by Alex Wire
Don’t move, I say. Don’t look at him and don’t make any sort of sound. But I bite my lip and hiss from my nostrils. He takes out his finger, shuffles between my legs so his belly’s brushing mine, and he’s breathing hard now, smelling of fags and sweat and aftershave. He’s licking his lips, grinning like a demon: his face all red, I can see it even with my eyes closed. Then it goes in. A sharp pain. Fuck. It feels like I’m going to split in two. I bite, I hiss, I want to throw my arms round him, but I keep them at my sides with my fingers clenched in balls. It only goes in a bit at first, it feels so hot and big and long that it’s all the way up in my stomach. Then he pushes it further and further and further so I want to scream. Oh god, I want to scream. Oh god, oh god, oh god…
Carly hears a sound. Her hands freeze between her legs. Her eyes shoot open. It’s a sound from the car park: a rattling engine. She pushes back the covers, jumps out of bed, and rushes to the window not wearing her knickers, knowing already what’s happened.
She’s right.
From the second floor she sees a yellow arc of headlights, and then the back end of Darren’s blue Vauxhall as he drives through the car park exit, going and going and gone.
A Christmas Outing (in February)
Alex Wire
‘So who’s going to be at this thing?’ he’s saying.
‘Well,’ I say. ‘There’ll be my boss, Keith.’
‘The editor?’
‘Yes, the editor. And Hayley and Liz from the features team, and the news desk – that’s Phil, Mark, Kris and Sanj – a few people from IT whose names I can never remember which is why my computer hardly ever works, a couple of the sports team, Geoff and Luke I think, Debbie from reception, maybe a few of the freelances and…’
And my boyfriend.
‘…and, err, that’s all I know.’
Not that I’ve ever called him that at the office. My ‘partner’ is how I’ve tactfully – tactically – put it.
‘Well I can’t wait to meet them all,’ he’s saying as he straightens my collar and thankfully he doesn’t really look at my face which I’m sure is wearing a dumb grin.
Straight people use that term too nowadays, I know. It’s not as if I’ve been overly evasive about it. I just haven’t been particularly direct either. Not dishonest, but perhaps not entirely honest either.
‘Come on, we’ll be late,’ he calls from the hall and I hear the jangling of car keys being retrieved from a glass fruit bowl that’s never seen an orange in its life. ‘Stop daydreaming. I imagine your boss is quite keen on punctuality, what with deadlines and all that, and I’m determined to make a good impression, even if you aren’t.’
It’s not as if straight people arrive at a new job and go, ‘Hello, I’m Paul and I’m as straight as a Roman road,’ ‘Nice to meet you; my name’s Dave and I only like girls too.’ It just wouldn’t be normal to greet a group of complete strangers and instantly disclose what it is you like doing and doing to you in bed. ‘Hi, I’m John and I like to dress up in gimp outfits and be whipped by French maids.’
I follow him out of the flat and he pinches my bum as I go through the door. ‘Cheer up,’ he says. ‘It’s supposed to be Christmas.’
‘It’s February,’ I say through the cold air.
‘Bah! Get in the spirit, Scrooge!’ he yells as the door clicks shut.
It’s like those questions about your health on the application forms. You’re supposed to be as honest as possible, list all your embarrassing ailments, in case it later affects your work and puts your contract in doubt. But no one ever is totally honest because there’s a good chance the prospective boss might give the job to someone whose guts don’t turn to sewage at the merest taste of cheese, has narcoleptic fits whenever they look at a computer screen or often has to spend days at a time in bed with depression. It might put you in a difficult situation at a later point, but you’re still better off keeping it quiet in the moment.
‘Humbug,’ he says as I climb into the passenger seat of his Fiesta.
‘What?’
‘Would you like a humbug?’ He’s holding out a bag of the stripy sweets.
‘What are you like?’ I say and give him a peck on the cheek while my hand forages in the bag. ‘Can you even buy these this time of year? Or have you been saving them up for that joke?’
‘Of course you can buy them, love,’ he says as he starts the car. ‘Prunes on the other hand…’
He does make me laugh.
