit of any sort of shoes,” Clyde said.
“Didn’t know you were a foot man,” Kyle replied.
“I’m not any kind of man!” Clyde’s cheeks turned pink, and he covered his mouth. “Well, you know, that’s not what I mean.”
They went off together, and my initial instinct was to follow. But then Craig snapped his fingers at me and I lurched back around, realizing perhaps I was now going to hear things second-hand from Kyle.
“Um.” I shrugged at Craig; Token was nodding at me encouragingly, likely reading the discomfort written on my face. “So what brings you all out here tonight?” I asked.
“Moral support, I suppose,” Token answered.
“Clyde is just inept,” Craig offered. “I told him to press charges, or better, go to the press. Can’t you see the headlines screaming about it? I can. Labour MP’s Son Attacks Civil Servant with Shoe. That’s what I would want to read on the Tube. That is, if I ever set foot on public transportation. But Token insisted we do it this way. Or rather, that Clyde do it this way. But Clyde is scarred for life and needs his hand held like a child. I swear, I’ll forever rue the day I gave that man a job.”
“Well,” I said, feeling quite awkward. “I’m … sure he’s good at it, you know.”
“Not particularly.” Craig sniffed. “But that’s the plutocracy for you. The establishment does have a way of running things, don’t we? And then nefarious little Liberals attempt to sneak in and tear it all to shreds, don’t they?”
“Oh, yes,” the boy agreed, nodding vigorously. “Yes, Craig, of course.”
Token rolled his eyes and sighed. I could see he felt stifled, trapped between two camps.
Not feeling up to tracking down Eric and his lot, I felt I should make an attempt at casual conversation with Token, trying my best to ignore Craig entirely. “So,” I began casually enough, “how is Wendy?”
“Oh,” he said, brightening. “She was out to dinner with the Lord and Lady Stevens this evening, and before that at a matinee of Death in Venice, which I suppose Bebe and Jason hadn’t seen yet. Initially she’d produced four tickets and I told her there was no chance I would allow myself to be subjected to that opera a third time. So that is where she is, Stanley — or rather, what she’s done this evening. I suppose she’s home now.”
“She sent me to Death in Venice as well.”
“Yes.” Token nodded. “I read your review. Scandalous. She was so displeased you hated it.”
“I hardly hated it.”
“Well, she’s convinced it is essential viewing this season.”
“Yes, of course,” Craig agreed, deciding this was a fit place to enter the conversation. “I am taking the children next weekend, actually. Annie is aghast; she thinks it’ll ruin them. It’s mediocre Britten, and she is such a snob. But I deeply feel if they don’t begin with English opera, they’ll never develop a taste for foreign — and I’ll not tolerate my children growing up like that.”
This entire comment caught me off-guard, and I was feeling quarrelsome enough to prompt Craig with, “Oh, Craig, how is Her Grace? I hadn’t realized you were on speaking terms.”
As predicted, this jostled him: “My wife is just fine, thank you.”
“How are the children taking it?”
Token sighed. “Oh, Stanley. Don’t start.”
“Oh, but I’m curious.”
“Well, it’s hardly your business, Marsh,” Craig snapped. “My family’s none of your concern.”
“Oh, well — I suppose it’s not.” I turned to the boy. “And you — how did you come to meet His Grace? How long have you known each other? And your name — it’s rather odd, isn’t it? Is that something of a pet name?”
“It’s — ugh.” He shuddered dramatically. “It’s my dad’s name.”
“Your father is also named Tweek,” I said, not really asking.
“No, Stanley,” Token said calmly. “It’s Richard, Richard Tweak.”
“Richard Tweak? You mean, the coffee magnate?”
Token nodded. “Certainly.”
“It’s a pun,” Tweek explain. My name and — oh! — I seem to be jittery.”
“You’re wonderful.” Craig sounded so indulgent, as speaking to a beloved pet. He kissed Tweek on the lips — by far the most affection I had ever been witness to out of Craig Tucker — but just for the briefest moment. “We needn’t worry about him.”
Tweek just sighed and fell into Craig’s arms.
I was beginning to tire of this. I loved Token dearly, and was always going to be fond of him, but the presence of Craig and his boy was so overwhelming I wanted to bolt from the scene.
“So, this has been fascinating,” I said, intending to take my leave. “When Kyle comes back please tell him—”
Craig rolled his eyes. “I think you’re about to have a chance to tell him yourself.”
Sure enough, this was when Clyde and Kyle returned, the former shouting after the latter so loudly that he should have been quite embarrassed: “If you breathe so much as a single word of this to anyone I’ll have your mother unseated so fast you wish you’d never met me!”
“I already wish I’d never met you! Leave me alone, Clyde! You’re miserable and I’ll have nothing to do with you!”
“Craig was right about you when he said you are a self-involved cow!”
“Oh, he said that?” Kyle stopped stalking toward us and spun around to address Clyde: “Fucking bloody wonderful that you’re discussing me with Craig, of all people, Donovan. Really fantastic.”
Now they were having this shouting match about 10 feet away. “Oh, come off it! Like you and Stanley haven’t spent countless hours abusing me and badmouthing me and conceiving of all sorts of ways in which I’m an inferior being and how dare I fail to appreciate the magic of copulating with your divine golden rectum!”
Kyle clutched his behind in both hands, blushing, and looking scandalized. “Why do you think that’s what we do?”
“Because I’ve known both of you for 20 years! And you’ve both always been abhorrent bitches! Why do you think no one wants to stay with you for more than a month or so? You’re a talky little shrew! You’re so needy. It’s like dating a debutante! And lord knows I’ve dated my fair share of debutantes so I know. Why’d you even want me to fuck you in the first place?”
“I let you fuck me because I was so miserable, Clyde, that I would have let a horse fuck me if it had stumbled by me at the time.”
“Then why’d you keep coming back?”
“Because it was more or less exactly like being fucked by a horse and I was lonely and lascivious and you were right there!”
“How is getting fucked by me like being fucked by a horse?”
“Have you looked at that thing in your pants, dear? It’s roughly the size of someone’s forearm. If only the man it was attached to didn’t make me sick to my stomach! If only you’d deigned to actually speak to me after you came in my arse instead of rolling over and snoring with your mouth open like a dog.”
“Kyle…” Clyde made a grab for Kyle’s hand.
Kyle wrenched it away. “Don’t touch me!”
Clyde’s face went red and he bellowed, “You’re a selfish, shallow, greedy little poof! No one loves you and no one is ever going to love you and you’re lucky you got your nose slapped off or you’d be too repellently ugly to fuck!”
“People love me, Clyde.” Kyle sniffed. “Hiding in the closet for 20 years has gotten you what, exactly? I may not be perfect but at least I’m not going to die knowing I never lived the life I needed to. Come on, Stanley.” He lurched backward and somehow grabbed my forearm.
I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to speak. “It’ll be all right, Clyde,” I said slowly.
“Stanley!” Kyle barked.
“Sure.” Clyde rolled his eyes. “Enjoy him or whatever.”
~
In the corridor behind the loo, on the way to the back, we collapsed against the cinderblock wall and kissed, furious, hardly pausing to breathe. Kyle’s tongue was upon mine, our teeth colliding so haphazardly that I wasn’t entirely certain they wouldn’t shatter. My mouth felt overtired, on auto-pilot, guilelessly working into his on instinct. It felt brilliant; it felt romantic. The erection folded up in my briefs wanted out, and Kyle angled his into mine, clutching my cheeks and refusing to let go. The moment felt insane.
We had to pause to catch our breaths, to choke on ragged gasps of air and feel our lips stinging and look at one another in the sick bluish light of the hallway, the scents of sex and all of its byproducts, moistness and froth and perspiration, lingering around us. His hair, long enough to grasp but too short as yet to style, wilted in the humidity; I was sure I looked horrible, but I didn’t care.
“My god,” he hissed, attacking my cock through my trousers, groping. “Feel this thing.” He kissed my neck. We had fucked already twice that day, once upon waking in a chair at my flat and a second, more tempered time after putting away the groceries, Kyle’s feet on his own headboard and calves across my shoulders. It did not occur to me that any certain number of times was too many to copulate in a day, but generally after coming inside of some unparticular stranger I lost interest and went home. Not so with Kyle; it was some 28 hours after we’d convened at his parents’ and I did not want to let him out of my sight.
“It’s you,” I whispered to him, unsure of whether I’d rather grope his arse or lose my fingers in his hair, letting myself remember what it was like when it was longer, whipped into a frenzy and effort-laden, teased like egg whites into stiff auburn peaks. I settled for one hand in each place, grateful I had two as he bit the skin below my jawbone, doubtlessly leaving trails of bruising evidence. “You make me so hard. It’s all I can do not to force you against the wall and fuck you again.”
“I wish you would.”
“Maybe I shall.” My neck felt raw, his lips wet against my flesh.
“Well, do it already.”
I unbuttoned his jeans, and we kissed.
“Hurry,” he panted into my mouth.
A man brushed past us, glancing behind his shoulder at Kyle’s behind on his way into the loo.
Kyle put his arms around my neck. “When men look at me like that I have one of two reactions,” he said. I palmed the front of his damp briefs inside of his open fly. “Intrigued, or violated.”
I swallowed down some jealousy. “Which now?”
“Mmm, I don’t know.” He grabbed my wrist, and redirected my hand under the elastic. “It’s flattering.”
“Mmmm.”
“But it’s so objectifying.” My hand tightened inside of his briefs. “Do that again.”
“Ask me. Beg me.”
“It hurts,” he whined. “I feel so empty. It smells like fucking come and sweat and piss back here and I think it’s only fair you fuck me like a little whore against a wall because you promised me you would and I want you so bad, I’ve had you twice today Stanley but I’m greedy, I damn well want more. And my dick is so fucking hard, too. Do you feel it?”
“Mhmm.”
“You’re going to take care of me, won’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Put your fat cock in my arse and fuck me like a greedy little slut?”
All I could do in response was groan, but I heard someone say, “Oh my god”; not an unusual thing to be uttered during sex, but it wasn’t Kyle saying it, so I turned my head past his for a moment to see who was there, only to spy Token.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. His arms were crossed and his jaw was set. “I hadn’t any idea.”
