Red Light
Thom Lane
www.loose-id.com
Red Light
Copyright © February 2011 by Thom Lane
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Red Light
They say that if you sit long enough on the old waterfront at Marseille, sooner
or later everybody you know will pass by.
I don‟t believe that for a moment—you‟re never likely to find my mother in
Marseille, for example; she hates spending a single night away from home, and I
don‟t think she even has a passport—but I‟d be happy to test it out as a theory. To
keep testing it, for as long as it takes. I like Marseille. The people there are crazy
and they should never be allowed behind the wheel of a car, but I like it anyway.
I‟ve got good reasons.
My first time, I‟d barely been sitting there ten minutes, and the first person I
noticed was a total stranger.
Technically, he was the second person I spoke to. I‟d gone to the Miramar for
lunch, and I‟d already had a conversation with a waiter. That had won me a table in
the shade, a menu, and an intimidating wine list. I wasn‟t really reading it, just
letting my eyes scroll down over famous names and appalling prices, wondering how
they‟d feel if I just asked for a glass of rosé.
Which is probably how come I listened in, when a young man somewhere
behind me had more or less my own conversation with the waiter. “Je regrette,
m’sieur, c’est impossible”—the waiter likely said the same thing a dozen times a
day. Maybe it‟s also how come I acted so totally out of character, twisting around in
my seat to interrupt, saying, “Excuse me, are you English?”
Blond hair, sun-bleached almost to white; hazel eyes, tanned skin, a generous
mouth smiling a little wryly as he said, “Damn. Is my accent that bad?”
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I grinned. “By my standards, it‟s immaculate. For me, the gentleman had to
translate his refusal. I‟m guessing he can be adamant in any number of languages.
What gave you away was the question. I gather a Frenchman would know not to
ask for bouillabaisse if he was on his own. But what I was thinking—if you joined
me, then neither one of us would be on our own anymore and they‟ll do it for two
sharing.”
“Fabulous. If you‟re sure you wouldn‟t mind?”
“Not in the least. I‟d be glad of the company.” Actually I‟d started out being no
more than polite, finding a way around a frustrating difficulty. Even as I said it,
though, I realized it was true. More ways than one. I‟d be glad enough just to speak
English for an hour, glad to have someone else across the table for a change:
someone to catch my eye and pass the water and share a basket of bread. Doubly
glad that it should be this lean, attractive boy who was sliding gracefully onto the
banquette and reaching over, taking the wine list with a firm, decisive hand, saying,
“You‟ll let me buy the wine, then. To say thank you, you‟ve just saved my day.”
“I‟ll let you choose it, for sure. I confess, I was sitting here feeling…a little
overwhelmed by it all. I only want a glass, anyway, as I‟m driving.”
“In Marseille? Are you insane?”
“I will be, by the end of the day. I didn‟t know…”
He tutted and shook his head sympathetically, flicking over leather-bound
pages. “Would you prefer red or white, then? A good bouillabaisse can stand up to
either.”
“To be honest? I was just wondering whether it would be utterly outré to ask
for pink. In this heat, red would just put me to sleep. I‟d like something with a bit of
chill to it, and a bit of body too; and I don‟t know my way around the whites well
enough. Maybe you do?”
“Maybe so—but as it happens, the finest rosés in France are made right here
in Provence, so you really couldn‟t ask for anything better. Tell you what, let‟s make
the sommelier‟s day.” He set the list aside, beckoned, had a brisk conversation in
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French that was fluent but obviously not native. I‟d been flattering him by
suggesting I couldn‟t tell his Englishness from his accent. It‟s a bad habit, that
deliberate charming of strangers; it gets me into heaps of trouble, and this day was
no exception.
It was totally true, though, that his command of the language was streets
ahead of mine. I shook my head ruefully when we were alone again. “Too fast for
me. What did you ask for?” Hoping it wasn‟t anything too extravagant, as I wasn‟t
actually planning to let him pay. Unless he turned out to have a trust fund or a
yacht in the harbor, in which case all bets were off.
“Something local. They always have a few cases off list, and it‟s always worth
asking. You can turn up some real surprises. And they do like to be asked.”
Apparently I wasn‟t the only one who flattered strangers. The sommelier came
back not with a bottle and a bucket of ice, but a pichet, a half-liter carafe beaded
with condensation, and a babble of enthusiasm that I couldn‟t keep up with, could
barely follow from a distance. He was genuinely pleased, though. I could read that
in his face, in his gestures, even when his words left me far behind. And the wine,
when my new friend poured it, was crisp and dry and everything I‟d hoped for.
More.
“Wow,” I said, genuinely startled by the first sip. “That‟s amazing. It‟s not
really pink, is it? More sort of tawny. Sunlight in a glass.”
He nodded. “And herbs in the nose, rocks under the tongue, and a dash of salt
at the back of the throat. What Provence is all about. They make this about twenty
kilometers from here, and the locals drink it all. It‟s what the chef likes, apparently,
when he has bouillabaisse.”
“Cool.”
“That too. It‟s cellar cool, not iced; you can‟t taste it properly if you let it get too
cold.”
I sipped again, surveying him over the rim of the glass. “How old are you?”
“Twenty-four. Why?”
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“Isn‟t that a little young to be such an expert?”
He grinned. “Not really. It‟s my job. I‟ve worked for an English winery since I
was eighteen, but I‟m spending a year over here for the experience, to learn the
French way of doing things. There‟s so much we can pick up from them, especially
when it comes to making reds—”
“Wait, what? You can‟t make red wine in England!” I might not know much,
but I knew this absolutely: we make good whites these days, but we just don‟t have
the climate for a decent red.
“Yeah, we can.” He sounded absolutely confident. “We will do. Haven‟t you
heard of global warming? Climate‟s shifting, summers are getting warmer. There‟s
a bloke planting olive trees in Oxfordshire; by the time they‟re mature, he reckons
it‟ll be hot enough for their fruit to ripen. Way before that, I‟ll be making good red
wine in Kent. You watch for my name, doubting Thomas.”
