Rainbow Milk

by Paul Mendez

  There were men with perfectly trimmed silver, grey or black beards who were old enough to be his grandfather; there were men five to ten years older than him with gym-toned bodies, whom he thought he might want to emulate. The only boy he could see around his age, tiny and swarthy with green eyes, was squeezing through the bar with a stack of used pint glasses and giggling while being groped all the way through. Jesse suppressed the urge to touch the steeply curved lower back of a black giant in a skin-tight T-shirt, stonewashed jeans and bovver boots as he made his way past behind him, but allowed himself a quick sniff of his fresh sweat. There were men with average bodies and friendly faces who looked like they were married with children, men who looked like accountants or schoolteachers. Men like Graham, six feet tall, normal-looking, going a little bit grey, broad and muscular from a lifetime of manual labour. Those were the men that he wanted.

  More men squeezed into the bar behind him, pushing him further in. A bearded man across the bar with a tuft of hair peeking out from underneath his rugby shirt clocked him and smiled, but Jesse looked away when he saw he was cross-eyed. A tall, bearded, Nordic-looking man with tattoos and glowering eyes, who stared into his face as they came together, kept moving as Jesse took too long to react. I’m packin’ all the flavours you need, sang Keisha. He realised how nervous he felt; his mouth was dry, and his stomach felt sore, as if there was a wound in it.

  There were several black men dotted around, all looking natural, one of them wearing make-up, with finger-waves in his hair and a black leather harness over his white T-shirt, lip-syncing with his arms crossed over his chest like Naomi Campbell in the “Freedom! ’90” video. He wondered if he should just go over and introduce himself but space opened at the bar next to a broad-shouldered, stocky man with dark blond, slightly curly hair, wearing a charcoal suit jacket, jeans and brown brogues. He was reading a gay circular and drinking a pint of bitter, so Jesse stood there and waited for attention from the bartenders. The man in the suit jacket was wearing a nice aftershave, and Jesse worried that he stank in comparison. The shower on his floor at the hostel had a blocked drain, and he couldn’t bring himself to stand for more than a minute in the grey backed-up water.

  After two good-looking, muscular men who had come to the bar after him were both served first, he caught the eye of a bartender, a chubby guy in glasses and a white polo shirt with the round Coleherne logo, and ordered a pint of Foster’s. He nodded his head nervously as he waited. A tall, slim man with grey mutton-chop sideburns stood drinking his pint with one foot up against the wall behind him. Jesse began to harden as the man tapped his thigh with one hand, drawing attention to the dick clearly defined down his standing leg. His boyfriend, Jesse guessed, because they looked the same but ten years apart in age, came up from the toilets and claimed him with a full, hard, lip-sucking kiss. Jesse mourned him as the “We Don’t Give a Damn” Mix played out its heavy, jubilant coda.

  The man in the suit jacket seemed to be in his own little zone. He was wearing a crisp, high-collared white shirt, unbuttoned to mid-chest; he had a bit of a belly, and smooth cheeks. Jesse enjoyed being close enough to smell him. He wasn’t dressed like anyone else in the bar, and nor was Jesse, so because they both seemed to be outsiders, perhaps they could share common ground. Jesse was aware that he was being looked at. The man stood up to full height as Jesse turned to face him, their eyes met, he took out his earbuds and reached inside his jacket to switch off his Discman.

  “I thought you were going to pull out a knife,” said the man, laughing and showing a narrow gap between his front teeth. His voice was low and quiet, but clear and discernible over the thumping music. “What were you listening to?”

  He spoke as if they were already acquainted and Jesse had just arrived late for their date.

  “A song called ‘Freak Like Me’ by the Sugababes,” said Jesse.

  “Just Sugababes, no article,” the man said, enjoying the stunned reaction on Jesse’s face. “Which version?”

  “The ‘We Don’t Give a Damn’ Mix?” Twenty-four hours living with Aussies and Jesse was already copying their rising intonation.

  “Ah, the record of the moment,” said the man, as he leaned in to talk into Jesse’s ear, which was quickly moist from his breath. “Probably the best pop single released in this country since ‘West End Girls.’ Did you see them on Top of the Pops last night?”