“Hello, Token,” Kyle said, forcing his erection back into his pants, cheeks red. “Long time no see.”
“Stanley, Kyle, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Well, how could you know?” I asked.
“It’s all right, it’s fine,” Kyle murmured. He refastened a button near the bottom of his shirt. “It isn’t as if we haven’t done it twice today already.”
“Twice?” Token blinked. “I’m so sorry, I really didn’t know — I didn’t realize — I was just coming back here to apologize — Clyde, you know, and Craig, they don’t — they didn’t—”
“Like hell they didn’t!” Kyle snapped, regaining his composure quite readily. “Tell your friend Clyde Donovan that he’s got no peerage, no wit, no charm, no money, he lives with his parents, and I hope he gives his next girlfriend Chlamydia and her ovaries harden and fall out of her twat.”
Token was unable to resist laughing. “I’ll be certain to tell him.”
“And Craig can go straight to hell,” Kyle continued, without cracking a smile. “He is more damaging to Britain than whatever ‘liberal agenda’ he rails on, censorship bills be damned. I’ll not have my name or my family’s name dragged through the mud on account of Clyde wishing to stick his fingers in his ears and pretend it didn’t happen like it’s 1965. I already suffered that life once and I’ll never have it again. Tell them both to keep their bloody money and if Clyde will be exposed it’s not on my account. He’ll find himself mired in far more shit than I could dream to rain down upon him soon enough.”
As Kyle was speaking, the smile fell from Token’s face. “Those are strong words,” he said. “As he is my friend, I think I should advice you that, actually, I think this is simply his way of making peace with you. He is quite sweet on you — or was, anyhow, before the whole thing with the shoe.”
“I’d throw any number of shoes at Clyde for the way he made me feel, like a dirty secret or a nightmare or a whore. I’m none of those things.”
“I understand.” Token nodded.
“No one deserves to feel that way. And I’ll not be complicit in someone, some man thinking I’ll be a willing accomplice in his double life. It is intolerable.”
Token gaped. “…I’ll take that under advisement.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Will you, now?”
“Of course,” Token said coolly. ‘But it seems there may more than a single reason for Clyde’s rejection this evening. Frankly, though, I’m in no way shocked. It’s hardly the first time poor Clyde’s got his heart broken in one of your grasps.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle said.
“At Oxford. Clyde was hung up on Miss Marjorine Faithfull. Sadly, she was taken.”
“Well, I certainly think we never any had any idea about that,” I said.
”Of course you didn’t. Neither of you paid any attention to any of us until I took a fancy to you.” He pointed at me.
“That’s not true! Token, you all treated us all like lepers.”
“I admit, we may have done. But what did you want me to do? It was illegal. As I do not need to remind you. And anyway, I’ll not fight with both of you over queer politics.”
“I have nothing to do with politics,” I said.
“But he does.” Token pointed at Kyle.
“Me?” Kyle asked. “What have I got to do with politics?”
“No, not you-you,” Token specified. “Your mother.”
“Oh, well. What about her?”
“Craig is livid. He wants her out.”
“Well, that is ridiculous,” I said, somewhat aware that the thin slime of Kyle’s arousal was drying, webbed between my fingers. “Sheila’s not even that liberal.”
“No, but she’s loud. It’s all he goes on about. Craig, that is. He’s vehemently anti-welfare, you know. You know me, Stanley. I lean left, of course, but I don’t yet have a seat. No one really cares what I think. But if I were you, I’d be careful. Mrs. Broflovski’s ideas on censorship are unappealing to everyone — too stringent for Liberals and too lenient for the Tories. Craig covets a Conservative sweep in the next general election, and I believe he means to contrive some way to forestall passing any of your mother’s legislation so she’ll be vulnerable.”
“Well,” Kyle scoffed, “it’s perfectly absurd that a man who left his wife and five children for a 20-year-old with a drug habit would think my mother might be vulnerable.”
“Well, you forget — Craig’s seat is his father’s legacy. He can do whatever he likes and they can’t rip it from his hands. He’ll be ensconced in the Upper House until he dies. Your mother is an American-born Jewish housewife who sounds like a film noir character every time she opens her mouth.”
Kyle sighed. “This is pointless! Thank you for the veiled threats, Token. You can run back to Clyde and Craig, now, and tell them we’re sufficiently frightened.”
“As it happens, they’ve left. I’m not trying to frighten you!” Token protested. “I’m your friend!”
“No, you’re theirs.”
“I’m not anyone’s. Stanley, you know this is ridiculous. I’m not vindictive.”
“This conversation is ridiculous,” I replied. Something about being caught between Kyle and Token made me miserable. The creeping urge to flee Camp entirely and run straight home settled in. “I came here to have a night out, not get caught between multiple alternating accusations.”
“Well, he did throw a shoe,” Token reminded me. “That much I think we are all clear on.”
“Stop bringing it up!” Kyle cried. “Token, you’re a human being, aren’t you? You understand where I am coming from, I expect. Or then again, maybe you don’t. You’re married. Craig is married. Clyde aims to be. All I have are these fleeting little relationships. I don’t understand how you men can be so detached! I can’t possibly be expected to feign an English resolve every moment of my life.”
“You don’t understand.” Token shook his head. “Kyle, your mother is an American.”
“Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” Kyle snapped. “That hasn’t got anything to do with it.”
“I believe it does. Clyde and Craig are not feigning resolve. They are both programmed to act as though they feel nothing. As am I. As is Stanley. As are you, I suppose, but even at university it was apparent you expect everyone to court you like a teenage girl in suburban Connecticut. At least, I think I mean Connecticut. But I think because your mother is an immigrant she’s imparted on you some kind of need to express these feelings that the rest of us just suppress.
“From the first time I met you, in a tutorial on 18th-century Romance literature, it was apparent you were not like the rest of us. You read those Blake poems aloud in a trembling voice that betrayed your ability to empathize with little girls lost and so on. I mean, hell, you were wearing rouge. So forgive me if the three of us — or four, rather, including James — were a bit put off by you. Because it wasn’t masculine sexuality you exuded — we were all used to that, anyway, after years at Eton. It was just that you were so defiantly femme. In opposition to, say, Butters, who was blatant enough to understand.”
Token cleared his throat before continuing: “Anyhow, my friends did leave, and rather than stay here and be maligned I think I shall go home and make love to my wife. But I wish you both the best of luck. Good night, Stanley. Kyle.” He nodded at both of us as he left, and I think he seemed somewhat sad. He walked out with his hands at his sides, glancing at no one. I watched his behind as he left, until he slipped behind a bar, and we lost track of him in the narrow alley of sight the back hallway provided.
For a moment I missed him. After Token and I split up, just before graduation, I had been a wreck — every smiling man on the street, regardless of race, reminded me of him. I spent a week holding myself on the floor of my room, nursing tumblers of rye and listening to gospel LPs Wendy had lent me for their operatic enthusiasm. It was pathetic that the person I turned to for help getting over my ex-boyfriend was his new fiancée, but one day I woke up and didn’t want to cry, feeling much better about myself. Kyle agreed, finally, that we should both move to London, and to share a flat in Chelsea. We lived there just two years, but I loved that flat.
“How’d I do?” Kyle asked, bringing my attention back to him and away from reminiscence.
“Darling, that was amazing. You just got more out of Token that I have managed in two decades.”
Kyle shrugged. “The ironic thing is, I am not even interested. Threatening me with conspiracies against my mother? Defending Clyde for being an ass? Delusions of bisexuality — he thinks he is going to bed a woman? Conrad may have a point, after all — the Nile tends to flow through Africa, if I recall.”
“Token’s never been to Africa proper,” I corrected. “Just Alexandria and Marrakesh.”
“It’s just the same.”
“And generally, your wordplay is cleverer than a the Nile crack. I may be disappointed.”
He grabbed my by the belt loops and leaned in. “You won’t be disappointed later. Come on.” He let go. “Let’s go find Eric and finagle some coke out of him.”
~
After inhaling what seemed like a handful, Kyle wanted to dance. It was all part of a typical Saturday night out: champagne, cocaine, lose all inhibitions, dance madly up against anyone who was standing next to him, and be sick in the loo. Go home with whomever he expected to fuck him that evening, and spend Sunday recovering. Report to the Bucky after work on Monday with tales of heartbreak. I was anxious to see how this would play out between us. I was too overwhelmed to dance, and instead I took him to the bar for a drink. We had not seen Miss B all night, and Eric and Kenny were involved in their own dramatic display of affection — that is, they were snogging noisily, breathing each other in with the sort of urgency I imagine could only be fueled by drugs and the thrill of public spaces.
So we went to get a drink, and Kyle was overly affectionate, stroking my hair and nuzzling against my shoulders. “I really do like looking at you,” he kept slurring. “You’re so very easy to look at.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Do you know all the times I’ve had some other man’s cock inside me, thinking it would be best if it were you?” He was slurring this into my ear.
“That’s flattering,” I said, wrapping one arm around his waist so I could maintain a firm grasp on my drink with my free hand. I sort of wished he could save these things for later, for some private bedroom moment. I hated the idea of doing this at Camp.
“And you know that awful phone I bought you, that one time, that you got me that huge dildo at the same time?”
I cringed; when Kyle’s syntax was all askew, he was really quite gone — not even wired anymore, seeming to defy logic. “Of course.”
“Well, do you know I would read your fabulous little pornography books and read the scenes over and over again, with that fat old dildo stuck up inside of me so deep I liked to pretend it was you? I did that, you know. I do it all the time. I do it last week, you know, like maybe four times.”
Well, that thought was scintillating enough to make my pants tighter.
“Good god, darling.” I kissed him on the cheek. “You’re really trashed.”
“Don’t care,” he slurred back. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll keep me safe.”
“Yeah.” I kissed him again. Then he turned toward me and we were kissing. The pulse of some insignificant song was throbbing in the background, and we were managing to snog along to it in some bizarre way. I thought the lyrics were something like nonsense words, too rah loo rah too rah loo rah, but then Kyle’s tongue jabbed into mine and I forgot about it.
