I stared right back at him. “So?”
He blinked. “So?”
“So fucking what?”
He blinked again. “Tobias. This is quite serious. This could damage your future, ruin your name—”
I interrupted him. “James, I have a lot of money, and I’m very pretty. This is not the first time papers have been interested in my sexual exploits, and it won’t be the last. I’m not afraid. Or ashamed.”
He stood, stabbing a hand through his hair. It occurred to me that I was being the calm one right now, the one with perspective. He was the lost one. And when he looked down at me, there was something so frightened and tender in his gaze. Something so young.
“I don’t know what to do,” he whispered. “This is the end of my career. I might be able to hold on for a few weeks, but if someone seizes this chance to call for a snap election—I have to resign either way. Now, or later.”
“But why?” I demanded. “Why can’t you just say, ‘Yes, I was with my boyfriend in my office, but it was after hours, so it’s not like I was shagging him during a NATO call?’ Why can’t you say, ‘Yes, this is my boyfriend, Tobias. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of pre-Saxon timber construction and also an amazing arse?’ Why can’t you just say, ‘Fuck your outdated bigotry, I’m queer?’”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “It’s not that easy. I can’t be—I can’t do that. I’m not like you. I can’t be that person. I’m not that person!”
Finally, I’d had enough. “But you are! Bleeding Christ, James, take a minute and think about the past two months. Has the world stopped turning since you started seeing me? Has anything materially changed? No. Because it’s okay. It’s better than okay, it’s good because you deserve to be with whoever you want to be with. We all do.”
He stared down at me as though I’d started speaking ancient Akkadian to him.
“But I can’t,” he said again, breaking our stare and looking down at the floor. “I’m sorry, because you are wonderful, but I…it’s not who I am.”
And then it hit me.
This was more than hiding. This was shame. And I wasn’t better than a lot of things—bad television and those cheese and onion-stuffed rectangles from Gregg’s among them—but I was better than shame. And he was too.
A cool, collected calmness filled me as I stood.
“I think you should go,” I said. “You came here to warn me about the press, and I appreciate it, but now it’s time you left.”
“Tobias,” he said. “Wait.”
I looked at him. At this cold, handsome knife of a man. What an idiot I’d been to fall in love with someone like James Caldron. “What will you do tomorrow? Will you deny everything? Will you stay silent?”
“I don’t know yet.” He stepped close enough to me to touch, but he kept his hands in tight balls by his sides as though he wanted to grab me but didn’t trust himself. “I don’t want to hurt you, Tobias, so you tell me what I should do. Stay silent? Claim libel and lies?”
“It doesn’t matter because both those options hurt me. But you know what the real problem is? Both of those options hurt you.”
I started walking toward the door, and he followed.
“No,” he said, “they protect you and me. They protect us. Surely you see that?”
“And surely you see that I don’t want to be protected if the price is shame.” I sighed. “I love you, James.”
He started, his lips parting.
“What?” he whispered.
“Which is why this is over now.”
“It’s not over,” he cut in, panic flashing in his eyes, but I kept talking.
“Maybe I could bear being a secret for a while longer, maybe I could even bear it a long, long time just to be near you, but I can’t watch you be a secret to yourself. I can’t watch you be ashamed of yourself because that means you’re ashamed of the man I love, and that’s unforgivable, I’m sorry, but it is.”
I opened the door to the steps down to the street, where his car waited outside.
“Tobias, wait,” he said urgently, pressing his forehead to mine. “This isn’t over. I won’t let it be. You’re supposed to be mine. My boy. And I care deeply for you. So fucking deeply.”
I let him kiss me once—a kiss that was fearful and hard and a little angry—before I pulled away. “How can I believe that you care for me if you’re only willing to say it in the dark?”
He had no answer to that.
Because there was none.
“If you figure it out, call me,” I said. “But that’s all I can offer you because I can’t stick around and watch you loathe yourself and pretend it’s not gutting me.”
“Tally,” he said. It was the only time he’d called me that, and I hated how still—even now—it made my heart flip over in my chest.
No. Be strong. He’s made his choice, and now you’ve made yours.
“Goodbye, Prime Minister,” I said. “I hope Downing Street is worth it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
James
It was chaos.
The clatter of so many fingers on computer keys, the sharp yip of raised voices into phones, and the whispered hush of many conversations heavy with the weight of scandal.
The conference room held so many bodies that it was impossible to avoid meeting someone’s gaze every time I turned my head.
Disgust, shock, condemnation, and, worst of all, pity lit those eyes up like neon signs. It was impossible to avoid their garish light.
Mona sat beside me, doing her best to keep me distracted as everyone scrambled to figure out some kind of plan to mitigate the scandal stamped on every gossip rag this morning.
Prime Minister of Buggery.
Oh, Dear. The PM is Queer.
Backdoor Politics in Britain.
The headlines were burned into my brain, searing pain still igniting along my synapsis as they circled like a magazine rack in my memory.
Horrible, disgusting headlines that said nothing of my relationship with Tally.
Horrible, disgusting headlines that said nothing positive about being gay.