Does it put your friendship with someone at risk if you haven’t told them you’re gay within a certain number of weeks? Would I be pissed at any of our gay friends if they turned out to be straight and they hadn’t told me? You know what, I probably would. And that makes me a horrible hypocrite. But our gay friends are our gay friends. We’re probably only friends with them because they’re gay. Their gayness is part of who they are to us. What if my gayness is part of who I am, a part I’ve been keeping secret? Oh no – that makes me an even bigger hypocrite!
‘Any idea what the parking’s like at this restaurant?’
‘Shit,’ I say.
‘I hope we don’t have to walk too far in this snow – it will ruin my new suede shoes.’ And then he gives a little Elvis-style Uh-hu-huh.
God, I love this man. He makes me laugh so much!
Yes, I suppose my gayness is part of who I am, but it doesn’t define me. Is it really a big deal if everyone thinks it’s Nikki n i k k i and not Nicky n i c k y? Does it matter all that much if I pretended to myself not to hear when someone inquired about my ‘girlfriend’ or ‘the missus’? If, on a Monday morning, a colleague asks what I got up to over the weekend, they want to hear about us going kayaking down the river or visiting my parents, not some dramatic revelation about my sexuality. It doesn’t matter to anyone.
And if it does, well fuck them! That’ll be their problem. It’s not going to change things between me and Nicky. We’re together and in love – that’s what’s important. And…
‘Just down here, isn’t it?’
I haven’t even noticed but we’re in the town already.
‘Yes, and then the next left,’ I say.
And then we are pulling up down the road from the restaurant and stepping out into the cold, snowy air and I’m wondering why I haven’t told Nicky that they don’t know, and I’m no longer worrying what they will think of us but what he will think of me.
He says something I can’t quite hear.
‘The only what?’ I say.
‘WAG. You know, Wives-And-Girlfriends, like the footballers have. I’m not going to be the only one there, am I?’
‘No, of course not. Most of the other hacks are married. I expect they will have brought their wives.’ I’m trying to sound casual, relaxed.
‘Ah, so I might be the only girlfriend then,’ he says, and for a moment I wonder if he knows what I’ve been thinking, knows what I’ve done. But he’s grinning cheerfully.
‘Gavin!’ calls Keith as we walk in. He comes over from the bar to meet us. ‘Gavin – nice to see you.’
‘You too, Keith,’ I say, shaking his hand and thinking, you saw me at the office this morning.
There’s an awkward pause as Keith notices Nicky.
‘Introduce us then,’ says Nicky.
‘Erm, well this is Keith, my editor.’
‘I’ve heard a lot about you,’ says Nicky, shaking his hand.
‘And this is Nicky,’ I say.
‘Nice to meet you, Nick,’ says Keith in his warm country brogue, giving him a manly slap on the arm. ‘Say, Gavin, I thought you said you were coming with your par…’
And there it is. The realisation. I see it first on Keith’s face, then Nicky’s.
‘Ahh, I see!’ says Keith.
I shrug a tiny, apologetic shrug.
But then, and I’m not expecting this, Keith says, ‘Well you better come meet the rest of the rabble I call my newspaper,’ and he’s leading Nicky off to the bar where about twenty assorted jo
urnalists, sub-editors and their WAGs are milling around, chatting and laughing. I’m almost left behind as Keith introduces Nicky to the rest of the group as ‘Gavin’s partner’ in his booming, genial voice. My face is burning up red. There are a few moments of hesitation among the others. I catch the sports team giving each other quick glances. But Nicky is in the middle of the mêlée shaking hands, exchanging nice-to-meet-yous.
‘What can I get you lads to drink?’ calls Keith from the bar.
‘Oh – a lager please,’ says Nicky. ‘Thanks!’
My throat is dry and I croak out, ‘Glass of white wine, please.’ And then I feel embarrassed because my drink order is more gay than my boyfriend.
‘So how long have you been together?’ Sanjay’s wife is asking.
‘About a year,’ I say. I knew the conversation was going to turn to us eventually, once alcohol helped curiosity overcome politeness.
‘And you live together, is that right?’
‘Yeah,’ I say.
‘Gav moved in with me when I opened my new practice.’
