The Things We Hide at Home

by Nem Rowan

  * * * *

  “Excuse me, will you take a photograph for us?” the German woman in front of me asked as she held out a mobile phone in her gloved hand. She was dressed like a sexy biker, black eye shadow and lipstick on her masculine face, and her arm around the shoulders of her girlfriend, who happened to be dressed like an equally sexy nurse. I accepted the phone from her since I had nothing better to do.

  “Sure, no problem,” I agreed, leaning against the bar with my feet braced on my stool so I could fit them into the frame of the picture. “Say cheese!”

  “Cheese!” They both grinned at the camera as it flashed in their faces.

  “Here you go.” I offered the phone back to them and they took it so they could see the photo.

  They said thank you and sauntered into the club, heading towards the steps down into the dungeon. The club was quieter than last time, but there was still a lot of people around. The DJ was playing “How Deep Is Your Love” by The Bee Gees and a middle-aged dominatrix was slow-dancing with a tubby naked man on the dance floor, while a pink-haired drag queen posed for a picture with a group of curious foreign students. I spun ‘round on my seat so I could lean against the bar and sip my drink through a straw while my half-closed eyes glanced along the rest of the bar, picking out the faces of the other people sitting alongside it. Clusters of friends chatted, empty glasses left on the counter, the barman standing at the far end talking about politics.

  Vanessa and Growler were in the dungeon playing with some friends but I had no desire for it. Instead, I sat up here alone, my eyes scanning the club as I convinced myself that David would make an appearance. The man sitting near me with his face hidden by a gas mask seemed like he was watching me, or at least he did until he spoke to the person sitting next to him, and I sighed, turning my back on him. Vanessa going on about stalkers had made me paranoid. I drank some more Bacardi and asked myself whether I was wasting my time, whether I might as well just go downstairs and sit with my friends.

  The DJ put on some funky ‘70s disco music, and after a few seconds, groups of people got up to join the couple on the dance floor, clearing gaps on the sofas and seating areas at the edges of the room, which gave me a much better view.

  That’s when I spotted him standing on his own with his back against the wall. He was looking right at me, and when I waved to him, he sheepishly waved back. I leapt from the barstool, collecting my glass with the intention of going to speak with him. My heart had done a somersault the moment my eyes had laid upon him but I wasn’t sure why; all I knew was that I was glad he had made it, even if he hadn’t had the courage to come over and see me. By the time I reached him, the club had become raucously noisy with dozens of people dancing to the music.

  “David!” I exclaimed, having to shout over the sound of Earth, Wind, and Fire as I approached. “I didn’t think you’d come!”

  He said something in response but his voice was lost in the music, so I moved closer. His body made a small spasm as I leaned against him, offering my ear for him to speak against, and I imagined I could feel his heart beating against my chest.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t come to find you!” he told me as he lowered his head to my ear. A spike of nervous goosebumps rushed up my spine and spread across the rest of my body, causing the hairs on the back of my neck to prickle.

  “Shall we go upstairs to the lounge?” I asked after he had turned his ear towards me. I was tempted to chance giving him a kiss on his neck but I reminded myself to behave because it was probably just the alcohol making me audacious.

  He nodded in reply. Without asking for permission, I took his hand, feeling the knot of bones and muscle hidden beneath the sleeve of his jumper and imagining what it would feel like to touch it without the fabric between us. I could tell from the fear in his eyes that he was afraid, that my close contact made him worry I would reject him, but the only way I could get him to understand that I wouldn’t was to be close in the first place.

  I pulled him towards the spiral staircase and lead him upstairs to the quieter part of the club. The lounge was reserved for doing just that—lounging. A small bar in the corner served bottles and cocktails, and the room was decorated like a lodge, with cosy sofas and taxidermy animals on the walls, as orange light blazed from the fireplace in the centre of the room. My boots thudded on the wooden floor, causing sharp twinges in my ringing ears. That was one thing I disliked about being down in the club area; the music was always so loud that I ended up deafened by the end of the night.

  “Where would you like to sit?” I turned to smile at him.

