by Max Schaefer
‘Just gone eleven. Why?’
‘Fancy a bit of a detour through Greenwich?’
Stand Proud
Adam had arranged for us to visit a man who lived an hour’s train ride from London. ‘I think he’s a squaddie,’ he said hopefully. In fact while the man, whose name was Sean, did claim to be in the military, he would not specify his branch or job. I thought this ostentatious.
‘Only if you’re up for it,’ added Adam.
In theory, this was a refinement of our failed experiments in role play — the idea being that we might do better playing the same role. It was true that the earlier attempts had frustrated us both. But I suspect Adam also guessed that, for me, the attraction of doing such things together was hard to separate from how melancholy I found the idea of him doing them apart. Whether my jealousy was sexual or romantic, or not jealousy at all so much as egoism, I didn’t know.
I stayed over at Adam’s the night before our meet and woke early after dreams of maths exams. While he dozed, I opened my laptop and read through my prior conversation with Sean. I had dreaded this requirement of his, which he called an ‘interview’, but he had, it turned out, a businesslike lack of imagination that curtailed both small talk and any obligation I might have felt to flirt, thus making our transaction unexpectedly efficient: it had seemed easy, in this surreal and detached context, to concede to his stipulations. Now, seeing my late-night confessions and consent preserved in the flat reality of morning was almost giddying: a skittish, unexpected arousal grew in me.
In the bathroom, getting ready according to Sean’s instructions, I left my glasses on the toilet cistern. Going back to retrieve them later I found Adam readying himself in turn. ‘You could have knocked,’ he told me, but my mind was elsewhere. Crouched in his bath, the shower extension trickling round his feet, he had returned me to my gap-year trip through India, passing at dawn the last fields before some nearing city, where squatting figures dotted at polite intervals the low blue mist: facing as one my train, and the sun that rose behind.
At Waterloo, a pigeon flew in huge panicked zags in the high space above the concourse, ducking round the advertising banners that hung from the ceiling and rising baffled from the rear, as if one of them might hide the clear sky. We watched it as we queued for tickets (to a destination that sounded absurdly quaint), then bought two Evians and an Independent from Smiths. I drank little of my water on the journey: anticipation seemed to make it go straight through me, so that after every sip, taken at long intervals between pensive screwings of the cap, I felt the urge to stand and shuffle along the juddering carriage to the toilet, which banked each discharge with a loud mechanical suck.
‘Are you OK?’ Adam said, looking up from his paper. He was in full skinhead gear. Doubtless, I thought, observing him, Sean had masturbated in anticipation over photos of Adam like this; doubtless Adam had taken them with that in mind. I pictured him spread for Sean’s consumption like the Zipper features I had seen in the library, hoping to spot Nicky: When You Feel Like a Skinhead, Larry Harris Is Your Man. Porn magazines were classified ‘special material’ and arrived behind the counter in a locked box, to be read at certain designated desks under the gaze, for some reason, of the music librarians. Even Gay Times turned out to be classified, so I had been disturbed to find how much fascist material was, by contrast, unrestricted. I would join the general queue to collect bundles of the National Front’s youth tabloid Bulldog, its massive headlines calling for race war now — invariably fetched for me by young black men, or women in hijabs. Nonsensically afraid they might think I approved of the stuff (which seemed to worry me less when the librarian was white, which in turn struck me as confusingly racist), I accepted them with ham expressions of disgust. Back at my desk I would tut and sigh loudly and often to dissociate myself from the material; no doubt my neighbours were more bothered by the constant noise.
The city abated behind the window (which way were we headed — south-east? south-west?) and houses swelled with the suburbs’ sturdy confidence, accruing gardens of substance, hedges, gravel drives. Later they gave way to fields, over which two aircraft in fast low unison flew, pitched sharply up and banked impossibly. I knew there was a military base near our stop, and land for training exercises, and thought again quite suddenly of the man we were meeting, and our agreed agenda, and terms of engagement. Not long after, abandoning the Independent on our seat (having decided by unspoken consent that it risked seeming a loaded, anti-establishment accoutrement, which might sour things from the outset), we descended on to the miniature country platform dangling our Evian bottles a little feyly by their necks and sloshing around the water left inside.
