by Riley Meyer
When I told Maura what had happened with Mark, she was so excited she almost shouted it across the dining hall before I could wrap a hand around her mouth. Her eyes bulged but I wouldn’t let her go until she’d solemnly sworn to keep quiet and not to tell a soul. After all, I’d promised Mark outside the Bodleian that I wouldn’t say anything. I didn’t think, considering his continuing radio silence, that he’d want me to be telling people that he’d let me fuck him in the arse. But I had to tell Maura.
She proceeded to wolf down her dinner and then pulled me out of the dining hall so we could speak away in private, away from Tom and Jason who had arrived to sit opposite us.
“Rafe you fecking slut, I’m so bloody proud of you.”
“Thanks.”
“How was it? Was it good? You’ve got taste, I’ll give you that. But who would’ve thought that he was gay.”
“Well, we don’t know if he is.”
Maura raised her eyebrow:
“OK, sure. Look I’m a modern woman, Rafe, but there’s something quite gay about being fucked by another guy. Not to mention making out for an hour afterwards.”
I couldn’t deny this logic so I shrugged.
“So,” she went on, “was it good?”
I nodded.
“It was amazing. And I—”
“You what?”
A pause.
“Don’t worry.”
“What?” she insisted.
I shrugged again.
“You caught feelings,” she said, hands on her hips.
I considered denying it but in the end all I managed was a sheepish smile.
“Am I that predictable?”
“Darling, I mean this is in the nicest possible way. But yes. You’re an absolute melt.”
“But what happened with you and Jason and Tom?”
“Oh,” her eyes lit up, wickedly, “naughty, naughty things are what happened. If it’d just been one of them it’d probably have been a six or seven out of ten, to be quite honest, but with the two of them—combining their efforts yer might say—well, we can both do the maths. A twelve or fourteen out of ten. Which is about how many times I came.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Wow’s right. My fanny’s been sensitive ever since. Even the water pressure in the shower gives me the wobbles. Nightmare, though, organising those boys. Like kids in a theme park.”
We were heading to my room automatically, where we’d started to hang out in the evenings. When I opened the door, she jumped immediately onto my bed and held her arms out at me, gesturing me over. I dutifully followed, lying my head in her lap while she played with my hair.
“I love yer little mane,” she said.
“I love that you love my little mane.”
She smiled, parting my black hair this way and that, an activity that seemed to her to provide endless entertainment. It made me feel peaceful and not a little sleepy.
“Did I tell you I got another email from the college?” I asked.
“No. About the noise complaint?”
“Yup. They say if I get another there’ll be some sort of disciplinary hearing.”
“What absolute shit,” Maura said and loudly banged her fist against the wall behind her a few times.
I grabbed her arm, laughing.
“Stop! You’ll get me kicked out.”
“These losers need a clatter.”
I had learnt from experience that this meant they needed a slap. I couldn’t help but agree. That said, I was worried about losing my room and worried too about having to tip-toe around it like I was on eggshells.
“You can always stay in my room,” Maura offered.
“There’s only one bed. What’ll I do when Tom and Jason come to make your fanny flutter?”
“You can watch, of course. Or join in, if you like. I actually think I could convince them to do just about anything.”
“Can you lend me some of that power please?” I asked. “Persuade Mark to send me a message.”
Maura looked up at me sternly.
“Now not to be a nag, but I have to ask you, Rafe. Have you actually sent this guy a message yourself? Or are you just waiting by the phone, too scared to pick it up yourself.”
I hesitated. I hadn’t sent or said anything to him.
“If you ask me, as long as you’re not sending him a message, you can’t blame him for not doing the same.”
“He’s the one that left without saying goodbye,” I protested.
“This is not a Victorian novel, Rafe. You fucked him. This isn’t the time to get precious about the rules.”
I sighed. This wasn’t what I wanted to hear but she had a point.
“Think about it,” she went on. “Imagine you’ve been going through your life for eighteen odd years thinking you’re straight and then suddenly, this beautiful Kiwi boy comes into your life, makes out with you in a bathroom, sucks your dick like it’s never been sucked, and a day later fucks you silly. Wouldn’t that do a number on you?”
“I guess so.”
“Well, how did you feel when you began to suspect you might be more gay than anything else?”
I twisted my lips, trying to think. It felt like a long time ago.
“I guess I—I felt like it was the worst that could ever happen to me.”
“How old were you?”
“Like thirteen.”
“Pretty young,” she said, running a finger over my nose, “you poor sweet thing.”
“There was a farmer near us who had two boys, bit older than me. Me and my Mum went over for lunch one day, when she was thinking of selling the farm.”
“After your Dad left?”
I nodded. I’d already told Maura my tale of woe.
“And?” she asked.
