by Paul Burston
Yes, Caroline had had more than her fair share of bad sex. Men who squeezed her breasts so hard it hurt. Men whose idea of foreplay was to stick their tongues so far into her ear they practically burst her eardrum. Men who came so quickly it was all over before she’d even begun to feel any kind of pleasure. Men with dicks so small she could barely tell when the point of penetration occurred. It wasn’t their fault, of course. But if they only knew the lengths she had gone to, clenching her vaginal muscles in order to massage their fragile male egos, reassuring them that, oh yeah baby, it felt really good when really, she felt nothing. There was that guy she met at the Met Bar the Christmas before last—gorgeous body, sports car, the works. The only problem was, his penis was no bigger than her little finger. She tried so hard to compensate for it, clenching away for all she was worth. “Oh, it’s so big! It’s so big! Is it in yet?” That was the difference between gay men and straight women. A gay man would have just dumped him on the spot, or jerked him off in a doorway. Women would lie back and clench for England.
Still, whatever indignities Caroline had suffered in the past, she had certainly made up for it in the past year. Sex with Graham was the best she’d ever known. He was so sensitive, so attentive, so athletic. There wasn’t any position they hadn’t tried. That boob job had turned out to be a really sound investment. Not having to worry about her tits disappearing under her armpits had freed Caroline up in ways she could never have imagined. There were no inhibitions when she was with Graham, no games she couldn’t play, no fantasies she couldn’t explore.
Finally, after years of envying gay men for their lack of sexual boundaries, their ability to act out their desires, their appetite for experimentation, Caroline was having the kind of sex her gay friends boasted about. In fact, had she not spent every waking moment being so thoroughly conscious of her own femininity, she might have suspected that Graham was really gay. Which was kind of funny, when she thought about it. And she did—fairly often.
Martin arrived home drunk and lurched angrily into the living room. He was fully expecting to find Christopher sprawled out in front of the television with a slightly bored look on his face and an excuse already prepared. “I was delayed at work.” “I sprained my ankle at the gym.” “I thought we said the Edge, not the Village.” Only the lights were off, and there was no sign of Christopher.
Martin reached for the light switch and stared around the room in disbelief. The sofa had vanished. So had the CD tower. And the video. And that mirror Christopher’s mum had given them as a housewarming present, that had gone, too. Martin dimly remembered the girl downstairs telling him she had been burgled a few weeks ago. Apparently, there had been a spate of break-ins recently, all in the Stockwell area. They had taken practically everything, right down to her clothes. He ran into the main bedroom and flung open the wardrobe. All of his clothes were still hanging there—even the more expensive things like his Helmut Lang suit, his Schott combats and his ever-expanding collection of Diesel tops. The only clothes missing were Christopher’s, everything down to his underwear. Martin couldn’t understand it. What sort of burglar would steal someone’s underwear? And why take one person’s clothes and leave another’s? Something clicked and he hurried into the smaller second bedroom, the one that doubled as a guest room and a space used mainly for storage. Sure enough, everything belonging to Christopher had vanished. And next to the spare bed, propped up against the original ’30s deco lamp Martin had discovered one Christmas at Greenwich market and Christopher had never really liked, there was a neatly folded piece of paper with his name written on it. He picked it up and read.
“Dear Martin,” the note began. “I guess you’ll have worked it out by now that I’ve moved out. Sorry if this comes as a shock to you, but I can’t see the point in dragging this out any longer than necessary. I’ve made my decision and it’s time to move on. I could lie to you and say that it was a case of us wanting different things, but the truth is that I just don’t want you. You’ll probably think this sounds harsh, but I think it’s best to be upfront about these things. I’ve taken what’s mine, plus a few of the things we bought together. Everything else you’re welcome to. Try not to think too badly of me. It was fun for a while, but all good things come to an end. Christopher.”