This was where we were and what we were doing when Butters reappeared, hair (what little he had left of it) all mussed and the top three buttons on his shirt undone, big purpling marks all up and down his throat. “Oh!” He signaled to the bartender, and then turned back to us. “So this is where you’ve been!”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing Kyle off of my mouth. He made some kind of protest whimper, which was cute, but I was too sober to really indulge it. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”
A grin blossomed across his face. “A bit, yes.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Butters’ face pinkened. He turned around and shouted, “It’s okay! They won’t bite!” and from the throng of dancing patrons around the bar, a short, bespectacled ginger-haired man sauntered over. “See, they’re very nice. What did I tell you? Boys, this is Douglas.”
Douglas took this as a cue to extend his hand. I took it.
Butters introduced us as, “Stanley Marsh. And companion, Kyle Broflovski.”
“Hiiiiii,” Kyle slurred. “Those are big glasses you have.” This man, Douglas, blushed at that.
“These are very old friends of mine,” Butters continued. “Very old, very dear friends. I mean, not old — I mean, I’ve known them since university — I mean, that doesn’t really explain—”
Douglas chuckled. “I do understand.”
“So what do you do?” Kyle asked, too wasted to be self-conscious.
“Oh, I find myself in a constant state of general disarray,” he said. “And I like maths.”
“Well, from what he explained before — um, you know — Douglas just took a degree from LSE—”
“Yes, a D. Phil in non-linear time series, actually.”
“—isn’t that impressive?” Butters gushed. Then he shook his head as the bartender reappeared to hand him a drink. (I didn’t think it was very impressive.)
“I’ll get it,” Douglas offered. He fished a fiver out and tendered it.
“So, where have you two been? And how did it go with Clyde and that group?”
“Just awful,” Kyle groaned. “He is such a beast, such a dreary little fuck.”
“Who is Clyde?” Douglas asked.
“A man we studied with at Oxford,” Butters answered. “You know, he’s not really important. But, are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Kyle replied. “Properly anesthetized and all that. Courtesy of Eric, at cost. I can still talk that fat bastard into anything. Of course, he’s also distracted by groping copious amounts of underage boy arse. We had a talk with Token as well, actually. Did you know Clyde apparently had a crush on you at university?”
“Ah, no.” Now Butters was really blushing furiously. “I didn’t really, er, talk to him, you know—”
“Well, it just figures that he would try to ease into gay sex like that.” Kyle laughed, tipping his head back with a kind of unchained chemical-related gaiety. “Going after a drag queen to mitig — mitiage — mitigate the thing, can’t do it with a real boy I suppose, I mean it was the 1960s but really.”
I saw Butters’ face fall.
Douglas raised an eyebrow. “Interesting,” he muttered. “That’s … unexpected.”
“I can explain—”
“It’s fine, I don’t—I’m not—”
Kyle was smirking, arms crossed, very satisfied with the careless cruelty he’d just thrown in Butters’ face. “Something about being blatant enough to understand, I guess, which it is, you know, I mean then that was like what people thought, you know, it just was…” He trailed off, well enough since he wasn’t even saying anything, just trying to dig himself out of a very deep hole that had made both Butters and his prospective conquest very uncomfortable.
It was about this time that I realized I was really exhausted. Sick of being a passive bystander in this conversation, I said, “Well, this was a strange night. Boys — please excuse us.”
“So very nice to meet you.” Douglas extended a small hand, which I grasped again with tentative reserve. We shook slowly.
“Oh, dear, ah — I’ll see you,” Butters added, patting me on the back. “Next weekend, I suppose. Kyle, I’ll call you.”
“Sure, that’s great, do call me.” Kyle made a phoning gesture with his pinky and thumb, holding it against his ear. “I wouldn’t fuck on the first date, though, Miss B, I know it’s been a while but they never take you seriously when I do that.”
“Miss B?” Douglas was gaping now. “You said your name was Leopold.”
“It is.” Butters sighed, hunching his shoulders.
I felt bad abandoning them like that, but it was time to get out of Camp. I glanced back at our table on the way out, but Kenny and Eric had disappeared. Figuring this entire situation a bust, I corralled Kyle outside; he clung to me the whole time, trying to bite into my shoulder.
Hailing a cab was easy enough. I knew I had about 35 pounds, which was more than suitable to get back to Kyle’s — and mine, if necessary, on the chance that I could not get out of his apartment before the Underground stopped running. All throughout the ride back to Notting Hill Gate he tried to hump me in the backseat of the taxi, babbling all sorts of wavering half-developed come-ons in my ear. I could resist this onslaught, but just barely, steeling myself against his allure with the knowledge that he was high and not thinking rational thoughts. It was rather unromantic.
I got him upstairs in the lift and managed to wrangle his key from his pocket.
“Oh,” he breathed, grabbing my wrist as I slipped it out of his trousers. “You do want it, don’t you?”
“Just your keys,” I said, leading him up to his door. “You’re going to bed.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“No, Kyle. Not with me.”
“But why?”
How to explain to him how I felt? It had been a long day, the end of a longer week, and I was still half-certain that when he woke up the next day he would be horrified to realize that what we’d been doing was a tragic mistake, a fatal tonic of sympathy and lust. Every sense in my arsenal felt dulled, and I couldn’t imagine he was faring much better with rampant neurotransmitters bouncing around inside his head. I just knew he would be a lousy lay; you don’t live through the countercultural revolution in central London without realizing that people on drugs are too aimless to thrust in the right direction. Yet they will remember they were doing it correctly, and gloat about it later, which was annoying.
About halfway to Kyle’s bedroom, having succeeded in getting him to kick off his loafers, I realized that this rationalization was all in my head, and that I was essentially trying to compensate for being too tired to will myself to do it. Generally, though, Kyle had been on the receiving end of sex against his will more often than anyone else I knew, and the thought occurred to me that depriving him of the sober ability to decide for himself would have been criminal. Were we both drunk, I would have done it in a heartbeat, without pausing to think. But the notion of taking advantage of him like this threatened to break my heart.
“I’m very tired,” I said, which was also true. We were in his bed now, and I was admiring the discolored bruises on his neck that were beginning to show through smudged concealer.
“You don’t want to fuck me,” he replied, which was so far from the truth in general.
“Well, not right now, no, but let’s do it a lot some other time, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been a really long day and a lot happened and I’m tired.”
“But why?”
We were both lying on our sides, but he was grasping me from behind, so that I was looking away from him. It felt nice to be held, as I hadn’t been for some time, but I was tried and hearing him whine was disconcerting. So I sat up, taking his hand. “I reckon you’re far too inebriated to understand this right now, darling, but I don’t consider sex to be a kind of validation. I promise you, if you let me fall asleep now I will fuck you as often and as thoroughly as you like for the rest of our lives.”
Kyle didn’t say anything at first. He was lying on his back, staring up at me with wide, hyper-alert eyes, still in most of what he’d put on to go out that night. “I want everyone to know,” he said. “It’s not fitting to make things be so clanest — clandestine.”
“I have to sleep.” I lay back down, facing him this time. “Please let me sleep.” I shut my eyes, or rather, they shut themselves, as I began to realize I could not stay awake much longer.
“Oh, okay.”
The last thing I was conscious of was Kyle climbing over me, straddling me again from behind.
Waking at about 8 a.m. to the sound of discordant birds flocking away from the park, the sun stung my eyes and I forced myself up, shocked to find that I’d slept for hours in Kyle’s bed. He was next to me still, sleeping now, mouth open and hands splayed, having rolled over in the night. It occurred to me he may have been up to vomit or something but I myself felt relatively decent, if curiously lonely.
In the kitchen I had a glass of water and found a pad of paper with the name of Kyle’s agency emblazoned at the top. Fishing a pen from one of the drawers, I scrawled a message: Lovely night. Hope you got enough sleep. Went home to shower, for fresh pants. See you Bucky Monday night? Fondly S.M. I debated with myself for a moment over whether to make this sound more personal or more romantic or to curtail any kind of effusion and let him make the next move. I stared at my writing for a while, hoping he could read it, wishing I had a typewriter so I would look polished rather than barbaric, Edwardian rather than quickly jotted with a creaky biro. But after a few moments of self-doubt I told myself that if Kyle loved me I would see him the next day, and that I really needed my toothbrush. I left this note on the vanity where I knew he would find it and kissed him briefly so that he would not stir. Then I went home, hopping on the Circle Line, heading for Farringdon.
~
“Hi.”
I glanced up from an empty whisky glass, crunching a lingering piece of ice between my very-back molars. It was typical of Kyle to be late on Monday nights — well, always, really. This time, however, rather than annoyed, I was sick with worry; he may have been avoiding me, or testing me, or simply even more nonchalant about meeting me on time, after what had been a very good but peculiar weekend. Or perhaps he was trying to banish the past three days by acting typical. All these possibilities terrified me.
But here he was, and I was so relieved to see him that I grinned madly and said, “Hello, darling,” and stood up to embrace him.
He kissed me on the lips; it was chaste but he was smiling, too. “Sorry I’m late! Oh, I’m so relieved — held up at the office, I think, I don’t even know where the time goes. But I’m … I thought you weren’t even going to be here!”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, knowing quite well that I was relieved, too.
“Oh.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Take my coat?” He handed me a sport jacket, a sort of brocade houndstooth that looked fairly silly but I was touched to see that he was trying to impress me.
“Nice coat,” I said.
Blushing, he stammered, “Oh, you know, it’s just some thing.”
“Okay. Do you want a drink?”
“Dying for one.”
Having finally cashed my checks that morning I was able to buy him a cider and myself a can of Tetley — the taste of it was pedestrian, but it reminded me of Friday night in his parents’ garden, the stench of lamp gas and acrid fertilizer nourishing flora as it decomposed. Carrying my purchase back to the table, I felt urbane and sophisticated and overall very glad. There was no one in the bar but Kyle, myself, and the bartender. The cook may have been in the kitchen, but the last thing I felt was hungry, so it didn’t matter to me. I’d stopped by the Bucky the previous evening and flirted with as many men as I pleased, denying all of them after a drink. It had felt invigorating, and I kept hoping Kyle would be there, too, but he hadn’t been. The calm of Monday late afternoon felt almost sane compared to Sunday night.
“What did you do last night?” I asked him.