“Well, I would,” I murmured, “only I don‟t actually know it yet. I‟m Jeff.”
“Oh. Whoops. We missed that bit, didn‟t we? Hullo, Jeff. Doubting Jeff. My
name‟s Benet. One n, one t. It‟s officially short for Benedict, but you don‟t call me
that. Nor Ben, neither.”
It was a litany, all too clearly: a song he sang to all his new acquaintances. It
led into a spiel about his parents and this dreadful name they‟d seen fit to burden
him with, his appalling childhood, and how barely he‟d survived it. I just sat back
and enjoyed the performance. What had started as an exercise in practical good
manners was becoming a swift, deep pleasure, flinging open unexpected doors.
Benet‟s voice was like warm honey, sweet and light and liquid; even when he was
talking sheer nonsense, I was happy just to listen to the sound of it.
And happy just to look at him, that too. It had been too long since I‟d been free
to enjoy the simple act of watching a young man move. I‟d have been just as happy
to watch him sit still, actually, but that didn‟t seem to be an option. He talked with
his hands, with every feature of his face; with his legs too, most likely, except that I
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couldn‟t see them under the tablecloth. I knew they were shifting around, because
more than once his foot nudged mine.
He was such a hypnotic companion that I was actively resentful when the
waiter interrupted us. Technically this was what we were both here for, what had
brought us together: the bouillabaisse. As soon as I saw it, I understood why they
wouldn‟t do it for one person alone. It wouldn‟t be possible. One man‟s appetite
couldn‟t encompass this great bowlful of fish, half a dozen different kinds all
poached together in saffron liquor, gleaming gold and steaming, aromatic and
irresistible. Almost irresistible. I‟d rather have gone on listening to Benet. But now
there was all the fuss and ritual of bowls and croutons, garlic and rouille, first
spoonfuls of the thin, delicious broth while the waiter took the fish away again and
lifted flesh from bones at another table.
“You know, I am so glad you overheard me asking for this,” Benet murmured.
“It‟s what I came to Marseille for today: to sit out on the Vieux Port and eat
bouillabaisse.”
I was glad too, for reasons that had little to do with the complications of soup
and fish. Even in the shade, his skin seemed to gleam with captured sunlight. And
it wasn‟t just the attractions of his body, though that would have been enough; his
personality, his cheerful satisfaction with the world shone brighter even than his
eyes. He seemed utterly content with who he was, where he was, how he was living.
Another man in the same situation might have seemed smug or self-centered, but
not Benet. He did truly seem to think that this was the best of all possible worlds,
and he‟d work as hard as he needed to keep it that way.
And eventually, inevitably, the bright, inconsequential thread of his chatter
was cut off by a question: “What about you, then, Jeff? What are you doing in
Provence on your own?”
“Nursing a broken heart, of course,” I said, brittle and facetious, all defense.
His expressive face betrayed him, showing just how much that stung. “I‟m
sorry,” he muttered. “I didn‟t mean to—”
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“No, I‟m the one who should apologize.” I despised myself for that ungenerous
response, even as I wondered what had brought it out. What did I have to defend
myself against, over a casual lunch with a stranger? “It is actually true, but—well, I
shouldn‟t use it like a weapon. I was booked to come on holiday with my partner,
but we split up a few months back.” He left me was the way I usually said that. Not
today, apparently. This wasn‟t about hurling blame at absent men. Not here, not
now. Not anymore would have been welcome, but I wasn‟t sure I was that far
recovered. “It was too late to cancel the flight or the accommodation, so I thought I
might as well use it.”
Actually, my coming out alone was almost an act of spite. It had been Tony
who wanted to see Provence; it was my petty vengeance to use the booking on my
own behalf. That, and an experiment in solo living. I‟d never had to do this. I had no
idea how to holiday alone. I‟d brought my camera, my laptop, and a stack of books.
It had been six months. Not long enough; I really, really wasn‟t looking for a
boy.
“What happened?” he asked gently. “Was there someone else?”
“Apparently so. Apparently there had been for a while, only I was too blind to
see it. Or just too busy, maybe. I‟m a hospital doctor, so I work crazy hours; it‟s
probably unreasonable to expect anyone to put up with that.” Never mind that Tony
worked in the same hospital, if not quite on the same brutal schedule. “But we‟d
been together since I was a student. I just never thought…”
A shrug, a glance across the bay; even after all this time, I still didn‟t have the
words to describe the depths of that betrayal. Not to my closest friends, let alone to
a chance-met young man I‟d presumably never see again. I sipped wine and waited
for him to change the subject.
Instead, he said, “Tell me how you met.”
Maybe it was some kind of exorcism, though it didn‟t feel like that at the time.
I didn‟t understand myself, really. I don‟t generally unburden my soul at the
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prompting of an attractive stranger. That day I did, though. I laid the whole story
out across that little table.
And found the memories easier to bear, perhaps, when I was done: when
plates and bowls and glasses were empty, when—
Oh.
“How much of that wine have I drunk?”
“A fair share,” he said.
“Meaning most of it, I think. You should have stopped me.” I glowered
unreasonably at him. “I won‟t be fit to drive for hours now.”
“No, you won‟t,” he agreed cheerfully. “You‟d better spend the afternoon with
me instead. What shall we do? I want to play tourist. That‟s the thing about living
here; I never do the holiday stuff. Let‟s go out to the Château d‟If and see where the
Count of Monte Cristo was imprisoned. There‟s a boat trip that leaves from the
quay, right here.”
I had all sorts of reasons to say no, and I really meant to do it. But first there
was the difficulty of the bill, where neither one of us wanted to give way; somehow
an equitable solution turned out to mean that I would buy the tickets for the boat
ride.