The face pic Sean sent had been less than informative, a postage-stamp jpeg riven with the artefacts of aggressive compression. It was a jumping-off point for the imagination merely, and Adam must, like me, have cast a variety of types in the role. Now, as we walked through the ticket hall, where a single pasted sheet sufficed to list every train on the weekly schedule, we saw a black station wagon idling outside, and at its wheel a man older than either of us could have envisaged. Wordlessly we paused, and leaned against the railing of the raised deck. There was nobody else around. A few metres ahead of the station wagon a blue coupe sat empty, as, in the parking lot, did two cars and a transit van. Traffic sounded from some major route nearby. I looked again at the waiting car: its driver glanced at me, then away. He must have been sixty. ‘Tell me that’s not him,’ I murmured. ‘Don’t stare,’ Adam said, sipping his water, and gazing ostentatiously at the sky asked: ‘Should we just leave?’ I could sense the scaffolding of his own expectations was in collapse, falling through his chest and settling leaden in his stomach while Evian slopped round it in an icy pool.
‘When’s the next train?’
‘Dunno.’
‘He’s watching us.’
‘We could say you’re ill. Came down with something on the train. Or pull an emergency at home. It’s easy, I’ve done it before. Ring ring.’ He fished his mobile from his pocket and mimed answering: showed me a blank look, then a frown of concern. ‘Oh no,’ he said to the phone. ‘What happened?’
There was a loud honk and we turned: the blue car, occupied after all. ‘Phew,’ said Adam, dropping the phone to his side, and skipped down the few steps to the road. Watching him speak to the driver I panicked suddenly: the plan to abort all this had enabled me to relax, and its reversal was violent. I tried not to show it as I followed him to the car, the old man in the station wagon watching without interest. ‘This is James,’ Adam said when I arrived, but the driver barely looked up, saying merely, ‘Get in’ as he pushed forward the passenger seat. Adam sat in front.
Before I could fasten my seatbelt we pulled abruptly out and accelerated quickly. The car was high-pitched, like a toy; it clung frenziedly to the tarmac that now climbed between tall grass. The driver said nothing, pulling us fast along the dips and curves of the country road. Thick hedgerows blitzed past; sunlight flared through trees in crackling patterned bursts. We rode the crest of the hill, then veered over it into a steep plunge, the sky spilling above us. ‘Is it far?’ Adam asked as the road flattened out. ‘Not far,’ said the driver, and the silence resumed, underscored by the tin roar of the engine.
Sean, as I now remembered to think of him, surveyed the road through wraparound shades, whose arms disappeared into blond curls above his ears. His face was freckled, thick and pink around his cheeks and chin.
At a roundabout we passed a heavy gate manned by soldiers. The road beyond it ran straight into the distance. Clearing my throat I said: ‘Is that where you work?’ and Adam caught my eye in the driver’s mirror.
‘Some of the time,’ Sean answered.
He was thirty-five at most. His arms looked muscled enough, but his torso was hard to make out. Leaning slightly forward on the pretext of a passing sign, I saw an apparent stomach above his belted jeans. It could have been how his shirt was folded, or how he sat.
‘It’s nice around here,’ murmured Adam.
Ten minutes later we stopped in a small, isolated development of neat brick homes on a cul-de-sac. Sean opened his front door in silence; inside he locked it again and put the keys on a shelf that held unopened post. Curtains were drawn across the windows of the living room, where two chairs, a sofa and a bare coffee table stood on the carpet like an unconvincing set. There were no shelves, but a wide TV occupied a dedicated stand: standby lights glowed on boxes beneath. The curtains filtered what little sun passed through to a greyish green that coloured the whole assembly.
‘Do you want any water?’ asked Sean.
Adam smiled and held up his bottle, and I realized I’d left mine in the car. ‘Have some now,’ Sean told him, ‘and give it to me.’
Adam nodded. He drank, paused, drank again. He screwed back the cap and offered it to me, but I shook my head. ‘Not thirsty?’ said Sean.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’
‘You’re fine what, boy?’
