The Edge

by Jamie Collinson

  Finally, she moved her fingers to his chin and gently lifted it upward, pulling him towards her. They kissed again, and the thought of her taste running from his lips and tongue onto hers thrilled him.

  It was only when she pushed him onto his back and began lowering her own head beneath his chin that something struck him: since he’d slept with Angelina, he no longer knew if he was clean.

  The thought made his heart race. Erica was nuzzling his neck, moving downward to his chest.

  Images of the sordid hotel room in Denver rose in his mind. He didn’t actually know Angelina very well. As he’d never had sex with her before that night, he’d never even asked her the question he’d become accustomed to asking over his years of ill-advised sex. A cold fear leaked into his blood. I’ll have to get checked, he thought. Either that or contact Angelina, ask her, see how certain she…

  But what were the chances? They must be slim, surely. It wasn’t as if she’d slept with him very easily, or at least, she hadn’t done so very quickly. Perhaps it was OK. Perhaps it was fine to just forget it and move on…

  There was something she’d said, though. Something that had bothered him… Striker, he realized. She and Striker had had different priorities.

  He raised a hand to Erica’s head, gently holding her to his chest. She kissed him there, apparently believing he wanted to prolong the moment. Further below, with a crushing sense of his own stupidity, he could feel his erection was faltering.

  Sex, he thought. That would have been Striker’s priority. Striker the notorious shagger, the archetypal booking agent. A sports-jacketed New Yorker who liked to talk about his artists crushing other people’s, who had once assured Adam that one of his rivals, flirting with an attractive girl at a festival in Michigan, ‘couldn’t close that deal’. Who, he remembered now with a wave of nausea, Scott had once shared a house with at a festival, and who had kept Scott up all night, both nights, with his aggressively loud shagging of two different women.

  That, of course, had seemed much funnier at the time.

  Erica was moving her lips to his abdomen, lifting herself squarely over him. He’d prayed to get away with this so many times. He’d got away with it, time after time with Sofia and with others. Now, if he hadn’t, wouldn’t it be the perfect justice? To do something terrible to a woman, just as he fell in love with her? To have repeated a stupidity he’d thought banished?

  He couldn’t risk hurting her.

  ‘Erica,’ he said, holding her shoulders, stopping her descent.

  She looked up, frowned. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Come back here.’

  He felt her shrink away from him, clearly embarrassed, before she was lying beside him once more. There was a space between their bare skin now, and the air there felt cool.

  ‘Don’t tell me you don’t like that?’ she said.

  ‘I do,’ he told her. ‘It’s just… I want to take things slow with you. I can’t explain it really.’ He paused. ‘I don’t want to fuck it up.’

  ‘OK,’ she said.

  After a moment, she moved closer to him again, closing her eyes and touching her brow to his cheek. Despite this, he could feel her uncertainty. The silence between them now was less than entirely comfortable.

  Adam slipped his arm beneath her shoulder, and held her to him tightly. He wanted to tell her he was falling in love with her, but he didn’t, and then the moment was gone.

  29

  Driving along Sunset at eleven o’clock the next morning, Adam’s brain had gone numb with dread and panic. His penis kept itching, and he couldn’t decide if the extent to which this was happening was normal. Some amount of itching surely was – but how much? Normally, would he even notice?

  But what if it wasn’t normal? What if he’d caught some sort of super-agent super-bug, brewed up in the bottle-service and breast-implant bars of New York City? What if Striker had crushed him?

  He pushed his hand under his pants and gently scratched his dick. When a police car pulled alongside at a traffic light, he rapidly withdrew it and made his innocent citizen face.

  It was very hot outside, the sun already bright in a cloudless, powder-blue sky. Traffic was sluggish as he crossed from Silver Lake into East Hollywood. The sidewalks looked hard and baking, the buildings ugly and unwelcoming. You’re projecting, he told himself. Seeing the world through the lens of cock disease. You’ve been here before. Haven’t you had enough of this?