So then I was committed, except that when we came to the ticket booth, it was
unexpectedly closed. Mechanical difficulties, the sign said, had taken the boat out of
service.
My relief must have been obvious. Benet gazed at me, a bit nonplussed; I
grinned shamefacedly, and confessed. “It‟s just as well, to be honest. I can get
appallingly seasick on a bridge, never mind a boat.”
“Oh, what? You should have said!”
Yes, of course I should. Why hadn‟t I? I didn‟t know. I might have blamed it on
the fog of wine, but I really hadn‟t drunk that much, a share of half a liter; I wasn‟t
feeling it at all. Except when I looked at him, and that was a different kind of
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Thom Lane
drunkenness, a growing sense that no boy should be that pretty. Or that alluring,
that charming, that intensely desirable.
Okay. Maybe I was feeling the wine, at least a little. I shrugged and said,
“Well. I still need to sober up.” Please? The last thing I needed right now was this
kind of complication, yearning for an unattainable beauty. “What shall we do
instead?”
Apparently I was already at war with myself, not wanting to let him slip away
into the hectic city any more than I wanted to be left burdened with a hopeless lust.
He gazed around him at all the sights—the churches and fortifications, the
bright waters of the bay, the fishermen selling their catch from little stalls right on
the harbor—and said, “There‟s lots of tourist stuff and lots of shopping. Or there‟s
this park I know, just behind the museum. We could snag another bottle of wine
and go sit in the sun and watch the cats and just talk.”
“Another bottle of wine,” I repeated. “And just how is that supposed to help me
sober up?”
“Oh, it‟s not. I am forming an alternative plan, where you abandon your car
overnight and come back to my place. The house is practically a château, there‟s
loads of room, and you‟d be very welcome. And if you‟ve never been on a French bus,
you should probably do it just for the experience, something to write home about…”
His words ran on, but I‟d stopped listening to his voice. I was listening to his
body instead, what he was really telling me.
Maybe this lust I was feeling was not so hopeless after all. I didn‟t think he
was seriously suggesting that they‟d find me a spare room at his château. Or that
either one of us would want them to.
“Here‟s an alternative,” I said, “to your alternative. How‟s about we just get a
hotel room somewhere here in town? Somewhere with parking. That way I don‟t
have to worry about the car overnight, and I can run you back in the morning so
that neither of us has to chance those buses, and…”
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And he was chewing his lower lip in a way that had nothing whatever to do
with doubts or uncertainties; it was just sheer and immediate desire. I wanted to do
the exact same thing, to chew on that pert lip myself. He glanced up at me through
his lashes, practiced and seductive; he whispered, “Could we go now? Find a room?
Right now? I‟ll need to call my boss, but that can wait…”
“Oh, wow.”
“It‟s one of the things about being a doctor,” I said, smiling, watching him, “is
that you work crazy hard, but the pay‟s pretty good.”
Better than working for a winery, I was guessing, as he wandered from the
wide, wide bed to the high picture window, as he checked out the minibar, as he
tucked his head through every door just for a look-see. In honesty, I wouldn‟t
normally splash out this much on a hotel room—but it was just one night, and
apparently I could still be impulsive on occasion. That was something new. Or
something old, rather, rediscovered.
Apparently, I wanted to impress him.
Right now, I wanted more than that. Right now.
“Hey, this shower—”
“Benet,” I said carefully, “never mind the bloody shower. Come back here.”
On the word, he came: out of the marbled wet room and across the thick moss
green carpet, came and kept on coming, straight up to me. Into my personal space
without hesitation, into my very personal space; he braked himself against my body,
the sudden physical shock of flesh on flesh. His arms wound around my chest; his
eyes laughed up at me; his mouth lifted to steal a kiss from mine before I was ready
for it.
Even then, it occurred to me that I would never be ready for this boy.
No matter. It wasn‟t like I planned to spend my life chasing after him,
scurrying to keep up. I‟d decided, very firmly, not to do that anymore. The
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disappointment, the disillusion when the scales fell from your eyes and you saw
what you‟d been missing all this time—it was just too much. I couldn‟t bear that
again. Wasn‟t going to risk it.
And didn‟t need it anyway. You didn‟t have to be married to be happy. This
fortnight was the absolute proof of that. Here I was, already having a good time on
holiday by myself; and that good time had suddenly gotten a lot better, in the shape
of a hot, hungry body wanting to share it with me. With no promises, no
commitments, no lies. This was perfect. If I could have dreamed it up, I‟d have
dreamed it just like this.
Even to his hurried, importunate fingers, tugging at my clothes where I‟d have
been opening the minibar and offering him a drink, delaying the moment, courteous
and genteel and English to the bone. Repressed and socially awkward, Tony would
have said. Did say, during that last long bitter fight. No doubt it was true. I was
only five years older than Benet, but I could feel a generation‟s gulf between us.
A gulf that he wasn‟t content to bridge; he seemed to have just vaulted over it.
Well, for a day, for a night this could be fun…
Just as well the weather was so warm, neither of us had too much clothing
getting in the way. None at all, after a very brief, rough wrestling session. Then we
were skin on skin and even I didn‟t want to linger now. His slim body concealed an
unexpected strength, but there‟d be time later to test that. Plenty of time. We had
all night to explore each other intimately, any way we cared to, flesh and spirit too.
This first touch was all about the heat, the urgency of moment, an absolute
imperative.
Crudely, I could come all over him right now, if I weren‟t sure that one more
minute would make it better for both of us, and better yet would be one more
minute after that…
His lips on my chest, his breath on my sweat-slick ribs, his teeth sharp and
sudden at my nipple. His hands on my back, on my butt; one finger in my cleft,
probing, slipping through the sphincter, drawing a gasp from me that he seemed to
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count as some kind of victory. I heard his triumphant chuckle even as he slid
between my grasping arms, onto his knees, his mouth marking a trail down over my
belly to where my cock jutted fiercely out at him.
