What does the relationship offer Harcourt? The judge examines it, from a distance, as though it’s a case to be considered.
This relationship - surely the wrong word for something destined soon to die - soothes his loneliness; and it is so lovely to be held. Jake is thoughtful and funny and warm; he coaxes growth from the cold ground and understands the beauty that even some weeds may have. Through Jake’s eyes, Harcourt feels that the world is not so barren after all. The sex is good, is a relief but more than that too; and he pretends the kindness of the Angel Jake is something he deserves. Sometimes it might even be true. But really, this beautiful man holding him is a little miracle that will never last. His time is almost up.
Harcourt worries that if this does not end soon, he will be the one to corrupt Jake’s immunity from cynicism; he’ll be the one to soil that perfection. And he would protect his Jake from that, if he could.
‘I am not good for you, you know,’ says Harcourt.
‘I’d have to disagree with you there,’ says Jake mildly, pressing another kiss to the ridges of his lover’s spine.
‘I have a dark view of the world,’ Harcourt attempts to explain without being cruel, ‘I move in dark places.’
‘The places I walk aren’t always Paris in the springtime.’
‘I refer to-‘
‘I know what you refer to. Law is murky, and I’ve seen the games they play. I’m not a gardener because I lacked the marks to do anything better, you know. I studied law too, back in the day. I joined the police force for a while. I decided I liked gardening better. And really, I don’t know if you give me more credit than I deserve, or just think I’m naïve.’
‘Nothing could be further from my mind.’ Harcourt is disconcerted. He didn’t know that Jake had once been in law enforcement. Perhaps that is why Jake seems to understand so much, about the things that weigh Harcourt down.
Jake nuzzles the back of Harcourt’s neck. ‘Who says you’re a bad influence on me? Maybe I’m a good influence on you. Did you ever think of that, Harry? Maybe I make you less cynical.’
Harcourt wants to protest Jake’s conclusions, but Jake’s hands are stroking his bare chest, his bare stomach. Jake seems not to mind (or ever to have minded) that Harcourt, with his indoor job, is not in striking condition, isn’t much to look at really. Harcourt has a first class brain but he has no illusions about his body.
Jake’s roaming hands are joined by a roving mouth, kissing, tasting, savouring, inviting Harcourt to stay, please stay. Jake eases Harcourt onto his back, and Harcourt lets him; because there is time, and it’s so lovely that Jake wants him, for however long this will last, and he closes his eyes to feel it all-And Jake blows a raspberry on his belly.
Harcourt twitches, sits bolt upright, opens his shocked eyes. No lover has ever dared…
Harcourt glares. Jake twinkles back at him, his angel grin delightfully wicked, and Harcourt doesn’t know what to think. While puzzling over the unexpected thing, Jake leans over him again, kisses and nips the pale skin, and, good heavens, blows another raspberry. A third, and he is running his fingers light as a feather down Harcourt’s waist and it… tickles.
Harcourt giggles, then snaps his mouth shut on the sound.
Jake presses his advantage. He tickles more, and presses kisses to Harcourt’s jaw, then another raspberry, and Harcourt giggles again, and laughs. And Jake smiles, the most wonderful smile, and says: ‘That’s better.’
Harcourt does not like his own smile. He doesn’t like the way he looks when he laughs. His father told him he looked ridiculous, and he does, and people will not respect him if they see that his face splits like that, and his nose wrinkles. And he giggles like a child.
But Jake simply looks delighted and kisses the corners of his mouth, and tickles him again.
In the next sudden moment, they are mock wrestling, Harcourt attempting to tickle Jake in turn, and Jake is wriggling across the bed, snickering. He moves swiftly to capture Harcourt with his legs and pins him to the bed.
He is grinning at Harcourt like he has unlocked a secret, and is delighted with himself.
Harcourt feels like he has surrendered something vital of himself but the wonder of it is, he feels… released. Free. The sensation makes him giddy. It makes him giggle some more. He swallows the ridiculous sound, but there is his angel, fingers dancing over ribs and thighs, mouth kissing then pursing and blowing and the most undignified but joyful noise bubbles out of Harcourt’s mouth.