  * * *

  —

  He had checked into the hostel and was given a bottom-bunk bed in a quad room overlooking a beautiful Victorian street. Most of the tenants were in their late teens or early twenties, largely from Australia, South Africa or New Zealand, with one or two from France and Spain, on short- or long-term stays. The only English he’d met were contractors or long-distance drivers staying overnight. He certainly wasn’t going to stay at the hostel for long, with its matted red carpets and shoddy MDF wardrobes. There was woodchip underneath the textured wallpaper, and he imagined the loud, rude, farty sound it would make as it was torn away from the plaster underneath. No wonder the hostel manager Greg, a bald, tanned, muscled and oddly flirtatious Australian, said that most people only stayed there for a couple of weeks while they were looking for somewhere more permanent, or as a pit-stop on their travels.

  The crowd drinking and watching television in the common room later in the evening greeted him with friendly curiosity. He gratefully accepted the offer of an oozy slice of pepperoni pizza and a can of Foster’s. One or two girls started to fawn over him, patting his hair until it sprang back, telling him he was soy hendsome! and that they were jealous of his big, wide eyes and long, curled-up lashes. D’ya wear muscara? one of them asked. When he burst out laughing in denial, she said, I don’t believe you! and poked him in the eye with her greasy finger whilst trying to touch them. It had finally stopped watering by the time Top of the Pops came on, and Sugababes, complete with incongruously smiling new member, glared at their audience, posed, tapped their pockets, nodded their heads and gave a flawless rendition of the “We Don’t Give a Damn” Mix, drawing emphatic cheers at the end with a harmonious a cappella. Mutya looked like she didn’t give a shit but sounded incredible. The speakers were so bassy it was almost like being there.

  The drinking went on, and a core group stayed while others went out to pubs and clubs. Jesse had not encountered Australian people before outside Neighbours and Home and Away, and nobody in those shows had ever held an unlit spliff between their fingers and said, Dude, fency camun out with us for a mull on the stips?

  “Yeh,” Jesse had said, and followed two men wearing check shirts and vests (what the Australians called “singlets”) out into the mild evening air, just as a souped-up, purple Vauxhall Corsa slowed down and lowered its windows, its driver turning down Nelly’s “Country Grammar” just for a moment to sing because I got high / because I got high / because I got high, the refrain from the song by the American one-hit-wonder Afroman, before thrusting off with his mates in a screech of giggles and skinny tyre tracks. Jesse hadn’t had his hair cut for a couple of months but it wasn’t that long.

  “Cunts,” said Jeff as he lit up, pulling several times as the end glowed robustly. He was tall, hairy-chested and bearded. “Bit ya git thet a lot, roight?”

  “No,” Jesse sniggered.

  “Hay, look at ’im,” said Tod, less discreetly than he might have wanted. He was shorter and fairer than Jeff but just as stocky. A portly, suited middle-aged man descended the steps to a basement flat across the road.

  “Someone’s lookin’a get laid,” said Jeff, as he blew a rich, fragrant plume into the night air. He had the thickest eyebrows Jesse thought he had ever seen, and dark red, pouty lips.

  “Who lives there?” asked Jesse.

  “It’s a boy brothel,” said Tod.

  Jesse looked confused. “Right there?”

  “Yih,” said Tod, taking the spliff from Jeff. “That’s where
closet queers who can’t face goin’ to the Coleherne go.”

  “The Coleherne?” said Jesse.

  “Thet pab reownd the corner?” said Tod. “Where all the queers go?”

  “Mate,” said Jeff. “Ya can’t use thet wurd any more. Thay prefur gay.”

  Tod shrugged, holding his beer out in front of him. “I stend corrictud.”

  Jesse took the spliff and looked across the road at the basement flat, shrouded by a black fence and some overgrown shrubs. He made a mental note to look up the Coleherne on the Internet the next day. He took a deep pull and burst into a cough.

  “Thought you guys were s’posed to know what you’re doin’,” laughed Tod.

