I can’t remember when he asked me to do it. We’d just finished and I was mopping up with some tissues. He looked at me with those big dark eyes and asked me if I’ve ever considered suicide. Of course, I said no. But it started me thinking. Mum and Dad were being really shitty. I had no money, I was failing my classes at school. Plus, I had no friends. My life really wasn’t so great.
Mark asked me and then stuck his head between my legs. I felt him lapping away and realised this was another challenge he was issuing. I couldn’t quite push him away but I tried not to feel anything as I tossed his question around in my mind. Too late. I felt my orgasm welling up at the same time as I felt the answer rising in my brain. I didn’t want to kill myself. But I couldn’t bear the thought of Mark doing it without me.
We discussed how to do it. It was a new game, like the one where we’d got hold a copy of the Karma Sutra and had gone through all the new positions. How would we do it? Rope? Too lengthy and painful. Gun? Who did we know who’d got one? Pills? We didn’t know how many to take and who would tell us? After each discussion we’d make love, frantically, as if for the last time. Then he’d drop me a street away from my house and I’d walk back to Mum and Dad, rehearsing my story. I was at Tammy’s house – we went to the cinema.
It’s really cold here. I’m looking at Mark, wanting a little comfort, but he’s just turning away, frowning. It’s funny but from this angle I’ve noticed how weird his nose is – like it’s been broken and not properly set. It’s a bit ugly, actually. He sees me staring and tries to smile but his teeth are all crooked. I’ve never really noticed that before.
I’m not sure when I decided irrevocably to do it (jeez, big word! My English teacher would be proud. Although, I can’t quite remember what she looks like. Not anymore). But I know it was after a bad week, when Mum had shouted at me and Dad was away somewhere and Mark was the only stable thing in my shifting life. We’d decided on razor blades. Cheap and reasonably painless. I’d tried them out on my forearm the week before, fascinated by the slow welling of blood from each cut. I showed Mark, who’d lifted my arm and licked away the blood, dabbing his forefinger in it and putting it to my lips. There was something sexual in that and we both knew it. We both knew we were binding ourselves together in a web of pain and soon, we’d be bound together forever in death.
It’s getting so cold here. I’m trying to hold Mark’s hand, ‘cos I need to feel that someone’s here for me. I mean, that’s why I took the plunge, to be with him forever. I need to feel him here, solidly, not like some twisting grey wraith that’s floating out of reach. He felt so solid when we did it. We lay on my bed with candles and everything. I’d even got some red roses to put around us, so that people would understand when they found us that it was a beautiful thing that we’d done, not a sacrilege. Mark made the first cut and I watched as the blood fluttered out, staining the bedcovers. Soon mine had flowed out to join his, mingling with the dark red petals of the roses. It took a long time, much longer than I’d thought. We lay there and held each other, watching as things became faint and fuzzy. I could feel his heartbeat falter and slow next to mine. I watched the stained, patchy ceiling split open and there was white light beyond and I felt Mark next to me as we fell towards the light. It felt like the best decision I’d ever made.
Now I’m here though, I’m not so sure. Everything’s so grey. It feels like an old people’s home, even though most of us are young. No one seems to know what’s going on. And Mark, he just spends his time moaning, saying it’s not what he expected. There’s a small part of me – well, sort of more than a small part of me – that feels a little bit of panic that I made the wrong decision. But I can’t have done. I mean, Mark and me, we’re like Romeo and Juliet, we’re meant to be together. We’re meant to have died for each other.
I mean, I’m not sure how bad my life actually was, back there. There are people here, well, you wouldn’t want to know what they went through. I mean, it seemed really bad when I was going through it but – shit. Things weren’t so grey, I remember that. And Mark? I know we wanted to be together forever. So, I’m glad we will be. I mean, I have to be, don’t I? I am though. Really glad. No, really I am.
I just wish everything wasn’t so grey. Grey and thin, like a cold mist. I can see it stretching into the distance, forever.
The Club
It was a warm April night the first time I met Kurt Fleischer. A hint of summer in the warmth of the evening breeze - a sunset gently bleeding into the sky behind us as we stood on the terrace. I was at the launch of a new restaurant. Crashingly dull, as it happens - I was debating on whether I could bear to hang around until dessert. I shifted from foot to foot, easing the ache in the small of my back. And then I saw Kurt. With all that’s happened since, it’s amazing that it wasn’t the demands of my stomach that got me into all this. No, it was the insistence of another organ altogether.
He’s tall, you know; blonde, high cheek-boned; the very prototype of Aryan perfection. But you would know, of course, as he’s joined the ever-swelling ranks of celebrity chefs that clog up our televisions, exhorting us to watch our waistlines and titillate our tastebuds. You can peruse Kurt’s book in Waterstones; dine at his – our – restaurant (if you book a month in advance, three if you want a table on Saturday night). You can buy his range of gleaming knives and cleavers in John Lewis. And yet, only he and I and a few select others know the secret of his – our – success. Only The Club knows how delicious a game it all is.
He was the one who approached me, you know. I saw the gleam of his blonde hair as he moved through the crowd on that warm spring night, watched as he moved towards me. Could it be possible…? I flicked my gaze away from his face, back towards the eager grimace of my companion – Harry Capless, one half of this new gastronomic venture. He could tell I was bored, obviously, but as he was hoping for a blazingly positive review from me, he had little choice but to ignore my bad manners. I kept my eyes on him, aware of the blonde young man standing just in the periphery of my vision. He wasn’t hovering – he just stood there silently, waiting for me to notice him. I caught a faint whiff of his aftershave, a tang of clean sweat beneath it. He smelled good enough to eat.
Eventually Harry ground to a halt. I smiled dismissively and turned towards the blonde – Kurt, as I was soon to learn.
“Good evening, “ I said.
He nodded, unsmiling.
“Good evening. You are Geoffrey Lamb-Scott?”
I inclined my head graciously. He went on.
“You are writing for the Daily Telegraph, their restaurant reviews?”
“I am, dear boy. The Sunday Telegraph, to be quite accurate. But I’m afraid you have the advantage of me. Your name is…?”
“Kurt Fleischer. I am a chef.”
Oh Lord. I manage not to wince outwardly. Another young hopeful, another one desperate for a good review. For any review.
How desperate? I wondered thoughtfully.
“I wanted very much to talk to you about the article you wrote for Gastronome,” said Kurt. His smooth golden face was taut with earnestness. I raised my eyebrows in surprise.