by Paul Burston
His pace was beginning to slow now, which usually meant that he was cooling down. Another minute or two and it would be safe to prod him a little further.
“Well?” she said eventually, trying hard to disguise the impatience in her voice. She didn’t want it to sound like an interrogation. That would only fuel his temper even more.
“Well, what?” Graham wasn’t giving an inch.
“Where were you?”
“Why do you keep asking me that?” He certainly had her there. The problem was, she hadn’t actually mentioned to Graham that she had overheard the answering-machine message. She had gone over it in her head dozens of times, torturing herself with visions of who this Darren character was, and what her boyfriend was doing at a group called C.L.A.G. She was no closer to knowing what this mysterious group was all about, but she was certain of one thing: the G stood for “Gay.” It was some kind of gay support group, and her boyfriend had been to one of their meetings, which could only mean one thing. She had been right all along. Graham was secretly gay, and his relationship with her was a total sham. This would explain why he was so set against the idea of them moving in together. He needed the security of his own flat to help conceal his deception.
She should have confronted him with it straight away, she knew that. It was silly to let it go for days like this. She should have simply told him that she had overheard the message and asked him to explain what it was all about. But she hadn’t. She told herself this was because she didn’t want Graham thinking that she was spying on him, but deep down she knew that, had it been a woman’s voice she’d heard, she would have confronted him about it immediately. It was okay to fly off the handle if a strange woman called up and left a message for the man you’d been dating for the past year. In fact, it was expected. But to interrogate your boyfriend over a phone call from a strange man? Well, that was a bit different. Life wasn’t like The Jerry Spinger Show. People didn’t just change sex at the drop of a hat or turn gay overnight. Those weren’t the sorts of things that happened in West Hampstead, certainly not to people like her. What was she supposed to say exactly? That she suspected Graham of harboring homosexual tendencies? Somehow, she didn’t think that would go down too well.
“I only asked,” she said finally. “There’s no need to get so uptight about it. Honestly, anybody would think you had something to hide.”
If this struck a nerve, he didn’t let it show. “If I’m upset, it’s probably because I don’t like being cross-examined about my whereabouts all the time,” he said, disappearing into the kitchen and returning with a corkscrew. “Now can we just leave it, please?” He opened the bottle and poured two glasses. “C’mon, babes,” he said softly, handing her a glass and gently squeezing her shoulder. “Don’t you think you’re being just a little bit silly about this? I don’t demand to know where you are every minute of the day.”
That’s because I’m not the one receiving messages from strange men, Caroline thought, but she knew there was no point in pursuing this any further—not unless she wanted Graham to storm off again, which she didn’t. Heated arguments always left her feeling horny, and he had just opened a bottle of wine. It would be a shame to waste it.
“You’re right,” she said, raising her glass and smiling sweetly. “Just forget I said anything.” She genuinely hoped that he would forget. At least then she might stand a better chance of finding him out.
It was Thursday evening when John finally phoned. Martin didn’t know whether he was relieved to hear his voice or not. John had every right to be angry with him. His behavior at the underwear night had been pretty bad. He’d left the club without even telling John that he was going, which was a terrible thing to do to a friend in those circumstances. He could picture John hanging around at the end of the night, anxiously waiting for him to reappear and cursing his name as the lights came up and the taxi queue grew and grew. Of course Martin had no choice but to leave after what had happened, but John probably wouldn’t see it that way. Matthew was John’s latest catch after all. There was no telling how he would react to the news that his new boyfriend had given his best friend a blow job while he was in the room, but it seemed reasonable to assume that he might not be too thrilled about it. The chances were John had bumped into Matthew himself after Martin had left, heard all about their little encounter, and had spent the past few days plotting his revenge.
“So what happened to you the other night?” John said. He didn’t sound like someone hell bent on revenge. In fact, he sounded strangely cheery.
“Nothing,” Martin lied. “I just went home, that’s all. I looked around for you before I left, but I couldn’t really see very much in there. And I didn’t want to just wade in and find that you were in the middle of something.”
“Good job you didn’t.” John laughed. “I met this really amazing guy. Fabulous body. Great sex. Of course everyone else tried to join in. You know what some of those older queens are like—hands everywhere. And don’t tell me I’m being ageist. I don’t see them chasing after men their own age, so they’re just as bad. There was this one old git, a proper scary Mary, she was. It was like being groped by a waxwork. And it isn’t easy fending them off in your underwear. I ended up stubbing a cigarette out on her arm. . . .”
“So what about this guy?” Martin interrupted.
“What?” John said. “Oh, right. Well, he’s called Fernando, and guess what? He’s Brazilian! He works in a bar in Soho, but that’s just pocket money. He’s really a drug dealer. Coke, Ecstasy, K—you name it! I couldn’t believe my luck. And to top it all, he’s a great fuck, too. I can almost picture myself settling down.”
“But what about the guy you were with on Friday?” Martin couldn’t help asking. “Matthew, wasn’t it?”
John groaned. “That was last week! You don’t have to move in with every man you have sex with, you know. God, you’re such a lesbian sometimes.”
