Boy Crazy, page 11
But morning changes everything. Especially when you were drunk the night before. Howard left at first light. David stayed, nursing a headache and more. He had woken to find himself a different person from the one who had woken yesterday. Romeo, he thought bitterly. He was appalled by what he had done. He even smelt different. He got up and had a hot bath. It made no difference. He’d let himself be conned, he thought. The way forward made him feel sick. There was no way back.
All day he planned, scripted, and mentally stage-managed his next conversation with Howard. It ought to be in broad daylight, in a public place, the street, a pub. There should be lots of people about, there should be noise. They would see each other, shout, “Hi,” and laugh, then go their separate ways, their laughter an unambiguous symbol that last night had been a random event, not to be repeated: a drunken aberration. They would be able to show that they were still friends, that their friendship was all the better for their one shared moment of eccentric behavior. One day far in the future they might be able to bring it up in conversation over a drink and say philosophically, “Remember that night? What was all that about, then?” All this David and Howard would convey in their laughing greeting when they met next in the sunshine, in the busy world.
That their next meeting could not be like that should have been obvious. They had to meet that evening at work instead. They did not share a dressing room and, though David hoped right up to the last minute they might run into each other in the corridor before curtain-up, they eventually met for the first time onstage, in full Elizabethan costume and makeup, with rapiers and daggers complete. They wore handsome matching smiles, but there was lead in David’s eyes and heart.
After the show David got changed. He stopped being an actor, hung his Romeo and his triumph on a hook, and wiped his role from his face with removing cream. In jeans and trainers he joined the queue in the fish and chip shop like any other young man, indistinguishable from the rest. You might have driven past him on your way home from the theater, still talking about his splendid performance, seen him queuing there and, never noticing, driven on.
David walked home, eating as he went, and bumped into Howard, quite literally, as he was rounding a corner. “Sorry,” he said first, then seeing who it was, added “Hallo,” flatly. He thought, Fate.
“I thought it might be you,” said Howard with as little enthusiasm.
They stood together in a shop doorway, sharing David’s chips. “I don’t know what to say,” said David.
“Doesn’t matter,” Howard said.
“I meant about last night. I behaved a bit out of character. I don’t usually do…you know…the things we did.”
“You don’t usually give in to spontaneous natural desires, you mean?”
“I don’t mean that. Fuck you, Howard. What I meant to say was, I shouldn’t have behaved the way I did. If I gave you misleading signals, then I’m really, really sorry. Please accept that.”
“Misleading signals? A hearty fuck, jubilantly given, and another one just as enthusiastically received…If those were just signals I’d like to know what constitutes a declaration of…of whatever.”
“You twist my words,” David objected. “I’m not gay.”
“Okay. No problem. You’re not gay. You slept with a man last night. Live with that. You’ll be in good company. All over the world a million men are doing just that—living with that apparent contradiction, and that’s just since last night.” David smiled in spite of himself. “Well, I can live with that too,” Howard went on. “And I still think you’re gorgeous.”
David hadn’t known Howard thought that. He hadn’t mentioned it before. It made David feel slightly better. “Those chips weren’t enough,” he said. “Guess we’d better go back and get some more.”
Outside the chip shop, a fresh bundle of supper in their hands, David said, “May as well go back to my place to eat them, I suppose. Since it’s just round the corner. What were you doing round here anyway?”
“Coming to call on you.”
“Why?”
“Not sure. To try to put things right between us, I suppose. That is, if I could. Maybe just to talk, to say hallo. Oh, here’s a wine shop. I’ll call in and get a bottle to keep us company.”
“In case we run out of things to say?” David meant to sound sardonic but it didn’t quite work.
They didn’t run out of things to say. They talked until the small hours and until the bottle of wine was a distant memory. David said, with what he wanted to be a weary sigh, “I suppose you may as well stay over if you want to. We don’t have any surprises for each other anymore.” Standing face-to-face beside the bed they began to undress each other, and neither was in the least surprised to find the other displaying a full and frank erection when at last their most intimate reaches were revealed.
This night they made love to each other more gently, more tenderly, yet somehow more intensely as they each fucked each other—just as on the previous night—and then got fucked, turn by turn.
They stayed in bed till nearly noon, then spent most of the next day together. In the evening when they met onstage again their eyes shone bright and clear once more, and it was those of Juliet that Romeo’s gaze could not meet.
In the days and weeks that followed, the theater company came first to realize and then to accept that they had become a couple. Even Sian knew a fait accompli when she saw one. And little by little David began to understand that for the first time in his life he was falling in love. He knew Howard deeply now: physically, through their bedtime sexual explorations, and personally, emotionally, through their conversations, through just being together. And everything that David knew about Howard was now wonderful. He would have died for him. Nothing that had gone before, with any of his girlfriends, had measured up to this. And yet he would have to part from Howard—he had no illusions about this—when the run of Romeo was ended. Howard had a boyfriend in London, and Howard would go back to him. He always did.
