7 Laurie
I did not feel guilty.
I absolutely did not feel guilty.
When I woke the next morning, Toby was not beside me. At first I thought he was making breakfast, but as I lay there—not quite dozing, not quite waiting—and time slipped by, I realised he wasn’t coming back to bed. He’d gone. And maybe he wouldn’t come back at all.
It was a painful thought, troublingly so, and I had no right to be either pained or troubled. His absence wasn’t what I wanted, but what I wanted was selfish, and probably very, very wrong. If I had pushed him away, however little I had intended to, it was probably the best thing I could have done for him.
I simply couldn’t give him what he thought he wanted from me. I couldn’t pretend we had any sort of future. He needed someone his own age, or close to it, to share his life as it unfurled before him, as Robert had once shared mine.
I pulled the duvet up, rolled into the empty space Toby had left behind, and then turned onto my back again. But he’d left more than merely absence: aches in my muscles, marks upon my body—my skin was full of the memory of him.
The worst thing about being old enough to know better was the realisation that you weren’t.
My thoughts, cycling interminably through guilt, self-recrimination, frustration, and sentimentality, were beginning to eat each other. But what did I expect? Toby and I were a closed system. I’d lost all perspective. On him, on me, on what was right and wrong. I might have told him his master weapon was complicity, but there was something else. Some way of being, or trick of living, that made me forget everything when I was with him. Everything except for the moments of our being together and some ridiculous, irresistible sense of an us.
Damn that impossible boy.
I couldn’t use him like this. I couldn’t allow myself to become more to him than a temporary…fancy? Aberration? Distraction. A story from his foolish youth he might tell some other lover.
I could have stayed in bed, pickling myself in the sweet, painful ambiguities of wanting and shame, but I knew from long experience that there was really only one response to having lost control of my life, which was to throw myself on the mercy of my friends. I couldn’t imagine they’d be particularly sympathetic, but I didn’t deserve sympathy. I needed common sense and my perspective back.
So I got up, showered, and went to see Grace. She’d started the tradition of Pancake Sundays back at university to prevent emotional complications from whoever she’d pulled the night before. With the added bonus of being able to see her friends and eat pancakes. Sam, for whatever reason—perhaps being Australian—had not fled in awkwardness and terror like nearly all of Grace’s other transitory partners. According to Robert (I’d been in Glasgow at the time), he’d wandered out of the bedroom, wearing only a towel in which he had looked stunningly good, and said, “Oh great, pancakes. And you guys must be Grace’s friends.”1
If only all relationships could be so simple. As simple as not leaving.
After Sam, pancakes had become a kinder ritual. Lovers were invited to stay, not overwhelmed and edged out.
I hadn’t dropped in for a while, for various reasons. The main one, truthfully, being Robert. When we’d broken up, we had decided we weren’t going to be one of those couples who divvy up their friends like the CDs and books. It was a fine principle, but I hadn’t realised how it would actually feel to meet my ex among the people who had once been part of the life we had shared.
It wasn’t a matter of being over him—I was, I was used to being without him—it was simply that moving on was a kind of competition, and I’d lost. I wasn’t unhappy, but he was happier. And the man all of our friends had assured me was nothing more than a fleeting, ill-fated rebound was still with him. I could be indifferently polite to both of them when I met them incidentally, but there’d been a time when Robert and I had gone to Pancake Sundays together, and memory had a way of cutting you open.
Thankfully, he wasn’t there that Sunday. It turned out to be a quiet one: just Grace and Sam; Amy, who was leaving as I arrived; and one of their partners, a softly spoken, dreamy-eyed person called Angel. They were all lounging around in the living room, which meant I’d missed the initial cooking frenzy, but there were still a few lukewarm pancakes left for me to claim and dowse in maple syrup.
Grace was carding her fingers gently through Angel’s hair. “Hey, who’s that guy?”
“No idea.” Sam lay curled up on the floor next to her, resting his head against her leg. “He’s some stranger who wandered in off the street to eat our pancakes.”
“Yes, yes, very funny,” I muttered. “Sorry it’s been a while.”
“Actually, he does seem familiar. We used to know a grumpy bastard, didn’t we, Sam?”
“Now you mention it, I think we did. What was his name again?”
“Lawson? Laughlin?”
I sighed. Knowing I deserved this didn’t make it any less exasperating. “Do you just want me to leave?”
Grace grinned. “Don’t be silly, Lawson, sit down. And have a little pancake with your syrup.”
Angel, who was wearing a silk dressing gown that probably—though I wouldn’t have bet on it, knowing Sam’s tastes or lack thereof—belonged to Grace, moved across to make space for me on the sofa.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, as I sat down and balanced my plate on my knee. “I’ve been busy.”