Martin sank onto the bed and struggled to hold back the tears. How could Christopher just pack up and leave like this? Things hadn’t been going that badly, had they? They hadn’t had sex in a while, but lots of couples went through difficult periods, and it wasn’t as if he hadn’t tried to spice things up a bit. He’d even gone to bed wearing a jockstrap one night, knowing how Christopher used to fantasize about the school jocks as a teenager, but even that had failed to ignite any interest. What was he supposed to do now? They’d been together so long, he’d forgotten what it felt like to be alone. The pain in his chest was so strong, it was almost physical. He’d heard people compare sudden breakups to waking up and discovering that they had a limb missing. Now he knew what they meant. The feelings he had for Christopher were still there, the way people described still feeling a missing arm or leg. Only now there was this terrible pain, too, and the awful realization that a part of him had been removed and that there was nothing he could do about it.
He needed a drink. He went into the kitchen, fixed himself a large vodka and tonic, and stumbled into the bedroom. What time was it? The alarm clock said just past midnight. Caroline would probably be asleep by now. Maybe John would still be awake. Wasn’t he due back from Florida tonight or something? Martin reached for the phone next to the bed and dialed the number. The answering machine clicked on immediately, which usually meant that John was at home and was either asleep or didn’t want to be disturbed.
“John, it’s Martin. . . . Are you there? Christopher has left. I don’t know where he is. He’s taken his stuff. Can you come over? Call me back.”
Martin hung up the phone and stared at his reflection in the bedside mirror. He was such an idiot. He was an idiot to think that Christopher loved him. He was an idiot to think that a friend like John would be there when he needed him. And he was an idiot to think that having his hair cut this short would make him more attractive. It made his ears look enormous.
He felt a lump rise in his throat and realized he couldn’t choke back the tears any longer. It was time to let it all out. Then the room started spinning, and he threw up.
A few miles away in Earl’s Court (not quite Chelsea but handy for the airport), John heard the phone ring, saw Martin’s number flash up, and waited for the answering machine to click on. He’d been expecting this call—if not tonight, then sometime soon. It had been obvious to John from the start that Christopher and Martin would never last. Everyone knew that the gay world was arranged into pecking orders—or, as John preferred to think of it, pec-ing orders. Someone blessed with a face like Christopher’s was always going to be out of Martin’s league, and once he’d acquired a body to match, it was only a matter of time before the rules of attraction tore them apart. John had never said this to Martin directly, of course. They were friends after all, and it wasn’t exactly the sort of thing you said to a friend. Similarly, when John discovered that Christopher was having an affair, he had kept it to himself. Well, unless you counted Shane, one of the gay cabin crew he had started to get friendly with. But Shane hardly even knew Martin anyway, and how else was a boy supposed to pass the time during those long hauls and drunken stopovers? No, all things considered, John had been the soul of discretion.
Which was more than could be said for Christopher. It was bad enough that he was having an affair with a whore. Rent boys weren’t exactly the most low-key queens around—these days they were treated like celebrities. But to work out together at the gym? That was tantamount to taking out a full-page ad on the back of Boyz. It was a well-known fact that muscle Marys were the biggest gossips in the world, never happier than when they were hovering around the bench press and ripping some poor queen to shreds. That was how John h
ad learned about Christopher’s secret liaison. He’d gone to the gym to work on his abdominals and had overheard two queens gossiping in the changing room. This rent boy (Marco he was called—weren’t they all?), well, he wasn’t exactly the first. It seemed that Christopher had been putting it about quite a bit. They hadn’t all been full-blown affairs. According to these two gym queens, it had mostly been quick tricks in the showers. In fact, John was surprised there wasn’t a plaque on the wall in the changing room in recognition of all the men Christopher was reputed to have serviced there.
Martin must have been blind not to have worked it out by now. Poor, stupid queen. For a moment, John considered calling him back, but decided against it. He felt sorry for Martin, he really did. But sympathy was a bit like cocaine—offer someone a little bit and before the night was out they’d be back begging for more. For John, friends came in two varieties. There were the Low-Maintenance Friends, or LMFs—the kind of people who were fun to be around, but who didn’t demand much in the way of emotional support, and who were always able to pay for their own drugs. And then there were the High-Maintenance Friends, or HMFs—the kind of people you could enjoy the occasional night out with, but who had a nasty habit of unloading their problems on you, and who were always short of money. For the past couple of years, Martin had been an LMF, which suited John to a T. Now, with Christopher gone, there was a strong possibility that he might suddenly mutate into an HMF. And as much as he liked Martin, John had no intention of becoming a shoulder for him to cry on.
