Unfit to Print

by KJ Charles

  “I’m not.” Gil sounded almost offended.

  “Of course you are. At school—”

  “That was a long time ago. Don’t get ideas, mate, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

  There was a decidedly wary look in Gil’s eyes. A moment ago he’d been so close, so tender and warm and careful and familiar, and Vikram was aware of a distinctly sinking sensation. He might not be experienced but he knew a put-off when he heard one, and that led his mind inexorably to a question he ought to have asked some time ago. “You aren’t married, are you?”

  Gil choked. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “Why should I be? You’re not. I’m all right on my own.”

  “Are you happy? You asked me,” Vikram added, at Gil’s look.

  “I’m fine. Doing all right.”

  “Not what I asked,” Vikram said, mimicking Gil’s tone from earlier, and got a glare for it.

  “Don’t come the lawyer with me, Sonny Jim. I’m looking after myself. I worked for that—a place of my own, money, stuff nobody can take away—and now I’ve got it. That’s good enough for me.”

  Vikram wanted to argue that on about fifteen fronts at once, and felt himself entirely unqualified to do so. He nodded slowly, for lack of anything to say. They were still sprawled on the floor, the kind of position that had been perfectly comfortable in his youth and was now playing hob with his lower back. They ought to have been close, still kissing; he wanted painfully to be touching Gil, giving pleasure in return. But he’d managed to say the wrong damn thing, and he didn’t have the least idea what the right thing would have been.

  He wasn’t given a chance to ask. Gil pushed himself up onto an elbow. “Come on, we’ve work to do. Let’s finish looking through this lot.”

  What? No! “Right. Yes.” Vikram tidied himself up as though this were quite normal, wondering if he’d missed an opportunity to do or say something he should have. Perhaps there hadn’t been one. He had no idea what to do about Gil’s tight, hard, defiant shell. He saw those often enough with his poorer clients, people so determined not to be hurt that they couldn’t be helped.

  Saw them and been no damned good at dealing with them, because it was an illogical and exasperating way to go on and he never knew how to act. He wished to hell he’d been reunited with Gil when Matthew Lawes was still alive. At the very least he could have rendered the vicious swine’s last years a misery. Bloody Matthew, sitting on a hoard of degrading pictures like a dragon on a pile of gold.

  Vikram flicked through his sordid collection, loathing the man more with every image, until his knees hurt from kneeling on the floor and he didn’t think he’d ever expect to see anyone clothed again. He was just about to express his frustration when Gil said, “Hoi.”

  “What is it?”

  “Got one.”

  Vikram scrambled over and looked at the photograph. “Yes, that’s Sunil. And is that Errol with him, again?”

  “That’s him. There was a bunch in an opened envelope.” Gil fanned out several pictures, all of them of the maximum-sentence-for-possession variety, and whistled. “These aren’t pulling any punches. Different series to the other, isn’t it?”

  Vikram retrieved the first picture Gil had found of the two youths. “It’s against a different background, certainly.”

  “The first one I found is earlier, I reckon. Sunil’s got more of a moustache in the one you have there.”

  “Yes. And— Gil? Isn’t this the same background as in the studio portrait? The one he gave his parents?”

  He reached for the framed photograph as he spoke. Gil leaned over his shoulder, very close. Vikram could feel his warmth, his presence, as vividly as though they were both naked, skin to skin. “It might be, at that. Same pattern to the drapes, those pointy things. What do you call them?”

  “Fleur-de-lys. More than that, though. Look at the way the pleats fall, the way it pools on the ground. These were surely taken at the same time.” Vikram traced the line of the curtain, ignoring the boys in front of it.

  “Same photographer, same session.”

  “And he gave the studio portrait to his parents a week before he disappeared.”

  Gil sat back on his heels. “That would be, what, the fourteenth of October or thereabouts?”

  “Indeed. Why?”

  “All right, look. Our snapper takes a set of pictures. A nice one of Sunil for Ma and Pa, then the clothes come off and he takes the rest. You’d develop them all in one go, wouldn’t you?”

