Life After Joe

by Harper Fox

  Ironically, this occasion was the first night when I could have handled Joe’s presence. Marnie’s too if James had wanted to extend the season of goodwill that far. I was numb from the skull-top down. When Lou, tiring of family bonhomie and tales of James’s promotions—I could have told him one straight accountant son was worth ten gay doctors—suggested in a whisper that we make our escape, I followed him wordlessly.

  To the Powerhouse, where because it was Friday night, not Saturday, I’d had no thought of seeing Aaron at the bar. But there he was, leaning casually, exchanging the odd word with the bartender. He looked less obviously fresh from the rigs than he had before, less…heavy-duty, I supposed, dazedly trying to define it as Lou towed me through the crowd. He was wearing a plain cotton shirt and looked probably as ordinary as he ever could. As if he’d dressed up—or down—for someone. I knew that had I been functional, the sight of him would have made me shudder with desire. As it was, I could barely stay on my feet, and I was almost glad the club was so packed he wouldn’t have seen me even if he had happened to look up.

  Chapter Four

  To my surprise, Lou steered me off to the tables near the back, where a dividing wall shut off some of the bass from the dance floor. You could talk there, more or less, though conversation wasn’t generally the object of Lou’s Powerhouse visits: he liked to see and be seen. He asked me what I wanted to drink, and before I could reply, snagged a passing glass collector for a jug of margaritas. The first one was a bad idea. The second and third were worse, but number one had disguised them, and I thought I might have been experiencing some kind of return to life. Enough, anyway, to reply to Lou’s small talk, which seemed nervous for some reason. Distracted. I nodded and smiled and probably kept my mask in place for a good five seconds after he fell silent, pressed his knee against mine beneath the table and reached for my hand. “Matthew. Matt, love…”

  It was like being propositioned by your brother or some kindly old uncle who’s been around your entire life and never so much as looked at you sideways. I stared at him, trying not to understand. There had been times when I’d even wondered if Lou was gay, or if it was just simpler for him to act it because he hung around so much with me and Joe. Just as I was persuading myself that sleepers plus tequila probably did add up to hallucination, he tightened his grip, leaned in and tried to kiss me.

  I nearly went back over out of my chair. I didn’t mean to shove him away—it was a reflex, and I made up for it as best I could an instant later by catching him, returning him gently to his seat. “Jesus Christ, Lou!”

  “Ah, come on, Matt!” It was a raw shout, and the other lovers and hopefuls who’d come back there to try their luck began to glance around. “Why the fuck not?” he continued a little more quietly, glaring at me over the salt-lined rim of his glass. “We’ve practically lived together all our lives—you, me and Joe. And Joe’s gone, in case you hadn’t noticed. Not coming back, or he’d never have asked you to sell the sodding flat. What’s the matter with me?”

  My brain was working slowly. I’d been asleep for twenty-four hours or so, and anything could have happened in that time. Maybe I’d walked in my sleep, had some kind of conversation with Lou that would mean he now knew my latest property news. I saw that he was slowly catching up with himself, realising what he’d said. He put his head in his hands. “Shit,” he said, muffled through his fingers. “Look, Marnie came round to see me yesterday. She said she’d told you, and…she wasn’t sure you’d taken it in. She wanted me to keep an eye on you, make sure you kept the place decent for viewers. Let the agent in. That’s all.”

  Weird. I’d thought I’d hit bottom a fortnight ago when I’d dirty-danced to orgasm with Nicky in the middle of this club. Again last night on the moor. But this was its own new kind of low. “Lou,” I said, hardly knowing my own voice. I’d done plenty of yelling in my time but not had many occasions for cold anger. “I’d appreciate it if…from now on you, Joe and Marnie stayed the fuck out of my private life. And…what made you think that if Joe was out, you were in?”

  “Why not? You’ve shagged everything else with a Y chromosome since he left, haven’t you?”

  My gut tightened. Despite the quelling remains of the temazepam, a hot stone lodged in my throat. “Christ. Is that what you want, Lou? A shag?”