It took a moment for me to realize what was intended, and longer still to respond: if I were wrong I would sound ridiculous. I would anyway.
I said, ‘I’m fine, thanks, sir.’
‘That’s better.’ Sean took Adam’s water bottle to the sofa where he sat. He told us: ‘Strip and face the wall.’
‘Boots and everything, sir?’ said Adam.
‘I’m not interested in your boots, boy.’
‘Yes, sir,’ Adam said. So this was it. We undressed in unison. At first I kicked off my trainers; but seeing Adam unlace his boots carefully and place them neatly to the side, I picked them up again and arranged them next to his. I was conscious of a desire not to offend, as if visiting some peripheral relative. The dim room had that atmosphere, with its carpet and timeless hush: there could have been tea and rock cakes on the way: I folded my T-shirt vaguely over the shoes. When I had removed my jeans I paused lest there was something else intended; but no comment came and Adam was slipping off his jockstrap, so I took off my underpants and looked at the wall. It was chilly, despite the warmth outside. My fingertips brushed my thigh. I could feel Adam breathing beside me, and see the texture of the wallpaper up close.
Sean said nothing. I supposed it was some psychological game. I looked at my feet, where the fringe of sunlight that got between curtain and window frame cut at a shallow angle across the floor. Adam, I noticed, was already hard, and I tried to will myself into anticipation, but the silent figure watching us felt as humdrum as the carpet’s weave against my soles. Now I was standing naked in a green room and tomorrow at the same time I could be choosing a sandwich at Pret.
Eventually we heard Sean stand, and cross the room with evident deliberation (I pictured an exaggerated Clouseau creep). He stood behind Adam with regulated breaths. Again, the transparent pause; then he must have touched him because Adam jumped. Sean gave a small hmpf of satisfaction. At the edge of my vision a blindfold was lowered over Adam’s eyes. ‘Hands behind your back,’ Sean told him, and I heard the clicks of a ratcheted fastening. He stepped behind me. ‘You too, boy,’ he said. I put back my arms, which he adjusted with hands that gave surprising, human warmth. I heard the clicks again and felt something thin and plastic tighten round my wrists.
Hands on my shoulders tried to rotate me and I helpfully turned. Sean put his finger under my chin and tilted my head to face him. There was a longer pause as he regarded me.
‘Helpless now, aren’t you, boy?’
Sean’s eyes squinted hopefully. Despite his odd mix of threat and cheery observation, the cajolement was palpable. I knew what he was watching for. Beside me, facing the wall in his blindfold, I could feel Adam waiting too.
‘Aren’t you, boy?’he said.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Hear you’re new at this, boy,’ he said.
I considered pointing out that, we had already established that fact on IM, but it felt inappropriate.
‘Bet you’re wishing you hadn’t got yourself into this situation, aren’t you?’
‘Don’t know, sir,’ I said. By now this comment was more polite than honest, but the disingenuous ambiguity worked, and there was another of Sean’s pleased little exhalations.
‘Heh! I’ll bet you don’t. Not sure what to think, eh?’
‘No, sir,’ I said.
Sean looked at me again. He glanced down and quickly back up, as if I might not notice. In our silence I could hear Adam breathing steadily.
‘You’re scared, but part of you’s enjoying this, isn’t it? Feels strange, does it boy? Nervous and excited at the same time?’
This was just irritating. If I had been feeling remotely nervous, such anxious collusion would have undermined it. I trotted out another ‘Yes, sir.’
Sean produced a blindfold and placed it over me. The strap went over the top of my left ear, pressing it to my head, but the right ear remained free. The lack of symmetry felt like an itch. I could see light leaking in at one side, a slit of detail through his window. I closed my eyes.
After a moment there was a pattering on my chest.
‘Ever taken a beating, boy?’
‘Not really, sir.’
‘But you will take a beating, won’t you, boy?’
It was something I had consented to online. At the time there had been some glamour to the idea: I had thought of torture scenes in World War II films. Norton and Pitt in Fight Club.