‘Oh, are you a doctor?’
Gav laughs. ‘Well,’ he says. ‘I’m a doctor as far as the local cats and dogs are concerned.’
My throat tightens as I wonder if he’s going to make his usual, terrible Gay Vet cracks: I’ve chopped off more balls than I’ve felt up; most people in the gay community have a different idea of dogging; I’ve met some cats in my time…
But thankfully he doesn’t go there. There is for our gay friends only.
Actually, so far Nicky has been a complete hit, cracking jokes and listening patiently to the shop talk. And I’m starting to wonder what I was afraid of. Prejudice? Hell, it’s a newspaper. A provincial paper, maybe, but a newspaper nonetheless, and journalists tend to be open-minded people. Bitter and heartless, sure, but open-minded all the same.
‘Any plans for a wedding?’ says Paul’s wife who is the most tipsy of the WAGs.
Nicky laughs and I blush into my wine glass. I’m sure I can see the redness of my cheeks reflecting off the crystal.
‘Not yet,’ says Nicky. ‘We’re not quite ready to make honest men of each other.’ And everyone laughs.
‘Say,’ says Keith, who has been lording it up all evening as the convivial host (shame he’s not paying for us all though), ‘who does the proposing in…that kind of marriage?’
‘The bravest,’ says Nicky and the table cracks up again.
Nicky’s only had the one pint of beer because he’s driving, so everyone else is a little drunker than him, but he’s funny anyway. He’s really funny. That was what first attracted me to him, I think. I remember when we first met, at a friend’s party.
‘Hi, you’re Gaz, aren’t you?’ he said to me at the bar. ‘One of Tony’s friends?’
‘Gav,’ I said. ‘Vvv.’
‘Ah sorry. Sometimes I get the wetters mixed up in lerds.’
‘I bet that can be quite embarrassing,’ I said.
‘Oh yes. Only the other day I asked a waitress for a cup of pee and a slice of ghost.’
That doesn’t even make sense! But at the time I thought it was hilarious. Hilarious enough for us to swap phone numbers and a bit of saliva that evening.
‘Well Gavnin…’ This is Geoff, shouting down from the far end of the table in a slurry voice. He’s had a skinful. He thinks he can take his beer, it’s part of his all-man image, but really he’s a worse lightweight than me. ‘You kepd all thisth pretty quiet. But, hey, there’s nowt wrong with ith in my books. And to be honesth, I alwaysh suspecthed you were a bit that way inclindeded sinsh you were so keen to report on the local drama group’th production of the Wizard of Oth!’
Everyone looks awkwardly at me and Nicky, but he’s laughing and everyone else realises it’s okay to laugh. That kind of gay joke is okay. It’s near the line, but not over it, and a gay man is laughing so it’s okay the same way as when black people tell racist jokes about fried chicken and fat mommas. I think.
‘Well, Geoff,’ I say, trying to join in, ‘Dorothy and I are good friends so it would have been rude not to go see her.’
Nicky touches my leg under the table as everyone laughs – he’s pleased for me that my joke was funny and wants to share the moment with me, which means he really loves me, I reckon.
The waitresses are starting to clear away the table. I glance round the restaurant and realise that our raucous behaviour has cleared it. I’m glad because what’s coming next is going to be embarrassing. Keith is tapping the side of his beer glass with his fork and pushing his chair back so he can stand.
‘Now folks,’ he says, ‘I know it isn’t the most traditional thing to have your work Christmas dinner in February. But in our trade needs must and I’m sure you’d rather be sitting here now than working on Boxing Day because we were behind on that week’s edition. I remember a time in 1987 when…or was it 1989? Hmmm…Well it doesn’t matter because working late one Christmas Eve is as unpleasant as working any other. But I’m sure you’ll agree that tonight has been marvellous fun and it is really positive for the paper if we all get to know each other out of the office...’ and I switch off because I’ve heard this speech recited a dozen times by the other staff members; it’s the exact same speech he gives every year at the February Christmas dinner, a popular in-joke. I hear him mention something about ‘learning a bit more about each other, some more than others’ and a few people chuckle, but my attention is fixed on the ridiculous big white cake being wheeled towards the table. The words Camp as Christmas appear in my mind.