Sam gave me a far too sharp look. “Busy getting laid, from the looks of you.”
Don’t blush, Dalziel.“That’s pure supposition.”
“Laurie, I can tell. You get this”—he framed me with his hands—“glow. This very lovely glow, like a fine stallion ridden hard. And occasionally put up wet.”
“I don’t glow,” I snapped.
Grace stifled a sound that might have been a laugh but which became a cough when I glared at her. “He’s just messing with you because we know.”
Even though I’d come here expressly for the purpose of telling them about Toby, I flinched. I suddenly didn’t really feel like eating pancakes, so I put my plate on the coffee table. “You…know?”
“Yeah”—she nodded eagerly—“Dominic said he was going to ask you out.”
“Wait. What? Who the fuck is Dominic?”
They all stared at me.
“The guy you’ve been sleeping with on and off for the last few years?” said Grace, in her primary-school-teacher voice. “The guy who’s had a crush on you for ages?”
I shook my head bemusedly. It could honestly have been any number of people.
“He…he plays the alto sax?” offered Angel.
“That’s Dominic?” A fresh thought struck me. “Dominic the Dom? My God. That just sounds like an incredibly ill-conceived children’s series.”
Grace gave a whoop of laughter. “Dominic the Dom and Subby the Sub.”
Angel and Sam immediately picked up the theme: Dominic and Subby Go to the Sex Shop, Dominic and Subby at the Play Party, Dominic and Subby’s First Orgy, Dominic and Subby and the Butt Plug of Doom.
But when the amusement faded, Grace was frowning. “Hang on, hang on. Laurie, if you’re not with Dom, who the hell are you with?”
“What makes you think I’m with anyone?” I asked, squirming and stalling unconvincingly.
Sam gave me a look. “Because you’re happy, dude. Like, it’s buried deep. But I know you. I can tell.”
Oh God. He was right. In spite of everything—in spite of knowing how wrong it was (or should be)—Toby made me happy. Utterly, helplessly happy.
“So come on,” pressed Grace, “who are you fucking? Do we know him?”
I put my head in my hands and blurted out the truth.
“Who?”
I tried again, with volume this time. “The Foetus.”
There was a long, awful silence. I didn’t dare look up.
At last Grace said, “Tell me he’s legal.”
“Of course he’s fucking legal.” It was briefly comforting to be outraged. It meant I didn’t have to be embarrassed. “He’s nineteen.”
There was another long silence, probably slightly less awful than the last one. Now it was merely uncomprehending.
“But I thought,” said Sam slowly, “you didn’t switch.”
For Toby’s sake, and perhaps my own, I couldn’t keep hiding. I peeled my fingers away from my face and took a deep, calming breath. As though that was actually going to help. “I don’t.”
“So, you’re topping from the bottom?”
“Less than you might think.” It was the easy answer. But then I remembered how it actually felt to be at Toby’s feet, in his body, or at his mercy. “Actually no. I’m not.”2
Sam shook his head. “I just…can’t… You and…him…and… It makes my brain wibble.”
“How do you think my brain feels?” I snapped. “I didn’t choose this.”
“Well, yeah, mate, you kind of did. You didn’t just trip and fall and land dick-first into a nineteen-year-old.”
“Yes, but—” But what? What the fuck was I trying to say? “I didn’t think it was going to be like this.”
“Like what?”
I swallowed. “I didn’t think I was going to like him.”
“Laurie.” Sam sighed. “That’s a thing that happens sometimes when you let someone do intimate things with you. You start to like to them.”
This wasn’t helping. “Can we dispense with the human social and sexual relations lecture?”
“Is it… Is he—” Sam paused, confused again, and tugged at his braids. “God, I sound like a perv even saying this…but, it works? I mean, it’s good? You can submit to a kid?”
“He’s not a kid,” I answered without thinking. “He’s…who he is.”
“And it’s not weird?”
“Not when I’m with him.” I stared at my hands which were shaking, so I knotted them carefully together. “I want to give him everything, and the things I can’t give, I want him to take.”
He’s my prince. Fierce and fragile and tender and cruel.But, of course, I couldn’t say that aloud.
So I cleared my throat into yet another silence. “Come on then. Take the piss. What are you waiting for?”
Sam held up his hands. “I got nuthin’. That was beautiful.”
“Oh shut up.”
“I’m serious. If it works for you, then it works.”
Grace had been uncharacteristically quiet, her brow wrinkling thoughtfully as the conversation bounced back and forth between Sam and me.
“Well,” she said slowly, “why shouldn’t it work?” It wasn’t what I’d expected. And I must have looked startled because she shrugged and went on, “I mean, it’s not like this stuff has anything to do with age anyway. It’s about…I don’t know, all these really complicated intersections: nature, preference, choice, attraction, chemistry. I think he’s pretty lucky actually.”