“Oh, I spent all day with Ike, actually. Well, no, I suppose all day is something of an exaggeration — I slept until noon, which was impressive considering I cannot remember when I went to bed and to be honest, I feel I’m still high on cocaine from two nights ago. Are you experiencing that?”
“No, but then, I didn’t have any.”
“Oh, curious. Well, anyway, Ike called and woke me, and we had lunch around Earl’s Court — some Turkish restaurant. Very sloppy, you know, the food was very saucy and I felt like a peasant. But, so cheap! I think we both ate for under a tenner which is impressive. Yes? Ike loves that sort of thing. I don’t know, that boy — he always likes slumming it. Then he caught a 7 p.m. train. I went with him to Euston and said goodbye and — and, well, I think I slept some more. Perfectly innocent day, really. We just — just talked. Anyway…” Kyle trailed off, and pulled something — a folded-up piece of heavy cream-colored stationery — from his waistcoat pocket. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know! I assumed it was confidential. Actually.” Kyle leaned in, nearly knocking over his cider (but just missing it), and whispered to me, “I told him about — well, you know, you. I assume it’s some piece of fraternal guardianship. Very exciting. He’s never actively acknowledged a relationship of mine before.”
As I unfolded the paper, I thought to myself that it was nice to know that Kyle felt we were in a relationship. I had also never received a note from Ike before; generally he found me unworthy of address. Nevertheless, he had written me one now, and it read:
To Stanley,
Kyle and I have been speaking today — rather he is talking my ear off — about all matters of disinterest. Of curious note to me is this ex-lover of yours who has passed away, and I feel compelled to write you while he is in the restroom. First and foremost, my condolences. Secondly, I thought you should be aware that the term Kyle used to describe the man’s fatal illness, “an immunodeficiency,” has caught my attention. (As virtually nothing else he has said today has.) I have been reading medical literature from various American centers for research on morbidity and mortality, and this brings to mind what a recent issue of
Here I stopped reading, folded the paper back up, and stuck it in my pocket.
“Well?” Kyle asked. “What’s it say?”
“Nothing, really,” I confessed. To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed. I suppose it was nice enough that the boy had some manners — but then again, he was the younger son of an MP, so he had to have picked up some social graces along the way. That said, why Ike felt I would be interested in his musings on medicine was beyond me. Surely he didn’t expect me to reply with several paragraphs of gay pornography, which he would probably have found just as absurd.
“Is it about me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Kyle, not everything is about you.”
He pouted. “Thanks. Cheers, that’s splendid.”
“No, I mean — it’s a letter of condolence. About Gary. Why are you discussing that with Ike?”
“Why, am I forbidden to have a conversation about it? I have to engage him about something! He doesn’t want to hear about anything being put inside anyone’s arse and I certainly don’t need to hear another word about bloody Flora. So we traded some shoptalk, that’s all. And, well, Ike did know Gary. That note didn’t indicate what killed him, did it? Gary, I mean. Ike was very curious.”
“No,” I repeated. “Kyle, look. That part of my life is over. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Oh.”
For a few minutes we sat sipping our drinks, looking at one another but not quite saying anything. Two men came into the bar, followed by a few stray tourists, and then another pair of men — these with bulging upper arms and sheath-tight vests tucked into tight leather pants. I shuddered. Summer was ending, but it was far too humid still for something as outré as leather pants. Aside from the fact that one was blond and one bald, they were impossible to tell apart. At the bar, they shared a brief little kiss and one of them laughed. They couldn’t have been much younger than I, and yet I felt generations away from that entire scene.
“Staring at those blokes?” Kyle asked me.
“Oh. Er, yes.” No sense in hiding it.
“Like that?”
I shook my head. “Not particularly. Why?”
“Oh, just wondering. Anyway.” He coughed into his hand to make some kind of point, or draw the conversation back to more familiar territory. “So, here is what I am thinking: Let’s both of us finish our drinks, right? Then we can take a cab back to my place and tear each other’s clothing off and fuck on the living room floor like complete animals. I’ll make you a nice dinner — I have some smoked salmon I can do something with, perhaps make a salad. Regrettably I do think Eric ate all the pasties and I didn’t bring anything home from the restaurant yesterday. We can eat on the balcony with Radio 4 in the background, though, and then fuck a second time. I’m famished. So can we do that?”
“Sure, if you like that.”
“Sweetheart, I love it.”
And so did I.
We all took a cab to Camp, Eric squashed in the back with Kenny and Butters on either side of him. Butters had to roll down the window to get the faintest bit of O\oxygen. Kyle and I sat in the jump seats, and he kept staring at me with these meaningful glances. I wondered if he was annoyed about the champagne, but there would be more champagne, and going out was the last thing I wanted to do, anyhow. The streets felt foreboding, with their yellow lamplight reflecting off the shuttered shop windows. We rode down around the park, down Pall Mall and somehow, up Shaftesbury. Butters had done a superior job with the face makeup, and indeed you couldn’t make out my handiwork, especially not in the dim cabin of the taxi. It was sort of sad — I wanted to mark Kyle, somehow, in a way others could see. Very bothersome.
It was too early for a line. For about five minutes it seemed as though the night were about to become really enjoyable again after the stuffiness of the cab ride, but of course there in a cluster near the entrance stood Token, Craig, Craig’s catamite, and old Clyde; Token looked sharp in a tight pair of seersucker trousers, which was unusual for him. (Whenever Token wore any kind of impeccable outfit, I had to assume it had been purchased, fitted, and assembled by Wendy, herself a devotee of French couture and British tailoring.)
I didn’t notice them at first, but when the five of us walked into Camp someone shouted “Oi!” at our group from a few feet behind. At first when I turned to source this interjection I spotted Token and Craig, but it couldn’t have been either of them shouting something so crass across a crowded room. (And I couldn’t believe that the quivering slip of a boy Craig had with him was able to vocalize anything, let alone project to five feet away.) Then of course I realized that the drab-looking fellow with garish stitches down his forehead and brow must be Clyde; figures he would blend in with the crowd.
“Ohhhh, it’s Clyde, is it?” Kenny noted. “Yes, I remember. From Her Majesty’s Home Office.”
“Indeed,” I said quietly.
“Among other places,” Kyle added.
“Oh, to hell with this,” Eric whined. “We’re not dealing with Craig. I hate Craig!” With one arm, he shoved Kenny in front of him, and made him march toward our usual table; Kenny spared a backward glance at me, pressed his lips into a mocking goodbye pucker, and followed orders.
Butters, with a quaint shrug, said, “This just looks bad. If you’ll excuse me?” And he set off after Eric and Kenny. “Come find us!” was the last thing we heard him cry.
So now there was nothing left to do than to approach them. Kyle took my arm, clinging to my slack bicep as we strode over.
Briefly, on the subject of His Grace, the Duke of Nommel: Craig Tucker had worn a bespoke suit each day of his life, or at the very least on each occasion of our meeting, which at Oxford was unfortunately quite nearly each day. He was wearing one tonight, and it made him look dignified and handsome, the gray color of the fabric so subtle it brought out the redness in his sharp, tawny eyes. But in no way was this fitting or appropriate attire for Camp, or indeed any nightclub, and I suppose it was just as well; Craig did not generally game anyone, save likely his little clique. I think the closest he had ever come to an actual affair may have been Kyle, after Kyle and Eric split up in our final year. Yet flirtatious as he could be, Craig was resistant to Kyle’s every machination, and married a Lady Anne Polk one year after our graduation. She was dreary and grating, and got along much better with Bebe than Wendy, so I did not have to see much of her at luncheons.
Having been raised in Edinburgh as the son of a very important Scottish peer, Craig spoke with an infuriating lilt to his nasal, lifeless voice that often brought me close to slamming a fist into his mouth. I am sure the fact that he had only ever nasty things to say was no help in this regard. He was also very active in the House of Lords, and in fact held a prominent position I could not name, such as I did not follow politics except in the Guardian. He tossed around casual threats like change in his pocket and often bragged of the summers he spent as a guest at Balmoral. Often I had wondered what Token saw in Craig, to the effect that they were so close. I had to assume it was the binding of some shared experience I was not privy to.
Craig, being horrible, was not bothered to say hello to Kyle and me. But Token greeted us warmly: “Evening, Stanley.” He nodded his head in my direction, then Kyle’s. “…Kyle.”
“Hello Token,” Kyle said, wary. “Been a while. Craig. Clyde. Er — I’m sorry, I don’t know your name—”
“It’s Tweek,” Craig barked; Tweek was hanging off Craig’s arm as if it were a life preserver. His eyes were heavy-lidded and he seemed socially anxious. “And you’ll address me as your better, Broflovski.”
“Apologies, your grace,” I sneered. “As always it is a delight to see you. Truly I could not have asked for a lovelier occurrence this evening. What brings some of our betters out to a lowly gay nightclub?”
“This is ridiculous,” Token muttered.
“Clyde wants a word with you, Broflovski,” Craig said, as if he were dictating.
At this point Kyle felt indignant enough to drop my arm and cross his. “Well, I haven’t got a thing to say to him!” he cried. “I only have adult conversations with adults, thank you.”
“You threw a shoe at my face!” Clyde finally deigned to interject. “And six stitches, I needed! Six! What sort of depraved woman throws a shoe at somebody?”
“What kind of man can’t be bothered to treat his sex partners to a few minutes of civility?”
Clyde gasped, horrified. “You call throwing a shoe civility?”
“Oh, this is indecency,” Craig drawled. “I don’t want to hear it. Clyde, take your dramatics elsewhere.”
“Not if he’s going to chuck another shoe at me!”
“He won’t.” Craig’s glare was boring down on Kyle as he said this. “Or who knows what.”
“Who knows?” Tweek yelped. “Who knows what? Who is knowing what?”
“Oh, my dear.” With a deft hand, Craig stroked the boy’s shoulder — well, boy was, again, a possible misnomer. Even with deep, dark rings around his eyes and the barest hint of a day’s worth of stubble, he seemed young. Not youthful, but young. Green. Nervy. His constant trembling may have been a serious drug problem, or perhaps just some kind of anxiety manifesting itself. It wasn’t really my concern. He may have been as young as 22 or as old as 30. It was difficult to tell.
