"You look a bit banged up." Kevin frowned at James's fading bruises. "Here I've been bragging to everyone about the pretty baby who likes to watch me shoot pool."
James smiled, keeping his lips tightly together. That was probably true. Kevin loved an audience, especially between boyfriends.
"Heard you finally moved out of that hellhole. Where you at these days?"
"Shepherd's Bush," James said with a smile.
"Christ almighty!" Kevin half-rose to his feet. "What the fuck happened to your mouth?"
"Got knocked about, didn't I?" James let his gaze drift around the room. A handwritten sign said POOL, he got that clearly, then some other words harder to work out. Probably there would be a tournament later tonight. He looked back at Kevin. Judging by the other man's expression, James would not be permitted to hang off his arm or kiss the tip of his cue for good luck.
"Oh, don't piss yourself, it's just a few teeth. Getting fixed up in a couple of days. Implants. Be as good as new."
"Implants?" Kevin smiled, trying to regain a bit of his usual
maybe-I-want-you
vibe. "Surprised the NHS would spring for that."
"They aren't. A client is."
Kevin's eyes narrowed. That was his best weapon, his apparent jealousy whenever James mentioned another man. "And you're living with him in Shepherd's Bush?"
James nodded.
"Day in and day out? Keeps you close?" Kevin took a pull off his beer. "Must be sick. Twisted."
"Very twisted. Makes me sleep in a room smaller than Harry Potter's cupboard under the stairs. Mentioned filleting me." Deliberately, James smiled bigger. Kevin flinched. "So what's the story? Finally want to give it a go now that Silas scarpered? I've told you how I feel."
"I'm not..." Kevin gave one of his dramatic pauses, as if his inner workings were so complex he could barely express himself. "I'm not quite there. Not about anyone. I want to feel that way, you know I do, but it's complicated."
James took a sip of his drink.
"And there's this bloke..."
James set the drink down.
"His name is Casey. He's a bit—adventurous," Kevin went on. "Likes to mix it up with guest stars, if you get me. I've only seen him once, and he's not into the one-on-one. I told him that's all I ever do. Then I thought..." Kevin's voice dropped, low, sexy, as his gaze locked with James's. "I thought of you. If it's down to three in a bed, it has to be you. After..." Kevin pointed at James's mouth. "After you get fixed up, of course."
"Of course." James pressed his lips together.
"Come on," Kevin urged. "You know it'll be good."
"Can't wait. Can't fucking wait," James said, grinning again. "Ring you up soon as the implants are in. Casey won't mind about the herpes, right?"
"What?"
"Genital herpes. I have it. I know you won't care, Kev, but you might mention it to Casey. Good karma to be courteous."
Kevin stared at James. It was the first time James had ever seen the other man speechless.
"Don't fret, love," James said, finishing his drink and standing up. "It'll be the making of me. Gonna sell my story to BBC1. Call it
James Campbell, The Only Man in Britain with Genital Herpes
."
"How's that?" a man at the bar called.
"I said I'm the only bloke in Britain with genital herpes!" James shouted. Kevin was looking at the wall, but a group of girls in the back burst into applause and whistles.
"Don't you believe it!" one of them called as James went out waving and blowing kisses. Maybe his face was bollixed up at present, but the rest of him was nothing to sneeze at.
Back at the flat he pulled out his journal, got a pencil and wrote a variation of something he'd seen on walls, toilet stalls and the tube.
PISS OFF KEV
Two entries in one day. He was becoming—what was Michael's word? Prolific. Pleased with himself, James slipped the journal back into its hiding place and flopped in front of the telly to search for porn.
***
Michael spent the rest of that Saturday waiting for police cars to pull up alongside the family car, for uniformed officers to knock at the front door, spare Edward and Viv a pitying look and take their father into custody. But the morning passed quietly. So did the afternoon. Frannie demanded an explanation for his behavior the previous night and he promised her she'd have it.
"It's just..." Michael stopped, gathering himself while Frannie peered at him suspiciously. "I hate Sharon. I have my reasons. They will not be put aside. And I will not have my children around that woman."