“I am?” I asked.
For some reason, that made her laugh. “Bless. You do have it bad. I meant that he’s lucky. The Foetus. Finding you. I wish I’d had it so good back then.”
“But you’ve always seemed so confident.”
“Well, now I am. My first kiss was a complete disaster.”
Angel nuzzled her shoulder. “I think most people’s are.”
Mine was Robert. I’d kissed a couple of girls before him, but I’d known they were nothing but lies, so I’d never counted them. University was the first place I’d felt safe enough to be who I was. For Robert, it had never been in question. Three days, thirteen hours, and twenty-two minutes after we first met, he put his arms around me, pressed our bodies together, and kissed me. It was softer than I’d expected. I’d been dreaming of a man’s mouth—any man’s mouth—on mine since I was eleven years old, and this was it, as tender as the moths that drifted in the hazy moonlight.
“His name was Daryl Hanlen,” Grace was saying. “I was fifteen, he was eighteen, and he had his own car, so he was a major catch. He’d taken me out to Frankie Benny’s and then to see The Matrix—a really classy date. Back in the day. In Birmingham. On the way home, he pulled into this lay-by and he told me I was so hot I could be a Page 3 model.”
Sam smiled up at her. “You do have great boobs.”
“I really do. And if I get bored of teaching, I’ll be sure to get them out for the lads. So, anyway, there we were, by the side of the road. He unclipped his seat belt, and I can remember thinking to myself, ‘Okay, Grace, this is it. You’re about to get kissed by a boy. This is going to be awesome.’” She laughed derisively. “He was really gorgeous, by the way. He had an earring. So he leaned in, and he kissed me, and it was fantastic. Just like every naughty book I’d ever smuggled home and read. Everything I’d been waiting for. All this heat gathering in all these places.”
It was easy enough to imagine somehow. Fifteen-year-old Grace with her pale, bright eyes and her not-blond, not-brown hair, so full of longing. I could barely remember myself at that age: a quiet boy, I thought, who studied hard and hid all his intensities in conformity.
Grace reached down with her spare hand and idly touched Sam’s brow, his jaw, the side of his neck. He turned his body fully against hers, nestling, his cheek pressed to her thigh. “The more we did it, the more I wanted, you know? So much more. So I got into his lap, and I put my hands in his hair, and I pushed my tongue into his mouth, until everything was dark and red and hot, and he was making these sounds under me, whimpers and moans, so desperate and helpless and perfect. It seemed like we were kissing for hours. And, for the first time in my life, I felt completely and absolutely right.”
When it didn’t seem like she was going to continue unless someone prompted her, I said, “That doesn’t exactly sound like a disaster.”
She shrugged and went on in quite a different voice, “Next day, I go to school, and suddenly I’ve got a reputation as a crazy slut, and I never see Daryl again.” Her lip curled. “Cowardly prick. I didn’t let anybody kiss me again until I was at university, and I was too scared to do anything, so I just lay there with my mouth open like a dead fish.” She shuddered. “But then I thought: if you can’t be honest during sex, what’s the point? So I went back to doing what I liked. I mean, a bunch of people still said I was a crazy slut, but by then I’d given up caring.”3
“That can be hard,” murmured Angel.
Grace wrinkled her nose. “It’s got easier as I’ve got older. Or maybe I’ve just had more practice. I mean, honestly. What’s the big deal here? I like sex, and I’ve had a lot of it. Good sex, bad sex, kinky sex, violent sex, boring sex. But at least it’s who I am, and nobody gets to take that away from me. And oh God”—she gave a self-conscious laugh—“I’m talking way too much. Somebody save me.”
“All right.” Sam threw himself into the silence. “Ethan Kelly. Grade 3. Behind the crooked acacia tree in the schoolyard.”
Grace glanced down at him. “Huh?”
“My first kiss.”
“Wait,” I said. “Your first kiss was a boy?” Sam’s described his sexuality as suggestible, but as far as I could tell his preference lay strongly with women.
He shrugged. “Carley Jones promised she’d kiss me if I kissed Ethan.”
“Did she?”
“Nah. Guess I got played. Or”—he grinned—“maybe I’ve always liked girls telling me what to do. Your turn, Laurie.”
“Angel first.” Coward.
“Are you sure?” They sat up in a swoosh of fuchsia silk, tucking their legs under them. “It’s a hard act to follow. You see, my first kiss started a riot. How many people can say that?”
Grace perked up like a meerkat. “Now this I have to hear.”
“It was at The Palace, back when I was living in Bristol.” They smiled, pale lips and crooked teeth, not quite shyly but something else, something close to that but different, drawing us playfully into their confidence. I didn’t know Angel very well, but I was struck suddenly by how easy they could be to like, behind their wary eyes. “It used to be my favourite place because it looked a little bit like another world. One night this beautiful boy came up to me and pulled me close and kissed me. It was very light and very sweet, as if he was trying to give me something, not take it. It was lovely.”
