Boy of the Westend

by Zack

  The Bakerloo line platform heaved with the theater and cinema rush hour. It was standing room only when the tube train pulled in. The sick sensation in the pit of his stomach which had plagued him since leaving Archer Street began to abate. He shoved his way in and leaned back against the doors when they slid shut. His brain revolved around a single thought, which centered on the guy with whom he had just spent an intimate hour and the fact that he just didn’t look like the sort of man who wanted to do such things. His look, the cut of his face, the way he walked, talked, acted—none of it added up to his being a queer. Now the older man squeezed against the bulkhead over there, he has all the mannerisms. Along with his peers at school, Mike had been taught to recognize a poofter by TV comedians like Frankie Howerd, celebrities like Liberace, and the satirical magazine Private Eye, whose writers saw queers in society everywhere. And the other two with him. Quite obvious, the way that one flicks a finger tip in that prissy, primping manner across his eyebrow, and the girly wiggle of the shoulders. I’ll bet he minces when he walks.

  The train ground to a halt between St. John’s Wood and Swiss Cottage. Mike stared at his reflection eerily painted against the backdrop of dusty electrical cabling running along the tunnel wall a foot beyond the glass. He never flounced. In fact he was frequently described by some in Fabian as bumptious, the opposite of prancing. Nope, nothing he could discern as being woofty-pooterish there, not one of Private Eye ’s “pooves.” It was confusing and not a little alarming to think that anyone—any man—might be another man-boy lover.

  The bogies under the carriage ground metallically, and the train lurched into motion with a bass whine. The actinic splash of an electrical spark lit the tunnel wall for a split-second. His first experience as a… professional? left him feeling empty and grubby, and not just from the American guy’s dried cum on his thigh where he hadn’t had the time to wipe all of it off. The sexual thrill Playguy had provided suddenly seemed tarnished, a bit cheap—not that the fifteen quid in his pocket was cheap. Through the slight gap in the carriage doors, Mike sniffed the electrical discharge from the live rail, a smell of burned metal, which brought to mind all kinds of memories associated with traveling the Underground—good ones mostly: of going to the Imperial War Museum when he was… oh, a long time ago; or to buy switching points and new rolling stock for his Märklin train set at Hamleys in Regent Street; the day they all went to visit the Cutty Sark at Greenwich and they lost little Will in the gift shop and after they found him went and had tea in the Royal Observatory. Many, many joyous trips as a kid.

  He didn’t think he’d ever be clean again.

  “Oh, it’s you.” Daphne wrinkled his nose in a distinctly disparaging manner.

  “You said it would be all right on a Thursday afternoon.”

  The Incognito salesman raised eyebrows and pointedly glanced over first one shoulder then the other in a theatrical gesture of spying out the land. “Hmm, seems to be safe. So what is it today?”

  Mike placed the September issue of Playguy on the counter and then pointed at the shelves behind and to one side of Daphne. “And can I have one of those packets of… you know.”

  “Baby, you’re much too young to be fucking. What flavor?”

  Mike looked nonplussed.

  Daphne leaned his tall frame over the counter. “Sweetheart, if we’re going to be wearing one, we want the man fellating us to enjoy the taste. Personally…”—he reached behind him and slapped a box down on the gleaming glass—“when I’m going down on a date I prefer the classic Durex myself. In this twelve-pack you get two each of strawberry sundae, hot chocolate, ice cream, crazy cola, blueberry muffin, and orange soda. Every one a delicious buzz, and even with the best of the flavor sucked away, the thing’s safe for a hard screw.” He straightened up with the same satisfied expression the fat dinner lady at the school’s dining hall had on her face when she handed over the huge serving dishes to those charged with carrying them to the tables. She never patted her ass the way Daphne did, though. “They’re twenty-five pence, dear.”

  Mike handed over the money and Daphne slipped the purchases into a small, plain brown paper bag.

  “I don’t know what you want them for. Wearing a rubber robs all the feeling, I say. Mind, I suppose it depends whether you’ll be donning the thing or your date will be.” He winked broadly.