By now it was my own lip that I was chewing, just to hold myself back as best I
could. I was breathing in hard little grunts of air that hurt my throat; my hands
clutched at him, but all I could reach was the firm resilience of his shoulders and
that thick thatch of hair, damp and hot between my palms as they clamped around
his head, as his tongue lapped at the shaft of my cock, as that wide and dangerous
mouth of his closed happily around the head of it, as…
As I gave way utterly, as I came in a burning, exultant spurt, as I may just
possibly have yelled aloud.
When my blurred sight cleared, when I could focus again on the room and the
two of us where we lay sprawled and sticky together, I realized that I was still
holding him pinned there at my groin. I glanced down, embarrassed, and found
bright eyes glittering up at me.
“Wow,” he murmured again, with a whole different meaning this time. “Jeff,
man. How long had it been?”
I shrugged. Eight, nine months, perhaps? Something like. It didn‟t matter now.
I‟d had a drought, but that was over: all too gloriously, compulsively over. And he
hadn‟t got to share yet in the storm, not properly. I dropped down beside him, laid
him out on that soft, dense carpet. He cooperated, giggling softly but with a gasp of
need underneath the laughter. My turn to nuzzle at him now, to taste the salt of his
sweat and then the musk of his groin, to find the thickness of his stocky, straining
cock and lick at the soft, tender skin of it. To make him wait, make him grunt in his
turn, to suck and nip and finally, finally engulf the cut head just moments before he
came, before he had to.
Cum in my mouth, in my throat again. How long had it been? Too long. Too
long by definition, if I really wasn‟t sure. I might not be prepared to trust a man
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with my heart again, but with my body, oh yes. It was stupid to have denied myself
this. Sex without complications, it felt wonderful; I wanted to cling to this fabulous,
lithe young man, right here on the carpet, fuck him and fuck him…
Far too soon, he wriggled away from me. I guess I made some inarticulate
sound, some protest; he reached out, gripped my wrist, tugged me upward.
“Shower,” he said briefly. “You haven‟t even seen…”
He led, I followed, helpless in his grip. When he hit the light in the wet room, I
understood. As we had no bags, there had been no bellboy to show us the facilities;
even despite the price I was paying, I hadn‟t imagined anything quite like this.
There was a glorious, tempting bathtub, plenty big enough for two; but the
shower…
The shower had seats. Two of them. And more buttons and controls than I‟d
ever seen or ever dreamed to see, taps and nozzles and flexible hoses…
“C‟mon,” Benet whispered, twining his sticky body around mine, nibbling
lightly at my ear. “Let‟s play.”
If we missed any one of those buttons, it was an oversight—but I don‟t believe
we did. When Benet sets his mind to something, he‟s…quite thorough. Yes.
By the time we were out of there and toweling off—toweling ourselves because
we could hardly bear to touch each other anymore—I felt more extraordinarily clean
than I could ever remember, washed in ways I had never imagined. And exhausted
beyond measure, because it hadn‟t been all about the washing. When Benet said
play, he didn‟t just mean with the controls. I didn‟t dare touch him because if I did
that, I would only want him again, and I didn‟t think I was able anymore.
Not for a while, anyway.
There are other things to do in a city with a beautiful young man. Especially
when they‟re strange, new to you, the city and the man both. It had been a long
time since that was true for me, but I hadn‟t forgotten the art of it.
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What perhaps I had forgotten was the pleasure, all the little pleasures of
discovery.
Even watching him get dressed before we went out, even that was a sequence
of little kicks, the thrill of the unfamiliar. I‟d seen Tony do the same thing times
without number, uncounted thousands of times. I knew every move; I could predict
every gesture, every sentence, every thought. With Benet, it was all new. The way
he bent and reached and straightened, the run of light across his skin, the stretch of
muscle beneath, the sudden line of sinew in his neck, like a cable to string all his
parts together. The little moue of distaste as he had to put on the same clothes
again, because of course neither of us had anything clean.
“Never mind the sights and the tourist traps,” I said. “Let‟s go shopping. I‟ll
buy you something nice.”
“What, to remember you by?”
“Something like that, yes.” For a day of pleasure and good company, with a
night of anticipated delights to come: not a fee and not a reward—I knew already
that I couldn‟t buy him—but a memento, yes.
“That,” he said, “is a deal.” And he took a slow, lingering glance around the
room just to make the point, anyone who can afford this kind of luxury, yes, he can
definitely buy me something nice—and then, just to make the other point as well, he
added, “So long as I can buy you something nice too. Wouldn‟t want you to forget
me.”
Small chance of that. Vanishingly small chance of that. But of course he
couldn‟t know; as far as he was aware, I might spend every weekend picking up
strange boys at restaurants and taking them off to hotels for anonymous shagging.
Except that as we stood in the lift heading down, he said, “So was that really
your first time, since you split up with what‟s-his-face, Tony?”
This really wasn‟t a conversation I wanted to have in public; which he knew, I
think, because I think he had deliberately timed it that way.
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And I was in the mood for total honesty between us. There was nothing I
wanted more: no lies, no misdirections, no confusion. Which he knew, I think; why
else would he have deliberately timed it that way?
So there we were, stepping out into a lobby full of people; and there was I
being utterly, painfully honest. Saying, “First time, yes. Really truly. I just more or
less gave up for a while there. Actually forever, in a long-term sense. I don‟t do
relationships anymore. Just—well, I guess I just do this.”
In my head, I‟d done this ever since the breakup. No way was I banning sex
from my life; only love, trust, commitment, complication. I‟d always stayed open to a
casual fuck. Theoretically.
Theory hadn‟t seemed to apply in practice, until today. I hadn‟t cared, it hadn‟t
mattered, and I‟d gotten along just fine. Demonstrably.
