Delilah's

by John Maley

  It was the voice of a big man in his early forties. Greg shook his head and the man sat on the stool beside him. He was nice looking. He looked really out of date, more like a matinée idol from a 1950s B-movie. Very handsome. Very square. He offered to buy Greg a drink. Greg plumped for another Bud. The man ordered a Coke for himself. The big smoothie. He got talking to Greg. He said his name was Jim. Greg thought he looked like a Jim. Homely and handsome. He seemed to move closer to Greg as he spoke until Greg thought he was going to fall into his lap. He had light blue eyes. Sad eyes.

  They were driving back to Jim’s place. Greg was game for it but he didn’t realise Jim lived in deepest Stirlingshire. He said it was a half-hour drive. Greg began to regret saying he’d go with him. Not because he wasn’t attracted to him, it was the distance they had to go. The roads were quiet. It was late. Jim seemed to be a capable and competent driver. He spoke of his life as he drove. Now and again he would give Greg’s thigh a squeeze with his big left hand. It was proprietorial. Greg thought of them naked, doing it.

  Jim told of a live-in love affair he’d had with some guy. They had met in one of the gay bars in Edinburgh. They had only known each other for a few weeks when the guy moved in with Jim. It was the guy’s idea. To Greg he sounded like a bit of a chancer. The guy put Jim down in front of his friends. He’d take his money. He was a real fucking leech. Jim could see that now but at the time he was too in love. The guy was good looking and was good company, but he had a nasty streak and Jim thought he could change that. He had showered the guy with love and affection. Jim tolerated the put-downs, the missing money, and the tantrums. He wasn’t alone anymore. He had somebody to love.

  Then one day he came home to find a note on the kitchen table. The guy had fucked off, with a lot of Jim’s stuff. Jim was devastated. He went round a couple of places where he thought the guy might be staying. One of his pals said he’d gone to England. Another wouldn’t answer the door and told Jim to fuck off through the letterbox. Jim had broken his heart over the guy. He had to take sick leave. He lost weight. Eventually, he said, he’d got over it. Greg thought it didn’t sound like it. Jim’s voice had started breaking a few times during the story.

  Jim was quiet for a while. It gave him time to collect his thoughts and for Greg to digest the story. Then he started reassuring Greg that it wouldn’t be too long now until they got to his place. They were passing through countryside. Greg noticed a big wide, open field to the left of them. This was where Jim would bury him, he thought. He turned and looked at Jim, who had his eyes on the road. It would be okay.

  After an eternity they finally reached Jim’s house. They went inside and Jim gave Greg a can of beer out of the fridge. He fluttered about switching lamps on and off and fidgeting with his CD player. He was trying to get the ambience right. He tentatively reached for a Shirley Bassey CD. Greg nodded. A whirl with Shirl was cool by him. His host sat beside him and commandeered his thigh again, his big hand moving slowly along it and back again. He told Greg a story about his father.

  It seemed that Jim’s father was waging some kind of vendetta against him because of his sexuality. Jim had told him he was gay years ago. His father had immediately disowned him with that noson-of-mine shite. At first it had been a case of the silent treatment whenever he went over to his parents’. His da would sit there gazing straight through him. Things had got worse after his mother died. He’d tried to mend things, but his da was having none of it. He didn’t want an olive branch; he wanted a big stick with a nail in it.

  His da had done all sorts of crazy things. He’d make abusive calls in the night or ring and put down the phone when Jim answered. He’d sent a couple of sick letters. He’d slashed the tyres on Jim’s car and scratched the paintwork with a penknife. Jim hadn’t got the police. After all, it was a family thing. Jim said he loved his da and hoped he’d make it up with him. They’d got on well before he found out Jim was gay.

  These were his two stories. The thing about the lover who’d trashed him and the thing about his homophobic da. Jim looked at Greg with his sad eyes and moved his hand onto his crotch. Greg put a hand up to Jim’s sweet face, then ran his fingers through Jim’s hair. It felt funny. The hair began to slip. Jim took Greg’s hand gently away.

  ‘I wear a hairpiece. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s okay.’

  ‘You don’t mind?’

  ‘Naw. It’s fine.’