  Mike blushed. “I— I was warned that you can catch hepatitis or herpes—”

  “Not to mention the clap, the syph, and all those other nasty V.D. things. But really, that’s what the clinics are for, darling. It’s just like being a Catholic.” Daphne bit the word off and arched his eyes again in mock horror. “You’re not a papist are you?”

  Mike shook his head.

  “Phew! Well, it’s just the same. Go forth and sin and then the nice V.D. doctor at the clinic will give you absolution. There may be a small penance to pay (beyond getting on your knees to thank him appropriately when he pronounces you cured, which is de rigueur ), a trifle of discomfort, a touch of bodily discharge, but in days you’ll be right as rain, and ready to go forth and sin again.”

  Mike smiled politely, took his change, and headed out into the early September sunshine. He felt easier in himself. The long vac was almost at an end. His Fox Talbot job had been interesting and earned him some cash, his nocturnal prowling in company with Jim, Donny, and one or two other youngsters of the Atter-ridge Lads, as Donny called themselves, had brought in wealth beyond his imagining, particularly after a run-in with Jim about the split, which the pimp had reluctantly improved. And all in all, nothing had been too terrible or weird; mostly hand jobs and getting sucked off. A few clients had requested blow jobs, and in the case of a guy he liked the look of, hardly older than himself, he’d given in and serviced him with, he had to admit, some pleasure.

  Being a rent-boy certainly had its downsides. Cheap hotel rooms, draughty bed-sits, and the uncertainty and risk took their toll. And Mike had seen plenty of kids on the game—younger, some older—worn down by the boredom of hanging about and the exhaustion of paid-for sex, which was usually soulless and without enjoyment. And then the drugs. So many smoked and shot up harder stuff to give themselves a lift and to put a spark into the drudgery. He told himself often that he had a life beyond this—a family, a home to go to, an education he enjoyed—and thank God screwing with strangers was a hobby, not a real job. Far from drawing him into the coterie of the heroin high and cocaine cool—the “Fellowship of the Fling,” as Jules once punned it—witnessing what the hard drugs did to his hustler colleagues had a profoundly negative effect on Mike. Pot was his limit, and that infrequently.

  And yet for him the business wasn’t anything like as tawdry or dangerous as he’d first imagined it to be. Jim pimped safe and made sure the prospective punter had an “approved” place to take Mike, Donny, or one of the other string of lanky kids he trailed; otherwise there was the Safe House, a reasonably clean “equal opportunities” brothel off nearby Long Acre which cost the johns more but kept things controllable. Jim also subtly warned the renter that most of his boys were not yet twenty-one, tap on the side of his nose, know-what-I-mean? It made the purchaser aware that they had to behave decently if the law were not to be called in. “So if the boys want, they’ll fuck you, but you don’t fuck them, not if they don’t want it,” he would tell the steamers. As a result, Mike’s Durex were just a precaution in case a punter got insistent, not that Mike intended getting done. If tupping were on the menu, he’d be the one doing it. But in fact he didn’t really want it. If he were honest, he wasn’t keen on fucking. It didn’t seem right. Absurdly, quaintly, romantically, he knew, he wanted to save that up for the right person. Besides, he’d be back at school in days, and that would be the end of Dilly nights. For the time being.

  And, joy of joys, contrary to popular assumption among his teachers and The Boonehead, Mike received eight exam passes at reasonable to very good grades (okay, a scrape-through in Additional Maths, but that was the worst r
esult), so now back to school and the sixth-form slog to A-Levels. He was determined, whatever parents and school masters thought, to do a science subject and art, as well as keeping up the photography, which he hoped would lead ultimately to a place in one of the few colleges teaching film technique. Who knew, like the kid who ended up in Schlesinger’s nookie-nest, he might find a famous movie director to pick him up and make his career rise inevitable. Must check out in Films & Filming to see if there are any snide indications as to sexual preference among the current crop of directors and producers…

  Of course it was stupid to take his two copies of Playguy back to Fabian as the Michaelmas term commenced. He’d just got to the point where he couldn’t manage without some pictorial relief and was sure he’d be able to sneak that in. Anyway, the incriminating evidence was safely tucked under a small pile of Films & Filming in his tuck box, and a fellow’s tuck box was considered inviolate—unless it was Jansen’s and that was his fault for having a mother who regularly delivered vast squares of chocolate cake covered in delicious chocolate frosting which everyone demanded slices of and tended to help themselves to.