Jake Constance is sitting across Harcourt’s legs, hands on Harcourt’s hips, then his thighs, then running up over his soft, poochy belly, his untoned chest, and he just grins his angelic devil grin.
‘I don’t know about you, but I’m starving,’ he says, and to Harcourt’s dismay, Jake gets out of bed, abandoning Harcourt and his burgeoning erection. ‘Come on, gorgeous,’ he says.
Jake wraps the sheet around his own hips and takes Harcourt by the hand, pulls him to his feet. While Harcourt looks stunned and a little disgruntled, Jake tugs a dressing gown over Harcourt’s shoulders. Retaking his hand, Jake leads him to the kitchen.
‘Sit,’ says Jake, and, puzzled beyond his capacity to refuse, Harcourt sits on a stool, just as he is told.
The kitchen light is off, so when Jake opens the fridge to inspect the contents, he is bathed in strange light. Harcourt thinks he looks more like an angel than ever. Jake returns laden with a jug of home-made custard, a quarter consumed by Harcourt. Harcourt feels cross at himself for the indulgence, but when Jake isn’t here he needs something that provides a little reward.
Jake doesn’t get out bowls to serve the custard. He gets a spoon and eats some straight from the jug, then offers a spoonful to Harcourt. Mama would have had a fit about his manners. Harcourt refuses the offering to begin with, but that wicked angel grin is back.
‘Come on, just a bite. I can make it worth your while.’
Curious as to how Jake can make it worth his while, Harcourt opens his mouth and lets Jake dip the tip of the spoon between his lips. He closes his mouth on the silverware and Jake slides the spoon out again. There is custard on Harcourt’s tongue, and a little on his lower lip, and Harcourt intends to dab that away, with the back of his hand if he must, but he’s mesmerised by Jake. By the way Jake licks the spoon, slowly, the very tip of his tongue flicking into the bowl of silver, over the tip and then his mouth is bridging the gap between the utensil and Harcourt’s mouth.
Jake sucks at Harcourt’s lower lip, very gently, before leaning back again, looking once more very pleased with himself.
‘I have an even better idea,’ says Jake.
Harcourt’s body is almost vibrating with urgency to discover what that better idea is.
Jake dips his finger into the jug, then stripes Harcourt’s chest, across his nipple, with custard. He lowers his head to suck the skin clean, then stops to kiss Harcourt’s mouth softly. His lips are sweet.
‘You try,’ he says. Harcourt seems stunned, so Jake takes his hand, guides Harcourt’s index finger into the jug and then holds his arms wide, allowing Harcourt the choice of where on that canvas to make his mark. The sheet slips a little but Jake ignores it.
Harcourt reaches out, almost reverently, to paint a stripe of custard from Jake’s sternum to his navel. Then he lowers his head, suckles against the top of that stripe, moves down slowly, until he reaches the small dip, that belly button into which custard has pooled. His licks into the hollow, delighting in how it makes Jake’s skin shiver…
And then he purses his lips and blows.
Instead of pulling away, Jake arches into the sensation, laughing. Harcourt nips at the skin, grabs Jake by the waist and pulls him closer, blowing another raspberry. Jake’s full throated laugh morphs into a startled shout and Harcourt starts to giggle. He presses his face into that wonderful stomach, smothering his ridiculous laugh, but Jake dances away to let the sound escape again. Jake’s hands dart down to tickle Harcourt’s ribs, and the giggle bursts out of h
im again.
And this time, he lets it go. He laughs, and he stops caring what it looks like or sounds like when it happens, because this is his angel of earth and flowers, who is utterly delighted by it.
After a while, laughter subsides. Jake’s hand guides Harcourt’s jaw up and he leans down for a kiss.
‘I know you tried, Harry,’ he says, between kisses, ‘but you can’t make me go away. I don’t want to go away. You are remarkable, and I want you, and I love you, and I’m staying.’ He pauses in his ministrations to rub his thumb against the moisture gathered at the corner of Harcourt’s eye.