  He was outside the Vista Theatre – theatres in LA usually being cinemas, of course – when the phone rang, bringing up an unrecognized number. Grateful for the distraction, he pressed accept. The current affairs show on KPCC went silent, and his ‘hello’ sounded throaty and nervous in the car’s abrupt silence.

  ‘May I please speak with Adam Fairhead?’ The voice was deep and slightly hesitant, but it sounded quite friendly.

  ‘Speaking,’ Adam said.

  ‘Hi,’ the voice continued, as though grateful to have got him. ‘I’m Daniel Ledberg of The Mammal, in New York?’

  ‘Ah, OK,’ Adam said. ‘Hello.’

  ‘I’m calling to ask you about a, um, rumour, that seems to have surfaced on an anonymous messaging board recently.’

  ‘Right,’ Adam said, frowning.

  ‘The rumour – well, actually, it’s kind of an accusation. This messaging board, it’s about employers and businesses. Kind of like a dark web version of a digital recruitment site?’

  Adam’s heart beat painfully.

  ‘Right,’ he said. His own voice sounded weak in the silence of the car.

  ‘So like, people can leave anonymous information on there, when they had or have a bad boss, basically.’

  ‘OK,’ Adam said. He suddenly felt short of breath.

  ‘And someone has written an entry that’s rumoured to be about an executive at your company.’

  Jesus Christ, Adam thought. Have I really been so bad that it’s come to this? He tried to think which member of staff might have written about him. It could have been any, he supposed, with a wave of black despair.

  ‘Hello?’ the voice said.

  ‘Hold on,’ Adam replied. He’d stopped at another light, which had now changed to green. A jubilant cacophony of horns blared out behind him, and a grey Range Rover Sport with a plate that read IN0V8R roared past him, angrily, without using its indicators.

  ‘Please take your time,’ the reporter said, apologetically.

  ‘I’m driving. Let me just…’ Adam turned right into Rodney Drive, and pulled over. His pulse was thumping in his limbs and brow. Keep calm, he thought. Don’t panic. He tried to remember all the excellent PR advice he’d heard – even given – over the years, and failed.

  ‘Are you still there?’ the voice said.

  ‘Yes,’ Adam told it.

  ‘So I’m just looking for a comment, really,’ the reporter said. ‘To see if any of the allegations are true, or justified.’

  ‘Allegations?’ Adam said, feeling sick.

  ‘Yes… I take it you didn’t know anything about this until now?’

  ‘This is the first I’ve heard of it,’ Adam said. He cracked a window, needing air, but all that he got was heat, fumes and the sound of traffic. He breathed in through his nose and out of his mouth, remembering something he’d read about controlling panic.

  ‘Well, the entry alleges that an executive at your company has been bullying staff there,’ the reporter went on. ‘Would you like me to give you some of the details?’

  ‘Maybe you should call back, actually?’ Adam said. ‘I haven’t seen this, er, website, and I’m in no place to comment. I might need…’

  ‘What might you need, Adam?’ the reporter said. Even in his panic, Adam recognized that the hesitancy had fallen away. Had it just been a technique?

  ‘I need more information,’ Adam said.

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to give you. You can choose whether to comment or not. There’s no pressure. The way this works is that we give everyone time to respo
nd.’

  ‘The way what works?’

  ‘Good investigative journalism,’ the reporter said.

  ‘Fine. Tell me then,’ Adam said, unable to resist.

  ‘So the entry—’

  ‘Hold on,’ Adam interrupted, a sudden little dose of anger reviving him, like smelling salts. ‘You said “an executive”. Is anyone actually named on this site?’

  ‘No,’ the reporter said. ‘I think whoever runs it fears legal retaliation. But the type of company is closely described.’

  ‘Well, there are lots of record labels,’ Adam said. ‘If we’re not named, it could be any of them.’

  ‘The rumour has expanded a little, on an industry message board.’

  ‘Right…’ Adam said, hope receding.

  ‘But the original entry says that one of the senior executives at the label is transphobic.’

  Transphobic? Adam thought. How could anyone possibly think I was—

  ‘It’s by a former member of staff at a music company, a transwoman, and her complaint is about an anti-working class, transphobic culture.’