David had a girlfriend in London, but he would not be going back to her. Their phone conversations were growing more distant by the week. Both of them knew, without David having to explain anything, without her having to ask painful questions, that when they met again they would be meeting only in order to part. It would not be an easy meeting, David knew. However much as they might try not to hurt each other, both would get hurt; that was the nature of things; but it would happen anyway.
First love—at twenty-three! The love against which all that followed would be measured. David had discovered from being in love with Howard that this meant infinitely more to him than playing Romeo, more than his acting career, more than whatever golden panoply of talent he might possess. His life was changed utterly and nothing would ever be the same again.
David walked into the theater bar. The last performance of Romeo and Juliet was finished. The room was full of holdalls, flight bags, and backpacks. Howard’s was among them, David’s not. He alone had had his contract renewed. He would be playing Konstantin in Chekhov’s The Seagull. There was the chance of a London transfer…
Howard had bagged a couple of well-paid commercials, with a little help from his agent, and would soon be smiling encouragement at the consumer from a corner of the consumer’s own living room. Right now he was sitting across the barroom from David, his luggage between his knees. David called across. “Pint of best?” He’d reached the front of the bar queue.
“Small whiskey only. Lots of M6 to cope with.”
David went and sat with him. “I don’t want you to go. I shall miss you.”
There were people all around them. David didn’t care whether they heard or not. It was a common enough Saturday night scene.
“Miss you,” said Howard. He touched the back of David’s hand for a moment.
“I think I’ve been in love with you,” said David, understating his case somewhat.
“I think I can say the same.” Howard’s voice was soft, almost breaking. “But what is love without loss? Nobody wins with love. If you are born to love you are born to lose.”
David looked at Howard’s glass of whiskey. “Sure you’re okay to drive?”
“To love is to lose. Love is loss. That’s all.”
David finished his drink and got up. “Have a safe journey,” he said, then smiled wryly. “I must love you and lose you now. See you again some day. Actors’ paths always cross and recross.
Hope so anyway.”
Howard stood up and they embraced and kissed for quite some time. None of the people around them batted an eyelid. Then David rumpled Howard’s hair, turned and left the room.
He would miss the gentle touch of Howard in the night, miss the rumbustious thrusting of his cock inside him, miss spearing Howard’s sphincter with his own cock, miss his sweet warm breath when they woke sometimes in the small hours just to kiss. He didn’t know where he would find such a love again, nor how nor when. But he’d learned at least in which direction he should be looking. And how to recognize it when it next appeared.
GAME BOYZ
F. A. Pollard
The guy had his eye on me long before we met.
Of course, I didn’t know that. At the time, I was busy kicking Greg’s ass at Street Fighter.
The summer after high school, before I was due to start at Riverview Technical College, Greg and I shared an apartment together downtown. I had graduated at seventeen, had just turned eighteen, and had always been the smallest and weakest guy in my class. Greg was a year older and had been my buddy since elementary school. He stuck up for me, fought fights for me, palled around with me when no one else would. In exchange, I did most of his homework and all of his papers, effortless because I was smart and bored. School came too easily for me, but my parents weren’t aware enough to bump me up a grade. When they finally figured it out, my guidance counselor advised them that it would be a social struggle to skip, that I would miss too much of the curriculum. Whatever. When my voice changed my looks changed, too, matured; bullies quit picking on me and girls started noticing me. Socializing was less of a problem, but I still stuck with Greg. We double-dated, lost our virginity on the same night in the same car, Greg in the front seat and me in the back. He changed girls regularly. I met Kristen near the end of eleventh grade and started going steady. Now there was no more homework to exchange for Greg’s friendship. So I kept dating her to put Greg at ease. To prove myself.
Because while I was out with Kristen or when I jerked off in the shower, I thought about boys. Mostly Greg.
Not that I was in love with him. But I was horny, and he was the most available male, the most familiar guy in my tiny bubble of a life. I knew his habits and his smells, the way he left his shirttail hanging out of his pants. The way downy hair was sprinkled along his neck. The hard feel of the muscle in his shoulder when I pressed against him.
Our passion was arcade video games, and there was one place at the mall that had a bunch of refurbished machines from the 1980s and 1990s. I was good at some, but Greg was better at most. Sometimes we played together, but normally I just watched him. Those were the times I lived for because I would get into the game, almost doze a little, and rest against Greg, pushing my shoulder against his and smell the tang of his armpits or the odor of the stale shirt he had pulled out of the dirty clothes and covered with five-dollar aftershave. This physical closeness would last as long as his game did. I always encouraged him to play Galaxians because that was the one he was best at, and as long as he had ships in play, he would let me lean on him. When he finally lost, he would smirk and shove me away and say, “Get off me, you faggot.” I would smile and roll my eyes. But he never discouraged me, and as soon as he was playing again, he’d let me press against him. I think I flattered him with my attention, my devotion. As long as I had a girlfriend and was fucking her, it was okay. As long as it was just a game, as long as I never let him know I had a hard-on the whole time.