Martin bristled. Given John’s attitude to women in general, and to lesbians in particular, this clearly wasn’t intended as a compliment. Personally, Martin couldn’t see anything wrong with lesbians. So what if they were known for falling in love and setting up home together quicker than you could say “cat flap”? Was that really so bad? At least they weren’t afraid of commitment, which was more than could be said for certain gay men. It was just like that joke that did the rounds a few years ago—“What do lesbians take on a second date? A moving van. What do gay men take on a second date? What second date?” There were far worse things to be compared to than lesbians. All things considered, he would rather be mistaken for a lesbian than for a gay man like John.
“Anyway, listen,” John said. “The reason I’m calling is about Saturday. Gay Pride. You are still planning on going?”
An image of his father squeezed between two drag queens flashed before Martin’s eyes. “I suppose so,” he said, halfheartedly. “Well, actually I’m not sure. The thing is, it’s a bit awkward. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my dad is coming to stay this weekend and, well, he says he wants to come along.”
“Oh, I see,” John faltered for a moment. “Christ, he isn’t about to announce that he’s queer or something, is he?”
“Of course not!”
“Well, I hope you’re right, ’cos that would be too gross. Can you imagine? Your own dad, a queen! And at his age, too! It would be so embarrassing! Not as bad as finding out that he likes to dress up in women’s clothes and call himself Brenda, I suppose, but even so. . . .”
“Okay, John,” Martin snapped. “Can we change the subject now, please?”
“What? Oh, right. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to work around him. We could always pair him off with some sad git from one of those gay parents’ groups. He’ll be fine. They can compare notes and we can get on with the serious business of having a good time. Talking of which, Fernando says he can sort us out with whatever we want. I just have to call him tomorrow with a shopping list and he’ll have it all ready on the day.
I thought we could get a couple of E’s for the march, maybe some coke to tide us over the afternoon, then a few more E’s for later, and maybe a bit of K for the club later. Oh, and guess what? We were talking about which club to go to, and Fernando said he can put our names on the guest list wherever we fancy. He knows all the club promoters, DJs, everyone. We won’t even have to queue.”
Martin’s heart sank at the prospect of a whole day playing goose with John and his latest catch. He wasn’t sure which was going to be worse—having his father tag along at Gay Pride or watching John falling in love again for the second time in a week.
“Yeah, great,” he said. “I’m not sure about taking E, though. Isn’t it a bit dangerous?”
John laughed. “I can’t believe you’ve never had an E. Where have you been? You’ll be telling me you haven’t tried Viagra next.”
“I haven’t,” Martin said crossly. “I may not be twenty-one anymore, but I’m hardly at the age where I’m having trouble getting it up.”
“Try telling me that after your first E,” John sniggered. “Anyway, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. More people die every year from alcohol than from E. And alcohol makes you fat, as I’m sure you know. All those horror stories you hear about E, that’s just the crap they sell to kids in the clubs. This is the good stuff. I popped one with Fernando the other night and it was fabulous. We were as high as kites and as horny as hell. And that was just at the club. By the time we got back to his place, we were tearing each other’s clothes off. So, I’ll order you two, okay? Trust me, you’ll have the time of your life.”
Martin doubted this very much, but he couldn’t see any point in putting up a fight. “Okay,” he said. “See you Saturday.”
The first thing Caroline did when she got home from work on Friday evening was call Graham. His answering machine came on after the second ring. She hesitated before hanging up, and then debated whether or not to try him on his cell. She didn’t want him to think that she was checking up on him, though of course this was precisely what she was doing. After all, Graham had told her that he was going out with some of the lads from the office tonight. He probably wouldn’t be too pleased to have her calling up to confirm his whereabouts in front of his work colleagues. Come to think of it, she didn’t really want them jumping to the conclusion that she was some mad, possessive bunny boiler. Then again, this was assuming that he was actually out with his work colleagues, and not simply using them as an alibi. For all she knew, he could just as easily be in bed with some ex-girlfriend he’d bumped into on the tube, or even worse, some man called Darren he’d met at a gay support group a week ago. That was the trouble with cell phones. They were so bloody mobile. Great if you were stuck in traffic and needed to let an important client know that you were going to be late for a meeting. Even better for tracking down a coke dealer on a Saturday night. But when it came to confirming whether the man you were dating really was where he said he was, with the people he said he was with, they were no use at all. Which, presumably, was part of the reason men liked them so much.
She could always pretend that she was calling to confirm details of the dinner party they had been invited to tomorrow night, though she knew perfectly well that Graham’s old school friend Jeremy and his wife, Pip, were expecting them at 7:30 P.M. sharp. Caroline felt nauseous at the mere thought of it. Jeremy and Pip were two of the most irritating, smug, middle-class twits she had ever met. The prospect of spending an entire evening facing them over the dinner table made her stomach churn. No doubt they’d be sampling some exotic new recipe Pip had picked up at one of her evening classes. What was it last time? Braised pheasant with pancetta? Followed by grilled peaches with a raspberry and red wine sorbet? Designer food, her mother would have called it. For once, Caroline was forced to concede that she had a point.
