“He’s a student.”
“Loads of people are students these days. Your point?”
“He’s eighteen.”
Oh no, you must be joking. No one looks like that at eighteen. “You’re having me on.”
“First year at university, engineering something.”
I frowned. I thought of 10-Pence Bet, how smooth and unlined his face was. And how polite. Bells started going off in my head: good-looking men don’t stay nice for long. “Figures. There ought to be a law.” I sighed. “They shouldn’t build teenagers to adult spec. It’s just not fair.” samedi, le 10 avril
“Have fun last night?” N asked. We were at the gym. I leant against the wall just outside the door of the men’s changing room while he laced up a pair of sneakers. The announcement boards were crowded with fliers. Yoga, physiotherapy, five-a-side football. Something called Ultimate. Ultimate what? I wondered. Ultimate stretching? Ultimate watersports? Ooo, get the rubber mat.
“Okay,” I said. Friday was A3’s birthday. I wasn’t going to go because I was afraid of the Boy turning up. When I had told N this, he said I’d be silly to let that stop me. So I fretted about what to wear, flirted with the idea of not going, then went anyway.
N started warming up on the treadmill. The machines on that side of the gym face a window. I can’t imagine who thought the vista of illegally parked cars and staggering teenagers in the street below would be an inspirational view. “Was your ex there?”
“He was.” The Boy turned up late, before the birthday party left the bar and went on to the club. I was talking to A3, we were eyeing up various people in the room and rating them on shaggability.
“Guy in the red shirt?”
“Only if drunk.”
“Him or you?”
“Both.”
Then A3, who was facing the door, caught sight of the Boy.
“Bloke in the blue checked shirt?” he asked.
I turned round, saw who it was, and shuddered involuntarily. “Fuck off,” I said.
“Sorry, that was unfair,” he said.
“No, it’s okay.”
“Did he say anything?” N upped his speed and broke into a jog.
“No, he kept a good distance.” Not knowing whether or not the Boy would be there was by far the worst part of the evening. I found it difficult to keep up conversation with anyone, my eyes were scanning the room for him constantly. If I saw someone who resembled him, my mouth went dry and my words jumbled. But once I knew he was there, I relaxed.
The Boy didn’t look at me, I didn’t look at him. He hovered around the fringes of the large group talking to people we knew.
N and I were both at a slow run. Sweat started to prickle my collarbone. “Did you pick up?” he asked.
“Not really,” I said. “There was one fellow in the bar, who came up out of nowhere. He pulled my hair hard and bit me on the neck, then walked away.”
“Really? What did you do?”
“Nothing.” My knees had gone to jelly. The stranger had held my hair for a long moment, staring at me. I stared back. He pulled harder. Our gaze didn’t break. I knew probably all of my friends were watching. Fuck them. Then the man who bit me walked off back to his friends. He didn’t say anything.
“What did he do?”
“Nothing.”
“Really?” N ran on for a bit. “Maybe he was doing it for a bet. So how late were you out?”
“Late late.” We went on to a club. I was talking to a friend of A3’s from home, a very pretty short girl with spiky hair. I kind of fancied her and was aware that the Boy (whose voice I could hear behind me) was probably watching. We queued and went inside. The music was old-school, they even played Vanilla Ice. I couldn’t stop dancing. The Boy stayed on the edge of the crowd.
I flopped into a chair, sweating heavily from the exertion on the dance floor. A3 picked up my feet and put them on his lap, massaging my instep in the open black stilettoes. Someone snapped a picture of us. I closed my eyes to the heat and haze of the club. Music has always had the power to change my mood. Or perhaps it was the drink. It was easy to forget everything around me.
N jumped off the treadmill and we went to stretch. “And that was it? You danced for a while and went home?”
“No-at least four men tried to chat me up.” One of them knelt down while I was still sitting, eyes shut, enjoying the music. “I’ve never seen anyone look so happy,” he said. Ha, I thought. “Thank you,” I said. We started talking. He wanted to dance, I didn’t.
“Get anyone’s number?” N winced as he tried to urge more length out of his hamstrings.
“Just one worth noticing. A trolley dolly from British Airways.”
“Male or female?”
“Male.”
“Nice looking?”
“Aren’t they all?” The Boy stuck around for a long time, but even he was gone by 3 a.m. There was still a hard core of us buying round after round in honor of the birthday boy. The flight steward was more persistent than the other men who’d come up during the night, and gave me his card. I waved him goodbye as we staggered out to find the night buses.
“Weights?” N said, edging toward the frightening bench apparatus in the corner.
“Go on then.” dimanche, le 11 avril
I retrieved my bag and brought out a box of condoms. He held the member in front of my face while I tore the corner of the wrapper open. I held the shaft and balanced the unrolled rubber on the tip of the cock.
“Do you have to do that?” the client asked.
“Afraid I must,” I sighed. “Minimizes the risks involved.”
“I trust you,” he said.
“That’s very kind,” I said, and smiled. “Trouble is, I don’t know where this thing”-and I gestured at the instrument he brandished before me-“has been.”
“Oh,” he said, and was quiet a moment. “It’s just that, I really don’t like the smell those things leave on it.”
I thought. “I could give it a good hot-water-and-soap scrub in the bathroom instead of using a condom,” I offered. “Would that do?” Against my policy, but it was low risk for him and almost none for me.
He sighed in relief. It was a big fleshy black dildo-his own cock stayed well zipped up. I took the dildo over to the sink, being careful to wash all the soap off carefully so he wouldn’t taste any when he sucked my juices off it later. lundi, le 12 avril
Went to a club. Saw Angel, who was wearing a skirt that was more of a glorified belt. The girl just has unbelievable legs. The music was loud, we didn’t speak, I wouldn’t have known what to say to her anyway. Danced together and jumped and sang along when the DJ spun The Jam’s “That’s Entertainment.” Looked at the boys who were watching us-realized none of them were old enough to know the tune.
Fucking ’ell. They probably weren’t even born then. I smiled evilly.
I picked out one young man, a tall, thin, and freckled lad. He looked like a stretched-out version of the Boy. Led him back toward the toilets, where we snogged. I pulled up his dark green shirt, licked his nipples. “Do you live close to here?” he asked, surprised. I shook my head no, asked if he did. He didn’t. I pushed out the back exit and we fucked on the steps by the bins. mardi, le 13 avril
It’s widely circulated and well known that You Get What You Pay For. I don’t agree. Some things come for free and some at a cost, but one isn’t better than the other.
There are downsides to unpaid casual sex, of course. Aren’t there always? By engaging in truly random, one-night attachments, you open yourself up to stalking, relationships, and all other manner of sexually transmitted ills. For some reason, we as a nation have collectively decided that a drunken snog in a crowded club is an acceptable overture to everlasting love. It isn’t. So let us get that straight right away.
The men I have encountered in my working life can be characterized by a single feature-timidity. Whether it’s requesting watersports or going through the back door, by and large the clients seem uncomfortable with demanding what they, as paying customers, are implicitly entitled to. If one thing can be predicted, it’s that the more exotic the request, the more times he will ring the manager pre-appointment to discuss it. One-night men, on the other hand, tend to just take.