  “I don’t know anything about photography,” Vikram admitted.

  “I don’t know much, but you get a lot of what they call negative images and you put them in trays of stuff to make prints, right? It’s not a one-at-a-time job, is what I mean. If you go to a studio darkroom, there’ll be a dozen pictures hanging up to dry.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “That it’s likely all the pictures were developed at once,” Gil said. “And I dare say a nice photograph would be a pretty special thing for a hard-up family—”

  “It was a treasure. They kept it in a box. I had to swear to keep it safe before they’d let me take it.”

  “Exactly. So Sunil would surely want to bring his picture home for Ma and Pa right away. Maybe it might take a day or so for the print to dry, I don’t know. But he wouldn’t leave it lying around for a few weeks like it wasn’t important, would he?”

  Vikram thought of the Guptas’ poor, shabby room. “No.”

  “Well. Say Sunil brought his picture home on the fourteenth, but Matthew had the dirty ones from the same session in his possession before he had his stroke on the twenty-first. That’s a pretty quick turnaround to print them, offer them to him, get an agreement to buy, and send them to Wealdstone House by post.”

  Vikram tapped his fingers against his lips. “It is, isn’t it. Would one send these things on approval?”

  “Not without warning. You might send a letter to a collector saying you had new material and giving an idea what it might be, then he’d pay up and you’d send them. But for that to go back and forth in time, before he had the stroke...” Gil drummed his fingers on the floor. “Here’s the thing. Have you seen anyone else of our colour in this lot?”

  “Hardly any.”

  “Same. And scattered, yes? Individual images, not series. Whereas here you’ve got a whole set, and it’s identical poses each way round. Errol sucks off Sunil, then vice versa, and same for the other positions.”

  Vikram wasn’t sure where this was going, but didn’t think he liked it. “What does that imply?”

  “You must have noticed the albums are sorted by themes. Women together, people tied up, whips and stuff. Matthew liked things in sets. So we’ve got an album with pictures of the two lads doing one lot of things, and space left for more, and here are a lot of loose pictures of Errol and Sunil, filling in the gaps. In a manner of speaking.”

  “For goodness’ sake.”

  “Sorry. Point is, I’m wondering if Matthew wanted a complete set. Of Errol and Sunil doing everything, or of a white boy with a brown one, or whatever it was in his head. But something like that.”

  Vikram assimilated that. “You think these new pictures were a commission? Posed for and taken on request.”

  “It’s just a guess. And I don’t know where it gets us, since he had his stroke before Errol died or Sunil left home. Still.”

  Vikram nodded slowly. “May I observe that your brother was disgusting?”

  “No argument here.”

  “A rich man ordering people to commit acts as he might send out for a dish of meat—”

  “Like dancing bears at the circus. I know.”

  Vikram wanted to spit. “Would the buyer have to pay extra for commissioned pictures?”

  “Expect so.”

  “So there’s money in it. And would Matthew have bought directly from the photographer?”

  “Could be. If there was a middleman he’d need to be close. T
here wouldn’t have been much time for back and forth.”

  “We need to find this photographer with the fleur-de-lys drapes,” Vikram said with decision. “Somehow. How?”

  Gil snorted. “You don’t ask much. If there’s any more pictures with the drapes in, I might recognise someone in them, I suppose. Or I could take them around to other people. There’s a chap on Wych Street who knows everyone.”

  “Excellent. And... Do you know, I’m sure I saw those curtains earlier.”

  Gil looked around at the litter of photographs and piles of albums. “Seriously?”

  “It’s a noticeable pattern.”

  “Vik. Mate. When you look at dirty pictures, you’re not meant to be thinking about the curtains.”

  “I thought you said people’s pleasures are a matter of their nature, and their own business,” Vikram said. “If I prefer curtains to postures, that is surely my affair.”

  “I’m going to get someone to do me a photographic series just for you. A rock in front of something nice, maybe in paisley. You’ll be putty in my hands.”

  Vikram couldn’t help but laugh, even if the jest flirted dangerously with his own wanting. “Just help me find the damned drapes, will you?”