Just, this was better. Having someone at my side to tease me into difficult
confessions in public spaces; someone to wait for while he spoke to the concierge
about parking; someone whose butt I could discreetly eye up while I waited, the
firm twin roundness of it in tight worn jeans. Someone who smiled by instinct as he
turned, as his eye caught mine, as he came back to me again.
I almost reached to take his hand, almost.
The hotel had garage parking with valet service, run from a lot just to the side
of its modernist high-rise frontage. It wasn‟t hard to bribe one of the lads there—in
Benet‟s fluent French; I struggled to follow him, let alone their thick, strange
accents—to fetch my rental vehicle from the basement parking where I‟d left it. I
handed over keys, description, registration, ticket, and cash, and walked away with
a sense of unexpected freedom. All I was committed to this holiday, everything I‟d
taken responsibility for was the gîte and the car. And I wasn‟t going back to the gîte
tonight, and now I‟d unburdened myself of the car too. I had nothing left to worry
about, then, nothing to manage.
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Except the boy at my side, of course: his content, his entertainment. And his
expectations, those too. I didn‟t want him building anything on shifting sands.
I thought we were both safe enough. Neither of us was looking for anything
more than a one-night stand. Neither of us had been looking even for that much,
before fate threw us together over lunch. His shoulder nudged mine as we walked;
his gaze slid toward the harbor, where a couple of Algeriens were working on a boat,
shirtless in the sunlight.
Serious dates don‟t point out other attractive men to each other; they‟re all too
bound up in themselves, their own demands, their anxieties, their extravagant
feelings. Not us. We were just taking pleasure in who we were and where we were,
the day and the place and a random encounter, bodies at liberty. No more than that.
He knew it as well as I did.
I relaxed then. It wasn‟t hard. Benet was charming company, even setting
aside that little kick of attraction that I felt at every touch, every sidelong glimpse
of his neat body in motion.
We walked the waterfront talking about everything and nothing, the way you
do when you‟re new to each other, when there seems so much to say. Soon enough, I
looked around and saw that our heedless feet had taken us away from the sights,
away from the tourist areas, into backstreets where little restaurants vied with
smart boutiques and bookshops for our attention, for our money.
For my money, at least. I had promised him a gift; I gripped his elbow—just
because I wanted to, not because I thought he‟d run away if I didn‟t keep good
hold—and steered him into a store whose narrow window promised discreet, quality
menswear.
“I just want something to change into tonight,” he protested in a quick
whisper. “A clean T-shirt, maybe a pair of jeans.”
“That‟s all I was planning to buy you. It‟s a pity—you‟d look fabulous in one of
those long coats—but the weather‟s way too hot.”
“There‟s a mall around the corner. Everything would be cheaper there.”
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Thom Lane
“I‟m sure it would. And shoddy quality, that too. Sometimes beauty just doesn‟t
come cheap,” and I let my fingers slide down over the pale hairs of his forearm,
sheer self-indulgence, as the sales assistant approached.
Actually I wasn‟t extravagant; I didn‟t think he‟d let me. As promised, apart
from our obvious underwear needs, I only bought him a top—a black polo-neck shirt
in a light wool weave, rather nice—and a pair of light linen trousers, black again.
“I‟m not the first boy you‟ve dressed this way, am I?” he challenged teasingly.
At least he hadn‟t said boyfriend. It was one of the reasons we were so good
together, I thought; he understood, without any need for constant reminders. No
commitments. We were just having fun. Giving each other treats, for this little time
together.
“You‟ll look sensational in black. And I haven‟t dressed you yet.” He wasn‟t
wearing his new clothes: “Not till we get back to the hotel,” he‟d said; “I want a
shower first.”
I shivered, guessing what that meant, what he had in mind.
His turn to lead me now, apparently: this way and that, like a boy who knew
just where he was going.
He brought us to a small square, with the inevitable café next to a shop selling
toiletries.
“There‟s everything we need back at the hotel,” I pointed out, laughing at him
as he urged me into the perfumed air beyond that doorway. “Toothbrushes, all sorts.
You just weren‟t looking.”
“I wasn‟t looking at the toothbrushes, no. I‟m still not. Look. Sniff. You won‟t
find this at the hotel.”
He was right, of course. Here was a table laden with handmade soap, blocks of
black and cream and olive green, irresistible.
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“My gift to you,” he said, having an assistant tie up a selection in waxed paper
and string, as they must have been doing for fifty years or more. Maybe a lot more.
“Never mind the shower,” he said. “We‟ve played with that. I think we should test
out the bathtub. Slow and long and deep. Lots of soap, lots of splashing.”
Below the counter, his hand strayed across my butt. Again I was the one
suddenly biting my lip. Wanting to be biting his.
Once out of the alluring, sensual promises of that shop, of course we stopped at
the café next door for a quick, refreshing beer in the square. And because it was
that time of day, the sun dropping low and the Marseillaises starting to stop by
after work, ordering a plate of this and a plate of that, of course our minds too
turned to thoughts of food.
“What do you want to do for dinner, then?” I asked. “Smarten up and go out
somewhere?”
Blessedly, Benet spoke my mind for me, as well as his own. “Honestly? I may
never eat again. That bouillabaisse has fed me for a week. Almost.” He gave me an
anticipatory little smile that was nothing to do with hunger, maybe, but all to do
with tastes and flavors and textures, pleasures of the mouth. “How would it be if we
just stayed in the room and snacked?”
“That? Would be perfect.” No more than him did I really want another
restaurant meal today, but I‟d felt obliged to offer; no more than him did I really
want to leave that room again, once we got ourselves back to it. “I don‟t know what
the hotel kitchens are like, but I‟m sure room service can feed us.”
“Oh, I‟m sure they can—but we‟d do better to feed ourselves. It‟s too late now
for the decent bakers and patisseries; they will have sold out and closed down hours
ago. Thing is, though, in France you‟re never more than ten feet away from
something lovely. Wait here.”
