The Sexual Compass

by Michael Reed

  Eventually, the guy who was sat on his own put the lid on his plastic cup of tea and walked outside and stood near his bicycle. Obviously, he planned to finish his drink away from us. The lads exchanged looks with each other and Steven announced that it was time to go. Before long, they were outside, standing near the man and beaming happily at him. Check and mate. Before long, he put his drink onto one of the tables and cycled off.

  The next day, I had sobered up. I hadn't been drunk on alcohol or high on drugs, but I had been under the spell that Steven's mates had cast. Now, I felt ashamed. The truth was that I had chuckled along with them and made half-hearted signs of disapproval and shock that only worked to egg them on. Would it have been detectable to an outsider that I was not with them in any sense? Probably not. Would a show of genuine disapproval on my part have stopped them? Doubtful.

  Steven's friends had played the odds and gamed the system, just like they always did. As obnoxious as they became, there was no chance of them getting into trouble. Even if two policemen had walked into the McDonald's and spotted someone standing on a table and shouting, it wouldn't have been worth bothering with. The chances of them being charged with a crime were practically zero. What had they actually done? They asked a woman for her phone number, stood on a table, sung along with the radio and stood near a man and looked at him. They acted like they were out of control, but they were never out of control; they knew just what they could get away with, and it was always at someone else's expense.

  As I sat in bed, that next morning, the spell had broken and I was suffering a hangover of the spirit. I felt sorry for the staff at McDonald’s and the man who wasn't allowed to finish his drink.

  ***

  By the time I was eight months in and ready to pop, I explained to Steven that we were finished.

  “Okay, babes, if that's the way it's got to be,” he said.

  “Babes” he still called me. The whole situation played into his self-image of a drifter outlaw that no woman could ever hold down.

  Subsequently, I had to get on with him for the sake of my son. I was determined to go along with the situation because of the experience that I had of living among a community of horrible, yet lovable, fatherless men like Steven.

  As far as I can see, the effects of fatherlessness can vary. Steven's brother John is pretty much the opposite of Steven. John works as a lab technician. So, he has a job, for a start. John always has a joke up his sleeve. However, he's older than Steven and he experienced a period of a fairly stable family life, and I think that made a difference.

  I wish that I was attracted to a good-hearted, fat, funny bloke like John. I don't think that John has it made, though. I think that there is a seriousness underneath the act that only I can detect. He must be lonely. Steven burst into laughter when I asked him if John had ever had a girlfriend: “I don't know and I don't ask.”

  No lecturing from Mum and Dad when I had to return home, bless them. I moved back into my old bedroom, and we made Simon's old room into a nursery.

  There was no point in trying to get anything out of Steven, money-wise. Mum and Dad had to do the financial heavy-lifting while I was living at home with baby. My friends were all delighted to leave Cleethorpes, a seaside town on the east coast where I have lived my entire life. I am sure that the pace of life is more exciting in one of the cities, and I would like to experience it for myself one day. But as places to be stuck go, Cleethorpes is not bad at all.

  Simon started paying some money into my bank account as soon as I split with Steven. Sometimes I'd sigh because it seemed too much. It's never been discussed, and Simon could rip me to shreds if he ever wanted to by rubbing my nose in it, but he never would. Between Simon, Mum and Dad and welfare benefits, I have it pretty good. The money enables me to do my Open University course, look after baby and (just) run a car. I made some dodgy life decisions, but everything was manageable because of my family. Everything was fine before the mice turned gay.

  Chapter 4 - It's a thing

  The mouse business was soon officially a thing on the Internet. #gaycure became a hashtag on Twitter. Other people had picked up on the mouse. After pranksters turned the Deadmou5 logo pink and rechristened it Gaymou5, it started popping up all over the place. The story coasted along as a talking point and a bit of joke for a few weeks, but then the BBC reported on it as part of the main evening news, and later, announced a forthcoming documentary about it.