So I looked to Kyle and asked him what he wanted to do.
He sighed. “I fear this night is ruined. Well, come on, Clyde. Let’s talk.”
“I expect there’ll be a distinct deficit of any sort of shoes,” Clyde said.
“Didn’t know you were a foot man,” Kyle replied.
“I’m not any kind of man!” Clyde’s cheeks turned pink, and he covered his mouth. “Well, you know, that’s not what I mean.”
They went off together, and my initial instinct was to follow. But then Craig snapped his fingers at me and I lurched back around, realizing perhaps I was now going to hear things second-hand from Kyle.
“Um.” I shrugged at Craig; Token was nodding at me encouragingly, likely reading the discomfort written on my face. “So what brings you all out here tonight?” I asked.
“Moral support, I suppose,” Token answered.
“Clyde is just inept,” Craig offered. “I told him to press charges, or better, go to the press. Can’t you see the headlines screaming about it? I can. Labour MP’s Son Attacks Civil Servant with Shoe. That’s what I would want to read on the Tube. That is, if I ever set foot on public transportation. But Token insisted we do it this way. Or rather, that Clyde do it this way. But Clyde is scarred for life and needs his hand held like a child. I swear, I’ll forever rue the day I gave that man a job.”
“Well,” I said, feeling quite awkward. “I’m … sure he’s good at it, you know.”
“Not particularly.” Craig sniffed. “But that’s the plutocracy for you. The establishment does have a way of running things, don’t we? And then nefarious little Liberals attempt to sneak in and tear it all to shreds, don’t they?”
“Oh, yes,” the boy agreed, nodding vigorously. “Yes, Craig, of course.”
Token rolled his eyes and sighed. I could see he felt stifled, trapped between two camps.
Not feeling up to tracking down Eric and his lot, I felt I should make an attempt at casual conversation with Token, trying my best to ignore Craig entirely. “So,” I began casually enough, “how is Wendy?”
“Oh,” he said, brightening. “She was out to dinner with the Lord and Lady Stevens this evening, and before that at a matinee of Death in Venice, which I suppose Bebe and Jason hadn’t seen yet. Initially she’d produced four tickets and I told her there was no chance I would allow myself to be subjected to that opera a third time. So that is where she is, Stanley — or rather, what she’s done this evening. I suppose she’s home now.”
“She sent me to Death in Venice as well.”
“Yes.” Token nodded. “I read your review. Scandalous. She was so displeased you hated it.”
“I hardly hated it.”
“Well, she’s convinced it is essential viewing this season.”
“Yes, of course,” Craig agreed, deciding this was a fit place to enter the conversation. “I am taking the children next weekend, actually. Annie is aghast; she thinks it’ll ruin them. It’s mediocre Britten, and she is such a snob. But I deeply feel if they don’t begin with English opera, they’ll never develop a taste for foreign — and I’ll not tolerate my children growing up like that.”
This entire comment caught me off-guard, and I was feeling quarrelsome enough to prompt Craig with, “Oh, Craig, how is Her Grace? I hadn’t realized you were on speaking terms.”
As predicted, this jostled him: “My wife is just fine, thank you.”
“How are the children taking it?”
Token sighed. “Oh, Stanley. Don’t start.”
“Oh, but I’m curious.”
“Well, it’s hardly your business, Marsh,” Craig snapped. “My family’s none of your concern.”
“Oh, well — I suppose it’s not.” I turned to the boy. “And you — how did you come to meet His Grace? How long have you known each other? And your name — it’s rather odd, isn’t it? Is that something of a pet name?”
“It’s — ugh.” He shuddered dramatically. “It’s my dad’s name.”
“Your father is also named Tweek,” I said, not really asking.
“No, Stanley,” Token said calmly. “It’s Richard, Richard Tweak.”
“Richard Tweak? You mean, the coffee magnate?”
Token nodded. “Certainly.”
“It’s a pun,” Tweek explain. My name and — oh! — I seem to be jittery.”
“You’re wonderful.” Craig sounded so indulgent, as speaking to a beloved pet. He kissed Tweek on the lips — by far the most affection I had ever been witness to out of Craig Tucker — but just for the briefest moment. “We needn’t worry about him.”
Tweek just sighed and fell into Craig’s arms.
I was beginning to tire of this. I loved Token dearly, and was always going to be fond of him, but the presence of Craig and his boy was so overwhelming I wanted to bolt from the scene.
“So, this has been fascinating,” I said, intending to take my leave. “When Kyle comes back please tell him—”
Craig rolled his eyes. “I think you’re about to have a chance to tell him yourself.”
Sure enough, this was when Clyde and Kyle returned, the former shouting after the latter so loudly that he should have been quite embarrassed: “If you breathe so much as a single word of this to anyone I’ll have your mother unseated so fast you wish you’d never met me!”
“I already wish I’d never met you! Leave me alone, Clyde! You’re miserable and I’ll have nothing to do with you!”
“Craig was right about you when he said you are a self-involved cow!”
“Oh, he said that?” Kyle stopped stalking toward us and spun around to address Clyde: “Fucking bloody wonderful that you’re discussing me with Craig, of all people, Donovan. Really fantastic.”
Now they were having this shouting match about 10 feet away. “Oh, come off it! Like you and Stanley haven’t spent countless hours abusing me and badmouthing me and conceiving of all sorts of ways in which I’m an inferior being and how dare I fail to appreciate the magic of copulating with your divine golden rectum!”
Kyle clutched his behind in both hands, blushing, and looking scandalized. “Why do you think that’s what we do?”
“Because I’ve known both of you for 20 years! And you’ve both always been abhorrent bitches! Why do you think no one wants to stay with you for more than a month or so? You’re a talky little shrew! You’re so needy. It’s like dating a debutante! And lord knows I’ve dated my fair share of debutantes so I know. Why’d you even want me to fuck you in the first place?”
“I let you fuck me because I was so miserable, Clyde, that I would have let a horse fuck me if it had stumbled by me at the time.”
“Then why’d you keep coming back?”
“Because it was more or less exactly like being fucked by a horse and I was lonely and lascivious and you were right there!”
“How is getting fucked by me like being fucked by a horse?”
“Have you looked at that thing in your pants, dear? It’s roughly the size of someone’s forearm. If only the man it was attached to didn’t make me sick to my stomach! If only you’d deigned to actually speak to me after you came in my arse instead of rolling over and snoring with your mouth open like a dog.”
“Kyle…” Clyde made a grab for Kyle’s hand.
Kyle wrenched it away. “Don’t touch me!”
Clyde’s face went red and he bellowed, “You’re a selfish, shallow, greedy little poof! No one loves you and no one is ever going to love you and you’re lucky you got your nose slapped off or you’d be too repellently ugly to fuck!”
“People love me, Clyde.” Kyle sniffed. “Hiding in the closet for 20 years has gotten you what, exactly? I may not be perfect but at least I’m not going to die knowing I never lived the life I needed to. Come on, Stanley.” He lurched backward and somehow grabbed my forearm.
I wasn’t sure if it was appropriate to speak. “It’ll be all right, Clyde,” I said slowly.
“Stanley!” Kyle barked.
“Sure.” Clyde rolled his eyes. “Enjoy him or whatever.”
~
In the corridor behind the loo, on the way to the back, we collapsed against the cinderblock wall and kissed, furious, hardly pausing to breathe. Kyle’s tongue was upon mine, our teeth colliding so haphazardly that I wasn’t entirely certain they wouldn’t shatter. My mouth felt overtired, on auto-pilot, guilelessly working into his on instinct. It felt brilliant; it felt romantic. The erection folded up in my briefs wanted out, and Kyle angled his into mine, clutching my cheeks and refusing to let go. The moment felt insane.
We had to pause to catch our breaths, to choke on ragged gasps of air and feel our lips stinging and look at one another in the sick bluish light of the hallway, the scents of sex and all of its byproducts, moistness and froth and perspiration, lingering around us. His hair, long enough to grasp but too short as yet to style, wilted in the humidity; I was sure I looked horrible, but I didn’t care.
“My god,” he hissed, attacking my cock through my trousers, groping. “Feel this thing.” He kissed my neck. We had fucked already twice that day, once upon waking in a chair at my flat and a second, more tempered time after putting away the groceries, Kyle’s feet on his own headboard and calves across my shoulders. It did not occur to me that any certain number of times was too many to copulate in a day, but generally after coming inside of some unparticular stranger I lost interest and went home. Not so with Kyle; it was some 28 hours after we’d convened at his parents’ and I did not want to let him out of my sight.
“It’s you,” I whispered to him, unsure of whether I’d rather grope his arse or lose my fingers in his hair, letting myself remember what it was like when it was longer, whipped into a frenzy and effort-laden, teased like egg whites into stiff auburn peaks. I settled for one hand in each place, grateful I had two as he bit the skin below my jawbone, doubtlessly leaving trails of bruising evidence. “You make me so hard. It’s all I can do not to force you against the wall and fuck you again.”
“I wish you would.”
“Maybe I shall.” My neck felt raw, his lips wet against my flesh.
“Well, do it already.”
I unbuttoned his jeans, and we kissed.
“Hurry,” he panted into my mouth.
A man brushed past us, glancing behind his shoulder at Kyle’s behind on his way into the loo.
Kyle put his arms around my neck. “When men look at me like that I have one of two reactions,” he said. I palmed the front of his damp briefs inside of his open fly. “Intrigued, or violated.”
I swallowed down some jealousy. “Which now?”
“Mmm, I don’t know.” He grabbed my wrist, and redirected my hand under the elastic. “It’s flattering.”
“Mmmm.”
“But it’s so objectifying.” My hand tightened inside of his briefs. “Do that again.”
“Ask me. Beg me.”
“It hurts,” he whined. “I feel so empty. It smells like fucking come and sweat and piss back here and I think it’s only fair you fuck me like a little whore against a wall because you promised me you would and I want you so bad, I’ve had you twice today Stanley but I’m greedy, I damn well want more. And my dick is so fucking hard, too. Do you feel it?”
“Mhmm.”
“You’re going to take care of me, won’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“Put your fat cock in my arse and fuck me like a greedy little slut?”
