Where the Boys Are, page 14
My days at the preeminent agricultural college of southeast England were spent in rapt enthusiasm. I guess I was a late developer in other ways. I’ve spoken about this with other rural gay boys and they all say the same thing, at least to some degree: it’s not easy to get experience. But most of them at least seek it; that’s why they all go there, usually at the first opportunity. A libido just sufficiently indignant to drive me plus my belongings the hour-and-a-quarter and a million light-years necessary insinuated itself much later for me. I was twenty-two before I finally went to London for anything other than a day trip; I accepted a two-year research post at a city-center uni. Sure, I wanted the masters, but I could have made a more appropriate choice of institution.
It wasn’t until much later that I learnt that gay societies in the city universities weren’t the sorry affairs that they were in provincial ones, which only appeared to attract the politicos—and membership in which could lead to ostracism. Succumbing to the temptation that had drawn me to the city in the first place meant, as far as I was concerned, setting foot in those places I’d read about in Gay Times and Attitude.
And what a picture I must have presented. I’ve been told that I give the impression of having sprouted from the earth itself—no bad thing for a farmer. But my idea of city clothes meant wearing a new T-shirt and my faithful old leather jacket, polishing my newest walking boots and buying a fresh pair of the cheap-but-practical jeans I always wore. All this topped off by an unruly mane of thick, dark hair. It sticks out from my head almost perpendicularly and I cut it once a year, when I remember; I think I’d forgotten the year before. It’s been pointed out that I behave as though I don’t really exist in the same dimension as everyone else; that I seem to express surprise when someone acknowledges my presence. I’m not sure how this happened; I don’t lack confidence in myself and my abilities, though it’s very true that I don’t think too much about my physical impact on the world.
So, you see, when I first turned up at the World’s End in Camden (chosen because it seemed to resemble a normal pub; places with huge dance floors were too scary) I was completely unself-conscious. It had taken me well over a month since my arrival to summon the courage and I was there to look on—to think about the possibilities whilst acting the invisible voyeur. It was as though I had complete faith in my control over what happened to me and when. I’m aware of that trait, and of its foolishness, now.
I sat with my pint—some cold, foam-headed apology for real ale—and sneaked glances at the other drinkers between paragraphs of The Guardian. My first impressions? Well, they weren’t like the motley crew I’d met at the gay soc (and who was I to talk?). In fact, after the second pint, they seemed pretty much what I’d expected (and hoped)…and they all seemed to know each other. What’s more, with every inquiring glance that came my way, my comfortable sense of invisibility diminished. I felt like the guy who’d ended up there by accident, some educated farmer in the city for a day, propping up the bar with my broadsheet. There were too many curious glances for comfort. Then, four pints in, someone took pity on me.
Tom was a kind-eyed beanpole of a boy who, I suspected, talked the hind leg off every donkey he’d not yakked into stunned silence before; yet I could also tell that he was loved. Whether or not he ever got laid was another matter. From the subsequent accounts of his friends, I suspect not; he just had his head elsewhere. I warmed to that, but I didn’t fancy him. He was too…asexual. If he had liked to come to the country, or I’d gone to the city more than I do, maybe we’d be good friends to this day, but I lost touch with him shortly after I last saw Jenner.
To cut a potentially very long story short, it was via Tom that I met Jenner, though it took me a year. In the meantime, I slept my way through almost every mutual friend of theirs—quite a number for a nonchalant sex tourist like myself. That night it was a guy called Duncan; he had the honor of deflowering me. He was a muscular glam boy from a rich family in Hertford-shire—a bit of a precious sort, as I later discovered—and not the greatest companion for a first-timer. Not to say that I was, literally, a first-timer, but I can’t really count the odd furtive fumbles in my early teens. There’d been two of them on separate occasions with different boys, but neither of them identified as anything other than straight so I ended up feeling a bit dishonest, if also satisfyingly subversive. I’d known I was gay from the age of about three.