  The story was that some scientists in Edinburgh had carried out some experiments on mice. When the scientists gave a large dose of insulin to the mice in their food, a number of the mice began to engage in same-sex sexual activity. Out of ten male mice, eight of them showed an interest in copulating with other males, atypical behaviour in mice. The behaviour ceased when the insulin dosage was lowered.

  Shortly afterwards, the National Health Service began trials of a new oral insulin delivery method in a hospital in Manchester. Sure enough, when questioned, the men and women reported an increase in sexual interest towards members of the same sex. In fact, one of them had gone to the press to complain about the effect on his marriage.

  A week after that, there were two new developments, and the first of these had just the right amount of juice for the tabloids: A secondary school headmaster, who had been on the oral insulin delivery trial, had left his wife for a man. Grainy, long-range photographs clearly showed him getting into a car with another man, confirming the story. That article also featured a photograph of the semi-detached house that he had lived in with his wife. The house gave no outward signs of anything unusual.

  The second development was that another man who had been on the trial had committed suicide.

  ***

  As per our tradition, Simon picked me up on Thursday night. Then, back to his house for Gay Club. I'm not allowed to call it that, as it's Simon's “sexuality encounter group”. Four or five of his gay friends talking about being gay while I try to not be too sarcastic. My life was very exciting. What can I tell you? There was pizza.

  Gay rights activists are generally on the side of right and do some good, but they aren't, collectively speaking, famed for their humour. Simon's friends, like Simon himself, had homosexuality as both their sexual orientation and their hobby. He'd been through a few different organisations since Uni, but I suspect that they weren't serious enough for him, so he started organising his own meetings at his place. I did sometimes wonder if some of these guys could, y'know, try being gay together, as in having sexual relationships with each other. However, I knew I'd get shot for suggesting it; gay sex was frowned upon as a subject of debate at Gay Club.

  At least there was one other person with a sense of humour there. Is it being condescending towards a gay person to think, What a shame… about someone, because you'd be in like a shot if they weren't gay? That's what I thought when I first met Gary. In many ways, Gary is the opposite of Steven. He's unmanly, without being effeminate. He has lovely long blond hair down to his waist and he is whip-thin. I loved beating him at arm wrestling, and he took his defeats with good grace.

  Once, I enquired, “You're sure that is your wanking arm, Gary?”

  “You're just not doing it enough. You need to ask him for some tips,” I continued, pointing at Simon.

  Serious Simon had to bring his brat sister into his club house, and then she started mentioning wanking. Awesome burgers. Sighs all round, smiles from me. That sort of thing never got old. For me. In addition, I enjoyed turning the subject to wanking, something I knew a great deal about.

  Once, I had to get the bus back home and Gary walked with me to the station. As part of a joke, I put my arm around Gary, and then something brilliant happened: A gang of young lads were hanging around the station, and one of them shouted, “Lesbos!” at us. Major embarrassment when Gary turned around to look at them. The expression on the young lad's face was priceless. I think that, for some men, being mistaken for a woman would have been the ultimate insult. Such men would have f
elt compelled to go over and pummel the person who shouted the comment.

  “We're not lesbos, because he's a man,” I said, to stick up for Gary. If I'd really wanted to punish the cocky little sod, I would have approached him and explained what the actual situation was until his brain went pop considering it.

  Gary thought it was great, whisper-shouting “Oi, Lesbos!” all the way to the bus terminal, and the incident was often recounted for humorous effect.

  So, in summary, I didn't have a full-blown crush on Gary, because I knew there was no point.

  Oh Gary, be my mate, please, I'd sometimes think. I dearly wished that Simon would have a go, but advice or commentary from me on Simon's no-sex life was a no go area.

  My arrival at Gay Club would typically be accompanied by sighs, but that was usually played for humour. Even Gary would join in, grimacing and saying, “To make matters worse…” upon seeing me. This time, for the first time, I genuinely felt unwelcome. Later, I would realise that it was because the ground had begun to shift under their feet.