  “Umm,” he began, but nothing else came out.

  I pulled him towards an empty sofa in the corner. A lantern hanging from the wall lit the rustic space in its friendly yellow glow, making the place I’d chosen feel secret and secluded from the other visitors.

  “I’ll get you a drink. What do you fancy?” I questioned, placing my glass on the table as David sank into the sofa cushions.

  “Umm…a beer or something?” he replied in a bewildered fashion, his eyes wandering to a sign overhead that read NO IMPACT PLAY IN THE LOUNGE.

  “A beer or something? Okay, I’ll see what’s on offer.” I made a cheeky smile at him as I headed to the bar.

  I took the opportunity to fish my phone out of my pocket, and just as I suspected, CordialSin was showing up on my radar. There was no reply to the message I had sent, and from what I could tell, it hadn’t even been opened, but since the user was obviously advertising themselves as present, perhaps that meant it was David. I had seen him use a smart phone at the restaurant, so I knew he could download the ChainLink app.

  At the bar, I ordered one of the craft beers, picking at random since he hadn’t given me any clues as to what kind of beer he enjoyed. The barmaid set about pouring it into a pint glass while I scrolled through the app on my phone.

  CordialSin’s beacon was green and the app kept giving me the notification CordialSin is nearby. I was tempted to ask David if he used ChainLink but I was worried that if I pressed him too hard, he’d try to escape from me. Socialising with him was like hunting a skittish deer; if I made the wrong move and he heard my footfalls, he’d disappear into the foliage before I got a chance to shoot.

  “Hey.” I distracted him by lifting the heavy pint glass into his field of vision and he looked startled. “Sorry, didn’t mean to make you jump.”

  “Oh, that’s okay…thanks,” he replied as he carefully took the glass from me and held it up so he could see the richness of its colour. The whole time he kept the sleeves of his jumper wrapped ‘round his hands and I wondered how he managed to prevent the glass from slipping through the soft material.

  “I got you a stout, hope that’s okay. You didn’t specify.” I seated myself right beside him rather than at the other end of the furniture and I could tell, purely from the look in his eyes, that this minor gesture caught his attention.

  “Stout is good. Thank you.” He eventually smiled, but it was a small smile. I couldn’t tell if he was just being polite or if he really did like the drink I’d chosen.

  I watched as he took a sip from the glass, and when he was done, he licked the froth from his top lip. For a moment, we didn’t speak; I waited until he had lowered the glass and made sure I wasn’t about to cut him off. Getting him to talk was hard enough without my talking over him.

  “I really enjoyed going to the cinema with you,” I told him, aware of the adoration in my eyes. It was really hard to reel myself in even though I knew I was moving quickly.

  “Me, too. I-I don’t usually have anyone to go with,” he confessed, somewhat nervously. “Usually, I’m that weird old guy who sits in the back row on his own.”

  “I’ll be your cinema buddy from now on,” I stated, as though he didn’t have a choice, but I had the feeling he would want me to be anyway. “We’ll go and see films together, and instead, we’ll be that weird gay couple that snogs in the back row.”

  Colour rose into hi
s face, a vivid blossom that turned his cheeks and even his neck bright red. “Well…uh, I’d…”

  “You’d like that, huh?” I whispered, leaning closer. I could tell that he did, from the way he chewed his lip and looked anywhere but at my face.

  He nodded slowly.

  I smiled. My heart began to pound as I carefully stroked his jaw, loving the sensation of the stubble and the warmth that emanated through it.

  “And if you ever wanna fulfil that robot boyfriend fantasy of yours…” I began, watching as his blush visibly darkened. I laughed. “I’m just teasing you now. But really, if you ever wanted to, I’d be up for it.”

  He nodded again, quicker this time. “I’m sorry I’m so shy.”

  “Don’t apologise. I’m fond of your shyness.” I lifted my glass and sipped what remained out of the bottom of it before putting the empty container on the table before us. I felt hot and slightly woozy from the alcohol.

  “How do you do it?” he asked.