  “I hate being a boarder.”

  “What, even as a senior now, Jules?”

  Julian scowled darkly at Mike from a forehead made naked by the regulation haircut. He still flicked his head, a twitch to push back a fringe that no longer existed. “What a bummer. The effing dayboys don’t have to start until Monday, and here we are, Friday evening, piling into this stinky hole for another three months, an entire weekend wrecked.”

  “It’s to help us settle in.”

  “I don’t need settling in!” There came a dull thud from Julian’s tuck box. He kicked again where it sat beneath the desk he’d appropriated under the sub-basement room’s high window. The mid-senior “den” now housed himself, Mike, and two others starting their Remove year in the sixth forms.

  “At least no one will forget the date.”

  Julian nodded glumly. “Yeah, fifth of September and the bloody I.R.A. blow up the Hilton.”

  “Has anyone owned up to it? I haven’t heard anything since lunchtime.”

  “Who else would it be?” Julian dug a leather-cased transistor radio from his battered tuck box and thumbed the power switch. A hiss of static resolved into the LBC news. Mike smiled. Trust Julian to listen to London’s more serious radio broadcaster when everyone else opted for popular Capital Radio.

  —of the Bomb Squad has just confirmed that the London Hilton on Park Lane was the subject of a bomb attack at just after midday today. The explosion took place in the hotel’s lobby. Two are known to have been killed, and the number of injured has risen to sixty-three. At least twenty are known to be in a critical condition. Scotland Yard has also said that an anonymous phone call was received by the Daily Mail ten minutes before the bomb detonated, and the Provisional Irish Republican Army has claimed responsibility—

  “Told you,” Julian said smugly. He flicked the radio off with a flourish.

  The bombing dominated conversation at the boarders’ tea—battered cod ( cos it’s been battered to death with a blunt instrument ) and chips with garden peas ( like green bullets ), a sop to disgruntled boys returning for another slog to the Christmas vacation. And it continued to provoke lively debate right through the weekend during which Fabian’s house monitors organized the coming term’s various sports activities and threatened the four new boys—one of whom was young William Smith, dubious keeper of sexy secrets—with the horrors of School Knowledge, a learning process which they would invigilate rigorously in one week’s time. In this ordeal, the wretched new boys would be expected to know by heart, among many other useless things, the colors, designs, and significance of twenty-two different school ties as well as the regulations surrounding the greeting in school and on the street of masters, their wives, school monitors, and prefects. It was precisely this kind of rigmarole Mike detested and wanted to be rid of, although at the level of seniority he had now attained there was a deal less of the stupid folderol the third-formers had to put up with.

  And his wish came true somewhat sooner than he expected. Two and a bit weeks later, in fact. It all came about because of an illegal out-of-bounds outing on the Monday night of September 22. Paddy Dogget, a boy from the next-door boarding house, had arranged with three others, including Mike, to slip out after junior lights-out time, rendezvous and then take the tube into Town to see the Kursaal Flyers at the Marquee Club. Everything would have been fine had Mike remembered his fake ID, but he forgot. In the rush to break back into Fabian, grab the ID from where it was hidden in the pages of a Films & Filming magazine and sneak out again, he unthinkingly left the pile of periodicals out on his desk.

  “That cunt Hetherington came in the Den and went through them. I’m afraid he found more than he was bargaining on,” Julian said the next morning of Fabian’s head boy as he and Mike stood alone in the Den. And then he added, “Far out, man! Are you really a poof?”

  His friend’s expression of bemused admiration mixed with deep confusion did nothing to calm Mike’s convulsing stomach. He couldn’t bring himself to look Julian in the eye. “Jules, does anyone…?” The shrug was eloquent.

  Julian shook his head. “I don’t think so. The Boonehead only dragged me in because he knows we’re friends. I think he wanted some sort of confirmation, like had you ever ‘interfered with my private parts,’ kind of thing. ‘Strewth, sir,’ I said, ‘I hadn’t a clue.’ And I didn’t. Really. Still, what the fuck? So you bat for the other team.” Julian dropped his head enquiringly to peer under Mike’s lowered brow with a smile that seemed kindly. “Do you?”