It was only as I was facing them now, the gross displays of homophobia directed, for the first in my life, at me that I understood Tally’s reasoning for ending things with me.
We were not this shameful, hateful thing.
There was nothing negative, nothing untoward about my boy.
He was everything good in this life—unapologetically ridiculous, deliciously impudent, smarter than half my MPs, and fun.
So much damn fun.
I’d had a long life before Tobias Talbot-Ullswater, but it had been done up in black and white, flat-toned and grim.
For two brilliant months, Tally had brought me purple bow ties, tight pink pants, and twinkling blue eyes. He had splashed his technicolor spirit slapdash over the canvas of my life, and far from ruining it, he had made it bright, beautiful, and worthy of contemplation.
I stared unseeing at the sheaves of paper before me, the words blurred together as my nose itched and my eyes watered.
I felt as wretched as a heroine in a Bronte novel and as ruined as the Neolithic village buried beneath the site at Battle Bridge Stadium that had brought Tally into my life.
“James,” Mona said softly, a hand on my shoulder gently shaking me out of my downward spiral. “If you want to go home…we can handle this for you.”
A sharp, hollow laugh exploded from my lips. I ran a shaky hand through my hair and exhaled harshly. “No, Mona, the world may be crumbling about our ears, but let’s not be ridiculous. If I am not here to stem this flood, if I don’t make the exact right statement in front of the press this afternoon, I’m sunk.”
Mona tucked a lock of black hair behind her ear and bit her lip. “I would never have said this before today, but would that really be such a bad thing? I’ve never seen you so happy as you’ve been over Christmastime. If it’s this boy, maybe it’s worth considering?”
My boy, I
felt like growling viciously even though she didn’t deserve it. Of all the people in my office, I was closest to Mona. Of all people, a happily married lesbian immigrant would understand my plight.
“This is all I know,” I admitted quietly beneath the ruckus of voices. “What am I without this?”
“Dare I say, gay and in love?” she quipped with a soft smile.
I laughed. “Sounds like something Tally would say.”
“Tobias?” She studied me for a moment. “I think I’d like him, then.”
“You would,” I admitted. “He’s impossible to dislike. To do so would be like hating a puppy.”
Mona laughed this time and then did something she had never done before. She dropped her hand beneath the table and reached over to give my thigh a tight squeeze.
“In my experience, anything worth having is hard to come by and even harder to keep. You have to fight for it, work for it, every day.”
“Like this damn office,” I joked even though it landed woodenly on the table.
Because Mona had a point.
What was worth fighting for?
For my entire life, it had been my country. I loved England. I loved the sweep of fog off the northern moors and the purpling heather gathered in the fields; I loved our endless sheep and the turquoise waters off the coastline. I loved the wild southwest with its salt-crusted castles, and the white cliffs that stretched the entire length of our southern tip like calloused heels. I loved the people, the cultural melting pot of our Londoners, the northerners with their thick accents, brashness, and industry, the southerners with their polite rituals and agriculture, the west with its history, and the east with its memories of war.
I’d wanted to be the leader of Her Majesty’s government since I visited my father in his MP office as an eight-year-old lad.
And I’d accomplished it.
Scandal aside, I’d achieved one of the most successful terms in office since the great Churchill himself. I had taken down one of the most corrupt secrect societies in the last five hundreds years, accomplished dozens of important social reforms, and created thousands of jobs.
Did being in love with a man change any of that?
My gaze snared on one of the trashy mags littering the tabletop, and my heart clenched beneath the iron fist of my renewed shame.
It seemed the reporters thought it did.
Did the people, too?
Were we still so backward that loving a man would negate all the sacrifices I’d made for them over my life?
“Let’s sort out a statement,” I said, rolling my shoulders back and raising my voice so I could address the room as a whole. “Call a meeting of the press for two o’clock. I want a statement drafted in twenty minutes, and I want it done properly.”
“Yes, Prime Minister,” they echoed as they doubled their efforts.
I sat there amid the turmoil and support like a lonesome king amidst his courtiers, tragic and melancholy because duty would always outweigh his personal happiness.
I’d done it hundreds of times.
Usually, I was nothing more than a marble statue reciting my pre-approved script, completely unflappable in the face of even the most scathing questions.
Not today.
My skin was clammy, my bones ached, and my heart roiled in my chest.
I fixed my eyes to a point beyond the crowd of reporters and cleared my throat before speaking.
“Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for being here on such short notice. Though, I’ll note, most of you have been camped out on my doorstep since dawn.” I slanted them a cool look. “Perhaps one day I’ll afford you the same courtesy.”
There was a smattering of dull laughter.
They quieted, though, as soon I launched calmly into my prepared spiel.
I am sorry for any reports of an untoward nature…Mr. Talbot-Ullswater and I are good friends…First, you claim I’m too much for the ladies in my younger years, now this, are you never happy (cue laughter)…It’s a slow day in politics when one man’s story takes control of the media…
It made me sick to speak it. So ill, at one point, that I felt my skin bleach white and my stomach heave dangerously.