Besides which, he’d had a bitch of a day today. Flights to and from Orlando attracted some of the worst people on earth, people who shouldn’t be allowed to set foot outside Croydon, never mind fly to America and back. He could tell that stupid cunt and her meathead husband would be trouble the minute they had turned up with all that extra hand luggage and their shining pink brats in tow—her screaming at the kids to “shut the fuck up,” him stinking of lager and complaining about the number of queers on board. John wasn’t sure which was worse—the breeders who radiated hostility at any crew member who wasn’t wearing a skirt, or the queens who snapped their fingers to gain your attention and assumed that gay cabin crew were all part of the in-flight entertainment. If there was one thing John hated more than being referred to as a “trolley dolly,” it was the assumption that he was some sort of flying mattress.
Thank God Shane had been on the same flight today. Shane was always so good at dealing with difficult passengers. He always knew the right thing to say to wind them up without ever being seen to be obviously rude or deliberately unhelpful, thereby giving them grounds for complaint. And when words failed him, he always knew how to get back at them in little subtle ways—the wrong meal here, the spilled drink there. Really, he was a man after John’s own heart. It was a pity he only went for Asian types. That was partly why Shane had become an air steward in the first place—all those stopovers in Bangkok. John couldn’t see the attraction of Asian boys, and he certainly couldn’t understand rice queens with Shane’s level of devotion. It just didn’t make any sense. Walk into any gay sauna or back room in London and you were guaranteed to find an Asian on their knees. Why fly halfway across the world for a taste of the Orient when there was plenty going begging at home?
No, John had definitely been through enough today. Besides, it was already past midnight, and he was expecting company. That guy he’d met on the Internet would be arriving shortly. He went into the bathroom and studied himself in the mirror. His hair was looking good—blond and floppy at the front, kind of like David Beckham before Posh Spice got her hands on him and he started looking too processed, like some suburban queen let loose at the cosmetics counter. His skin wasn’t looking too bad, either, which was a miracle considering the punishment it took with all that air travel. Still, the job did have its compensations. The bathroom shelves were piled high with the fruits of his travels—cut-price Clinique for Men skin products in their reassuringly masculine gray packaging and an assortment of pharmaceutical drugs from around the world. Everything a gay man needed when he was feeling frazzled, inside and out.
John popped a Valium, applied some Clinique nonstreak bronzer to his cheeks and some John Frieda Sheer Blonde Ambition Dual Action Mousse to his hair, and vowed that he would phone Martin first thing in the morning. Unless his new friend stayed for breakfast of course.
Two
Martin woke with a start andpromptly wished he hadn’t. His head throbbed, the whole room stank of vomit, and the bed felt horribly empty. No wonder really. This was only the twenty-second time he had woken up alone in almost three years. Of course it felt strange. And cold, since there wasn’t a warm body lying beside him. Christopher was a heavy sleeper and barely stirred before the alarm went off. Some mornings Martin would lie awake for ages, just watching him sleep, before tiptoeing into the kitchen and bringing them both a steaming mug of tea. He wondered whose bed Christopher was waking up in right now, and whether they were drinking tea together. Maybe they were too busy having sex. Christopher liked a quickie before work—or used to anyway.
He’d have to start thinking about work himself. Just the thought of it made him feel ill, but if he didn’t go in, he wouldn’t get paid. Three years designing packaging for groceries at the same supermarket chain, and he was still on a freelance contract. No holiday pay, no sick pay, nothing. He couldn’t afford to take the day off, especially not now. There was the rent to think about, and the bills, and all the other household expenses he and Christopher used to split between them. He wished he were still at art college and could spend the day avoiding lectures and discovering ever more inventive ways of running up his overdraft. He wished he were still young and free, instead of just painfully single. He wished he were still twenty and looked like that barboy from last night. He probably had potential boyfriends lining up around the block.