  Before Greg had time to say anything else Jim was kissing him. Shirley Bassey was singing And I Love You So, and they went to Jim’s bedroom.

  In the morning, Greg felt too tired to move. He looked at the clock. It was 7am. He turned and looked at Jim, who lay with his back to him. Jim’s wig had shifted to one side but it was still attached to his head. There was a tantalising glimpse of a bald patch underneath. Greg went back to sleep.

  He woke to the sound of Shirley. And I Love You So again. Jim came into the room and asked him if he wanted tea and toast. He was in the nude. Greg said he’d like tea and toast, aye, that would be nice. Jim flapped his balls and cock with his right hand. Not in an overtly sexual way, but as if to say check the packet, would you like some more? Greg watched Jim’s bare arse disappear down the hall. He was going to do a naked number on him. Greg didn’t really like nudity per se. It was fine in bed but all this walking around naked was a bit embarrassing. It was even worse when Jim returned bearing a tray with the tea and toast, still in the buff.

  ‘Put somethin’ on.’ Greg couldn’t help himself.

  ‘I’m comin’ back intae bed.’

  Jim carefully put down the tray on the bedside cabinet and climbed into bed next to Greg. They both took some toast off the tray.

  ‘There’ll be crumbs everywhere.’

  ‘Fuck it.’

  Greg bit into his toast. Then Jim moved in on him. He took Greg’s hand away from the toast and began eating at the toast that was hanging out of Greg’s mouth. Greg remembered that scene in Lady and The Tramp where they were eating the same spaghetti, two dogs or whatever. Jim munched at the toast, shoving his face into Greg’s and kissing his toast-filled mouth with extraordinary passion. There’s a name for this, thought Greg. Autoerotic asphyxiation. He struggled free, choking.

  They were dressed and sitting in the kitchen. Greg was drinking a glass of water. He’d just told Jim he didn’t want to see him again. He’d lied and said he was still involved with someone; he didn’t want to fuck him about. He just didn’t want to see him again. There were a few reasons but he didn’t want to tell Jim them. There was the wig thing, the toast thing, the exhibitionism, the age gap, the fact that he lived fuck knows where. Jim had crumpled with disappointment. He sat at the table, across from Greg. He wrote his name and phone number down on a piece of paper. He shoved the piece of paper across the table towards Greg. He looked at Greg with his big, sad, nobody-loves-me eyes.

  ‘If you know anybody you think’ll like me, give them ma number.’

  Jim gave him a lift to the local bus station. The atmosphere was frosty during the short drive and Greg was glad to get out of the car and away from him.

  A couple of months later Greg saw Jim in Delilah’s again. They pretended not to know each other. Jim looked even more handsome than he did before. He wasn’t wearing his wig. Greg hoped he’d told his da to fuck off. He wished he’d phoned Jim now. But that was because of the drink, and being at the bar again, in Delilah’s again, on his own again.

  The Threesome Real

  Colin wasn’t actually picked up by the guy in Delilah’s, but he’d seen him there. Amongst all the familiar faces, his was the unfamiliar one. He was skinny and looked a bit evil. He kept looking at Colin; kept grinning at him. Colin even moved a couple of times but he kept showing up. Colin thought the best times to change your position were when you were going to the bar for another drink or when you went for a piss. You just went back and stood or sat somewhere else. You didn’t have to sidle along like a bashful crab to avoid somebody. Go for a pee
or a pint and you’ve made your escape. Colin preferred standing because he was short. When he sat down he couldn’t see much at all. Standing, he was in with a shout. Delilah’s was busy that night. It was a Sunday and a karaoke night. It was heaving through in the backroom but Colin steered clear of that. Why couldn’t they play some decent music? Karaoke was crap. The shite singers were embarrassing and the good ones were usually ugly show-offs. He’d once said to Joanie at the bar why didn’t they pack in the karaoke for a while? Joanie had shrugged.

  ‘It gets the punters in.’

  When Colin came back from the toilet he felt his legs weren’t working. He hated that, when drunkenness had affected your body but your head was all too aware. He tried to walk straight. He managed to get back to where he’d left his pint just in time to see a barman swipe it. He’d had enough. He made for the door.