‘They seemed like a lovely bunch,’ Nicky is saying as we drive out of the town. The snow’s falling hard now and the windscreen wipers are crunching in a slow rhythm.
‘Yes, they are,’ I say.
‘You must have quite a laugh at the office.’
‘Sometimes.’
I feel him glancing over at me. ‘Anything the matter, hon?’
‘No, I’m fine,’ but I know I don’t sound it.
‘I’m not mad at you, you know.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘For not telling them. You probably expected me to be mad when I found out you’d kept me a secret, but I’m not. I understand.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Of course. I mean, I don’t go telling all the pet owners that come into my surgery that I’m gay. I’m sure it wouldn’t make the blindest bit of difference and they don’t care who gets their hands on their animals, but there’s still no need for me to tell them.’
‘I bet you’ve told your colleagues though.’
‘I have a picture of you on my desk. They kinda guessed from that.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But two veterinary nurses is hardly the same as a testosterone-filled newspaper office.’
‘I suppose not.’
‘I wouldn’t have told them if I were you. Wouldn’t know how to broach the subject, to be honest. But you took me to the meal and that was a really brave thing to do.’
‘Hmmm,’ I say, trying to sound affirmative.
‘And everything went well so there’s not a problem and, honestly, I’m not mad in the slightest.’
I should have known that Nicky would understand. I don’t know why I didn’t trust him not to get angry.
But instead of feeling relief, I just feel wrongness. It all feels wrong somehow. Maybe I wanted there to be a problem after all. Maybe I wanted him to get angry. I don’t know. I had this whole disaster scenario worked out in my mind and for some reason I wanted it to come true just because it was what I had been expecting. And maybe I wanted everyone at the office to be shocked and appalled, to take offence at my dishonesty and be sickened by my abnormality. Maybe I wanted the evening to be an embarrassing mess and for me and Nicky to argue in the car home, for him to say, ‘You should have told them! How do you expect people to react if you just spring it on them like that?’ and then we’d get home and talk it over and have make-up sex and vow that it wasn’t going to affect
our love, that the problem was theirs, that we would battle our way through the prejudice and it would only bring us closer together. We would be bound by adversity. Maybe that’s what I wanted to happen. And maybe I’m upset because it didn’t happen. Maybe I needed it to happen. And maybe that means Nicky and I aren’t as bound together as I thought.
‘Humbug?’ he’s saying, waving the bag of sweets in my general direction. I reach to take one, hoping the sugar will stop my head feeling so dizzy.
This Is Not a Road Trip
Amanda Rodriguez
We are headed south. Some people would call this a road trip but this is not that. Road trips are for people who have time to burn. Two Lips has got a couple of weeks, they said, maybe a month at best. And you don’t say no to a dying friend.
The music on the radio, the voice of our so-called generation, concerns itself with getting large-breasted women even more naked than they already are. ‘Why do you listen to this crap?’ I ask Two Lips, who is a large-breasted woman herself. Or was.
‘Because I like it, okay? It’s catchy. And this is my trip.’
She turns up the music and it shakes the loose metal of her shitty car with each low bass thump. Why do I keep talking? I can’t seem to open my mouth without criticising her. But I can’t do it. I can’t shut up and relax, because I am being driven by a drunkard in a shitty car with old tyres that hasn’t seen an oil change in god-knows-when, and this music is going on and on about the same shit that got Two Lips into this situation in the first place.
‘It’s degrading.’
‘Look, bitch, when you’re driving I’ll let you pick the music, all right?’ Two Lips turns it up so loud that you can’t even hear the words anymore, just the thump of the bass and its vibrations through the rusty metal and up through the bucket seats. ‘Come on, Pix, you know you like that bass.’ She raises one eyebrow at me, mischievous, flirting. Two Lips doesn’t know how to turn off the sex, even now, when she weighs about ninety pounds and all the colour is gone from her face. ‘Oh, Pix!’ she yells over the music. ‘That bass! I think I’m gonna...’ she grabs my knee and moans, throwing her head back and pretending to come. The car weaves left, over the centre lane.