Still, Duncan was probably the first indicator of my real-life taste in men. When I was younger, I always seemed to be attracted to the classically handsome type—the sort of guy you’d see illustrated on the covers of old Mills and Boon books. My mother used to hide a stack under her bed like evidence of a secret perversion. I even read a few, but the way the heroes were written didn’t live up to the brooding beauty shown in the pictures. A good lesson—but I put it down to the odd phenomenon that is M&B. Duncan looked like a modern version of those depictions, with shorter, overstyled hair, dark-lashed and bright blue eyes and a mouth which, though sensual, could be said to betray his self-centeredness. He was businesslike in his approach to sex; a couple of years ago, I happened to learn that he’d become the editor of the biggest British gay porn magazine, which made a lot of sense. He insisted on calling me “Jeremy,” after the singer of the Levellers, he said (though Jeremy was actually the bassist; clearly Duncan wasn’t an aficionado of crusty rock) and asked to take me back to his Finchley flat around five minutes after monopolizing me. Jenner was actually there that night; the memory of his face haunted me until I saw him again, but I didn’t get the chance to speak with him. And Duncan was good-looking enough for me…
He made us both a vodka and Red Bull before smoothly relieving me of my clothes between slurps. I sat on his sumptuous bed (the studio flat wasn’t much more than a bed-sit, though richly furnished) feeling tipsy and slightly bemused as he—equally smoothly—removed his own jeans and shirt. It seemed I wasn’t remotely expected to do anything but service him. We knew the barest facts about one another and exchanged just one short kiss before he quickly worked his way down over my chest to suck me to attention. That didn’t take long either. I was kind of shocked but more than ready; I’d been waiting twenty-two years, after all—and never expected such a pretty guy to look at me twice. When he said he wanted me to top him, a wave of panic hit me. I told him it was my first time; he said he knew and it didn’t matter. And indeed it didn’t; he talked me through the approach, the entrance and how not to shoot my load in five seconds, and Bob actually was my uncle. As a how-to guide it was exemplary; as a meaningful experience, it was lacking.
From that night, I came to learn, quite quickly, that I could be seen as the archetypal Real Man—in the sense of being strongly built and having a complexion grace of a lifetime spent mostly outside. For a lot of gay guys—epitomized by Jenner—even if they grew up in the countryside, they shunned that lifestyle. So maybe I represented that country hunk who was ever unattainable—the one who could give them the shag of their lives…but wouldn’t. Back in the country, once I’d learnt from my time in the city, I’ve managed to capitalize upon it no end; I read those fleeting, longing glances and give out the right signals in return.
In the muted autumn daylight that managed to make it through the window the next morning, Duncan looked almost every bit as much of a catch as he had through seven pints. If I had a hangover, we’d worked it off before I knew about it. Duncan went off to work happy; I went back to my flat to clean up and eat breakfast before my afternoon seminar. Life had changed; it was as though someone had put a new lens over my vision, subtly altering the hues of everything I saw. The grim streets—all that horrible concrete, the pollution-stained old buildings—ceased to feel quite so claustrophobic, albeit temporarily; the grays took on a greenish cast which made me feel happier, less alienated. Plus there was the invite to another night out that Duncan had casually thrown at me as we parted. He’d made it clear, without being too unkind, that he wasn’t expecting a repeat of our night of passion; apparently he had a policy. It was no problem to me. The last thing on my mind, at that stage, was a relationship.
And so my London social life started. Duncan and Tom were part of a nebulous gang who’d been hanging around together since the start of their university years. In the meantime, there’d been leavers and joiners—some of them boyfriends and exboyfriends of existing gang members, some of them who just happened to tag along. There were a couple of fag-hags, as the harsher amongst the guys called them, though I personally found their company on nights out a welcome diversion from the endless politics of the group. Later, I found out that the two loudest critics of the girls had each slept with one of them…you can never trust a misogynist queer. But on the whole, I liked my gang, as they became; they taught me how to enjoy the city—how to forget my homesickness for precious stretches of time—and how to have sex in every conceivable place and fashion.