  ‘Heah.’

  It was a man’s voice. Colin had the uneasy feeling he was talking to him. He kept on walking. The man caught up with him. It was the skinny man from Delilah’s. He was walking beside Colin now.

  ‘I saw you in Del’s.’

  ‘I saw you.’

  ‘On yer tod?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Same here. I’ll get ye up the road.’

  ‘I’m okay.’

  The skinny guy was looking at Colin with that smile of his.

  ‘D’ye fancy comin’ back? I stay just aff the Vicky Road.’

  Colin couldn’t help smiling.

  ‘See. Yer smilin’.’

  The next thing, the guy had hailed a taxi and was ushering Colin into it. Colin looked at his face. He wasn’t bad looking. It would be okay. As long as he got up early. He had work in the morning; he worked in an accounts office. They were talking about sending him to college day-release to get a qualification.

  He followed the guy up the close. One of the stairhead lights was broken. It was dingy. There was a smell of cat piss. The skinny guy fumbled with his keys and Colin saw he was even more drunk than he was. Eventually he got the right keys in the right locks and they were in. It was a tiny flat, really a bedsit. There was a hall with a bathroom, but just one big room that seemed to be a bedroom, living-room and kitchen in one. Colin sat in an armchair and the guy fixed them drinks. He said it was whisky but it smelled strange and tasted funny. By this time Colin felt he was sobering up a little. He was glad of another drink, any drink. So he drank it. He didn’t like the flat. It was claustrophobic. He felt as if he’d been locked in a cupboard. The skinny guy was sitting on a chair facing him. He was smiling his smile. He stared at Colin.

  ‘Somethin’ happened to you. When you were young. Somethin’ bad. I can tell.’

  Colin shook his head.

  ‘You don’t know me.’

  They drank their drinks. The guy went up to the window and drew back one of the curtains. He looked out for a while. Then he came back and sat in the chair. He left the curtain open.

  ‘A pal of mine might be comin’ up. For a wee while.’

  ‘That’s okay.’

  The skinny guy looked indignant.

  ‘Of course it’s okay. It’s ma fuckin’ hoose.’

  Colin didn’t like his tone but it was late and he was drunk and he’d just have to make the best of it. He hoped they’d go to bed soon and get it over with. It could only have been a couple of minutes later that the doorbell went. It was the pal. The pal was a big man. He looked dirty. He wore an old anorak and had two manky dogs with him. The dogs were wild and chased each other round the room, occasionally stopping to jump up on Colin and lick at him with their big slabbery tongues. Eventually the big guy laid into the dogs with a leather leash. They whimpered and cowered in a corner. The big guy poured himself a drink and glanced briefly at the skinny guy. They went into the hall. Colin could hear them talking quietly but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The dogs looked at Colin from the corner of the room. They had stopped whimpering. They looked as if they were using all their strength to keep quiet.

  The skinny guy came back in with a proposition. A threesome. Colin shook his head. He said he didn’t go in for that. In fact, he didn’t have any major moral objections to a threesome, but the thought of that dirty big bastard near him made him want to throw up. He tried not to show his revulsion. If he hadn’t been so drunk he’d have run. He stayed. His host was clearly annoyed at the rejection of his unique hospitality; he muttered and went back into the hall to break the news to his pal. Colin went to the sideboard and poured himself another drink. They’d be asking if the dogs could fuck him next.

  Both guys came in but said nothing. The big man put the dogs back on their leashes and shoved on his scabby anorak. He gave Colin a sly look. The guys went out again. Colin heard the front door close and his host came back in. He sat opposite Colin and lit a cigarette. He appeared calmer now. He spoke to Colin.

  He said that he’d had a troubled childhood. There had been family problems. Things had happened. Things he didn’t want to talk about. He had been in care from when he was twelve until he was sixteen. He’d been a bit of a delinquent, he said, but he’d got himself sorted out since then. This was his own place. He knew it wasn’t much but it was all he could afford. He had two jobs – he needed them to pay his mortgage. He worked as a hospital porter and as a barman. He smoked, and blew the smoke in clouds above his head. Even then, all Colin could smell were those dogs.