Frannie, who'd never heard Michael speak about anything with such an obvious underpinning of emotion, agreed to defer the discussion. Dinner passed more or less normally, still without knuckles rapping at the door. Then, ignoring three curious stares, Michael poured himself a glass of Frannie's Chardonnay and went up to his office.
The blank digital page taunted him for a while, but the wine helped. The fact he'd admitted aloud that he hated Sharon helped, too. And the memory of striking her helped most of all. It took Michael, author extraordinaire of all things simple, unadorned and purely factual, four hours to type up his narrative. In the end it was coldly clinical and less than two pages long. But it would explain to Frannie exactly why he felt the way he did, should he ever gather the courage to let her read it.
The next day he woke and skipped the shower. He wasn't pleasuring himself that way anymore; he was saving all his sexual energy for James. It crossed his mind that James might be up to absolutely anything that weekend. Working, if he dared try it despite the missing teeth. Partying with friends. Fucking some other man. All three ideas hurt to imagine. But Michael was firm in his resolution that he was no longer buying James. Even if James left him tomorrow, Michael had no intention of giving up his peaceful little flat in Shepherd's Bush. He could afford it, he didn't need a roommate, didn't feel cheated by paying the water and gas bills while James took classes. As long as James wanted to stay, Michael would welcome him, gladly.
Most of his clothes needed a wash. Pulling on one of Edward's T-shirts—a size too small, but not unbearable—and an old pair of jeans, Michael went out to the back garden and started cleaning dead annuals from the raised beds. His right hand was sore and swollen across the knuckles, so he put on gardening gloves. Either Sharon was too terrorized from the beating to identify her attacker or Freddie was too passive to call the police on his son, just as he'd been unwilling to stand up to his wife. Michael no longer feared arrest. But still, it was prudent to work with his hands out in the open today, creating a plausible reason for the bruising in case he was asked to explain...
By early afternoon Michael had shifted to the front garden, giving the lawn one final cut before autumn turned to winter. Edward's T-shirt was too tight through the biceps and shoulders, so finally Michael pulled it off, finishing the lawn bare-chested. He was raking up grass clippings when Lisa popped round to introduce herself.
Lisa was in her late twenties, recently divorced and new to the neighborhood. She pointed out the house she'd moved into, a serviceable three-bedroom with no front garden to speak of. Since Michael was clearly an expert on the subject, not to mention a neighbor, Lisa wanted to hear his opinion on pampas grass. Was it done to death? Would purple fountain grass be better? Would a small stand of bamboo be completely mad?
Michael, author of
Gardening for Beginners
, gave Lisa several opinions and pointers. It wasn't until her eyes raked over his bare chest for the third time that he realized he was being chatted up. He couldn't pretend not to be pleased. Only when Frannie marched outside on some wafer-thin pretext and introduced herself did Lisa's enthusiasm waver.
"Cow," Frannie muttered at Lisa's departing back.
"I'm done here," Michael said mildly. "Think I'll have a shower."
When he emerged, entering the master bedroom in his terry-cloth robe, Frannie was nude on the bed. Her legs were spread, showing off the waxed landing strip she maintained so carefully. "Michael. Come here. Don't tell me you don't want it."
Michael let his breath out. Lisa's interest had flattered him. Imagining that porn scenario James had teased him with—the pair of them sharing a willing female, Michael in the front door, James in the back, striving toward each other as Lisa cried out in pleasure—had given him an erection. But he was saving it for James, for the fun they'd have first thing tomorrow morning, even before breakfast...
He sat down beside Frannie. She was already undoing his belt, opening his robe. "Oh, yes," she murmured at the sight of him, just as she had during their courtship.
He pushed her onto her back, willing to try once more, to see if anything remained. She was kissing him wildly, probably fantasizing about one of her telly actors, tugging on his cock with a firm hand. It felt good. And pushing inside her would feel good, for him at least, even if he never managed to please her. And if he begged off, there'd be hell to pay. Obviously the sight of Lisa eyeing her husband had been too much for Frannie, had stoked her territorial instincts and goaded her to this desperate act...
"Frannie," he whispered, pulling back. "Just a second. Give me a second..."
He found his trousers from the day before, right where he'd left them draped atop the clothes bin. Locating his wallet, he opened it and returned to the bed with a square foil packet in hand.