As long he never found out that he was the reason I took so many showers, Greg didn’t mind me playing a fag.
That day, after I beat him at Street Fighter—he always tried different characters, but I perfected the use of Chun-Li’s lightning kicks and usually won—I tried to talk him into Galaxians. But he wanted to play pinball, so I went over to play Gyruss. I was in the middle of a bonus round when someone behind me said, “They come out from the bottom and split.”
The voice was rich and masculine and gave me chills. I turned around and he said, “You’re missing the bonus.”
When I saw him, I didn’t care. He had black hair gelled up in spikes and skin like silk, smooth and unblemished. My gaze ran the length of his throat to his chest; the first few buttons of his charcoal gray shirt were open, revealing a delicious, slight swell of muscle; he wore a shiny double-edged razor blade on a chain. I glanced down to tight black pants, appreciating his firm body and a quality of dress and self finer than the regulars at the arcade. Looking up, I saw his glittering eyes: eyes so dark that they looked black, as if they were all pupil, eyes fringed with long, black lashes. And holy shit he smelled good.
By the time I recovered, it was too late to save the game and I lost all my ships.
“Sorry,” he said. “Thought I was helping.”
“That’s okay, I was losing anyway.”
“No, you weren’t.” He put tokens into the machine and said, “I’ll keep my mouth shut this time.”
I couldn’t believe this guy was hanging around me, talking to me. And I didn’t want him to leave. “Why don’t you tell me how to play the bonus rounds?”
And he said, “Okay.”
It was distracting at first, knowing I had this hot guy right behind me, almost touching me. I imagined his arms sliding around me, his wet lips grazing the back of my neck, his warm breath wafting into my hair, his erection grinding against my ass…
“Whoa,” he said, as my ship blew up on the first warp.
Concentrate. I had to concentrate or he would go away. I had to play well and give him something to watch. So I did. I focused and listened to his tips about where the enemies would come from. I made it through the Jupiter bonus round before I lost my last ship.
“That was some great playing,” he said as I entered my initials. I had the number four high score.
Brushing past me, he put more tokens into the machine and started to play. He was good, really good. I watched him swinging his ship around, tapping the fire button, handling the joystick like this was the only machine he ever played. I lost myself in the game, and I leaned against him. I’d known this guy for fifteen minutes but somehow it didn’t matter. I eased my chest against his back, the way I sometimes did with Greg, only this was so much better. This felt right, this felt safe, this felt like the culmination of so many loose ends in my life, the high point I’d been living for. He didn’t shove me off; in fact, unless I was out of my mind, it felt like he shifted closer, fitting our bodies together. I closed my eyes and drifted in the perfection of the moment, breathing him in like sweet perfume. He didn’t smell like Greg at all. He smelled like clean sweat and fresh soap and hot sex. He smelled like all my fantasies rolled into one. I could see him naked above me, the mix of his flavors on my tongue and the supple grace of his skin in my hands and that voice like hot fudge sauce pouring in my ears, telling me everything he was going to do.
His back straightened.
My eyelids flew open as my heart gave a jolt, and I stepped away to adjust my cock. I watched him bump me down to fifth place to enter his initials into second. The same initials were first and third and fourth:
ZEN.
“You’re Zen!” I was awed. But he didn’t seem to notice.
“Zen. Short for Zeno. It’s Greek.”
His elaboration warmed me, as if he had shared something deeply personal.
“You want to come outside with me?” he said. “I need a smoke.”
“Okay.” I looked back where I had left Greg but didn’t see him; he was my ride home. “Sure.”
Zen pushed out through the emergency exit, and it surprised me that the alarm didn’t go off. “It’s been broken for three months,” he said.
A cinder block hallway led to another door that opened to the darkness of an alley behind the mall, where delivery trucks could pull up to the stores.
“You smoke?” he said, shoving the pack at me. I shook my head and watched him pull out a cigarette, put it up to his lips, flick his lighter.
“Shit,” he said.
Then everything fell out of his hands and he gripped the sides of my face, sealing his mouth against mine. His lips were soft and moist, and I opened to his tongue, feeling him take possession of me, pressing his chest against my own.
I had an immediate, aching hard-on as he shoved me up against the wall. Every inch of my skin blossomed for him. My entire body was an erection. My mind glowed white, the world blanked away, and everything in the entire universe was him kissing me, nothing except him kissing me and the feel of his hands as they left my face and tugged at my jeans, jerking at the zipper.
His fingers were like magic and I came in his palm, swallowing a cry and biting down on his lower lip trapped between my teeth. He shuddered against me, his sinewy body pinning me so hard to the brick that I almost couldn’t breathe.
“Fuck,” he said, slumping, and pulled his other hand out of his own pants. I put my arms around him, and we rested together, inhaling the cool night air.
“Fuck,” he said again, more softly, and touched his mouth with the hand that had taken me. He looked at the blood from where I had bitten him, then slid two fingers between his lips. As he sucked on them, my cock stirred again.