  Mike sniffed, and peered up from under his dark lashes. “I’m gay,” he quietly confirmed. Then he straightened, gave his head a double shake of resolve and fixed a bright smile. “I’ve known it since I was… oh, thirteen, fourteen, maybe even earlier, but there’s nothing to read, no one to talk to, so…”

  “What about those sex -ee magazines Hetherfuckerington found?”

  “That’s all new stuff. They only just started selling that sort of thing recently. I didn’t know about anything like that.” He shrugged in a resigned manner. “It probably had to come out at some point, and it’s my stupid fault.” He explained the cock-up with the ID and leaving the mags out in his hurry. And then on his return, his head still ringing with the Kursaal’s live rendition of Speedway, Mike had scrambled across from the sub-basement window’s retaining wall to the bay window of the Junior Common Room he’d left cracked-open and slipped over its sill to find a stern Mr. Boone and a puritanically frowning Hetherington in full school prefect regalia waiting for him. The short interview in the housemaster’s study hadn’t gone well.

  “Don’t deny that this filth is yours, Smith,” Boone began in a flat and ostentatiously disappointed tone.

  Hetherington gave a disgusted sniff. The head of house was not even a year Mike’s senior, but he acted major grown up.

  “So The Boonehead thinks I’m a dangerous influence,” he told Julian. “The upshot is he wants me gone—”

  “Expelled!”

  “The phrase he used was ‘transferred to a more suitable environment,’ and—”

  “What, a gay disco or something? I mean, I suppose they exist.”

  Mike’s smile widened. “Very funny, Jules. No, another school, and I don’t mind.”

  Julian nodded his understanding. “As you’ve said before, that Quintin Kynaston place up your folks’ way?”

  “Yeah. It’s a good one, and I’ll be free of this dump, free to go out at nights if I feel like it without having to sneak around.”

  Julian turned a wistful gaze on the cracked ceiling. “Out to get laid by some handsome hunk, no doubt. Hmmm, it’s not my bag, but I envy you in a way. Girls are so damned difficult. I bet boys are a lot easier when you want to get laid.”

  In spite of their closeness, Mike couldn’t quite shake off the uneasy feeling he got discussing sex with Julian, particu
larly when it touched so close to home. And then suddenly all this airing of it empowered him, especially as—to Mike’s astonishment and gratitude—his best friend seemed pretty unmoved by the bombshell. On the contrary, he sensed Jules was actually fascinated to be confronted by someone the opposite of what he’d thought of as super-normal. He felt an almost perverse desire to spill the beans properly, push it to the limit, and see how far Jules could take it. He puffed out his round cheeks and grinned widely. “You’re right. I had a whale of a time during the summer break. I had a gas. Got gobbled off left, right, and center.”

  “Euww…” Julian screwed up his face in a comical expression of disgust, which instantly dissolved into a mock-frown. “Actually, that’s so outta sight,” he complained enviously and pulled a sour grimace to match. “I always have this scene in my head where the girl gets out this… Never mind. It’s never gonna happen, is it? As I said, boys must be so much easier. And your brother?”

  Mike looked indignant. “I never touched him!”

  Julian sucked in a corner of his mouth. “I didn’t mean that. Does he know?”

  “No, so don’t say anything. Actually, I think he might suspect, and he’s loud-mouthed enough as it is.”

  And that was pretty much it. Packed up and returned home. Mr. Boone, to credit him, had a long phone conversation with Mike’s father to explain how he supported his son in switching schools right now at the start of the sixth-form, that being a day boy at home would be beneficial and yada, yada, yada. If anything, Will was relieved not to have the pressure of an older brother held over him in the cloistered boarding house and sanguinely pointed out to Mike how much better their relationship would be when they saw each other during vacations rather than every day. Mike felt like slapping him around the chops, but instead gave his little brother a hug which had Will in a squirm of embarrassment in front of his peers. The taunts hurled at Will by his mates as a result did a lot to improve Mike’s mood.