All I could do in response was groan, but I heard someone say, “Oh my god”; not an unusual thing to be uttered during sex, but it wasn’t Kyle saying it, so I turned my head past his for a moment to see who was there, only to spy Token.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. His arms were crossed and his jaw was set. “I hadn’t any idea.”
“Hello, Token,” Kyle said, forcing his erection back into his pants, cheeks red. “Long time no see.”
“Stanley, Kyle, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
“Well, how could you know?” I asked.
“It’s all right, it’s fine,” Kyle murmured. He refastened a button near the bottom of his shirt. “It isn’t as if we haven’t done it twice today already.”
“Twice?” Token blinked. “I’m so sorry, I really didn’t know — I didn’t realize — I was just coming back here to apologize — Clyde, you know, and Craig, they don’t — they didn’t—”
“Like hell they didn’t!” Kyle snapped, regaining his composure quite readily. “Tell your friend Clyde Donovan that he’s got no peerage, no wit, no charm, no money, he lives with his parents, and I hope he gives his next girlfriend Chlamydia and her ovaries harden and fall out of her twat.”
Token was unable to resist laughing. “I’ll be certain to tell him.”
“And Craig can go straight to hell,” Kyle continued, without cracking a smile. “He is more damaging to Britain than whatever ‘liberal agenda’ he rails on, censorship bills be damned. I’ll not have my name or my family’s name dragged through the mud on account of Clyde wishing to stick his fingers in his ears and pretend it didn’t happen like it’s 1965. I already suffered that life once and I’ll never have it again. Tell them both to keep their bloody money and if Clyde will be exposed it’s not on my account. He’ll find himself mired in far more shit than I could dream to rain down upon him soon enough.”
As Kyle was speaking, the smile fell from Token’s face. “Those are strong words,” he said. “As he is my friend, I think I should advice you that, actually, I think this is simply his way of making peace with you. He is quite sweet on you — or was, anyhow, before the whole thing with the shoe.”
“I’d throw any number of shoes at Clyde for the way he made me feel, like a dirty secret or a nightmare or a whore. I’m none of those things.”
“I understand.” Token nodded.
“No one deserves to feel that way. And I’ll not be complicit in someone, some man thinking I’ll be a willing accomplice in his double life. It is intolerable.”
Token gaped. “…I’ll take that under advisement.”
Kyle rolled his eyes. “Will you, now?”
“Of course,” Token said coolly. ‘But it seems there may more than a single reason for Clyde’s rejection this evening. Frankly, though, I’m in no way shocked. It’s hardly the first time poor Clyde’s got his heart broken in one of your grasps.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Kyle said.
“At Oxford. Clyde was hung up on Miss Marjorine Faithfull. Sadly, she was taken.”
“Well, I certainly think we never any had any idea about that,” I said.
”Of course you didn’t. Neither of you paid any attention to any of us until I took a fancy to you.” He pointed at me.
“That’s not true! Token, you all treated us all like lepers.”
“I admit, we may have done. But what did you want me to do? It was illegal. As I do not need to remind you. And anyway, I’ll not fight with both of you over queer politics.”
“I have nothing to do with politics,” I said.
“But he does.” Token pointed at Kyle.
“Me?” Kyle asked. “What have I got to do with politics?”
“No, not you-you,” Token specified. “Your mother.”
“Oh, well. What about her?”
“Craig is livid. He wants her out.”
“Well, that is ridiculous,” I said, somewhat aware that the thin slime of Kyle’s arousal was drying, webbed between my fingers. “Sheila’s not even that liberal.”
“No, but she’s loud. It’s all he goes on about. Craig, that is. He’s vehemently anti-welfare, you know. You know me, Stanley. I lean left, of course, but I don’t yet have a seat. No one really cares what I think. But if I were you, I’d be careful. Mrs. Broflovski’s ideas on censorship are unappealing to everyone — too stringent for Liberals and too lenient for the Tories. Craig covets a Conservative sweep in the next general election, and I believe he means to contrive some way to forestall passing any of your mother’s legislation so she’ll be vulnerable.”
“Well,” Kyle scoffed, “it’s perfectly absurd that a man who left his wife and five children for a 20-year-old with a drug habit would think my mother might be vulnerable.”
“Well, you forget — Craig’s seat is his father’s legacy. He can do whatever he likes and they can’t rip it from his hands. He’ll be ensconced in the Upper House until he dies. Your mother is an American-born Jewish housewife who sounds like a film noir character every time she opens her mouth.”
Kyle sighed. “This is pointless! Thank you for the veiled threats, Token. You can run back to Clyde and Craig, now, and tell them we’re sufficiently frightened.”
“As it happens, they’ve left. I’m not trying to frighten you!” Token protested. “I’m your friend!”
“No, you’re theirs.”
“I’m not anyone’s. Stanley, you know this is ridiculous. I’m not vindictive.”
“This conversation is ridiculous,” I replied. Something about being caught between Kyle and Token made me miserable. The creeping urge to flee Camp entirely and run straight home settled in. “I came here to have a night out, not get caught between multiple alternating accusations.”
“Well, he did throw a shoe,” Token reminded me. “That much I think we are all clear on.”
“Stop bringing it up!” Kyle cried. “Token, you’re a human being, aren’t you? You understand where I am coming from, I expect. Or then again, maybe you don’t. You’re married. Craig is married. Clyde aims to be. All I have are these fleeting little relationships. I don’t understand how you men can be so detached! I can’t possibly be expected to feign an English resolve every moment of my life.”
“You don’t understand.” Token shook his head. “Kyle, your mother is an American.”
“Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” Kyle snapped. “That hasn’t got anything to do with it.”
“I believe it does. Clyde and Craig are not feigning resolve. They are both programmed to act as though they feel nothing. As am I. As is Stanley. As are you, I suppose, but even at university it was apparent you expect everyone to court you like a teenage girl in suburban Connecticut. At least, I think I mean Connecticut. But I think because your mother is an immigrant she’s imparted on you some kind of need to express these feelings that the rest of us just suppress.
“From the first time I met you, in a tutorial on 18th-century Romance literature, it was apparent you were not like the rest of us. You read those Blake poems aloud in a trembling voice that betrayed your ability to empathize with little girls lost and so on. I mean, hell, you were wearing rouge. So forgive me if the three of us — or four, rather, including James — were a bit put off by you. Because it wasn’t masculine sexuality you exuded — we were all used to that, anyway, after years at Eton. It was just that you were so defiantly femme. In opposition to, say, Butters, who was blatant enough to understand.”
Token cleared his throat before continuing: “Anyhow, my friends did leave, and rather than stay here and be maligned I think I shall go home and make love to my wife. But I wish you both the best of luck. Good night, Stanley. Kyle.” He nodded at both of us as he left, and I think he seemed somewhat sad. He walked out with his hands at his sides, glancing at no one. I watched his behind as he left, until he slipped behind a bar, and we lost track of him in the narrow alley of sight the back hallway provided.
For a moment I missed him. After Token and I split up, just before graduation, I had been a wreck — every smiling man on the street, regardless of race, reminded me of him. I spent a week holding myself on the floor of my room, nursing tumblers of rye and listening to gospel LPs Wendy had lent me for their operatic enthusiasm. It was pathetic that the person I turned to for help getting over my ex-boyfriend was his new fiancée, but one day I woke up and didn’t want to cry, feeling much better about myself. Kyle agreed, finally, that we should both move to London, and to share a flat in Chelsea. We lived there just two years, but I loved that flat.
“How’d I do?” Kyle asked, bringing my attention back to him and away from reminiscence.
“Darling, that was amazing. You just got more out of Token that I have managed in two decades.”
Kyle shrugged. “The ironic thing is, I am not even interested. Threatening me with conspiracies against my mother? Defending Clyde for being an ass? Delusions of bisexuality — he thinks he is going to bed a woman? Conrad may have a point, after all — the Nile tends to flow through Africa, if I recall.”
“Token’s never been to Africa proper,” I corrected. “Just Alexandria and Marrakesh.”
“It’s just the same.”
“And generally, your wordplay is cleverer than a the Nile crack. I may be disappointed.”
He grabbed my by the belt loops and leaned in. “You won’t be disappointed later. Come on.” He let go. “Let’s go find Eric and finagle some coke out of him.”
~
After inhaling what seemed like a handful, Kyle wanted to dance. It was all part of a typical Saturday night out: champagne, cocaine, lose all inhibitions, dance madly up against anyone who was standing next to him, and be sick in the loo. Go home with whomever he expected to fuck him that evening, and spend Sunday recovering. Report to the Bucky after work on Monday with tales of heartbreak. I was anxious to see how this would play out between us. I was too overwhelmed to dance, and instead I took him to the bar for a drink. We had not seen Miss B all night, and Eric and Kenny were involved in their own dramatic display of affection — that is, they were snogging noisily, breathing each other in with the sort of urgency I imagine could only be fueled by drugs and the thrill of public spaces.
So we went to get a drink, and Kyle was overly affectionate, stroking my hair and nuzzling against my shoulders. “I really do like looking at you,” he kept slurring. “You’re so very easy to look at.”
“You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Do you know all the times I’ve had some other man’s cock inside me, thinking it would be best if it were you?” He was slurring this into my ear.
“That’s flattering,” I said, wrapping one arm around his waist so I could maintain a firm grasp on my drink with my free hand. I sort of wished he could save these things for later, for some private bedroom moment. I hated the idea of doing this at Camp.
“And you know that awful phone I bought you, that one time, that you got me that huge dildo at the same time?”
I cringed; when Kyle’s syntax was all askew, he was really quite gone — not even wired anymore, seeming to defy logic. “Of course.”
“Well, do you know I would read your fabulous little pornography books and read the scenes over and over again, with that fat old dildo stuck up inside of me so deep I liked to pretend it was you? I did that, you know. I do it all the time. I do it last week, you know, like maybe four times.”
Well, that thought was scintillating enough to make my pants tighter.
“Good god, darling.” I kissed him on the cheek. “You’re really trashed.”
“Don’t care,” he slurred back. “Doesn’t matter. You’ll keep me safe.”
“Yeah.” I kissed him again. Then he turned toward me and we were kissing. The pulse of some insignificant song was throbbing in the background, and we were managing to snog along to it in some bizarre way. I thought the lyrics were something like nonsense words, too rah loo rah too rah loo rah, but then Kyle’s tongue jabbed into mine and I forgot about it.