And, for the first time, I didn’t have to hide that part of myself all the time. I’m lucky in that it’s not the most important part of my life, and that I’ve never felt that my sexuality is evident to strangers. I’ve never had to pretend to be someone I’m not, on the surface; school wasn’t a trial. If I could meet the right partner, we could pretty much live here without anyone knowing the details. In rural England, that’s still necessary, but at least it’s possible for me. I treated my time in London like a secondary degree course, with modules—apart from the aforementioned—including General Clubbing, Small Talk, Looking in the Mirror Before Going Out, and, yes, even Dancing (I never did too well on this one, funnily enough). As with the majority of degrees, most of the modules are pretty useless when taken outside of the context in which they were taught. And I was painfully aware of that, then as now; success in finding a partner is made infinitely easier close to the scene….
However, as the months in the city rolled by and I found myself less and less immediately needy, the countdown to the end of my four semesters began in earnest. I went home every few weeks, but the yearning still wasn’t satisfied. My masters was largely a business management course, but I’d ensured that the subject for my dissertation was agricultural; in my second year, this meant that I could escape even more regularly to further my research and catch some fresh air. The problem was that every time I escaped, I was less and less willing to return.
How can I express it? Perhaps if I give just a couple of examples of why I’m so comfortable in the country… There is the light at night, for example; in the city, it’s either glaring white or putrid orange. There is no break from it—and why? Apart from the fact that stumbling and falling on concrete hurts, there’s the ever-present fear of other people—too many of them in too small a space. So you’re forced to sacrifice any connection with the stars and the phases of the moon and meanwhile the muggers and rapists can see you more easily. Then there are the birds. City folk are so detached from their sounds and their implications that they even chase the few surviving species from the stations and pavements in case disaster strikes over their new outfit. How could I ever learn to prefer the drone of traffic to the “monotony” of a chaffinch or a blackbird? Every sound in the city assaulted me after a few months. Each to his own; Jenner made me accept that, but I will never understand. However it pans out, my life is about more than just people….
When my father died after a long battle with cancer, my desire to leave London was no longer merely for selfish reasons. My mother was already sixty-five years old; I was their only child, an afterthought in their forties. I’d been involved in the running of the farm since my midteens; it was already virtually mine and my mother was exhausted with the running of it. We had two good employees, but I needed to get back to take over.
It was with all of this going on in my life and my head that I met Darren….
He’d been to Australia for a year, working in a Sydney bar. By the time I met him, he was a sophisticated twenty-four-year-old, confident in his identity and his place in the world—so he’d have you believe. And I guess I liked that in him at the time…just as he seemed to like the contrasts in me—the fact that I was happy in the skin I was born in and didn’t have that need for sophistication. I wonder if he sees it the way I do after all these years, or whether he’d still tell me, not in so many words, that the aspect of me he most appreciated simultaneously made me a less than fully formed gay man in his eyes. He’d tell me he couldn’t touch me for cool and self-assurance but I could read the subtext so easily; I was cool and self-assured because I made no effort for my image. That made me uncivilized.
We met in the World’s End, funnily enough. I might have taken it for déjà vu, but when we were introduced, Jenner said he remembered me from that first night too. He took my hand in his and shook it lightly but meaningfully, holding onto the ends of my fingers just a little too long. It would sound arrogant had I not already explained my experience with the rest of the gang, but there was very little doubt in my mind that I would be finally sleeping with this boy that night. And how right that he should be the last of them….
It wasn’t that he was spectacularly beautiful or anything. Is it ever like that—I mean, when you’re acting on instinct rather than merely beauty-hunting? (I’ve met a few guys who do that.) He had a rich kind of face—one that suggested we’d have things to talk about after sex. He probably would be technically termed attractive too: his skin was a perfect texture, his lips worthy of Caravaggio; there was an intense, intelligent look about his deep brown eyes. And he was giving me those looks—the ones I was too green to interpret the first time I saw him across that crowded room a whole, long year before.