  “Dude,” said Jeff, as he tapped Jesse manfully on the back.

  * * *

  —

  “They were amazing,” said Jesse.

  “The only current girl group who can actually sing live,” the man said. “British girl group, I mean. Of course there are a plethora of American groups with pitch-perfect harmonies, but we don’t seem to produce them to any great quantity or quality here. I wonder why that is.”

  He stood back and waited for Jesse’s next move as if he might magically produce a couple of sisters or girlfriends whose voices were perfectly matched. Ruth and Esther did sound good together—especially when harmonising early Sugababes songs—but, alas, were nowhere to be seen.

  “I doe know,” said Jesse, bewildered, though not entirely unprepared for this conversation. “There’s more black people in America, int there.”

  “But what about the gospel scene? America has Destiny’s Child, SWV, Brownstone, En Vogue. We had Eternal, who were terrific, but it’s difficult to think beyond them. It’s terribly compelling, the use of soulful black female vocals over a secular white male backing track, à la ‘Freak Like Me.’ Of course, it all comes round and round. There’d have been none of the lo-fi isolationist post-punk Gary Numan traded on without the Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry–produced dub reggae sounds of the seventies, or without Kraftwerk, for that matter. I’m Rufus, by the way.”

  He stood back and held out an enormous, plump hand.

  “Arm Jesse,” he said, accepting it. It was preternaturally soft, as if Rufus hadn’t worked a day in his life. “Are you a record label boss or something?”

  “No,” he laughed. “Why?”

  “Cause o’what ya just said,” said Jesse. “I thought you must be a music journalist or something.”

  “We’re gay,” Rufus said, unsurely. “I’m assuming?”

  “Yeh,” said Jesse, indignantly, recalling the doorman having also questioned him.

  “Well, we do everything to pop music,” said Rufus. “Dance, sing along, kiss, fuck. Know what I mean?”

  He forced a laugh as Jesse smiled and sipped his pint.

  “I’ve not seen you in here before,” Rufus said, with a different tone, perhaps feeling he had passed a stage in the pull and found it okay to proceed.

  “It’s my first time. I just moved to London.”

  “How much?” said Rufus, bluntly, taking Jesse by surprise.

  “Wha?” The music being damagingly loud, Jesse leaned in to hear him better.

  “Do you charge? Are you rent?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” Jesse cringed.

  “Oh, well, congratulations,” said Rufus, picking up his glass and offering it to Jesse to clink his against.

  “For wha?”

  Rufus rolled his eyes. “Moving to London! Keep up!” he said, and offered his glass to toast.

  “Cheers.”

  Rufus was into the last third of his pint. Despite the fact that there were other men waiting to be served, he simply pointed and nodded, and the bartender started pulling another for him. Other men were trying to squeeze in at the bar so Jesse came away from it and Rufus, abandoning his old pint for the fresh one, closed his magazine and turned around to face him. Jesse’s eyes shot straight down to the right-leaning bulge in Rufus’s jeans.

  “Bloody hell, he’ll have someone’s eye out,” Rufus said, looking over Jesse’s shoulder.

  Jesse turned round, indiscreetly. It was a man with a spiked-up mohawk, wearing a kilt, turning his head this way and that as he and an older South Asian man in a bowtie and scarf hooked up with another group, including the immovable force that was the black giant with the beautiful, muscled back and enormous, hard arse. It became clear from their facial expressions and hand gestures that they were all deaf and signing at each other.

  “It’s cool ’ere,” said Jesse. “ ’Ow often d’you come?”

  Rufus grinned, as if there was a joke in the air. His eyes were dark blue and sharp. Jesse wondered if he might be a lawyer or something.

  “Every Friday and Saturday night for the last five years, unless I’ve been away.”

  “So you’m part o’ the furniture, then?”

  “The squashy old sofa. Or the vintage slot machine, take your pick,” Rufus said as he put pint glass to mouth.

  They sipped. Jesse watched two men angle their heads together as if for a kiss, holding something up against each other’s noses to sniff and each standing back slightly flushed. Other men looked on, wanting to join in, and soon the bottle, Jesse could now see, was being passed around.