I thought he was going to sidle around the corner to some hidden food store
that he knew about, but no: he went back into the café. I could watch him through
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Thom Lane
the window, negotiating with Madame, handing over folded notes. A minute later
he came back with a carrier bag bulging in various interesting ways, a long paper-
wrapped baguette jutting from the top.
“This time of day, she‟ll pretty much know what she‟s going to have left over by
the end. You can usually bargain for a bagful of take-home, if you don‟t mind odds
and ends with a hint of potluck.”
“Not me. Today‟s been all about potluck—with the emphasis on the luck.” He
blushed, as I had meant him to. I scored that up as a private victory—though blond
boys are easy, they flush at the least excuse—and went on. “Are you in a hurry to
get back, or shall we check out a pichet of Madame‟s wine? Maybe she‟ll sell us a
bottle of that too, to take with us.”
“I am never,” he said, “in that much hurry.” And grinned and settled back
beside me and, “We‟ve got all night.” He said that too.
“Yes, we have. You don‟t have to rush off in the morning?”
“Oh, no. Not at all. Not rushing anywhere, me.”
We didn‟t rush that evening, either. Sometimes an anticipated pleasure—even
something yearned for—is all the better for being deliberately put off, delayed, held
back. Or simply considered, lingered over, examined from all sides before that final
commitment, the pounce, the lunge that can‟t be drawn back from.
We sat in the late sun in the square there and drank a pichet of Madame‟s
wine while we watched the life of the city ebb and flow around us. The last of the
office workers stopped by for a drink or a bite of supper before they went home; they
mingled with the anxious dates waiting fretfully for their other halves to show, and
the earliest of the serious partygoers, slipping out in their glad rags for a swift
drink or two before the action started.
It was shameful, possibly, to sit there eyeballing all those other people in their
lives, but we were just a little too cheerful to be ashamed. And really just a little too
interested in each other. The rest of the world was a sideshow, an excuse to keep
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sitting there, talking, playing with our rising tensions and desires. Seeing how long
we could hold it off before we had to move, each of us determined that the other
should be the one to break…
It‟s the sort of game that new lovers play with or against each other. Which
was all very well, but of course we weren‟t lovers, not in any long-lasting sense. Not
in any sense that made games matter. We only had this one night, after all.
It was me who broke the moment, then, who set the game aside. “Come on,” I
said, deliberately harsh against the seductive glamour of a purple Marseille
twilight. “Let‟s get back.”
Just for a moment, he looked triumphant. No matter. If that was what it cost
to get the pair of us back in our room, in private, I could afford it.
He swung to his feet; I took the bag of food, as he still had the bags of his
shopping. That left us with a hand free each, and I did again feel a ridiculous,
dangerous temptation to reach out and take his lightly in my own. I just wanted to
walk that way, the two of us, linked together…
But this was a strange city and he was still more or less a stranger to me. It
just wouldn‟t be appropriate. And besides, we were both moving on next day. Best
not to confuse the issue, surely? Today was just about sex and companionship, and
neither side of that needed a romantic gesture.
Anyway, holding hands is fun when you‟re six, perhaps when you‟re sixteen.
We were way past that, he and I. Especially I. Oh yes…
So I didn‟t make the gesture, and neither did he. For a moment, I did wonder if
we were both feeling the lack of it as we walked along with our shoulders brushing,
our elbows touching, occasionally our hands coming in reach of each other; but
neither one of us went that extra little distance. An inch of reach, a small step or a
giant leap, depending…
It‟s odd how you‟ll hold back on one thing and not hesitate a moment over
something else, something far more intimate and revealing. It‟s all about timing, I
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Thom Lane
guess, and significance. What seems to be significant and what‟s just about the
moment, not leading anywhere, just being what it is.
Holding hands is a declaration, to each other as much as to the watching
world.
Sometimes sex doesn‟t matter half as much.
Doesn‟t have to.
If you‟d asked me in advance, I‟d have said that hard, hot session with Benet
earlier in the day would have been sex enough for me. It would have lasted me for
days, weeks, longer. I‟d gone without for months already, after all. That was pretty
much my default mind-set these days—that I was a guy who didn‟t get much sex,
and I was fine with that.
I thought.
I guess that‟s something else that‟s odd, how wrong you can be about your own
most inward needs and desires. Or how good you get at lying to yourself, and not
seeing through the lies.
At least that frantic urgency was gone, worn off by effort earlier. We‟d have the
carpet burns to prove it if the carpet wasn‟t quite so plush.
We still did have all the desire. It was just that our bodies weren‟t in such a
rush anymore. We could be decorous in the lift, polite in the corridor when we met a
maid coming the other way with a cart heaped high with linens. We could let
ourselves into our room and wait long enough to unpack our shopping, to put a
bottle of white on ice.
I could lean in the doorway of the wet room and watch while Benet figured out
the bathtub, how to start the tap running, how to fit the plug.
I could bring him to me with a word, knowing just what would follow: the lift of
his head, the sweet impact of his mouth on mine, the slow exploratory kissing. His
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tongue tasted of wine and salt—he‟d been munching cashews as we walked—and
those were all the flavors of desire, and even so I wasn‟t ripping his clothes off, not
this time.
This time we could even have a conversation, almost. Which soap to use, what
we wanted to smell like.
I want to smell like you.
That was all I had, really, all I cared about. Lovers‟ bodies should smell of each
other. Even if they were only transitory lovers, ships bumping together in the night.
“I‟ve never seen black soap,” I said, reaching almost at random. “And if you‟re
not going to wear those nice clothes I bought you”—it was pretty much obvious
already that neither one of us was getting dressed up tonight—“then I‟d still like to
put something black on your skin.”
“I bet it doesn‟t lather black.” He grinned. “But okay, let‟s find out.”