Christopher would love it if he could see him now. He always prided himself on knowing that he had the upper hand. It had been that way right from the moment he and Martin first met, that night at John’s party. Christopher had gate-crashed, naturally. He was that sort of person. Always confident that he’d be welcome in any social situation, whether he’d been invited or not. Always sure of himself. Never embarrassed. Never apologetic. Martin had spotted that straight away. If he was really honest with himself, it was partly why he was drawn to Christopher in the first place. That, and the accent. Americans were an exotic breed in London, and always highly prized boyfriend material—except for that brief period during the mid ’80s when AIDS first began making headlines in Britain and “safe sex” meant snubbing the advances of American tourists who tried to chat you up in Earl’s Court. Things always seemed to come so easily to Christopher—charm, self-confidence, good hair days. Not like Martin, who had been known to wash his hair three times in one evening before finally summoning up the courage to walk out the door. Oh well, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about that anymore. His mother had once told him that the average human hair grows a centimeter each month, so it would be baseball caps from now until the end of the summer.
He hauled himself out of bed, padded barefoot into the kitchen, and swilled down some painkillers while he waited for the kettle to boil. Maybe John was right after all. Maybe gay relationships were doomed to fail. How many gay couples did he know who were really solid? Two? Three at most? Most gay men didn’t seem to know the meaning of commitment. They were too busy sleeping around, always on the lookout for the next conquest, the next piece of trade to boast about to their friends, the next bit of meaningless sex that was somehow supposed to give their lives some meaning. He had kidded himself that Christopher was different, that he was serious about settling down. Obviously he’d been wrong. Perhaps it was better that he had found this out now, before they had entered the next phase of their relationship and taken out a joint mortgage. That was one commitment he could do without.
He was in the shower when the phone rang. He grabbed a towel and bolted int
o the living room, leaving a trail of soggy footprints. He was half hoping it was Christopher, calling to say that he’d made a terrible mistake, that he was coming home. But it wasn’t.
“Martin, it’s me. Are you okay? I called as soon as I could.” Martin’s heart sank. All the declarations of concern couldn’t disguise the note of excitement in the voice on the other end of the line. Martin could tell immediately that John knew something he didn’t. As soon as the conversation was over, he called the office and explained that he wouldn’t be coming into work today.
Caroline’s mind definitely wasn’t on the job. The day had started pleasantly enough. Graham had stayed over last night, and they’d woken up in a tangle of limbs, his morning stiffy pressing against her thigh in a cute yet still mildly titillating way. There wasn’t time for sex, but they had cuddled for a bit. Caroline had even got to the stage now where she would kiss him good morning before rinsing her mouth out with Listerine and brushing and flossing her teeth, which for her was quite an achievement. It meant that they had reached the point where they felt comfortable with one another, which made the row that followed seem all the more ridiculous.
For some time now, Caroline had desperately wanted Graham to move in. Of course she hadn’t said as much. That would have sounded far too clingy, and the only thing clingy about Caroline was her wardrobe. But she had dropped enough hints. She had also gone out of her way to make the flat seem more inviting. This had been difficult, since domesticity wasn’t really her style. But she knew from experience that men were more inclined to settle down with women who seemed nurturing and house-proud. Even so-called “new men” preferred a woman who was equally at home in Habitat as she was in the kitchen, and who could rustle up something healthy and appetizing at a moment’s notice. With the best will in the world, Caroline knew that she would never live up to Nigella Lawson’s shining example of a “domestic goddess.” But God knows she had made a concerted effort. She had bought some cookbooks and had arranged them decoratively on a shelf in the kitchen, right next to the tea and coffee jars, where Graham would be certain to spot them. Just the other weekend, she’d taken the curtains off to the dry cleaner’s and had all the rugs shampooed. Bowls of potpourri had suddenly appeared in every room. And she had even invested in a dozen glossy houseplants from Marks & Spencer, though keeping them alive had proved more of a problem.