What was Pip doing learning all these fancy new recipes anyway? It wasn’t as if she actually ate anything. Caroline could picture her now—moving her food around her plate, rearranging it in a series of ever more decorative displays, before finally whisking the plate away and tipping the whole lot into the bin. Pip was one of those annoying stick insect women who took absolutely no pleasure in food. Cooking was just another means of drawing attention to her superior breeding and impeccable good taste.
Caroline resented women like Pip, and berated herself for feeling so intimidated by them. She wondered if it was worth skipping dinner tonight and maybe having a few lines of coke instead. It wasn’t as if she made a habit of it. How much harm could come from missing the odd meal here and there? And how much weight could she expect to lose in a day? Half a pound perhaps? Not a lot, but just enough to give herself that extra boost of confidence. And maybe she should wear that slinky black dress, the one that drew attention to her cleavage. Pip may have been blessed with narrow hips and the appetite of a bird, but she was obviously at the back of the queue when other assets were given out. As for Jeremy, Caroline had yet to meet a married man whose eyes didn’t wander when there was a decent pair of breasts on show.
It probably wasn’t a good idea to call Graham now, she thought, wandering into the bedroom and opening her wardrobe. Better to concentrate on making a big impression tomorrow night. One thing was certain—if she wore that dress, nobody would be admiring Pip’s cooking for very long. It would be worth it just to see the look on her face.
Martin was lying on his back with his legs in the air. Inches above his face, Carl was issuing instructions. “Okay, Martin. Take it nice and slowly. Tighten those tummy muscles for me. That’s good. Now, three more . . .”
The gym was far busier than Martin had expected. In fact, he wasn’t quite sure what he had expected, but it certainly wasn’t this. The YMCA didn’t advertise itself as a gay gym, but it might just as well have been a queer-only zone for all the straight men in evidence. Everywhere he looked there were gay men working out in pairs or chatting together by the water cooler. The scene reminded him of his first-ever visit to a gay bar. Everyone looked so at ease with one another, and so comfortable with their surroundings, that he was left feeling strangely out of place. It was just as well he’d decided to hire a personal trainer for his first few sessions.
“Is this a gay gym?” he asked, looking up at Carl with a slightly pained expression.
Carl grinned. “All gyms are gay,” he said with a wink.
Martin smiled back, silently noting that while Carl may have been prematurely balding, he compensated for his lack of hair by having a perfectly proportioned physique. And a perfectly proportioned boyfriend tucked away at home, too, no doubt.
Carl’s services didn’t come cheap, but aside from ensuring that Martin didn’t do himself an injury or expend vast amounts of energy on exercises that wouldn’t make much difference, his solid, friendly presence meant that Martin wasn’t the only person working out alone. For the first time in his life, Martin had a sense of what it must be like to hire an escort for the evening.
The program Carl had devised for him wasn’t quite as demanding as he had anticipated. It helped that he knew his way around some of the equipment. Those few occasions when he’d tagged along to the gym with Christopher hadn’t been a complete waste of time. Still, it wasn’t exactly painless, either. Straining to control the barbell as Carl showed him the correct method of performing bicep curls, Martin had felt as if the veins in his forearms were about to pop. But that was nothing compared with the agony he was in now. Stomach crunches were definitely the worst, he thought, as he raised his knees and curled his head and shoulders up for the last time.
“That was great,” Carl said as Martin collapsed, red-faced and breathless, onto the rubber mat. “Now just five minutes on the StairMaster to cool down, then a good stretch, and you’re done.”
Standing under the shower afterward, gazing down as the water bounced off his naked body, Martin decided that John was right. He was definitely looking a bit flabby. He could do with losing a few inches around the middle and addin
g a few inches to his chest and arms. It would take a great deal of discipline and a lot more pain before he started to look anything like some of the bodies on display out there. And there was still the question of where the extra money was going to come from. The gym membership alone came to almost six hundred pounds. Plus there were Carl’s fees, and he could do with some new trainers. In fact, a whole new gym kit would probably help keep him motivated. He would have to advertise for a roommate soon.
Still, at least he’d made a start. He was taking control of things. Inside this slightly overweight, thirty-two-year-old body, there was a whole new person just waiting to emerge. He felt better already.
Seven
Martin’s relationship with his father had been through many different phases over the years. As a small boy, he had been painfully conscious of the fact that his father didn’t look or act like dads were supposed to. Other kids’ dads went to work in a suit and washed the car on Sundays. His dad rode around on a motorbike and spent Sundays leafleting the neighbors about the dangers of nuclear power and the benefits of smoking pot, or protesting about fascist dictators in far-off places. By the time Martin entered his teens and began staging his own form of protest with the aid of silly clothes and hair dye, his father’s casual-dress sense and firm beliefs had become a source of pride. When his parents’ marriage fell apart, it was his dad he sided with. For a time, he blamed his mother for driving his father away, before finally waking up to the fact that his father never did anything he didn’t want to, least of all compromise his principles for the sake of practical considerations like putting food on the table. His father had many fine qualities, but being a responsible husband wasn’t one of them.