This was where we were and what we were doing when Butters reappeared, hair (what little he had left of it) all mussed and the top three buttons on his shirt undone, big purpling marks all up and down his throat. “Oh!” He signaled to the bartender, and then turned back to us. “So this is where you’ve been!”
“Yeah,” I said, pushing Kyle off of my mouth. He made some kind of protest whimper, which was cute, but I was too sober to really indulge it. “It looks like you’ve been busy.”
A grin blossomed across his face. “A bit, yes.”
I raised my eyebrows.
Butters’ face pinkened. He turned around and shouted, “It’s okay! They won’t bite!” and from the throng of dancing patrons around the bar, a short, bespectacled ginger-haired man sauntered over. “See, they’re very nice. What did I tell you? Boys, this is Douglas.”
Douglas took this as a cue to extend his hand. I took it.
Butters introduced us as, “Stanley Marsh. And companion, Kyle Broflovski.”
“Hiiiiii,” Kyle slurred. “Those are big glasses you have.” This man, Douglas, blushed at that.
“These are very old friends of mine,” Butters continued. “Very old, very dear friends. I mean, not old — I mean, I’ve known them since university — I mean, that doesn’t really explain—”
Douglas chuckled. “I do understand.”
“So what do you do?” Kyle asked, too wasted to be self-conscious.
“Oh, I find myself in a constant state of general disarray,” he said. “And I like maths.”
“Well, from what he explained before — um, you know — Douglas just took a degree from LSE—”
“Yes, a D. Phil in non-linear time series, actually.”
“—isn’t that impressive?” Butters gushed. Then he shook his head as the bartender reappeared to hand him a drink. (I didn’t think it was very impressive.)
“I’ll get it,” Douglas offered. He fished a fiver out and tendered it.
“So, where have you two been? And how did it go with Clyde and that group?”
“Just awful,” Kyle groaned. “He is such a beast, such a dreary little fuck.”
“Who is Clyde?” Douglas asked.
“A man we studied with at Oxford,” Butters answered. “You know, he’s not really important. But, are you all right?”
“Oh, I’m fine,” Kyle replied. “Properly anesthetized and all that. Courtesy of Eric, at cost. I can still talk that fat bastard into anything. Of course, he’s also distracted by groping copious amounts of underage boy arse. We had a talk with Token as well, actually. Did you know Clyde apparently had a crush on you at university?”
“Ah, no.” Now Butters was really blushing furiously. “I didn’t really, er, talk to him, you know—”
“Well, it just figures that he would try to ease into gay sex like that.” Kyle laughed, tipping his head back with a kind of unchained chemical-related gaiety. “Going after a drag queen to mitig — mitiage — mitigate the thing, can’t do it with a real boy I suppose, I mean it was the 1960s but really.”
I saw Butters’ face fall.
Douglas raised an eyebrow. “Interesting,” he muttered. “That’s … unexpected.”
“I can explain—”
“It’s fine, I don’t—I’m not—”
Kyle was smirking, arms crossed, very satisfied with the careless cruelty he’d just thrown in Butters’ face. “Something about being blatant enough to understand, I guess, which it is, you know, I mean then that was like what people thought, you know, it just was…” He trailed off, well enough since he wasn’t even saying anything, just trying to dig himself out of a very deep hole that had made both Butters and his prospective conquest very uncomfortable.
It was about this time that I realized I was really exhausted. Sick of being a passive bystander in this conversation, I said, “Well, this was a strange night. Boys — please excuse us.”
“So very nice to meet you.” Douglas extended a small hand, which I grasped again with tentative reserve. We shook slowly.
“Oh, dear, ah — I’ll see you,” Butters added, patting me on the back. “Next weekend, I suppose. Kyle, I’ll call you.”
“Sure, that’s great, do call me.” Kyle made a phoning gesture with his pinky and thumb, holding it against his ear. “I wouldn’t fuck on the first date, though, Miss B, I know it’s been a while but they never take you seriously when I do that.”
“Miss B?” Douglas was gaping now. “You said your name was Leopold.”
“It is.” Butters sighed, hunching his shoulders.
I felt bad abandoning them like that, but it was time to get out of Camp. I glanced back at our table on the way out, but Kenny and Eric had disappeared. Figuring this entire situation a bust, I corralled Kyle outside; he clung to me the whole time, trying to bite into my shoulder.
Hailing a cab was easy enough. I knew I had about 35 pounds, which was more than suitable to get back to Kyle’s — and mine, if necessary, on the chance that I could not get out of his apartment before the Underground stopped running. All throughout the ride back to Notting Hill Gate he tried to hump me in the backseat of the taxi, babbling all sorts of wavering half-developed come-ons in my ear. I could resist this onslaught, but just barely, steeling myself against his allure with the knowledge that he was high and not thinking rational thoughts. It was rather unromantic.
I got him upstairs in the lift and managed to wrangle his key from his pocket.
“Oh,” he breathed, grabbing my wrist as I slipped it out of his trousers. “You do want it, don’t you?”
“Just your keys,” I said, leading him up to his door. “You’re going to bed.”
“Yes, exactly.”
“No, Kyle. Not with me.”
“But why?”
How to explain to him how I felt? It had been a long day, the end of a longer week, and I was still half-certain that when he woke up the next day he would be horrified to realize that what we’d been doing was a tragic mistake, a fatal tonic of sympathy and lust. Every sense in my arsenal felt dulled, and I couldn’t imagine he was faring much better with rampant neurotransmitters bouncing around inside his head. I just knew he would be a lousy lay; you don’t live through the countercultural revolution in central London without realizing that people on drugs are too aimless to thrust in the right direction. Yet they will remember they were doing it correctly, and gloat about it later, which was annoying.
About halfway to Kyle’s bedroom, having succeeded in getting him to kick off his loafers, I realized that this rationalization was all in my head, and that I was essentially trying to compensate for being too tired to will myself to do it. Generally, though, Kyle had been on the receiving end of sex against his will more often than anyone else I knew, and the thought occurred to me that depriving him of the sober ability to decide for himself would have been criminal. Were we both drunk, I would have done it in a heartbeat, without pausing to think. But the notion of taking advantage of him like this threatened to break my heart.
“I’m very tired,” I said, which was also true. We were in his bed now, and I was admiring the discolored bruises on his neck that were beginning to show through smudged concealer.
“You don’t want to fuck me,” he replied, which was so far from the truth in general.
“Well, not right now, no, but let’s do it a lot some other time, okay?”
“Why?”
“Because it’s been a really long day and a lot happened and I’m tired.”
“But why?”
We were both lying on our sides, but he was grasping me from behind, so that I was looking away from him. It felt nice to be held, as I hadn’t been for some time, but I was tried and hearing him whine was disconcerting. So I sat up, taking his hand. “I reckon you’re far too inebriated to understand this right now, darling, but I don’t consider sex to be a kind of validation. I promise you, if you let me fall asleep now I will fuck you as often and as thoroughly as you like for the rest of our lives.”
Kyle didn’t say anything at first. He was lying on his back, staring up at me with wide, hyper-alert eyes, still in most of what he’d put on to go out that night. “I want everyone to know,” he said. “It’s not fitting to make things be so clanest — clandestine.”
“I have to sleep.” I lay back down, facing him this time. “Please let me sleep.” I shut my eyes, or rather, they shut themselves, as I began to realize I could not stay awake much longer.
“Oh, okay.”
The last thing I was conscious of was Kyle climbing over me, straddling me again from behind.
Waking at about 8 a.m. to the sound of discordant birds flocking away from the park, the sun stung my eyes and I forced myself up, shocked to find that I’d slept for hours in Kyle’s bed. He was next to me still, sleeping now, mouth open and hands splayed, having rolled over in the night. It occurred to me he may have been up to vomit or something but I myself felt relatively decent, if curiously lonely.
In the kitchen I had a glass of water and found a pad of paper with the name of Kyle’s agency emblazoned at the top. Fishing a pen from one of the drawers, I scrawled a message: Lovely night. Hope you got enough sleep. Went home to shower, for fresh pants. See you Bucky Monday night? Fondly S.M. I debated with myself for a moment over whether to make this sound more personal or more romantic or to curtail any kind of effusion and let him make the next move. I stared at my writing for a while, hoping he could read it, wishing I had a typewriter so I would look polished rather than barbaric, Edwardian rather than quickly jotted with a creaky biro. But after a few moments of self-doubt I told myself that if Kyle loved me I would see him the next day, and that I really needed my toothbrush. I left this note on the vanity where I knew he would find it and kissed him briefly so that he would not stir. Then I went home, hopping on the Circle Line, heading for Farringdon.
~
“Hi.”
I glanced up from an empty whisky glass, crunching a lingering piece of ice between my very-back molars. It was typical of Kyle to be late on Monday nights — well, always, really. This time, however, rather than annoyed, I was sick with worry; he may have been avoiding me, or testing me, or simply even more nonchalant about meeting me on time, after what had been a very good but peculiar weekend. Or perhaps he was trying to banish the past three days by acting typical. All these possibilities terrified me.
But here he was, and I was so relieved to see him that I grinned madly and said, “Hello, darling,” and stood up to embrace him.
He kissed me on the lips; it was chaste but he was smiling, too. “Sorry I’m late! Oh, I’m so relieved — held up at the office, I think, I don’t even know where the time goes. But I’m … I thought you weren’t even going to be here!”
“Why wouldn’t I be?” I asked, knowing quite well that I was relieved, too.
“Oh.” He shrugged. “I don’t know. Take my coat?” He handed me a sport jacket, a sort of brocade houndstooth that looked fairly silly but I was touched to see that he was trying to impress me.
“Nice coat,” I said.
Blushing, he stammered, “Oh, you know, it’s just some thing.”
“Okay. Do you want a drink?”
“Dying for one.”