  “No! Well—yeah, but…more than that. I want to look after you. Live with you, now you’ve got to leave the flat. We’ll get somewhere together.” That sounded reasonable enough. Up until five minutes ago, I might even have agreed. But my continuing openmouthed silence scratched his surface once more, and his face twisted. “Listen, Matt. You’re practically a drunk. I heard your supervisor telling Dr. Andrews this morning she was thinking of letting you go. I’ve seen all your crap, and I’d still…I’d still have you. Who else will? Nicky fucking Harris?”

  I sat staring into the filmy disc of my last margarita—the one Lou had bought and poured for me. Lou was very generous. I returned the favour as often as I could, but seven times out of ten it was Lou who got the round. Made sure I was topped off.

  I didn’t have to drink them, though, did I? I knotted my fingers together. I heard myself say, quiet and polite as if we had been strangers, “Okay. I’m gonna go now, all right? You stay here.”

  “Oh Christ. You stay, you fucking loser. You’ll be lucky if you can still walk.”

  Was he gone? I supposed so. The lights from the dance floor were no longer beating out his shadow on the table. Just at the moment, I did not want to lift my head and look.

  I did not want to lift my head. The stone in my throat had become a boulder, a scald. I thought about what Lou had said. Rationally, I knew he’d been sitting on something—jealousy, resentment, whatever—and for whatever reasons, it had all just come clawing out. I was astonished—Lou, for God’s sake!—but I shouldn’t give his outburst too much mind.

  But I had started thinking about Joe. I’d never been that much to write home about, had I? I’d thought so once—not in any particularly arrogant way, just aware that I was reasonably intelligent, decent looking, capable of loving. Oh yeah, certainly capable of that. And I’d always assumed Joe’s defection had been just for the reasons he’d given me. He wanted a girl, and no matter how lovely a bloke I might be, I couldn’t answer that. Now I began to wonder. “You fucking loser…” I hadn’t been a loser or a drunk back then, but maybe I was lacking things other than tits and a womb that Joe couldn’t live without. Maybe I’d been bristling with things he couldn’t live with, and he’d never been able to tell me.

  I jerked up one hand to my mouth, pressed my palm tight. For a second I thought I was going to be sick. Then my vision blurred, and I knew it was worse. God no, I prayed silently to whatever deity might look after feckless drunks in nightclubs. I couldn’t cry here…

  The air changed. I squeezed my eyes shut tightly, and all I could see was a retinal jump, red to black, as the pulsating lights swept the room. I didn’t really care, but little hairs all down one side of my neck gave a prickle and lifted; olfactory cells fired. Sunlight. No, because that had no smell, but something I associated with sun, as if someone had picked up the Powerhouse from its city-dregs location, dropped it on sand dunes and lifted its roof. Salt. Warm grass. A breath of life from a different bloody world. And weirdest of all, I recognised it. Last time Aaron had stood close to me, I’d been too busy hitting on him to notice the way he smelled…

  It must have registered, though. I opened my eyes, and he was there, holding out a hand to me. In the shifting lights, the air which still managed to be smoky, despite the ban, he looked utterly solid and real. His eyes were unfathomable as ever, but their expression was somehow so kind it loosened my joints. He said, smiling faintly, “Do you want to dance?”

  Of course I didn’t bloody want to dance. If he wanted to talk to me, he could take the seat Lou had just vacated. I looked at his hand. Its palm was broad, the fingers long, eloquent of power. I could see them manipulating steel, vast ma
chineries, hauling up oil from its ancient hiding places under the North Sea. I could see him drawing me to my feet against my will if I put out my hand in return to touch him. I did. I hadn’t realised I was cold. When his grip closed round mine, its warmth seemed to shoot up my arm and into my chest. He exerted a gentle tug. “I’d have come over sooner,” he said, “but you gave me a good demo the other night of what happens around here to men who move on other blokes’ boyfriends.”

  “Lou’s not my boyfriend,” I said unsteadily. I didn’t want to move. I wanted to hide in this corner until this latest humiliation—public tears, worse to me than public sex—was over. The tugging sensation increased, and I got up, only half voluntarily. He looked into my face. “Come on,” he said softly. “It’ll be better. Come on.”

  I didn’t believe him, but the sheer technicalities of making my doped body walk with him onto the dance floor distracted me, restored to me some kind of control. I tried to recognise the track. Not “Riverside,” thank Christ—something older, from about six years ago. “Pray” by Syntax. Rippling, insistent bass line under a bone-melting vocal. The floor was heaving. I couldn’t imagine Aaron leaping about with this bunch of kids, and for me, it would be a physical impossibility. I tried to break away from him.