When at last we did undress each other, it was a slow, deliberate process. We
took turns, took pleasure in that unhurried revelation, almost as though we‟d not
yet seen each other naked. I treasured the curves of his back and the hidden
strength of his legs as much as the spring of his cock as I disclosed it; he seemed to
find things to please him in my own body.
Hand in hand at last—but really it was only about the moment here, no kind
of declaration at all—we stepped together into deep, steaming water and settled
down facing each other with our legs necessarily entangled.
He had the soap, and apparently he meant to keep it, at least for now. He
worked up a thick, rich lather—and he was right, of course, it wasn‟t black: a sort of
porridge color, rather, creamy gray—and then scooped up one of my feet and
propped it on his shoulder as he began to soap my leg.
His touch was firm and lingering, sensual, only a shade short of massage.
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Thom Lane
Or maybe not short at all, the real thing. “Did you know,” he murmured, “the
original meaning of „shampoo‟ is a massage? Preferably in a warm bath? It‟s a Hindi
word; I learned it from an Indian boyfriend I had once…”
“No,” I said, sliding a little lower into the water, closing my eyes as it lapped at
the corners of my mouth. “No, I didn‟t know that. Oh God, don‟t stop!”
He soaped me, shampooed me, massaged me—whichever word you prefer.
Very thoroughly, and all over. It wasn‟t just the word that he‟d learned from his
Indian boy. By the time he was done, I was like the soap: hot and slippery and half-
molten, half-gone.
Still, I pulled myself together when it was my turn. Enough of being passive,
almost liquid under his hands. I took the soap from him, and the initiative too.
Soaped him and rinsed him and handled him all over; turned him around in the
end, sat him on my lap there, and the nub of the soap was all the lubricant we
needed as I worked my fingers through his willing sphincter, eased it wide, followed
them with my stiff and seeking cock.
Even now, there wasn‟t any urgency in either of us. We rocked and surged in a
steady rhythm, until even our panting breaths seemed to come together; and then
we did that thing more literally. I felt the spasm in him, felt his ring clench tight
around my shaft, and knew he couldn‟t hold out any longer. So I encouraged him
with my hand, wrapping it around his lovely long cock at the same time—just in
time!—as I released myself.
So we spurted in rhythm too; we came together in a surging storm of water.
When it was over, when he‟d slithered free of me, Benet clung with both hands
to the edge of the bath and peered over, looking absurdly young and sounding
deeply shaken. “I, um, I think we splashed. A bit.”
I stroked my hand slowly down his back and found his flesh as tremulous as
his voice. Unless that was my flesh that was trembling still, or the bones within my
flesh, deeply resonant. Maybe it was both, him and me together…
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“No matter.” It was a struggle to keep my voice light, to pretend we were both
just playing here. A necessary struggle, but a struggle nonetheless. “That‟s the
point of a wet room, that it gets wet. That‟s why there‟s a drain in the floor.”
“Um, yeah. Perhaps we should‟ve shut the door? I think we made a tidal
wave…”
Oops. Perhaps we did.
No matter. We won‟t have been the first, and the carpet was only a little bit
squelchy. It barely showed on that dark, dark green; come morning, there‟d be no
sign at all. I hoped.
Meanwhile, we chucked a dry towel over it to show willing and carried on
regardless. Towels for ourselves, shared with each other, with no purpose now
except that it was better fun to be touching than not. Then there were soft,
luxurious hooded bathrobes, there were glasses of crisp dry wine, there was a whole
array of foods to be grazed over: bread and olives and sausage and cheese, a fruit
tart and some crisp, sweet pastries I didn‟t have a name for. Benet would know, but
asking was just too much trouble, too much an interference. My mouth and my
mind were both very busy with other things.
I hadn‟t expected to be hungry, I wasn‟t even sure that I was, but I found
myself eating regardless for the sheer indulgent pleasure of it, for the sensations of
tasting and chewing and swallowing between sips of wine. I couldn‟t remember the
last time my body felt so alive, so sensitive, every cell intimately aware—or rather I
could, but I didn‟t want to think about that. Didn‟t want to remember. Wanted just
to live in the moment, here and now, that was better…
Food, then, and wine; and kisses, a lot of profligate kissing, another good use
for the mouth. Oh, and words too, of course we talked. Nothing could ever stop him
talking. Just, we didn‟t ask many questions; it wasn‟t that kind of night. No
interrogations, no explanations. We might be insatiably curious about each other,
but we learned by touching, by listening, by just being together.
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The more I learned, the more I liked this boy. The way he sat nestled beside
me, apparently quite content in himself, enjoying the moment: not needy, not
demanding or fretful or looking for more.
Well, his hand did slip inside my bathrobe, did curl itself around my cock in an
inquiring sort of way, but that was more an invitation than a demand, not really as
greedy as it seemed.
“Later, sweetling,” I murmured, kissing the top of his head.
“Later‟s better,” he agreed, to my mild astonishment. And left his hand there,
to my entire pleasure; and snuggled a little closer and said, “What shall we do
tomorrow?”
I hesitated, but only for a moment. “Don‟t you have to be at work tomorrow?”
“Not me. They won‟t even notice I‟m not there.”
“I don‟t believe that for a moment. And stop fishing. I‟m all out of
compliments.”
He sniggered, kissed my neck, said, “Well, but it‟s true, though. Almost true.
Mostly I just get in the way and ask irritating questions, why they do something
this way instead of that. They‟d be delighted if you took me out from under their
feet. You should‟ve seen how alacritous they were—is that a word, „alacritous‟?—to
send me off today.”
None of that was true, of course. I had actually been listening earlier when he
talked about his job, and I did know that he was more than passionate about wine;
he was also making himself seriously useful while he was here. He‟d come to
Marseille on an errand, not a jaunt. And had dispatched it that morning, and so
gone looking for bouillabaisse, and so found me.