  Time ticked by. They had another cup of tea, and piled up a little heap: five images of depravity in front of fleur-de-lys curtains, all with people unknown to Gil. They had not mentioned their earlier encounter at all.

  Vikram wanted to say something—What did that mean? Did I do something wrong? Might we do it again? He had no idea how to broach the subject, so he simply flicked through page after page, acres of meaningless two-dimensional flesh while Gil was three feet away, with his lean body, his warm mouth, his irresistible smile that set Vikram’s pulse pounding every time.

  Gil had said to come to him for a bit of fun, and hadn’t suggested anything more. Vikram was not personally familiar with these situations, but he felt sure that one ought not ask for more than was on offer. If he wanted something other than what Gil could give, that was his own problem to resolve or, more truthfully, to bury under the heap of work where he put the other difficult questions.

  It was hard not to imagine, or hope, that Gil had some of the answers to those. Vikram squashed that thought, and turned the page of an album with some force.

  It brought him face to printed face with a woman well past her prime, cupping her breasts and pulling an expression of bliss so exaggerated as to look distinctly sarcastic, against a familiar background. “Curtains,” Vikram said, adding the photograph to the pile.

  Gil glanced over, then grabbed it with a yelp. “Yes! Finally.”

  “You know that woman?”

  “Not in the Biblical sense; I like my prick not rotting away. But yes, I do. Her name’s Annie Driver. We can drop in on her tomorrow, see if she remembers who took this thing.”

  “What? Why not now?”

  “Because it’s eight in the evening on a Saturday. She’ll be busy, and I’m starving.” He paused for a second. “In fact, I’m going to get a bite to eat now. Want to join me?”

  Vikram did, except he couldn’t quite forget Gil’s face closing over earlier. Was this a politeness or a real invitation? Would it be asking too much? “I’m aware I’ve taken up most of your day. If you’d rather call it a night now—”

  “It’s up to you. Head off if you’re busy.”

  That was doubtless a hint. He probably ought to go home; it would be only sensible. Vikram nodded, and rose.

  Gil stood too, looking as though he were about to speak, stopped himself, then put a hand out, just brushing Vikram’s forearm. Such a light touch, barely perceptible through his sleeve, but Vikram couldn’t help a little shiver at the contact. “If you’re not busy, though, I wouldn’t mind catching up properly, without all this gubbins in our way. And they do a good bill of fare at the Coal Hole.”

  Vikram felt a wave of relief. This was absolutely an invitation, if only to a meal, but really, a meal with an old friend was a sufficiently pleasant prospect and there was no need to read anything warmer than that into Gil’s words. “Well. Yes, all right. A bite to eat. Why not?”

  THE NEXT MORNING VIKRAM was awake at six. He usually woke early; on this occasion he’d been disturbed by the chime of unfamiliar bells. St. Clement’s church was very close to Holywell Street.

  Next to him, Gil snored softly, his hair a tangled cloud tickling Vikram’s skin.

  The previous evening was, for the most part, a mass of sensation in his memory. That first encounter, the disturbing effect of those accursed photographs, the desire in Gil’s eyes. He’d wanted so much—Gil’s longing, his pleasure, his touch—and in the wildness of the moment he’d let himself have it.

  And he’d kept wanting even as they’d gone to dinner, Gil leading him through some stinking little passageway onto the Strand and down to the Coal Hole public house. They’d eaten a surprisingly good meal there, talking of old times, old acquaintance, and then anything. Music for example: Gil liked music hall; Vikram liked the opera. Or politics: Vikram had voted Liberal after the passing of the Reform Act; Gil hadn’t bothered. Or books: Gil loved the old Gothic romances, and waxed lyrical about Mrs Radcliffe, William Beckford, and Mrs Swann; Vikram hadn’t read a novel in years.

  In fact, they hadn’t agreed on a single thing, except that Vikram would come back to the bookshop afterwards. To have a proper chat about what had to be done, Gil had said. But he’d grabbed Vikram’s hand as they went up the wooden stairs, ale on his breath and light in his eyes, and tugged him to a different door, and Vikram had followed, that old, glorious sensation of adventure mingling with an entirely new set of hope and yearning and desire.