“Well, when we were leaving, the farmer—Craig—he wanted his sons to say hello before we left. So he took us down his farm towards the milking sheds. And his sons were there, chopping wood in their singlets. Wife-beaters, we call them—the singlets that is. Anyway it’s not like they were muscle-bound gods or anything, they must have been fifteen or sixteen. But at the time, I was mesmerised. They came up and said hello and I could barely speak. One of them in particular, I just couldn’t take my eyes off. And it was weird: it’s not like I wanted to do anything to him. It wasn’t sexual then. I don’t think I knew what sex was. But I wanted him to hold me and kiss me. I used to dream about him all the time. But I was scared. I’d wake up and feel so guilty because I knew I shouldn’t be having those kinds of dreams. Not about a guy.”
I laughed and added:
“And I used to follow him around at school.”
“You little stalker.”
“Pretty much. I think he knew what was up but he was cool about it.”
“What was his name?”
"Patrick."
“Hot name. Irish name.”
“I don’t know what’s happened to him now. I think he went to Auckland to be a chef or something.”
“Probably a coke-head then,” Maura suggested.
“I don’t think you can get coke in New Zealand.”
“What a fecking backwater New Zealand is.”
Maura’s was absent-mindedly plaiting the hair of my fringe.
“So,” she asked, “did it rock you to your core? The gay stuff?”
“Yeah, I guess it did.”
“So should we perhaps give young Mark a bit of leeway?”
I nodded, hesitantly.
“But I was thirteen then. He’s an adult. That makes a difference, right?”
“I don’t think it makes it any easier, Rafe. If anything, five more years of thinking yer straight—or more like five years of not even thinking about your sexuality—might just mean that the rude awakening is, you know, even ruder when it finally comes. I don’t think people give this stuff any thought until they have to. Meanwhile you’ve been thinking about it for years. Almost ten years, my darling geriatric.”
I laughed but realise
d she was right. If Mark had only just started to think about this, and if almost immediately he’d been fucked in the arse and loved it, it might result in a period of adjustment—and angst.
“Do you think that maybe—”
“What?” Maura asked.
“That maybe he’ll just freak out? And not want to see me at all?”
She looked down at me for a moment, said nothing, but then leant down and kissed me on the forehead. This was answer enough in itself.
“Fuck,” I said, “this is what happens when I chase teenagers. Straight teenagers.”
“Don’t lose hope yet. Yer Aunty Maura has a good feeling about this year for you.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yup. Something in my waters tells me you’ll find love this year.”
“In your waters??”
“Don’t laugh. They’re almost always right.”
For some reason this actually comforted me.
“Should I write him a message, then?” I asked.
“Maybe not. Maybe give him another few days. If he’s freaking out, the last thing he’ll want is pressure.”
I nodded. I hated it but she was right.
“So what do your waters say about you?” I asked.
“They say,” her eyes gleamed, “that I’m going to have an excellent sex life.”
We laughed, so loudly that I feared another complaint from the neighbours.
*
The resolution not to message Mark lasted all of about twelve hours because the next morning, after checking my phone and finding again an empty chat window, an idea for a message came to me, and without thinking twice I’d sent it.
I’d rolled out of bed and found the crumpled note from the neighbour in a corner, the one that complained about the very loud sex. I flattened it on the carpet, took a picture of it and sent it to Mark with the caption:
“Look what I got the other day. Guess we made an impression.”
Then I sat back against my mattress and looked at the message window.
Almost immediately, I regretted it.
I read and re-read the message. Then I re-read the note itself. Great, so not only was he going to think that I was only thinking about him only in terms of sex and, second, he was going to think that other people had found out about it—or at least were on the trail. The note even promised to tell the college.
If I was Mark, freaking out about having done what I’d done, then having proof that people (and not only people but college administrators) were talking about me, it probably wouldn’t help me feel any better.
To be fair, though, I didn’t even know if Mark was freaking out. Maybe he was fine. Maybe he’d find the note funny. Maybe he’d find it so funny he’d drop round to my room and ask for a repeat performance?
I sighed. I checked my phone again. He still hadn’t seen the message.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck.”
I pulled myself up off the ground and went to have a shower.
I had another tutorial in half an hour and all I’d read was the blurbs of the books in question. Turns out beautiful young men, while invariably the subject of great novels, didn’t actually help you read them in the first place.
*
Walking through the passages between the quads and across the deer park towards the building where my tutorial was going to be held, I had an opportunity to empty my mind and focus on the class ahead.
What I actually spent the time doing, though, was desperately trying to come up with some combination of words—maybe a bit witty, definitely casual, possibly a little sexy—that would express to Mark the complicated mix of feelings I hadn’t even been able to express to myself.
Maybe I should just tell him that I liked him? That it wasn’t just sex and I was sorry that sending him that note might have implied that. But even then I felt on shaky ground. What would be more freaky for him—casual sex with a guy or sex with a guy who actually likes you?
My phone beeped. I opened it so fast it fell out of my hands and I only just managed to catch it in my fingertips before it hit the cobbles.