‘I don’t know, sir, ‘ I said quietly. I could no longer hear Adam breathe.
Sean paused as he absorbed my rebuff. He changed tack.
‘Didn’t tell me you were a wimp, boy,’ he said disdainfully.
I didn’t say anything.
‘Pathetic little wimp, are we? Sad little mummy’s boy?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘You’re a bloody cretin, aren’t you, boy?’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘What are you?’
‘A bloody cretin, sir.’
Sean flicked my uninterested penis.
‘What’s this?’
‘Don’t know, sir.’
‘This is no bloody good, is it?’
‘No, sir.’
He could not keep the disappointment from his voice.
‘I’ll bet you got some stick for that at school, didn’t you, boy?’ he said. ‘Dreaded the showers, eh? I’ll bet the chaps called you all sorts of names.’
‘Silly snob,’ I said, recalling this exchange to Adam on the journey home. It was a throwaway remark; my main theme, to which I energetically returned, was the pernickety attention Sean devoted to role play on the one hand, and his inability, on the other, to see how gauchely he was deconstructing it. It was obvious, I knew, how such conversation was deflecting my own shame.
What do you mean,’ said Adam, ‘silly snob?’
‘Oh, you know.’ I watched the Eurostar overtake us. ‘That awful public-school fantasy of chaps in showers.’
‘You and I both went to public schools,’ he said gently.
‘Yes, but we don’t get off on it. At least I don’t. Besides, my place hardly involved chaps.’
The biggest irony, I went on, was that while the purported situation required my own arousal to go unmentioned, Sean could not conceal that it was his urgent focus. Worse, he complained of its absence: not only, thereby, underlining his own failure to produce it, but exposing his assumed persona as a campy, lascivious parody. My flaccidity, by contrast, was too true to my role: a simulacrum that horrified Sean and showed up the dishonesty of his own eager performance.
‘You think too much for this stuff,’ Adam said.
Back at his place much earlier than planned, neither of us was sure what to do. I kept sitting on his sofa, then standing again. In the end we went to a movie, and then the pub, where we drank bitter and ate pie and chips, and I pawed intermittently at him beneath the table.
‘You know something else?’ I said, as I brought over our second pints. ‘This has only just struck me, b
ut it was all a bit Abu Ghraib.’
‘You don’t have to keep explaining.’
‘I’m serious. All that stuff is fine as fantasy. To be honest, when we chatted online, I kept thinking of those photos in the Mirror and they were almost turn-ons. But when we got down there and drove past whatever that place was, it did drive it home. That he really is in the military, or claims to be, and where he works they probably train soldiers who really do end up in Iraq, so, you know, you wonder if with him the fantasy is just a fantasy. I mean if that’s what he wants to do …
‘And those plastic handcuff things we had on: you remember, when we stopped, he just cut them off? I realized after that I’m sure I’ve seen them on the news, I’m sure they’re military issue. I think Amnesty complained about them, in fact. They’re used because they’re cheap and quick and you can carry loads so they’re good for dealing with lots of prisoners. But they don’t loosen at all, they only get tighter, so you end up restricting blood flow, causing damage, whatever. I think even when he put them on I sort of knew that’s what they were.
‘Besides,’ I concluded vaguely, ‘it was all such a cliché. The banality of the suburban semi, my God.’
‘Silly snob.’ Adam said it fondly, but I was feeling too sensitive and all at once got annoyed at having so contorted myself round his predilections. I stared at his skinhead outfit, which now looked like the most egregious drag, and had the odd sense of preparing a deliberate cruelty, like chopping ingredients for a stew. It felt slightly dizzying.
‘That’s what this is all about for you,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it?’
‘All of what?’
‘Your whole … erotic make-up.’ I pronounced this with more distaste than I’d intended, and he looked at me, surprised. I tried to stifle the hunter’s pleasure I could feel tugging at a corner of my mouth. If only, I thought, I could produce such aggression in sexual form, we might never have got here in the first place.
‘This whole sub-skin thing. You get your rocks off by dressing up as the ne plus ultra of the lumpenproletariat and pretending you’re powerless. It’s classic English class guilt.’