  Gary was speaking: “So, all my memories–a lifetime of memories–of being gay would be wiped? It's ridiculous. Or, would my memories suddenly become abhorrent to me? I don't suppose a straight man would like to remember all the times he went to bed with another man.”

  One of you lot has been to bed with a man? I didn't dare interject. I sensed that it wouldn't be appreciated.

  “Perhaps I could take some pills to change my taste in music?” added Rob, a young Jimmy Somerville look-a-like who made Simon seem like a non-serious gay person.

  When Rob said this, I began to wonder if it would be possible to take a pill that would change a person's taste in music. A brain works on chemicals, connections between cells and electrical impulses; it's a machine, it's not magical. While the others debated, I worked on this idea further. If I were in a subdued mood, I might be less inclined to hear energetic music. Could a pill make me feel subdued? Yes. I was oversimplifying like mad, but in that contrived example, a pill had altered my taste in music.

  There was a break in the conversation, so I ventured: “Isn't it too early to be taking this so seriously? Frankly, it sounds like a crank theory.”

  “That's easy for you to say, since it doesn't concern you,” Gary snapped. My lovely Gary. He was shaken up. They all were. These events had a familiar signature for many of them. A little bell rang to remind them, on some level, of past battles, those of sexual realisation and of coming out.

  For the rest of the night, the four of them pushed the implications back and forth between them; it continued to amaze me that it had caught their imagination to such an extent. Sarcastic Susan knew when her brand of piss-taking wasn't in demand, so I hung around in the kitchen.

  The conclusion, after over two hours of discussion? The discovery was nonsense and the product of quackery, but that it was also an attack on gay people, as it had so readily caught the public imagination. At all times, I was aware that the announcement had injected something into the air and had a surprising effect on the group. Gary had snapped at me, but I could see that everyone was under pressure.

  Simon was silent, obviously deep in thought, as we drove back to Mum and Dad's. I knew that this would be one of a few crank medical discoveries announced in the press that year. To the media, the scientific validity of this theory was less important than its entertainment value, and yes, the humour of it did demean homosexuality and play on latent homophobia. And yet, for some reason, the idea had music to it. Why was it catching on in the way it had?

  Chapter 5 - A room of one's own

  I am ashamed to say that a year after the baby was born, I had no close friends apart from my brother. My pregnancy had occurred at just the wrong moment and I had to leave sixth form to have the kid. Crucially, this meant that I lost contact with all of my friends. I heard less and less from them over the course of the next year, and the year after that, they had all moved on to University.

  There was a stigma surrounding the stupid girl who had got pregnant, part of which was daft and part of which I understood. The daft part was that everyone automatically assumes that a woman must have been irresponsible to have become unexpectedly pregnant. I took every reasonable precaution and I wasn't doing anything that most of my classmates weren't doing when they were seventeen.

  The part I do understand is that some of the other girls would have been in the same position as me and made the opposite decision so that they could continue with the normal course of their lives. Odd Girl did something that must have seemed strange, and even I will never know if it was the right decision; that's a hard thing for a mother to admit. All of my friends came from a similar background and they had much the same future planned out. What I did had forced them to confront something about themselves. I insulted their values of modernity and of “getting on”. Looking back, I don't know what my plan was, but I know that I must have had a crap taste in friends. I bet none of them could have put into words what I had done wrong if someone asked them.

  During the final few visits, my friends were embarrassed. By then, they were all off, living in the University halls and I was living, largely, in my bedroom. What a huge gulf between lifestyles. When the last of them made a final visit, we sat in my bedroom, baby asleep. At that point, who were we, the two of us? She had been a girl that I took to McDonald's as a treat on my birthday. By the time of that last visit, were we girls, or were we sophisticated young women? In some respects, I was the adult now, more than her, because I was someone's mother. It was confusing. And embarrassing. Being middle class, educated and living at home in your twenties gifts you with a magical field of embarrassment that is active at all times. A visit to me must have been like visiting a relative in prison. I have no doubt that they all kept back much of the exciting news of their adventures, as it must have seemed cruel to mention everything they got up to.

