Jolyon slapped his thigh. ‘So it looks like Emilia wins,’ he said.
Chad wished that he had been the one to have declared Emilia’s victory. He sucked on the joint and decided that marijuana tasted of sage and burnt toast, his mother’s Thanksgiving stuffing. He blew the smoke hard and tried not to splutter. It felt like a bright balloon was inflating in his head.
Emilia’s eyes had shut for a moment, it was safe to look at her, to linger a while. Chad felt soothed by her face like he might by a sunset. Emilia’s blonde hair had fallen onto one of her cheeks and he imagined lifting the hair and hooking it behind an ear. The thin down of her face gathered the light at one corner of her jaw. He would be gentle and she would tremble, she would make sweet sounds of soft pleasure. Then she would roll into his arms, her nose nuzzling his neck.
Chad wondered if he must be lacking in testosterone because it was thoughts of closeness and clinches that dominated his desires. Perhaps his father was right about him. Perhaps real men had thoughts more carnal than these. Which was not to say that his puberty had passed by entirely without erections and bathroom ceremonies. But he had tried to limit himself. There seemed something wrong with self-abuse (why did his brain even use such a terrible, loaded phrase?), something disrespectful toward an unknown and future wife. Right now, most of all, he wanted to hold Emilia in his arms and kiss her gently.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him and briefly he smiled back. Then Chad let his gaze slide quickly away as if continuing a journey around the room. He hated himself for his pitiful spinelessness. In that moment he vowed one day he would tell Emilia he loved her. But the setting would have to be right and the words ready. Just the two of them. Candles, good music. Billie Holiday, Chet Baker. And inside of him a half-bottle of wine, warm and inspiring.
XVI(ii) Jack passed the joint to Mark and then started to play with Jolyon’s possessions, picking them up and absently moving them around the desk. There was a mug holding a bottle of aspirin, a toothbrush, a plastic fork and a strip of photo-booth pictures of Jolyon. The mug stood on Jolyon’s diary and a thin volume on Roman law. And both books were balanced on two water glasses. In the bottom of one glass lay a thimble and also the small dried bud of a rose.
‘Don’t touch that,’ said Jolyon. He hadn’t noticed Jack’s toying at first. He jumped up and snatched the mug from Jack’s hand. ‘Just leave my stuff alone, all right?’
‘What is all this, a fucking art installation?’
‘No, his daily to-do list,’ said Chad and then, seeing Jolyon’s lips draw back against his teeth, wished he’d said nothing at all. ‘Don’t ask,’ he added. ‘It’s nothing important.’
Jack drew away from the desk and then wheeled himself back on the chair as Jolyon, muttering, began arranging everything back in its proper place.
Emilia tried to defuse the sense of tension now filling the air. ‘So, Jolyon,’ she said, ‘when do we get to hear whatever it is you’ve been saving up for us all night?’
Jolyon turned his head, his lips softening then forming a smile. ‘Right now, Emilia, straight away,’ he said. He dropped the bottle of aspirin into its correct place in the mug and bounced back over to his bed.
XVII
XVII Let me clear one thing up. It has not been my intention to trick you, that is absolutely not the purpose of my story.
But I have just spent some time looking over everything I have written and it seems I might not have properly introduced myself. This failure was merely an oversight. Or perhaps it was my subconscious intention only to illustrate the distance I have travelled from my youth, another continent. So now a proper introduction. Hello, my name is Jolyon Johnson. And I am very happy to make your acquaintance.
And I have also realised there remains something else I have failed to explain. This story should serve not only as a warning, my confession. I am writing this story because I need to understand the real Chad, the one he kept hidden. Because if I can understand the real Chad, then maybe I can defeat him.
XVIII
XVIII(i) Jolyon told them the tale but he allowed Jack to embroider its telling with colourful detail. The ploughers and Sock Soc. Impersonations of Game Soc that cast them as the witches from Macbeth.
‘Count me in then,’ said Mark, his eyes drifting with the hash smoke in the room. He was still lying on the floor but to indicate enormous enthusiasm he had hoisted himself modestly onto his elbows.
‘Just like that,’ said Emilia, ‘you’re in, Mark? No questions?’
‘It’s an interesting idea,’ said Mark. ‘There aren’t many interesting ideas going round.’
‘And just think of all those opportunities to humiliate Jack,’ said Chad.
Emilia scowled. ‘How can I possibly humiliate Jack any more than he already humiliates himself every day? With his own words.’
‘No, that’s fair enough,’ said Jack, ‘although it shows why the psychology student wouldn’t stand a chance going up against . . . History Boy.’ Jack mimed tearing open his shirt.
‘Maybe he’s right, Emilia,’ said Jolyon, shooting her a provocative look. ‘What if Jack can’t be beaten?’
‘Of course Jack can be beaten,’ Emilia scoffed. ‘Humour’s his shield. All you have to do is work out what it’s shielding him from and he’s . . . history.’ She winced. ‘Pun intended. Very sorry.’
‘See,’ said Mark, ‘the sweet-seeming psychology student’s already one step ahead of the rest of us.’ Mark let his elbows slide until his head was back on the cushion. ‘Now that’s interesting,’ he said.
‘Ten thousand pounds, Emilia,’ said Jolyon, whistling. ‘And wouldn’t it be fun? It would probably bring us all closer together. We need to stick together, remember.’
Emilia shifted uncomfortably in the armchair. ‘Well, it wouldn’t be about the money for me,’ she said.
‘No?’ said Jack. ‘But think of all those pretty shoes you could buy, Emilia.’
‘Just shut it, Jack.’
‘Come on, Emilia.’ said Jolyon. Chad recognised the edge in his tone, Jolyon’s don’t disappoint me voice. ‘Just say yes, at least for now.’ But Jolyon always seemed unaware of the weight in his words. Chad supposed he wouldn’t be half as persuasive if his methods were only a trick. ‘For all of us, Em.’
Emilia glanced down at her feet and then looked around at her friends. ‘Fine then,’ she said. ‘I suppose I’m in. But I would like to know more about this strange little Game Soc before we go any further.’
Mark, his eyes closed, took a last puff of the joint and waved it in the air. ‘That’s almost the most interesting part of all,’ he said, as Jolyon plucked the offering from his fingers.
‘Well, I don’t know who Game Soc are,’ said Jack, ‘but I know who they certainly aren’t. They’re not those closeted homosexuals of Sock Soc.’
‘God, that’s so homophobic, Jack,’ said Emilia.
‘What’s homophobic about that?’ said Jack, playing his outrage forcefully. ‘Is it homophobic simply to recognise another man for what he is, a closet gay? To look at him and see in his eyes that he hides his true self from an uncaring society? Don’t you first need to understand who a person really is before you can begin to sympathise with him? Is it really homophobic to notice when a man is suppressing his true hungers and desires? His dreams, his yearnings. His all-consuming love of long, hard man-cock?’