  He put an arm around my waist and, without the least effort or hint of force, reeled me in. I didn’t even know what was happening until I was pressed close against him, breathing that sun-and-earth scent. There was no leaping involved. He moved with an unhurried power, picking up the strong first beat in the bar, drawing me in with him, instant sweet synch. His hand went to the small of my back. I clutched at him reflexively, first just in order to stay on my feet, and then because I never wanted to let go.

  We were the last men standing that night in the House. Midnight came and went, then small hours, and the club emptied out of all but its hard core. The dance floor population thinned down. I saw them go, saw space appear between the grappling, gyrating couples and groups. I watched, held fast, from over Aaron’s shoulder. Time became strange for me. He slid his hands slowly down my back, leaving trails of warmth behind them. He found his target on my arse, his grip large and competent, and when I returned the embrace in kind—hesitantly, because something about him made me shy, even after my recent performances—he smiled against my ear. Ah yes. A whisper through the bass, hot, racking me with shudders. Yes. He pushed his hips against me, and time was strange. I thought I could soar straight to silent climax there and then if he held me like that, and I could feel that he was hard and ready too. But whether the cocktail of drugs and tequila inside me was holding me back, or his guiding rhythm was deliberately slowing me down, the arousal prolonged itself, stretched out like pouring honey. I gave up my grasp on his backside and put my arms round his neck. He rocked me, and time stretched. I closed my eyes.

  The last men standing. The music had stopped, harsh overhead neons flickering up to kill the strobes and whirling colours. We were alone. I jerked my head up. We were still moving—only just; the shadow of a dance. I’d slept on my feet in his embrace. I felt myself blush to the hairline. “Oh God. I’m sorry. I…I think I had too much to drink.”

  “It’s all right.” He didn’t let go of me. His eyes were hazel again—a little tired in the neon, full of amusement and an affection I couldn’t remember deserving. “Did you ever think about stopping?”

  I stared at him. I’d thought about cutting back of course. Staying off spirits, not drinking alone, keeping it for weekends or every other night. Weaning myself off nice and slow, because I could sure as fuck see that I needed to. I’d make a schedule of withdrawal in my head and lose myself in its complexities. “What? Just…stopping?”

  “Yes. From now. Just stopping.”

  “I dunno. I…” Glasses were rattling on the tables around us as the collectors went to work. The overheads flickered on and off. Somewhere off in the distance, I heard a vacuum cleaner start to whine. “Don’t know if I could.”

  “Okay,” he said, as if this and any other spineless piece of ambivalence I cared to expose were all fine with him. Nothing to worry about. “You fairly sober now?”

  I gave it thought. I should have been. I’d slept most of it off on his beautiful shoulder. I ran a surreptitious check for marks of drool. “I think so. Fairly.”

  “Good. I want to take you home, and I have to know yes means yes.”

  “Oh.” Breath left my lungs. I shivered. I should at least appear a little bit harder to get, shouldn’t I? But I didn’t have the strength. Not to say no to the sunlight. “Okay,” I said. “Yes. I mean yes.”

  ***

  We sat in the back of the taxi like strangers. This was the awkward part. I’d bailed at traffic lights before now, unable to face the complexities of extricating myself politely from my latest social entanglement. I was tired, and I hadn’t lied back at the club—I was sobering up. I hadn’t done this before. Never gone home with someone in clearheaded knowledge of what I was doing. Some blokes wanted to neck like randy teenagers on the backseat, as if showing off their conquest for the (usually disgusted) cabbie. I was relieved Aaron seemed happy to keep to his own side. His profile, caressed by oncoming headlights, was calm. Distant somehow. Lost in thought.

  I swallowed, suddenly nervous. It made a tiny sound. Aaron looked up. He didn’t shift from his seat, but he put a hand across it and took mine.

  The cab pulled up outside a big, featureless block on the Quayside. Its frontage looked out over the water. Having offered to pay for the cab and been courteously refused, I stood on the kerb, trying to take in the sheer cliff of brick and glass—felt my elbow warmly clasped as the night shifted round me, tipping on its axis.