‘Your trouble,’ says Jake, kissing the lines there, ‘Is that you’ve forgotten how to laugh.’
‘I never did know how,’ Harcourt confesses.
‘Well, we’ll take care of that,’ Jake promises. ‘Let’s go back to bed.’
They do. And there is tenderness, a lot of laughter, and then two bodies sliding together, voices whispering then moaning then crying out, then more laughter, breathless and content. In the rush of air, I love you is murmured and reciprocated.
Harcourt Winterbloom can’t ever let the control go, outside. Harcourt has enemies. Too much is at stake.
But here, in this house, with his angel, Harcourt learns to take down the wall. He learns to be playful, and he never knew he could be that. He never knew he could laugh, and scrunch his face up the way he does, or that someone could love that ridiculous expression and try to make it happen.
Within these walls, he finds delight. And food fights. And ridiculous sex to go with the sex full of affection and passion.
And in their grotto, their night garden, some nights they lay out blankets and a midnight feast and they touch each other in the moonlight and, with these secret flowers, bloom.
THE SELKIE
Nicole Field
When Tully saw it for the first time, he was standing near the ocean.
It was just after twilight in early March. The main tourist season had passed. Tully liked living in Ocean Grove best at this time of year. It was still warm enough to enjoy living by the beach, and he had it almost entirely to himself.
The tide was coming in to where Tully stood by the shallows. At first, he didn’t believe what he had seen: it looked like a man with luminescent skin and hair that was liquid flowing halfway down his back. But that had to have been a mistake. Tully blinked, rubbed his eyes, but he couldn’t keep from looking out into the ocean again. The “liquid hair” he thought he’d seen was nothing more than the dark fur of a seal. Not a lot of them came this far in, but Tully had seen stranger things. Last year, a group of kids had set up in tents on the sand and spent most of the days and nights streaking between those tents and the water, and then squealing when sand got into everything.
Tully had avoided the beach last year until all signs of tents and kids had gone back to their inner suburban homes.
By contrast, this night and seeing a seal enjoying itself was both soothing and picturesque. Absently, Tully remained, watching the seal until its swim took it so far out into the ocean that he could see it no more.
****
Tully lived alone. After long days at work, there was no one for him to come home to. The nights were growing shorter and the first chill air of the season had flowed through not two nights before. Sometimes, putting off going back to his empty house after work made it feel like he was less lonely, especially on Friday nights. It didn’t work, of course. There wasn’t anyone to fool but himself; and Tully knew better.
He flicked on the kitchen lights as soon as he stepped inside, and turned on the percolator. Coffee would perk him up enough for a couple of hours dedicated to his writing. He was only a tinkerer; never had anything published. But something about the escapism, or catharsis, drew him back to his small, cosy study at least twice a week. Here, he could pretend that he was a hero in the midst of adventures or flights of fancy that took him out of his desk job. If only for those couple of hours a week, he could ride horses or fly.
With a mug of coffee in hand and a vague idea of what he wanted to write, Tully turned on the laptop that sat on his desk in his study, opposite his bedroom. The study walls were filled with outdated movie posters he’d scored from a video rental store he’d worked at in his early 20s. Many of the corners were fraying, or gone. Old fantasy paperbacks - most garnered from second hand shops over the years - filled a low bookshelf under the window. They matched well with the worn feeling of the house itself. That had been the only reason he’d managed to get the place cheap. He’d been lucky there hadn’t been any property developers at his auction.
The clicking of the keyboard keys became meditative after a while. Once he got into the flow of his writing, he stopped reaching for his coffee cup. The coffee was cold before he finished drinking it. A dark brown line circled the inside of the mug.
****
It was 11.30 a.m. before Tully rolled himself out of bed the next morning. The percolator was his first stop as he began his day the way he’d ended the previous one.
It could very easily have been a day when he didn’t leave his house. Certainly, that was how Tully had spent more than one weekend. In the couple of years since he’d bought this little haven in Ocean Grove, he’d only had family and a couple of friends from work come to visit. Even with the lure of the beach so close by.