  ‘Working class…’ Adam said. ‘Hold on. Is this… Is this about our London office?’

  ‘Yes,’ the reporter said. ‘The rumour is that Serena Miller is the executive in question.’

  Adam slumped back into his seat and closed his eyes. A soft, warm sweat broke out around his nose and on his brow. Relief seeped into his veins like a drug.

  ‘Fuck me…’ he said.

  ‘Excuse me?’ the reporter said, irritably.

  ‘Nothing, sorry…’ Adam said. ‘So what else does it say?’

  ‘Can I take it from your reaction that this doesn’t come as a surprise?’

  ‘No you can’t,’ Adam said, anger rising again. ‘Serena isn’t a transphobe.’

  Idiot, Adam thought. How could anyone think that of Serena, who’d been fighting the good fight since back when each battle was harder to win. The idea that this tricky reporter could come along and undo all that. Some nosey hack trying to give a moral veneer to his gossip hunting.

  ‘But she’s other things?’

  ‘Yes. She’s from a working-class background, for one thing. Not that that’s for me to say, frankly. Have you thought about contacting her?’

  ‘We’ve tried. Your London office is closed for the day.’

  ‘What else does this… entry say?’ Adam asked.

  ‘It says that the executive suggested a drag ball theme for your Christmas party.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘That she presided over an anti-female atmosphere in the office, despite claiming to be a feminist.’

  ‘An outright lie.’

  ‘That she didn’t attend this staff member’s birthday drinks.’

  ‘She’s not much of a drinker!’ Adam protested.

  ‘That her moods and poorly managed stress inflicted anxiety and trauma on her staff.’

  ‘You try keeping an independent music company going without getting a bit stressed!’

  ‘So that part is true then?’ the reporter said.

  ‘No. Serena is a lovely person to work for. Don’t quote that,’ Adam said.

  ‘Well then, can you give me a quote?’

  ‘Who is the woman in question? The member of staff, I mean?’

  ‘Can’t you tell me that? It says in her entry that your label—’

  ‘The label,’ Adam said. ‘You said no label was mentioned. This is all a bit much, isn’t it?’

  There was a moment of silence. Heather, Adam thought. The woman Jason had made Serena sack for trying to poach artists. It must’ve been her who’d complained.

  ‘The label then, was only nine per cent BAME, and less than two per cent LGBTQIA and working class.’

  ‘Do those last two get amalgamated then?’ Adam asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘LGBTQ and working class.’

  ‘It’s LGBTQIA,’ the reporter said, icily. ‘And no. I guess it’s because you have less than one per cent of either.’

  ‘What does the IA bit stand for?’ Adam asked.

  ‘Intersex and allies.’

  ‘Right,’ Adam said. ‘Anyway, working class is very tricky to define. If you work at a record label you are by definition no longer in the working class. There are rather a lot of people in London who are middle class in denial.’

  ‘She also writes that you have no one disabled,’ the reporter continued.

  ‘Our warehouse manager has a terrible lazy eye, does that count?’ Adam snapped.

  ‘Are you trying to be funny?’

  ‘No,’ Adam said, sighing.

  ‘So, are these numbers an accurate reflection?’

  ‘I don’t know, I haven’t counted,’ Adam said. ‘Our LA office is fifty percent female, which has always seemed a good thing. And Serena believes in positive discrimination.’

  ‘Affirmative action, we call it,’ the reporter said.

  ‘Yes…’ Adam told him. ‘Listen, what exactly are you intending to print?’

  ‘So far, I don’t know. What are you going to let me quote?’

  ‘This anonymous online accusation sounds as though it could be about any music company, and I can certainly tell you that Serena Miller is not in the least bit transphobic or anti-working class. Quite the contrary.’

  There was a pause. ‘I don’t know,’ the reporter said eventually. ‘There’s gotta be more to this. People don’t make allegations like this for no reason.’

  ‘Well, I can imagine more than one reason for writing them. Can’t you?’

  ‘That’s dangerous ground,’ the reporter said.