  “How do I do what?” I frowned slightly, not understanding what he was referring to.

  “How…how are you so confident?”

  “I wasn’t always confident. I used to over-compensate when I was younger because I was self-conscious and shy. I used to say things that hurt people without realising how mean I was being. I realised that behaving like that wasn’t confidence, but was rather because of a lack of confidence.” I faced him properly and rested my shoulder against the back of the sofa. “I said a lot of dumb shit. It was only because of my friend, Vanessa, that I learned to really be myself. She showed me that if I learned to show compassion towards myself and care for myself empathetically, then naturally it would radiate outwards when I communicated with other people.”

  “Vanessa is pretty scary-looking,” he admitted, seeming ashamed that he found her so.

  “Looks are deceiving. Don’t get me wrong, she will have cowering men kissing her toes and prostrating themselves before her, and she knows how to inflict excruciating pain, but she has this inner calm and wisdom about her. My brother is like that, too. It’s like they were born old,” I chuckled, imagining Gerard dressed like a giant baby in a crib. “You gotta learn to show yourself compassion and forgive yourself. Would you be so harsh on someone else if they were shy around you?”

  “N-no, of course not.” He looked aghast at the idea.

  “Then why do you punish yourself for being shy?”

  He gnawed at his bottom lip whilst staring into the froth of his beer, his half-closed eyes preventing me from seeing into them. “I guess I punish myself because I can’t act the way I want to. I can’t be confident the way I want to. So I get angry at myself.”

  I nodded, understanding him completely; I’d had the exact same thoughts about myself in the past. I slowly placed my hand over one of his, his eyes immediately widening as he stared at it. “Next time you think you’re getting angry at yourself, stop. Look at what you’re doing from the outside. Look at yourself like you’re a stranger, and have some compassion for yourself. I know BDSM makes it out like punishment is good for training, and yeah, it’s fun in a sexual situation, but in the real world, punishing yourself just hampers your own progress.” I gently stroked his forearm. “You gotta love yourself, take care of yourself. You only get one life, one body. Love what you have.”

  I was surprised when he sniffled. He lifted his hand, pushing up his glasses and using his sleeve to rub at his eyes.

  “Are you okay? David?” I felt dismay and I shuffled closer to him, bending slightly to get a better look at his face. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “You didn’t upset me,” he mumbled, before hiccupping. “It’s just that no one’s ever told me I should care about myself like that. They always said I had to fend for myself, you know, in a menial way. No one ever said it’s okay to care about myself like you describe. I feel like that’s what I’ve missed my whole life. Like I never had a nice word to say about myself, so when you say nice things about me, it hurts.”

  The urge to embrace him was overwhelming. I moved even closer. Maybe it was the drink, the alcohol spinning my head and making me adventurous, but I couldn’t bear to see him sitting there looking so down when he was meant to be smiling. I didn’t wait for permission; if I waited, I’d wait forever. Instead, I gently kissed his jaw, my breath playing with the hair near his ear, and as I moved away again, he looked up at me. There were a hundred questions in his eyes. I wanted him to ask me some of them, but from the way his lips were trembling and the movement of his Adam’s apple in his throat, I knew they wouldn’t come. The tears in his eyes shimmered.

  “I’ll keep saying nice things until the pain goes away,” I whispered to him.

  “It hurts. But it hurts good,” he whispered back, again wiping at his face with his sleeve. “It’s a pleasant kind of pain.”

  “I won’t stop then,” I promised, relieved when he finally smiled back.

  Things between us were a lot more light-hearted after that. His sense of humour opened up to me again and we chatted about movies we’d seen, movies we wanted to see, and movies we’d plan to watch together. I loved seeing him laugh, admiring the way his whole demeanour changed when something amused him. He became a whole new person when that happened, not the meek David with his head down, but the bright-eyed, smiling David whose laughter made me laugh, too. I felt like I had known him for years. I had felt that way when I’d first met Vanessa, and we had clicked together like we were close siblings, so I had the feeling that David and I would grow to be much more.