  They went to bed. They didn’t have to go anywhere to reach it – the bed was in a corner. They both sat on the bed as they undressed. The guy pulled down Colin’s pants and looked inquisitively at his cock. It was as if he was measuring it up, and made a dismissive grunt. They climbed into the bed, which smelled of old cheese. They put their arms around each other and began to kiss. It was going to be okay. The guy then started poking and prodding at Colin with his hard-on, bouncing it off his thighs and between his legs. Then he said he was too drunk and turned his back on Colin.

  It was good it was over. Colin hoped he’d wake first in the morning. He would go home and wash the stink off him and get into work. He knew he was going to have one hell of a hangover. All he could think about was getting home and washed and forgetting the whole thing had ever happened. He looked at the light spilling across the bed from the street. The curtain was still open. He looked at his pillow. There was a big stain on the pillow, like a tea-stain. He could smell rising damp. Looking up, he noticed the ceiling was stained too.

  Later he woke and his face was in the pillow. It was still dark. He felt fingernails digging into him. His body was being moved, shifted in the bed. He wasn’t sure if he was dreaming at first. Then he could hear voices. The big man held him down while the skinny one fucked him. Then they swapped places.

  He never told anybody.

  Yerma’s Yearning

  Eventually Maureen gave in. Karen had been going around like Yerma for months. Like Lorca’s Yerma, she seemed capable of anything. She was desperate to have a child. Maureen felt if she didn’t go along with this then the relationship would have ended, and she didn’t want that.

  Karen had been broody for ages. A colleague of hers at work had recently had a child. In fact it appeared to Maureen that Karen had gone through a kind of hysterical pregnancy alongside her colleague’s bona fide one. There was nothing about this woman’s pregnancy Karen did not know. One day she got off the phone and came running into the kitchen screaming, ‘Her waters have broken’.

  ‘Why don’t you just fuck off with a man?’ Maureen had barked at her.

  Motherhood wasn’t something Maureen had contemplated for very long. Once, when she was a student, she had convinced herself she was pregnant, wept into her pillow, and then spent a long dark night of the soul reconciling herself to a few years pushing a pram while her contemporaries got first class honours degrees. But it had been a false alarm. For one thing, it would have been an immaculate conception. After the initial panic, she was clear in her mind that penetration had not taken place. She had gone to
bed with a PhD student called Philip, after a drunken night in the Student Union. They had been naked and rolled around Philip’s bed. But there was no penetration. Years later Maureen had heard that Philip was living in North London with a bus driver. A male bus driver.

  Delirium after a bogus bonk was the nearest Maureen had got to pregnancy. However, she had gone on to have sex with men. She had always had safe sex and some of it had been almost pleasant. Maureen looked back on it as her ‘straight phase.’ She knew a woman who swore by the necessity for a ‘straight phase.’ This woman said it was a kind of rite of passage for a lesbian. She said it had two distinct advantages – (1) it meant you could be absolutely sure you were a lesbian and (2) nobody could say that you were a lesbian because you were too ugly to get a man. Maureen thought that was a load of shite. Her ‘straight phase’ had been dictated by peer pressure, pure and simple.

  Maureen and Karen knew several lesbian mothers, all of whom had been in relationships with men when their children were conceived. That was one thing, thought Maureen. But to coldly calculate having a child whilst being a lesbian was something else.

  ‘You make it sound like a crime.’

  Karen sat in an armchair with her hands under her sweatshirt, in fists at her belly, as if she were physically trying to look pregnant.

  ‘It’s just so calculating,’ said Maureen.

  ‘It’s not calculating. It’s considered. I’ve thought this through really carefully and I want us to have a child.’

  Maureen dug her nails into the cushion beside her.

  ‘Us?’

  ‘We’re a couple aren’t we? Couples do things together.’

  Maureen shook her head in exasperation. Karen leaned forward, pulling the belly of her sweatshirt out a little more, and gave Maureen a reassuring smile.

  ‘Do you feel inadequate because you can’t inseminate me?’ she asked softly.

  ‘Karen,’ said Maureen, ‘I don’t want to inseminate you. Strangle you, yes. Inseminate you, no.’