  I had a few acquaintances from Gay Club and from elsewhere, but no one that I would call a close friend. How shameful. Why is it that I wouldn't feel the same sense of shame about my position if I were to announce that I was randy, desperate for a shag, and on the pull? I was desperate for the simple, satisfying friendships of my youth. I sometimes think that I am not that likeable. Neither men nor women appreciate sarcasm as much as they should.

  And yet, guilt slapped me in the face. I had everything so good, and so little of it had been due to my own efforts. I felt guilty about having something as lovely as my room. As well as being my bedroom, it also served as my study, and when I was inside it, studying, I was in my element. I had my own kettle up there and I brought up everything I needed to keep me supplied with coffee (decaf) as I worked on my coursework. I was, in part, motivated by a mixture of guilt, alongside gratitude towards my family, but the truth is that I loved working on my degree.

  There's a thought: perhaps my subjects, anthropology and sociology, had made me one of the enemy, representative of the scientists who had been churning things up at Gay Club. I quickly dismissed the next thought I had, to study the effect of the discovery on a community of homosexual men. Studying your own life or the people close to you is generally considered a no-no. There would be no shutting down of that part of my brain, though.

  Already, I was too much of an observer of life rather than a participant in it. Like Simon. He wanted to examine and debate things rather than go out and do them. I wasn't engaging much, socially, but I had an excuse. What was his? He has a good job, his own place and is gay. Cleethorpes, where we all live, isn't exactly a world-renowned gay Mecca, but it's not too bad.

  ***

  When I was ten and Simon was fourteen, a computer entered our lives. Before that, Dad had an old one in the study, but the new computer we got as a family one Christmas lived in the dining room so that everyone could use it. The big difference was that this one came with an AOL account, and therefore, the Internet. Simon and I got on fairly well until then, but limited computer time soon developed into a huge sourc
e of friction. If my mum had been a character in a sitcom, her catchphrase would have been, “I wish we'd never got that thing!”

  I loved playing games like DooM and looking things up on the web. For Simon, it quickly became his entire world. At the weekend, he could easily sit on it for twelve hours at a time. That doesn't seem amazing these days, but back then there was no Facebook, YouTube or Twitter.

  Despite being a teacher, Mum still has a lot of the working class accent. I regularly impersonate her by saying, “I don't want you looking at girls on that thing!” followed up with “Yes, mum!” in a squeaky voice. It has lightened many a quiet moment between Simon and I. Was he looking at guys on the Internet when he had a private moment on the computer? I know I bloody was.

  In an attempt to ease the squabbling and to navigate this sudden shift in teenage lifestyles, my mum declared that we could use it on alternate hours.

  “What? I often need more than a single hour at time,” said Simon. “Very well. I'll have the even hours. It will give me the hour before school.”

  “No!” said Mum. “No more using it before school. Me and your Dad need to be able to hear from work.” Back then, Internet access meant blocking up the phone.

  Simon kept his even hours designation and then started getting up at 6am or earlier to get in some extra time. I loved using a computer, but Simon liked the computer itself, sometimes taking it to bits to fiddle with it. It may have been his way of retreating from the heterosexual world imposed on a fourteen-year-old school boy. By the time he started sixth form college, it was obvious that his life was going to revolve around computers. Simon had “found himself”, sitting in a computer science class, holding court with the mates he now had.

  Chapter 6 - The dark mouse rises

  I had just been slapped in the face. Not literally, of course. Apparently, at Gay Club, I was now the enemy.

  When you know that you're going into battle, you can set your face in a neutral expression in advance, but this was an unexpected attack from an unexpected direction. That evening, the talk at Bender Central was still all about the “gay cure”; even they had begun to use the tabloid term. Everyone was taking themselves and the situation much too seriously. So, to lighten the mood, I put my arm around Gary's shoulder.