  “Come on inside. Before you fall down.”

  His flat was on the sixth or seventh floor. I lost count as the digits in the lift flickered by. I’d run out of small talk, and now my energy was going too. Standing so near to him in a confined space was making my head spin. He filled me with a need I was afraid I’d soon be too weak to assuage. I’d been living for the last day or so on artificial toxins and air, and thinking about my life at the moment gave me a vision of circling, snapping wolves. God, I should have grabbed that abandoned half bottle of wine I’d seen on my way out of the club: with that inside me, I could have been entwined around him, not standing mute, staring at the industrial carpet…Finally the doors hissed wide, and he pressed a hand between my shoulders, as if I needed guidance.

  There was a corridor. The place looked like a hotel. Aaron said, “I work on an oil rig. It’s normally four weeks on, two off, though I’m back and forth a bit more than that just now…This is where they put us up on our off duty.” He pulled out a bunch of keys from his pocket, and after drawing me to a halt outside one of the anonymous doors, unlocked it. Pushed it open. This was all fine. Routine, although he was certainly politer than most, gesturing me ahead into the hallway. I smiled at him. Made my casual walk inside, glancing about me with polite interest, except all I could see were flickering sparks. My shoulder hit a door frame, and I crashed to my knees on the carpet.

  “Matthew. Matthew, what is it?”

  He was kneeling in front of me. If I blinked, I could clear enough static to get a fix on his concerned gaze. Not just concerned—almost frightened. “Sorry,” I said, trying for a laugh which died in my throat. “Maybe not as sober as advertised. I…tripped on something.”

  “No, you didn’t. You’re not well, are you?”

  I clutched his arms. The tighter I did so—and he didn’t seem to mind; just increased the pressure on my shoulders in response—the less the building swayed around me. “Okay,” I said, the truth on my lips before I had time to censor or pull up. “I…think I tried to kill myself last night.” It sounded absurd. I couldn’t take it seriously. “It’s all right. Nobody noticed.”

  “Matthew.” How did he know my name? Casting back, I recalled he’d used it that first night at the bar, then found myself lost in how much I liked to
hear him say it. My mind was backpedalling from its confession. A stupid mistake, a blip. A secret I’d thought to take to my grave. He’d think I was a nutcase at best. At worst, a hysterical drama queen he was about to escort back to the lift and press the Down button. “Matthew,” he repeated fervently, and put out a gentle hand to my face. He brushed his thumb across my lips. “Thank God it didn’t work. Thank God.”

  ***

  He sat with me on the edge of his bed. The room was very plain, just a square lit by apricot neon from outside. He had his arm round my waist, exerting no pressure, just keeping me close. He watched as I finished off the glass of water he’d poured me, then reached for the bottle on the bedside table and poured me another. “What was it?” he said. “Pills?”

  I hadn’t thought I was thirsty, but the fresh tang of untainted liquid had clenched my throat with desire, and I’d drunk till my lungs cramped. “Mm. Just sleepers. Was out for a whole day straight. Don’t know why the fuck I’m so tired now.”

  “Chemical sleep’s different to natural.”

  “I know. I…I’m a doctor.” This revelation, given the state of me, struck both of us as funny, and I was relieved to hear his laugh. “Or I will be if I don’t screw up my foundation year. Aaron, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to tell you.”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  “Impulse. Stupidity. It’s all gone now. I’m fine, really.”

  He shifted and ran a hand across my hair. “Yeah. You look it. Kick your shoes off and lie down.”

  I frowned. “You didn’t bring me back here to tuck me up. You saw me with Nicky the other night. You know what I do.”

  “I saw what you did then. I assume it’s not a nightly performance…”

  “Well, I’m not, like…in rep, but—that was tame, believe me, compared with…” I shut up. His hand was on my shoulder, then my chest. In any other circumstances, being gently forced down onto the bed by him would have overwhelmed me with desire. As it was, all I could feel was the shattering relief of being horizontal, of not having to fight anymore. I tried to bat his hands away when he reached to ease off my shoes. Then my head hit the pillow. I stayed with the moment long enough to feel the brush of his hand across my hair, once and then again. I struggled briefly. It wasn’t safe to pass out cold in a stranger’s house…The caress came again, and I surrendered.