When I managed to break the spell of our first mutual appraisal, I immediately asked him where he’d been—managing to leave off the all my life, which he promptly filled in for me. We both laughed, but we knew that destiny was knocking. When Jenner looked at me like that, I was there. The lightest touch of his fingers on my forearm resounded throughout my body. Yet we didn’t rush into anything; it was three intense evenings later that we actually went home together. Even then, we took it slowly. It had to be savored.
There followed almost ten months of passion, tenderness, arguments, understanding, love and incomprehension. I guess you might call it a standard relationship in those respects. Or maybe not. Looking back, I know that from my side of things, the situation back home and that whole yearning sometimes gave me more of a bear’s head than I’m normally guilty of. Perhaps I was also grieving for my dad. But Jenner was in a different league. I never knew where his head would be from one day to the next, and we saw one another most evenings even before we moved in together. He’d taken a job in media sales—a not-so-great use of his upper second-class degree, as he knew—and he was always hyped. As far as he was concerned, my work was not only pointless but easy for me. He was right in the latter sense. But thank god I’d always managed to stick to my rule of finishing study by seven o’clock; if I’d tried to work with him around, it would never have happened.
Two hours every night were spent unwinding Jenner from whichever convoluted mental position he’d got himself into that day. After that, there was the occasional added debate about what we were doing together. After that, there would be something to eat, something to drink, possibly an outing, then sex. Weekends, thankfully, weren’t quite so stressful; without them, I think we’d have split up after a few weeks. As it was, those weekends became the vertebrae of our relationship, connected by vulnerable cartilage and nerves. It was odd, and fascinating, the way the rest of the gang treated us after we got together, like a crowd parting to watch an impromptu spectacle. On three occasions, I was propositioned by guys who’d previously snubbed me; Jenner had the same experience, though, in his case, the numbers were higher. My possessiveness didn’t make things any calmer. I tried to curb it, but, in my defence, I was in love, and for the first time. My comparative maturity made no difference. Perhaps there was also an element of self-preservation on a more serious level; we’d been tested together twice, and dispensed with protection. Despite our long conversations about the rightness or otherwise of our partnership—maybe because of them—we both felt we were in it for the duration.
During the eight months together before the end of my course, Jenner came home to Kent with me only two times, each for only two nights. My mother disliked him on sight and told me so, but made nice with him because, as she put it, it (he) was my mistake to make. I think she was rather glad I was gay; if she was critical of men, it was nothing compared with her ferocity toward women. Add to that the fact that I was her only child and it became comparable with the fabled paternal protectiveness over daughters. I suppose that was my first real eye-opener with Jenner—seeing him around someone I knew so well and could read so easily. Having said that, I’d have thought her behavior was hard to miss. He just didn’t clue on; he really thought her good hostess act was genuine. Was he actually so dumb that he couldn’t see falseness that blatant? Or was it more a case of his having built up such a sturdy self-image—like a firewall around himself—that anything unpleasant or threatening just bounced away unnoticed unless it were spelt out explicitly and allowed entry? On the one hand, something a work colleague or client would say to him could upset him so profoundly, yet he’d miss all the signs when I was unhappy with something he’d done. Jenner forced me to be more verbally combative than anyone I’ve ever known. What happened with my mum made me realize why.
Other than that, for those first visits home, we had a good time and I had no reason to acknowledge the gaping chasm between us. I believe that everyone needs to feel the open air sweeping across landscapes not peppered with tall buildings and human ruination—even if they’re not aware of it. Jenner certainly benefited; the overt tension seemed to float away those first two times. Between tasks on the farm, I took him out walking, showed him all the secret places I’d known as a kid and pointed out various plants, insects and birds. The fact that he even seemed interested in the things I was telling him—like remembering to rub his arm with a dock leaf when he got stung the second time by a nettle—gave me hope for our future.