  And here he was now at six in the morning, with Gil lying naked next to him in a dingy bedroom above a pornographic bookshop.

  They hadn’t done...well, many of the things he’d seen in the photographs. Just body to body, kissing and rubbing and hands. Vikram suspected it had been unsophisticated stuff, but Gil had seemed entirely content. He’d laughed, and made Vikram laugh, and voiced his pleasures openly in a way that had turned the evening into something not just ecstatic, but easy.

  That was what Vikram couldn’t quite grasp, a thing too big to reach. Gil did these things as if they were—damn the word—fun. Not important, not earthshaking, not the first time Vikram had trusted another adult with his body and skin and the truth of his desires, and his hopeless, helpless yearning for something outside the life he’d so painstakingly built around himself. Simply a thing that felt good.

  Vikram would not have called it disappointing, far from it. He’d reached the peak of pleasure twice last night, consumed with the bliss of shared sensation, hopelessly responsive to Gil’s touch. Gil had straddled him the second time, wrapping both their members in his work-hardened hand. The feel of that, of them pressing together—Vikram had to shut his eyes in the darkness because the memory was having an effect now. Still, afterwards, with Gil lying in the crook of his arm, a small part of him had undeniably felt rather flat that something so long denied had turned out to be so very simple.

  Which was an irony, because now, with noise starting to rise from the Strand even this early on a Sunday morning, and his vivid awareness that he was naked in Gil’s bed, this suddenly didn’t seem simple at all. What the devil had he done?

  Well, he’d committed multiple acts of gross indecency, breaking the law for the first time in his adult life. He felt absolutely no remorse, let alone guilt, about that, nor did he find himself particularly afraid of legal consequences, since he was quite sure Gil knew what he was about. In fact, and somewhat to his own surprise, all of his many worries were focused on what might happen when Gil woke up.

  With any other man—if this had been conceivable with any other man—he might have feared to see shame, disgust, remorse on the face next to his. He didn’t fear those with Gil, but he was still undeniably afraid, and that fact was frightening all by itself.

  He was afraid that
Gil would wake up and shrug and go about his business. He was terrified of seeing indifference or, worse, the desire to get away. He still had no idea what Gil wanted of him, if it was anything approaching the hunger Vikram felt for his company, his intimacy. He didn’t know how one was meant to conduct oneself in this situation, or what was reasonable to expect, still less want. And as for the possibility that Gil might consider last night no more than a pleasant evening’s diversion—

  “Christ,” Gil mumbled into the pillow. “You all right?”

  Vikram could just make out that Gil had one bleary eye open, his face smeared into the bolster. He looked down, not knowing what to say.

  “Only you’re stiff as a sergeant. And not in a good way.” Gil hoisted himself up onto an elbow and gave a sleepy grin. “I knew you’d be a morning sort. Don’t tell me, you’re always at work by eight.”

  “Half past seven, usually.”

  “God. What time is it?”

  “Just gone six.”

  “God. That’s why they say virtue is its own reward. I prefer the wages of sin.”

  “Idle hound. Can we visit your lady today?”

  “She’s no lady, and she’s not going to be up for a while yet.” Gil sat up, reaching for matches, and lit the candle by his bed. It flared into guttering life with a stink of tallow. He narrowed his eyes against the light, then reached out to run a finger over Vikram’s eyebrow. “God’s truth, you can frown. You could win medals for it.”

  “It’s a useful professional skill.”

  “I bet. Are you all right?”

  “Of course.”

  “Is that ‘of course’ meaning ‘leave me alone, that never happened’, or ‘of course, that was the best night of my life, fancy sucking my cock?’”

  Vikram couldn’t manage an answer. Gil’s brow slanted. “Right. I’m guessing the first.”

  “No. Or—well— Neither. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

  “Put some there yourself, then, because it would help if I knew what you were thinking.”

  “That makes two of us,” Vikram said. “This isn’t precisely within my experience.”