Having finally cashed my checks that morning I was able to buy him a cider and myself a can of Tetley — the taste of it was pedestrian, but it reminded me of Friday night in his parents’ garden, the stench of lamp gas and acrid fertilizer nourishing flora as it decomposed. Carrying my purchase back to the table, I felt urbane and sophisticated and overall very glad. There was no one in the bar but Kyle, myself, and the bartender. The cook may have been in the kitchen, but the last thing I felt was hungry, so it didn’t matter to me. I’d stopped by the Bucky the previous evening and flirted with as many men as I pleased, denying all of them after a drink. It had felt invigorating, and I kept hoping Kyle would be there, too, but he hadn’t been. The calm of Monday late afternoon felt almost sane compared to Sunday night.
“What did you do last night?” I asked him.
“Oh, I spent all day with Ike, actually. Well, no, I suppose all day is something of an exaggeration — I slept until noon, which was impressive considering I cannot remember when I went to bed and to be honest, I feel I’m still high on cocaine from two nights ago. Are you experiencing that?”
“No, but then, I didn’t have any.”
“Oh, curious. Well, anyway, Ike called and woke me, and we had lunch around Earl’s Court — some Turkish restaurant. Very sloppy, you know, the food was very saucy and I felt like a peasant. But, so cheap! I think we both ate for under a tenner which is impressive. Yes? Ike loves that sort of thing. I don’t know, that boy — he always likes slumming it. Then he caught a 7 p.m. train. I went with him to Euston and said goodbye and — and, well, I think I slept some more. Perfectly innocent day, really. We just — just talked. Anyway…” Kyle trailed off, and pulled something — a folded-up piece of heavy cream-colored stationery — from his waistcoat pocket. “This is for you.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know! I assumed it was confidential. Actually.” Kyle leaned in, nearly knocking over his cider (but just missing it), and whispered to me, “I told him about — well, you know, you. I assume it’s some piece of fraternal guardianship. Very exciting. He’s never actively acknowledged a relationship of mine before.”
As I unfolded the paper, I thought to myself that it was nice to know that Kyle felt we were in a relationship. I had also never received a note from Ike before; generally he found me unworthy of address. Nevertheless, he had written me one now, and it read:
To Stanley,
Kyle and I have been speaking today — rather he is talking my ear off — about all matters of disinterest. Of curious note to me is this ex-lover of yours who has passed away, and I feel compelled to write you while he is in the restroom. First and foremost, my condolences. Secondly, I thought you should be aware that the term Kyle used to describe the man’s fatal illness, “an immunodeficiency,” has caught my attention. (As virtually nothing else he has said today has.) I have been reading medical literature from various American centers for research on morbidity and mortality, and this brings to mind what a recent issue of
Here I stopped reading, folded the paper back up, and stuck it in my pocket.
“Well?” Kyle asked. “What’s it say?”
“Nothing, really,” I confessed. To be honest, I was somewhat disappointed. I suppose it was nice enough that the boy had some manners — but then again, he was the younger son of an MP, so he had to have picked up some social graces along the way. That said, why Ike felt I would be interested in his musings on medicine was beyond me. Surely he didn’t expect me to reply with several paragraphs of gay pornography, which he would probably have found just as absurd.
“Is it about me?”
I rolled my eyes. “Kyle, not everything is about you.”
He pouted. “Thanks. Cheers, that’s splendid.”
“No, I mean — it’s a letter of condolence. About Gary. Why are you discussing that with Ike?”
“Why, am I forbidden to have a conversation about it? I have to engage him about something! He doesn’t want to hear about anything being put inside anyone’s arse and I certainly don’t need to hear another word about bloody Flora. So we traded some shoptalk, that’s all. And, well, Ike did know Gary. That note didn’t indicate what killed him, did it? Gary, I mean. Ike was very curious.”
“No,” I repeated. “Kyle, look. That part of my life is over. I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
“Oh.”
For a few minutes we sat sipping our drinks, looking at one another but not quite saying anything. Two men came into the bar, followed by a few stray tourists, and then another pair of men — these with bulging upper arms and sheath-tight vests tucked into tight leather pants. I shuddered. Summer was ending, but it was far too humid still for something as outré as leather pants. Aside from the fact that one was blond and one bald, they were impossible to tell apart. At the bar, they shared a brief little kiss and one of them laughed. They couldn’t have been much younger than I, and yet I felt generations away from that entire scene.
“Staring at those blokes?” Kyle asked me.
“Oh. Er, yes.” No sense in hiding it.
“Like that?”
I shook my head. “Not particularly. Why?”
“Oh, just wondering. Anyway.” He coughed into his hand to make some kind of point, or draw the conversation back to more familiar territory. “So, here is what I am thinking: Let’s both of us finish our drinks, right? Then we can take a cab back to my place and tear each other’s clothing off and fuck on the living room floor like complete animals. I’ll make you a nice dinner — I have some smoked salmon I can do something with, perhaps make a salad. Regrettably I do think Eric ate all the pasties and I didn’t bring anything home from the restaurant yesterday. We can eat on the balcony with Radio 4 in the background, though, and then fuck a second time. I’m famished. So can we do that?”
“Sure, if you like that.”
“Sweetheart, I love it.”
And so did I.
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no subject
Date: 2011-09-10 23:00 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-11 02:18 (UTC)Also, sorry about that.
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Date: 2011-09-11 13:19 (UTC)No apology needed btw, you've gotta do what you've gotta do.
Must mention too- I was really interested by the mention of Butters speaking Polari. I don't know if you plan to show any of that at all, or if it was a passing detail, but I would revel in that like a, a...revelling thing :/ It's something that fascinates me!
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Date: 2011-09-11 22:20 (UTC)This AU is the weirdest thing because, my god, it's so AU, but I love writing it so I'm very very thankful when people tell me they like it.
Thanks for asking about Polari. I'm not planning on writing any conversations in it, if that's what you mean. I was trying to decide on whether or not Kyle should use a little in one upcoming conversation, but it's my understanding that after the cant went somewhat mainstream, the Wolfenden Report was published, and homosexuality was decriminalized, people really stopped using it. Not only was it no longer indecipherable, but it was no longer necessary/illegal to talk about gay sex in a private code-language. I think (this is serious backstory, not integral to the fic or anything) Butters wrote clandestine letters to his boyfriend in the late 1950s/early 1960s, so he had to pick up on this and use what he learned in case anyone found one of his letters. He also went into the show/theater world, sort of, which is where a lot of Polari originated, I believe. So he was much more exposed to this than Kyle and Stan, who were relatively sheltered, and when they went down from Oxford in the late 60s, the usefulness of Polari was sort of on the way out. So I guess this is a roundabout explanation for why the characters aren’t standing around speaking Polari, although they’re all familiar with it, to varying degrees.
Sorry if this is too much. I just love this story so much, I can’t shut up about it.
I’m so glad you’re reading!
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Date: 2011-09-18 15:27 (UTC)HI BUTTERS BACKSTORY HI BUTTERS ILU I'd love to read about Butters theatre years, and about any connections he still maintains now.
Polari was brought to my attention in the film Velvet Goldmine, and later (unrelated) investigation of Kenneth Williams musichall and radio works revealed he'd done a radio act incorporating Polari. If you've not heard of him, he's a bit of a tragic character in British entertainment 50's-80's, so talented but all too often in works that were beneath his abilities, utterly flaming but repressed, ridiculous and completely wonderful, I loved him from the moment I saw him in farcical films as a kid and I still totally adore him :'/ I have a copy of a solo production of 'diary of a madman' by gogol, and omg I just roll around in his voice, it's a glorious thing :] It is here (http://www.sendspace.com/file/q3tlo0) if you fancy a listen...
I wanted to reply sooner but I've been on vaycay and my only net access was my phone, which will show me the interesting things but won't let me comment and such, ffs /o\
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Date: 2011-09-18 21:59 (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-09-18 22:14 (UTC)Anyway. Ha, I’m not au fait with Tumblr either. I just stalk a few of them due to the slim margin of original content there. Do put up your stuff on DA, though! That’s how you, like, get to know people and build a base and stuff. I don’t participate that fully, but I wouldn’t worry about prepping for quality or anything. Sometimes showing people your process is the best part. I know what you mean about LJ, though. Spike/Xander, less so, but I think we all have fannish skeletons in the closet.
Re: backstory, I’ve been working on a fic about the boys at Oxford in the 60s, but it’s indulgent and horrible to delude myself with the idea that people are interested, what the fuck. Now that I think about it, though, there’s a tiny amount of Polari here and there throughout this story – it comes to mind that Stan and Kyle say “dish” or maybe “tipping dish” when they’re talking about rimming. There’s a book called Fantabulosa which is pretty good, essentially it’s a vocab list. The problem with using it in this story is that it’s not something I can necessarily learn, it’s not a language per se – it’s a king of verbal cloaking that most men who “spoke” it would have picked up from experience, learning how to use it instinctually.
But, yeah, that scene in Velvet Goldmine is kind of a thrill. And I know Kenneth Williams from Round the Horne, which I’ve listened to a bit of.
Wahey, vacay. No rush in replying, ever. I’m so glad you’re cool to talk about this stuff! I wouldn’t want to live in 1960s Britain, but it’s fun to be a culture tourist.
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Date: 2011-09-20 11:23 (UTC)I'm pleased you know Kenneth Williams, he's probably an aquired taste lol. Listening to that radio show is likely a reasonable tool for catching Polari use, but I suppose as it's a performance you still have to wonder how 'authentic' it is re everyday use? Well, it's probably authentic, but not as incomprehensible as if it were just the guys talking amongst themselves? lol
Please do indulge yourself with backstory! Er, even if there are only a handful of readers, it is good creative exercise? Or something :]Lame platitude ik, I just want it ahaha
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Date: 2011-09-23 05:01 (UTC)You could argue the other way and say that most readers wouldn't know enough Polari to see what's wrong, but I guess I stand by my original idea that by the mid-1980s, even the campiest gay men in London aren't really speaking in on a daily basis any more.
Well, I don't there there's any non-performative Polari available for anyone to peruse now, sadly. Journal entries and recorded conversations are all subject to fronting, where the user is aware of the recording process, so it would be very hard to ever ascertain how the cant was actually spoken. It sounds very manufactured by nature, doesn't it?
There's a little more Polari in that backstory, yeah, and maybe one day that'll get posted somewhere. Who knows. I'm so happy you're into this stuff, seriously.