He didn’t mind, or so he told himself. He had more than enough to entertain him inside the house. He wasn’t even going to stand in the kitchen and look out the window for any longer than it took to make his coffee and a piece of toast.
The narrow path outside his kitchen window led onto the main footpath. Though the beach wasn’t visible from his house, people coming from the main road had to walk past him to the beach. In summer, the footpath was a humming thoroughfare of parents and children in swim gear and snorkels. This morning, the sky was overcast, grey clouds claustrophobically low.
Tully could hear only a handful of people through his partially open window. He barely looked up. Then one lone man walked past.
Tully’s eye was drawn to him, like it had been drawn out to the ocean the night before. He couldn’t have said what moved him. A spark of sudden interest. A point of difference in his day-to-day of coffee, work or writing. The man had the same look of liquid hair flowing down his back. For a second, Tully wondered if he had a type. It had never specifically come up in his stories before; his love interests were usually otherworldly males, but liquid hair had never been a descriptor.
Nevertheless, as the lone man’s head turned, gaze reaching into Tully’s kitchen and captivating him, Tully felt his breath catch.
Tully put his coffee mug down carefully on the kitchen bench. He walked out of his kitchen and the house. He didn’t even think about it. The other man didn’t move as Tully approached him, only tipped his head to the side as though curious as to what would happen next. Up close, Tully saw the other man’s eyes were grey-green, like the colour of the ocean at night. That seemed right.
‘Hello.’ Now that he was standing in front of him, Tully felt nervous. With a glance, he’d been able to tell the other man was sure of himself. It was in the still way he held himself, chin half lifted and eyes steady. It was a pose adopted by all men who were confident of their looks.
Tully wasn’t. He wasn’t so much an unattractive man. The most derogatory thing a person had ever said about his appearance was that he was pale. No, it wasn’t that he was unattractive. There just wasn’t anything striking about him. For some people, black hair made a striking contrast against pale skin. Some were tall. Others were short, with perhaps button noses, or cute feet. Tully was a gangly man in his mid-twenties, of average height, and mousey brown hair. There were a couple of freckles across his nose, but even they were bland.
When Tully met the eyes of the other man, there was about half a foot in height difference between them. He didn’t expect to receive a second glance.
Still, ‘Hello,’ the other man replied. His voi
ce almost matched Tully’s tone, but in a lower register. He continued to watch Tully.
It was nice to be seen. ‘Would you…?’ Tully shrugged his shoulder in the direction of his little seaside house. He needed to swallow around a suddenly dry throat. ‘Would you like to come in? For a coffee?’
A young couple walked past them as Tully spoke. The couple witnessed Tully’s awkwardness. It wasn’t the first time Tully had invited someone home for coffee. It might have been the soonest he’d done it after meeting, though. Tully was sure the hesitation from the other man would end in ‘no’.
Therefore, nobody was more surprised than Tully when the man with the liquid hair answered, ‘Yes. That would be nice.’
****
Tully held out a coffee mug for the other man. A thought struck him, and he ducked his head in sudden chagrin.
‘I didn’t even ask you your name,’ he said.
‘It’s Sean.’ This was delivered with an easy smile. It was impossible to feel chagrined when faced with it. Tully breathed out a sigh of relief and smiled back. They were standing in a patch of light coming in from the kitchen window. With Sean here, suddenly his whole worn-down house was a bit brighter.
He didn’t bring Sean into the study on his brief tour of the house. He’d brought men home before who had denigrated his “obsessions” with the posters and the books, and he didn’t feel like defending them right now. Not from Sean.
But Sean was the perfect house guest. He appeared completely charmed by the tacky Ocean Grove tourist trinkets that Tully displayed on side table and mantelpiece in his living room. He complimented the way the towels were placed just so on the rack in the bathroom.
‘I like to keep my things in their particular place too,’ Sean answered when asked.
Queermance Anthology, Volume 1 Page 8