  Before we knew it, two whole hours had passed unnoticed.

  “I should probably go…it’s getting late,” he suddenly spoke and I watched, disheartened, as he rose to his feet.

  “Do you need a lift home?” I asked, but he shook his head.

  “No, it’s alright, I can get home fine,” he told me as I got up, too.

  I took hold of his arm, preventing him from escaping so I could plant another kiss on his cheek. I saw how fondly he smiled, how flattered he was that I wanted to be near him, and the glitter in his eyes made butterflies flutter in my belly.

  “Let’s meet up again soon,” I urged.

  “I’d like to. You’re a nice guy, Tenny.” I knew that he meant it.

  I walked him down the stairs, accompanying him to the entrance, where the chilly night air caused me to shudder and the music was little more than a dull thud.

  “Chat soon, okay!” I waved goodbye as he began to walk along the pavement, passing by a few people standing around smoking.

  “Chat soon!” he agreed, giving me one last look over his shoulder before he disappeared into the lamp-lit streets.

  I remained where I was, letting the night air rouse me as it reached in through my warm clothes, the goosebumps prickling all over me and slapping my brain awake.

  “Well, wasn’t that a sickening sight.”

  I turned to find Growler standing there in his coat as he puffed some steam from his vape. “Oh, shut up.” I smirked at him and he smiled back.

  “Are you desperate for cock or what? Setting the bar pretty low, aren’t ya?” he remarked, raising his eyebrows at me, and I knew he was just teasing.

  “Some of us have average standards. It’s you whose standards are far too high. That’s why you’ve been single since college ended.” I patted him on the shoulder.

  He frowned. “That’s not true, what about Richard?”

  “You weren’t dating him, remember? You were dating his credit cards,” I whispered.

  He replied with a smile that said “touché.”

  “So, where’s Vanessa? Downstairs still?”

  “Yeah, actually, she was looking for you. We’re gonna crawl over to The Queen’s Legs. You coming?” He blew a cloud of cherry-scented smoke through his nose and I nodded. “Alright, then, go and fetch her from the dungeon and I’ll ring for a taxi.”

  I headed back indoors, intent on searching out Vanessa’s whereabouts, but
my mind was filled with the conversation David and I had shared. I planned to message him tomorrow morning when I was sober. Maybe I could persuade him to meet up again soon.

  * * * *

  I woke up at Gerard’s house and I wasn’t entirely sure how I had got there. Gary, his black and white cat, was sitting on my chest when I woke, my ribs aching from the weight, rousing me from my dreams so that when I opened my eyes, the cat’s pair of green ones were staring back at me. I was so astonished and confused as to why a cat was there, then my brain caught up with me. Last night, arriving at The Queen’s Legs and going to watch a drag show, getting absolutely slaughtered on cocktails, then, as we were leaving, Growler had lost balance on the edge of the pavement and fallen, fracturing his wrist. Willy was too drunk to drive us to the hospital, so I’d called Gerard. Ah, how embarrassing. So, Big Bro took us to A&E and we sat with Growler in the waiting room for two hours while he waited for an X-Ray. He was so angry, it wasn’t even funny anymore. Obviously, Gerard seemed think I was a walking hazard as well because he didn’t drop me home after. Instead, I must have crashed on his sofa.

  “Couldn’t fetch me a cup of tea could you, Gary?” I frankly requested of the silent cat, who sat there licking his paw and appeared not to hear me.

  “I’ll put the kettle on,” Gerard’s deep voice answered from somewhere close by, and I sat up slightly to find him sitting in the armchair with his laptop, but Gary’s looming monochrome shape had completely blocked my view.

  “Cheers. Good morning, by the way.” I yawned and began to stretch, which must have affronted Gary because he suddenly leapt from my body. Then, I relaxed, sinking under the duvet that was wrapped around me.

  “Good morning to you, too. How are you feeling? Hung over?” Gerard inquired as he shut his laptop and put it on the coffee table. He was still in his pyjamas, the button-up shirt stretched taut over his barrel belly and his beard messy and in need of a comb.