On the hour, walk out into the early sun. Kiss the Missus goodbye See you soon, and her boyfriend. Flatmate bag hefting with him and me. After he’s turned Prince of Wales Road we continue silently into the morning tide. Taking breaks to rest our hands. Snatch looks at each other. Smile. Look down. Last night working cringes of so many kinds and yet, still, we are here.
Dark his room, after the light. Bed rumpled and desk spread, all ready for work. I sip a glass of water with dust. Thanks for letting me stay. It’s alright, he says Nice having you here so listen I was thinking it’s my birthday tomorrow and Is it? You never said. Well remember my set-designer friend? He’d like us to come over and what do you think? Okay, I say despite the fright. Alright, I’ll tell him and tonight let’s well sorry I’m making you late. Yeah, I better head and. Yeah, see you later on.
*
Shame succeeds, on the school steps, in shredding through my skin. Alert and naked conscience blinking red in its machine. But back on course too, somehow, as if I’d had a plan. Stitches seeming my terrain — the making and dropping them. Lucky last night he caught those few. How or why, I can’t tell. Meaning though he must want to. I go alive with thoughts of it. And long for this day to be over, to get running back across streets. Yet when I do — in the crook of night — linger by the bin staring up at his light, shying from the meanings of Should probably tell, until the waiting makes the wanting more. Then ring the bell, catch the keys dropped and go on up his stairs.
Ah ha! Over the threshold. Into his room. Look, I’ve tidied, even cooked! Jesus, I say Even hoovered! What’s the occasion? Early birthday, he says setting me aside to pootle with pans, cigarette kept and skilfully managed in the corner of his mouth. Then chicken flipped. Hiss and spit. Are you annoyed about last night? No, you made your point a little dramatically perhaps but well. I kiss relief to his shirt and slide a hand up his leg. Brief he lets, then No! Dinner first, we’re being normal tonight. A quick one? Go on, he shoos My culinary skills are virtually nil. So catting a little, I wander across to push back the curtain and look into his road. Crown-flowered chestnut. Weed-cracked path. A livelier wreck than last winter implied. Nobly crumbling. Time has passed and it’s long since I first came here. I like your street. Changed a lot, he says All of those houses were bedsits once. It won’t be long before this one goes for luxury flats too. Not yet though, I say shutting out the streetlight. Well, he agrees Not tonight. Then the room becomes Here, and Mind it’s hot. At his desk — set as table — we use new plates, knives and forks, drink wine from new glasses. Make out civilised. Pretending nothing separates this night from its lineage of before.
Soon lax, dinner-sated, dissolving desiccated peas we nift through the tidy of scrape rinsing clean. Wet hands wiping. Pass to dry. Stack. Flop on his bed, top to tail, sipping wine. And I toe smooth wrinkles from his duvet, from his jeans, right to his No! No! socks yanked off Have Mercy! Mercy only if you sit up here on me. So I take the chance. Make playful. Lacing fingers. Kissing palms and I am light bright to the glint in his eye. I’ve been thinking about you all day, he says Sitting here writing by myself. What were you thinking? About how you smell just like the right thing. I stroke his hair. Its neat parting. Odd ribs of grey. Watch him arranging mine, so precisely as to invite a Why’re you doing that? Reminds me of What? Some girl from your wicked past? Rush to his face Yes no the first. Oh my God, you’re shy! Yeah well, he says Even I was a virgin once. Trace his chest. Kiss his collarbone. Were you mad about her? I really was, she was beautiful and good to me when I was a mess. And although the eyes close, making hard to read, I already know the word Mess is why we’re here so clumsy on into where it leads. Was it your mother who did that, made you a mess? Why do you say that? You once said you weren’t sorry she was dead. But then a thing I don’t expect, a click, like a tic, at the side of his mouth. Fuck, he says You going in for the kill tonight? then — trying to hide it — What the fuck must I look like. You look fine, I touch it You look perfect to me. Well, he says If I’m going to tell you those things I’m going to need some help. Anything, what? Take off your top. Done. I don’t think that’ll be enough. Take off your bra as well, and helps undo the clasp You have really beautiful breasts, and bringing to his mouth the tic dies away. Catch his eyes, and we begin again. Gets his jeans off. Opens me with his tongue. Every muscle in him relaxing and tensing. Getting to and going in. As though kissing can barely hold the line. You’re my beautiful you’re my A helpless smile like he knows I know what’s happening to him inside. And I do. Me too and I. Keep with him. Like as we have always been struggling to find the find the Come with me, he says and I, holding on as it rises, the high tide. Him and. live words I can’t make out. Cracking with the. Slam. other. Let each other. Out. Just being together. Being so fucking close. And I feel so much love for him in this moment I can’t imagine ever feeling anything else.
But.
Soon.
It’s the past again.
Pity the finished. We do and lie quiet remembering which body’s his, which is mine. Well, I’ve never experienced anything quite like that, he says and laugh as our legs twitch in time. Only part of each other for such a short while and move no more than have to. Until he slips out. Settles beside. Damp and this is how we try, listening to each other now and someone coughing in the road. Toilet flushing. Cars cars. Music above. Blood going round us. His vein like my own. But sooner than I’d like he gets from bed and lighting up smiles That did help, so what was the question again?