Good Lord, let me not lose my breakfast on national telly.
When I finished, I laid a hand on my gut, willing it to settle, and smiled woodenly out at the sea of people letting me feed them this utter rubbish.
A reporter I trusted not to be outrageously inappropriate raised their hand with a question, and I pointed at them, allowing it because I needed a moment to catch my breath.
“Mr. Prime Minister,” he began, an edge to his voice I didn’t recognize that made my gut clench. “The hashtag #gaygate has gone viral on social media platforms, with many saying that Tobias Talbot-Ullswater, well-known for his sexual exploits, seduced you into indecency.”
“Is there a question in there somewhere, Mr. March?” I asked coldly.
“Is it true he seduced you against your better judgment, or are you really, as you claim, ‘just good chums?’”
The reporter cast a quick glance over my shoulder as a few of my staff who stood behind me and I knew this was a part of their tactic. Plant a reporter who would open the door for me to deny my active participation in this affair. Make like Ron Davis and claim this was merely a moment of pure madness when I’d given in to the witchy charms of a charismatic boy.
Anger burned clean through the anxiety and doubt that had clogged my arteries for the better part of thirty-six hours. My fingers gripped the podium so tightly, my knuckles cracked and burned.
I imagined Tally, maybe at home curled up on his couch in those silly, endearingly adorable, fuzzy green pajama pants watching the news and feeling like shite because I was doing more than keeping him a secret. I was condemning him as the bad guy in the story.
As an immoral slut. A horrific aberration in my infamously contained and gentlemanly manner.
My heart squeezed so tightly, I worried it would never beat properly again.
Tally had said he could wait for me in secret and be mine in the shadows, but he couldn’t endure knowing I was ashamed of myself for wanting him.
And suddenly, acutely like an arrow through the chest, I understood that sentiment exactly.
I opened my mouth, and words spilled forth before I could think things through, before I could rein in my gut instinct and my heart’s inner song.
“I will not let Tobias Talbot-Ullswater’s life be defined by this affair. He is not the kind of man who deserves to be nor enjoys being in the shadows.” I sucked in a deep breath and nearly panicked when it brought me no comfort. “I forced him there with my shame and my inability to be honest—not just with you all but with myself. There is only one thing I want to be taken from this entire invasion into my privacy, and that is this…”
I stared out at all those faces, reminded that this was being live-streamed on the 10 Downing Street YouTube channel so people might very well be tuning in internationally as well.
Being prime minister had always been about setting the right example for this country, and I had fallen down on that job in the most unforgivable way.
“Being gay is nothing to be ashamed of. Certainly, anyone who identifies with the LGBTQIA community should be proud and should never be persecuted for who they love or how they choose to present themselves. In keeping my relationship with Mr. Talbot-Ullswater a secret, I implied that there was something to be embarrassed about when the truth is, knowing him has been one of the highlights of my life.” I held up my hand to stymie the flow of questions that came at me. “I will not speak further on my relationship with him. Many of you will be upset with this news, that I have had relations with a man or that I hid it from you. I hope you can understand that though I’m forty-three, you never stop growing, and these past few months, I’ve learned more about myself than I have in years.”
The murmur of the press grew, a rising tidal wave I knew would crash against the podium and take me under
any second.
“I would like to believe this country is in a place where we could accept a gay or bisexual prime minister. A man’s sexuality, what he chooses to do or be behind closed doors barring he isn’t hurting anyone, should be separate from his political acumen and ability to serve his country. I would like to believe this, but only time will tell. Will you castigate me for loving a man? Because the truth is, I do love him. Very much.”
“Prime Minister, are you gay?” someone shouted.
My tongue was thick and numb in my mouth, and every inch of my skin tingled as if I’d been poisoned by my reckless words.
But beneath all that, the heart that had beat so dully against the cage of my ribs for years soared into exultant palpitations.
I am brave. I am brave. I am brave, I thought.
I am brave like Tally.
I looked up from the podium and smiled in a way I had never felt on my face. It was wobbly, skewed on the left, and showed too much teeth.
But it was whole.
Warm and vital.
“When the elections are held next month, I will not run for office again,” I said, then louder over the eruption of murmurs and shouting in the press corps. “Not because I am in love with a man. Not because I am afraid of what this country might think of me because of it. But because I have done at forty-three what I set out to do as a boy. I have been honored to serve Her Majesty and this country as prime minister, and I feel my duty is done. Now, I would like to try my hand at living freely for the first time in my life.”
“Do you mean with Tobias Talbot-Ullswater?” someone cried over the calamity of voices as I inclined my head in farewell and stepped away from the podium.
A smile flashed over my face before I could contain it and a pap standing near caught the expression perfectly. I would think so when I saw it in the paper the next day with the headline, “Is There a Happily Ever After In Sight For Our Prime Minister?”
“Where the bloody hell are you going?” Sylvia, one of my MPs, snapped as I entered the hall.
I ignored her.
I was too focused on winning back the only person I’d ever loved.
Tales of Darkness & Sin: An Anthology Page 40