They were still smiling, but their hands plucked restlessly at the ties of the dressing gown, exposing the rope burns on their wrists. “But then some people saw us, and it was all the usual fuckwittery, you know. Is it a man, is it a woman, is it a freak, what bathroom do you use, ohemgee.”4
“Wankers,” muttered Grace.
“I know, right? My friends were seriously unimpressed. So it quickly became an argument, which turned into a fight. I don’t know who threw the first, well, slap I think—it was a gay club, after all—but then everybody got thrown out by the bouncers.”
“You got thrown out?” Sam seemed rather impressed.
“Oh, I didn’t. I’d slipped away with the boy while everyone was distracted with outrage. We danced and kissed all night long.”
Sam glanced at me. “You see, you should trust your friends. We’re looking out for your kissing interests.”
“It’s not that simple with Toby.”
“Why not?”
I told myself it was a relief to be talking about this, rather than keeping it like a dirty secret. “Well, because he’s nineteen, and I’m not, and he keeps…” It felt a little strange to admit aloud something I’d been resolutely ignoring for weeks. “He keeps saying he loves me.”
“Holy shit.” Sam gave a theatrical gasp. “That’s terrible.”
“For fuck’s sake, I’ve only known him for a couple of months, and we basically only have sex. I’ve made sure of it.” Well. Sex and breakfast, my new favourite part of the day.
“You mean,” asked Grace, “you only want to have sex with him?”
“N-no. It’s just anything more would be wrong.”
“Um.” She blinked. “That makes a hundred percent zero sense.”
“It makes a hundred percent perfect sense. It’s just about on the edge of morally acceptable to let him fuck me until he gets bored. I can’t trap him in something that has no future.”
“But if he’s in love with you anyway—”
“Thinks he’s in love with me.”
“I’m not trying to start a debate about phenomenology,” put in Sam, “but is there a difference?”
I made a frustrated noise. “Yes. It’s just sex and infatuation…and…and youthful enthusiasm. That’s not love.”
“Well, what is?”
“What I had with Robert.” The words were out before I could stop them. Before I’d even realised they were there. They crashed into the room like crockery, and suddenly none of my friends would look at me.
“That poor kid.” Grace let out a long, slow breath, almost a sigh. “In love with someone so emotionally unavailable and sexually over-available.”
It wasn’t a particularly flattering description, but it was probably accurate, and at least it showed she finally understood the magnitude of the problem. “I really don’t want to hurt him.”
“Because it’s morally wrong, or because you care?”
“Jesus, Gracie, both. I’m not a sociopath.”
“Oh, so you do care.”
“Of course I fucking care. That’s not in question. But we’re not in a relationship, we can’t be in a relationship, and I don’t want to encourage him in this…I don’t know…delusion.”
Sam was nodding, and I briefly thought he was on my side. “You know”—unfortunately, it was his sarcastic voice—“when I was nineteen, and I fell in love, I was delusional.”
So much for that. My friends were not my allies. That was probably why they were friends.
“You don’t understand.” I made another desperate attempt to explain. “He’s very… He’s too open. He trusts me. I can’t betray that.”
“So instead you’re pushing him away?”
I looked round at their bewildered faces. “Only because it’s the right thing to do.”
Grace frowned. “Laurie, I love you, but you’re hurting my brain. Are you seriously saying you’re feeling bad about sleeping with this kid because you like him?”
“His name is Toby,” I muttered unhelpfully. “And I’m exploiting him.”
“Um, I think if you were exploiting him, you’d be less concerned about exploiting him.” Grace untangled herself from her lovers, leaning towards me across the coffee table and my plate of cold pancakes. “It’s obvious you like him back. It’s kind of cute, actually. And if you don’t want to call it love, that’s fine, but if he does, that’s fine too.”
“Is it?” I asked. “Because it seems like I’m encouraging him in something that’s bad for him.”
“Let me think about this.” She sat back, stroking an imaginary goatee. “I’m nineteen years old, I get to have quality kinky sex with a hot older guy. A guy who seems to genuinely care about my welfare and is far kinder, far sweeter, and far better to be with than he ever gives himself credit for?” She abandoned her absurd mime. “Y’know, I think I’m good.”
“The only bit of that which feels like it’s true is ‘older.’” And the next thing I knew, Grace had jumped into my arms and I was being ruthlessly hugged. I gave her an awkward, abashed squeeze. “Not that this isn’t nice, but…uh, why?”
She pulled back so she could look at me, her expression uncharacteristically solemn. “Because we let you get so lost.”