  “Do you live locally?” Rufus asked, as if worried the conversation was over.

  “I’m staying at an ’ostel round the corner till I find somewhere more permanent.”

  “The Aussie one?”

  “Yeh.”

  “How is it?”

  “It’s alright, nothin special,” said Jesse, as a pierced, shaven-headed black man with a thick beard walked past, making knowing eye contact with both before sharply averting his eyes.

  “Sounds great,” said Rufus, quickly. “Do you share a room?”

  “Wi’three other blokes.”

  “What’s that like?”

  “Ask me in a couple a weeks,” said Jesse. “It’s alright for now, just to settle in.”

  “Gay?”

  “One definitely is. One definitely int. One I int sure about.”

  “Cute?”

  Jesse laughed. He had spent the morning in bed playing a high-level game of Snake on his phone, distracted by his roommate’s conspicuous nakedness as he paraded himself around, letting his towel fall away as he dried his hair, then staring statuesquely out of the window as if Jesse wasn’t there. Blaise was slightly taller than Jesse and had a broad-shouldered, slim-hipped body, hairless apart from a dark frizz of pubes around his uncut dick and low-hanging balls. He wore his hair in long, loose curls. Jesse stayed in bed pretending not to be looking out of the corner of his eye, and trying not to become aroused. He was relieved to have the room back to himself when the roommate who, despite his silence, might have been expecting a reaction to his generous display, quickly got dressed and left, with a rucksack and a quiet Bye.

  “Maybe in a few years,” said Jesse, meaningfully.

  “I see,” Rufus said. He smiled broadly and Jesse anticipated pushing his tongue through the gap in between his teeth.

  “You know there’s a boy brothel across the road from there, don’t you?”

  “Yer, I heard,” Jesse said, realising why Rufus had asked him if he charged.

  “So what are you doing in London?”

  “Startin’ again,” Jesse said, newly self-assured and defiant.

  Rufus burst out laughing. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen,” Jesse said, and immediately regretted how foolish he sounded. “And you?”

  “Old enough to be your dad,” said Rufus. “Forty-seven.”

  “Ya doe look i’,” said Jesse, whose mouth had begun to water again.

  “Flatterer,” said Rufus, and he kept his eyes on Jesse’s as he took an almighty gulp of his
pint. The DJ had been impressively smooth in his mixing, and a song with an ear-catching bassline and key-change, and the lyrics Love will set you free, was playing. Rufus stepped in closer so that their bodies were touching. The last man he’d been this close to was in the toilets at New Street station.

  “What are you up to tonight?” Rufus asked, making Jesse’s heart thump faster.

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned down the corners of his mouth.

  “Just ’angin’ out.”

  He’d begun to tire of the itchy tickling caused by the restriction. He needed a piss, but knew it would be a struggle to get his dick back into his jeans.

  “Would you like to come to my place?”

  “Where d’ya live?”

  “Literally down the road.”

  They threw back their drinks and Jesse followed as Rufus shouldered his way through the crowd, and they were out of the door before the last of the foam hit the bottom of the glass.

  Chapter 2

  Jesse suavely thanked the doorman, who wished them an anticipatory good night as he winked and Rufus set off down the Old Brompton Road in the direction he’d come from. The soulful house beat faded with each step even as the singer seemed to scream for them to stay. There had been a smile of recognition on the doorman’s part, as if having taken note of Jesse’s sexual preferences for his own future use.

  Rufus kept his distance, staring straight ahead and led by his chest and arms, letting regular people who just happened to be out at that time on a Saturday night pass between them, so that they wouldn’t assume he and Jesse were together. They all looked at them: two thirtysomething gays in jeans and worn leather jackets heading to the Coleherne; a tough-looking tattooed woman in vest and shorts, dangling a busy bunch of keys by her side, with a bottle of Smirnoff clutched to her chest; a guy in a Von Dutch cap walking his dog. Perhaps they thought Jesse was a drug runner about to do an exchange around the corner with the monied-looking man in the suit jacket.