It was my brother. He’d sent me a photo of a huge, dead deer, looking at the camera with its black eyes.
“Not a bad catch for the day”, the message said.
I rolled my eyes. Alex was so straight it hurt. This was his way of “reaching out”, and while the intention was sweet, I wished he would find a better currency of communication than big game. While I was never really into hunting, I couldn’t think of a less opportune moment to look at a picture of a dead deer. I was in the college deer park, for god’s sake: that shit was insensitive. I looked apologetically at the peaceful forms grazing in the distance.
The one thing I could say for Alex’s message, though, was that it took Mark out of my thoughts for a few seconds. I even remembered what number building I was looking for when I arrived at the small grouping of stone cottages that occupied this far edge of the college grounds.
I knocked on the door to one of the cottages and waited. One of the college gardeners looked up from the rose beds that bordered the house and nodded at me. He was young, in his twenties, and he had a tattoo on his neck.
There was no immediate answer at the door so I waited, my mind returning, inevitably, to Mark.
“Do you know some of them actually live in these?”
I looked up. It was the gardener speaking. He had stood up, brushing some soil off his jump-suit. The zipper was a ways down, revealing a low white t-shirt and a gleam of tanned skin. His hair was shaved, prison-style, and he had a little scar above his eye. The overall impression was don’t-fuck-with-me, but as an aesthetic it was working for me.
“The tutors, you mean?”
“Yeah, or whatever you call them,” he reached for a packet of cigarettes in his pocket, “they’ve got the room where they teach and then their bedroom, just down the corridor. Easy access.”
“Pretty convenient for a nap, I guess,” I said.
“Yeah, a nap—or something.”
“Huh?”
The gardener lit up his cigarette and leant against the stone wall. The sleeves of the jump suit were rolled up and I could see the muscles of his forearms. On each of them he had matching tattoos of a snake. Finally the guy replied:
“From what I hear, not a whole lot of sleeping goes on.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Least not these days,” he winked at me, “you better be careful.”
Me? Why did he make it sound like I had to be particularly careful? And careful of what? Obviously there was some innuendo going on there, but the gardener gave me such a straight, just-out-of-prison vibe that it seemed out of place.
“Why me?” I asked.
His lips curled, knowingly, but if he was going to reply, he was interrupted by the door opening.
A girl stood there, her blonde hair pulled back in a bun.
“Rafe?” she said. She didn’t even look at the gardener.
“That’s me.”
“We’ve started already. Come through.”
I nodded and made to follow her, but before I did I took one more look at the gardener, who was blowing a cloud of smoke away from the cottage.
“Catch ya, Rafe,” he said.
I nodded, dumbly, and went into the cottage.
The girl led me through a foyer, stuffed with bookshelves, paintings, rugs, and more books that had spilled over from the bookshelves and were making piles on the floor. It was cosy, warm, the kind of quaint English cottage you see in murder mysteries. If I had to put my money on a suspect, it’d be the gardener.
She led me through a doorway and I followed her in. Only once she’d moved to the side, taking a seat in one corner of the room, did I see the room’s other occupant, who stood up from his own seat to greet me.
“Rafe.”
It was James: the tall, beautiful swimmer with the gorgeous blond hair. Maybe it was the surprise or maybe it was seeing him in this room, framed by more overflowing bookshelve
s, but he looked particularly dreamy. He had glasses on, which he took off when he saw me, putting out his hand for me to shake it.
I loved it when people took off their glasses; it was another of those intimate habits that people had and I loved watching them blinking as their eyes adjusted.
So he was going to be my tutor. Of course he was. But wait—was it James that the gardener had been trying to warn me about? My mind raced, wondering whether I should heed the warning or take it as encouragement.
James indicated for me to have a seat and I found my way, clumsily, into the couch behind me.
“I’m Jessica,” said the girl next to me.
“Hey. Rafe. But you knew that.”
She nodded, as if to say: you’re right, I did.
“Now,” James said, “we were talking favourite books.”
Oh shit, I thought.
“Jessica said Atlas Shrugged.”
I laughed. Jessica gave me an icy look. Oops, guess it wasn’t a joke.
“Oh, right—uh—interesting choice.”
James looked at me, amusement glittering in his light eyes. Far out, it was going to be hard to focus having those marbles looking at me.
I could tell he was expecting me to come up with a favourite book, but at that exact moment I had a grand total of nothing in my head, as though I’d never read a book in my life, so I deflected and asked him:
“And what did you say was your favourite?”
“I didn’t, actually, but nice of you to ask.”
Jessica shot me another cold look as James went on.
“It’s a difficult question. But I might say something by Tolstoy. It sounds cliché but perhaps War and Peace. It’s almost the perfect novel, I think, or as close to perfect as you can come. Jane Eyre can be a close runner-up.”
“Shame about the mad woman in the attic,” I said, again playing for time.