"If we're going to do this," he said, holding up the condom and meeting her eyes, "we'll need one of these."
Frannie stared at him. Then she sighed, deflating from her randy housewife persona to her true self. Rising, she crossed to the hook behind the door, finding her pink silk robe and belting it tight. "So whatever's going on, it's not just an emotional affair. You're fucking her."
Michael didn't answer.
"How long?" Frannie asked. She was perfectly composed, more brittle than angry.
"A month or so."
"Is it a fling? Something you had to get out of your system?"
Michael shook his head.
Frannie tried to laugh, but he saw the hurt and fear in her eyes. "Are you telling me that it's some grand passion? That it's love?"
"It is for me," Michael said. "I'm not sure how he feels."
Frannie caught her breath. "It's—it's a man?"
Michael nodded.
Frannie put her hands over her face. "Why are you doing this?" she whispered through her fingers.
Michael waited until she peeked through. "It started as sex. I didn't mean for things to go this far. I only wanted something different. To feel something." Speaking the truth to Frannie was painful, but he knew he owed it to her, even if she hated him for it, even if he burned in cartoon Baptist Hell like the masturbating boy from Sharon's pamphlet. "But it became a friendship. Then I fell in love."
"So—you're gay now? That's what you're saying?"
"I haven't quite worked out what I am. It doesn't matter. I want a divorce. I want to be with him."
"So you'll leave me and go shack up with some man? Do you have any idea what that will do to Viv?
To Edward?
" Frannie flung at him, voice breaking.
It was on Michael's tongue to say they hadn't reared their children to be homophobic, to judge anyone by whom that person loved, but then he saw Frannie was shaking all over. She was terrified, invoking any name that might give him pause.
"Frannie. Tell me the truth," he said gently. "Do you love me?"
She made a soft sound, almost a sob. "Little hard right now."
"Before I came out of the shower. When you were waiting for me on the bed. Did you love me?"
"God knows I've tried."
"Frannie."
"No!" she cried suddenly, staring at him with that familiar fire in her sharp blue eyes. This was the woman who had quite a lot to say when he failed to put out the rubbish bins or deleted one of her unwatched telly programs. "No, but did you love me?"
He shook his head slowly.
"Oh, Christ," Frannie whispered. She passed a hand over her face, regarding him with dry eyes. "This is really happening, isn't it? I'm not dreaming."
Michael scooted a little closer. "What frightens you so much about divorcing me?"
She crossed her arms over her chest and looked away.
"Tell me. We aren't in love. We don't enjoy spending time together. I know you love the kids and I'd never try to separate you from them. You're their mum, they adore you and you adore them. You can't be afraid I'd muck about on that score."
"They need a father."
"They'll have one. Probably a better one, now that I'm pulling my head out of my ass." He smiled at her astonished look. "Sorry. Lately my vocabulary has—expanded. I know you love this house, you enjoy your life the way it is, the spin classes, the book club..."
Frannie's eyes widened. "So I'm a mercenary, is that it? Sticking with you so I won't have to go back to a council flat and ring up sales at Boots for a living?"
"Maybe." Michael didn't quite dare touch her, so he leaned closer instead. "I wouldn't want a divorce if it meant going back to a place like the one you grew up in. It was hell there, wasn't it?"
Frannie nodded.
"If it meant being forced to take a job like that, or losing everything that makes you happy, I wouldn't blame you for being afraid," Michael continued. "But a divorce doesn't have to be adversarial. I assumed you and the kids would prefer to stay here. I'll never take this house away from you, Frannie. God knows it's yours—you're the one who made it a home. Besides, I already have a flat in the city. I could take the tube in, visit the kids on weekends."
Frannie appeared to consider that. "But I'll be divorced. A divorced woman at thirty-three. Old, fat, past my prime. Used up."
Michael squelched the smile that threatened. Frannie's lament reminded him of nothing so much as James declaring himself a dirty, diseased whore. Probably it was romantic obsession—Michael was so in love with James, he saw his imprint everywhere. Otherwise this was surely a sign that in some alternate universe James and Frannie were the best of friends, giggling over magazines and giving each other pedicures.