  ‘I know,’ Adam said. ‘But in this case I think it might be a grudge.’ Something occurred to him. ‘You’re looking in the wrong place,’ he said. ‘Far worse things happen here in LA. Far worse things have happened to… to…’

  ‘To whom?’ the reporter said, suddenly very interested.

  A breathless tension filled Adam. Can I? he wondered. Should I? Toss Fischer the radio DJ under the wagon? Alicia, his producer, would be leaving soon anyway, he remembered. And she was the only person he liked on the show. Besides, Fischer was living on borrowed time. He deserved it.

  ‘If I give you a story about something that’s definitely true, will you research Serena’s history properly, and check into whether this accusation comes from a sacked member of staff with a grudge?’

  There was another pause, then: ‘Yes.’

  ‘And the information I’m about to give you, my name and the label have to be kept completely out of it.’

  ‘OK,’ the reporter said.

  Adam took a deep breath. ‘Have you heard of Brad Fischer?’ he asked.

  It took only a few minutes to give all the information he had, leaving out Meg’s name.

  ‘Thank you,’ the reporter said, when he’d finished.

  ‘Thank you,’ Adam replied, and hung up.

  * * *

  Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital was a sprawling set of towers, just off Sunset in East Hollywood. It was here that Adam had decided to get tested.

  Heart in mouth, he parked in the hospital’s lot and found his way to the elevators. The place was white-walled, warren-like, with shiny beige floors that squeaked beneath his trainers. Twice he got lost, and on neither occasion did he dare ask anyone for directions.

  When he finally found the STD testing unit, it was already very busy. There were four rows of seating in a smallish room, beyond which were an equal number of greasy glass windows, staff seated behind three of them. All but two of the chairs were full.

  The room was otherwise windowless, the carpet tiles threadbare and the fluorescent light unpleasant. Purgatory, Adam thought.

  Most of the people in the waiting room were men, and many of them apparently in couples. People stared at phones, talked in murmurs and slumped in their seats, bored.

  A young heterosexual couple was giggling and whispering to each other, touching a great deal. The man w
ore a brown leather jacket and had a goatee, the woman long black hair and a roundish, pretty face. As Adam passed them, walking to the counter, he heard the man’s American accent; the woman’s was harder to place – Eastern Europe maybe. There was something a little manic about them; a false, over-egged happiness.

  From behind one of the windows, a very fat man with dyed blond hair gestured Adam over, smiling warmly.

  ‘How can I help you?’ he asked.

  ‘I’d like to get tested, please,’ Adam told him.

  ‘OK, great. Do you wanna get a full panel?’

  ‘Um,’ Adam said. ‘What are the options?’

  ‘Well, you can do urine for just gonorrhoea and chlamydia, but we also offer oral and anal swabs for those. Then we can do blood work for HIV and syphilis.’

  ‘Right,’ Adam said. ‘I suppose I’ll just do the lot.’

  ‘Great,’ the man said again, as though Adam had chosen excellently. ‘So, I’ma have you fill out these pages, and sign where it’s highlighted, OK?’ He handed Adam a clipboard with a few sheets of paper attached, and a chewed Bic biro.

  ‘Bring it right back to me when you’re done.’

  ‘Thanks,’ Adam said. He squeezed onto one of the plastic chairs and began filling out the form. Over his right shoulder, he could feel that a hairy man in a singlet, beside him, was reading what he wrote.

  How many times, Adam wondered, have I found myself in a place like this? More than he could count, that was for sure. Please let this be the last time, he begged himself. I’m getting too old for this.

  It took a little over forty-five minutes for him to be called through. When he was, a friendly middle-aged woman took him through a security door into the rooms beyond, and seated him in a little space between two dividers.

  ‘So, sweetie,’ she said. ‘Tell me what’s going on.’

  Adam did so.

  ‘Well,’ she said when he’d finished. ‘The good news is, you don’t need no anal swab.’ She giggled uproariously, and ran him through the procedure for the other tests.

  At least in LA, he thought, heading to the bathroom with his urine receptacle, even the STD clinics are friendlier.