And so here we were, and I barely even teetered on the brink before I plunged.
“You‟re the one with all the local wisdom,” I said. “What do you think we
should do?”
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Later that night, while he slept beside me, I did wonder if I was straying into
dangerous waters. Letting him come too close, teetering myself too near the line and
about to step over it. Whether I ought to be cursing myself for a fool, or whether I‟d
find myself doing so further down the line.
But seriously, one more day was no kind of commitment, and neither one of us
was making any kind of promises. He understood that. He must do, even if I hadn‟t
spelled it out. I wasn‟t taking advantage of him. I didn‟t need to accuse myself of
anything, and he wasn‟t about to seduce me into something I‟d regret afterward. No.
Just two young men having an idyll, a couple of days in the sunshine, a holiday
fling. Not even a romance, no. Sex and company, and nothing more…
I could be firm about that in the dark, in the worry of it, with nothing to look
at and nothing to listen to bar the soft, sweet sounds of his breathing.
It was harder come daylight, because really truly? I might love sex and
passion, dark nights and hot bodies tangling, but I almost love the morning after
more. It starts with waking up to the warmth and weight of another person in the
bed there, with all its inherent comfort and implicit promise. I hadn‟t had that for
months now, many months, and I‟d almost forgotten how powerful it can be, that
little shift from sleeping to waking, from alone to not alone.
And then, okay, maybe his hand steals between your legs, maybe you reach to
find his mouth with yours, maybe you have slow and easy sex in the early sun and
maybe that matters as much as anything, but it isn‟t crucial. Whether or not you
make love, there‟s still all the fun of what follows:
Arguing softly about who gets to use the bathroom first, who has to move
before the other one can, who gets to lie a little longer in the soft, warm nest of the
bed and watch him go, watch him come back.
Sharing the shower in the end just because you want to, because you can.
Because someone else‟s hands will always wash your back for you better than you
can do it yourself, and they‟ll always grab your balls or your butt unexpectedly, and
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Thom Lane
there‟ll always be those moments of spluttering protest and shampoo in the eyes,
sudden burning followed by soft relief as he kisses the sting of it away.
Getting dry again, yet more towels; and getting into clothes again, never
glancing in the mirror as you do because you‟re too busy watching him, the different
aesthetics of the male body naked and dressing and dressed; and maybe the little
rush of seeing him pull on the clothes that you bought him, seeing that you were
right, that he does look sensational in black; and the totally different kind of rush
when you realize that all the time he‟s been dressing he hasn‟t glanced in the mirror
once, even in his new clothes, because he‟s been too busy, too distracted, watching
you.
Going out into the corridor, going down in the lift together, something as
simple as that. Being quiet, suddenly almost shy with each other, wondering if last
night is branded somehow on your skin, blazoned in neon overhead, if everyone will
know just what you‟ve been doing and just how it felt.
Shrugging it off, stepping out of the lift, walking to breakfast. Watching him
make choices: toast or croissant? Cereal or oatmeal or not? Hot or cold, bacon and
sausage and eggs or ham and fruit? Coffee or tea, and what kind of juice?
Finding out what kind of morning person he is, dour and silent or light and
chatty, solitary or sharing, better left in peace or kept warm and close and
intimate…
All of that, I confess, I love it all. Moments of comfort, moments of delight,
moments of discovery. If I did feel my wiser self stir and shift anxiously, if I did
wonder whether I was being dragged too deep too fast, it was only a passing
question easily ignored. We weren‟t doing questions, were we? This wasn‟t the time.
This was an idyll, a step out of time altogether, away from the world and its rules.
Even my own rules, I could leave them lie just for a while, just for a day or two. Step
back into harness when this was over. Yes.
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That day we went down into the Camargue, in search of white horses and pink
flamingos, wild marshes and the wide salt sea.
And found them all, as ordered; and had a wonderfully happy, easy day
playing tourist; and somehow that evening found ourselves driving back to my gîte
together without even having talked about it, with no suggestion from either one of
us that Benet should perhaps go home.
Instead, he went cheerfully nosing around the old farmhouse, opening doors
and peering into cupboards. In short order he found the drinks cabinet and the
bathroom, and it was really no surprise at all that half an hour later we were in the
tub again, with a gin and tonic each to hand and our feet quite thoroughly
misbehaving beneath a froth of bubbles.
Sometimes an infatuation is just that: purely sexual, all about two bodies
interacting, nothing more. Doomed, then, and leading nowhere.
This was sort of the other way around: leading nowhere by definition, because
we weren‟t planning to take it anywhere else, but even so not just about the bodies.
Even if we did keep tumbling into bed—and shower and bath—at every
opportunity. That wasn‟t the core; it was just one charming facet of the whole.
Benet‟s attraction was more and far more than the merely physical. If he‟d been
seeing someone else, if he‟d been unavailable—hell, if he‟d been straight, which is
always the acid test—I‟d still have wanted to know him, still have valued his
friendship and enjoyed his company.
It was a pity, really. As I meant to call such an absolute end to this, as I so
deliberately didn‟t do relationships anymore. It would have been so much easier to
handle if this was just an infatuation.
I cooked for him that night—artichokes and a goat-cheese tart, pears in red
wine to follow; we‟d found a farmers‟ market by the road and stopped to stock up—
and found myself strangely nervous as he tasted things. Of course he‟d be polite, of
course he‟d sound enthusiastic, of course he did—but did he mean it, or was that
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just good manners? It didn‟t matter; it couldn‟t matter; it was just one meal, and
nothing hung on this. And yet apparently it did matter, at least to me.
He dipped an artichoke leaf in melted butter, drew it delicately between his
teeth, and discarded the residue in a bowl set between us.
“I do love food you can play with,” he said a little indistinctly. “Artichokes are
yummy anyway—and this is the yummiest artichoke ever, and you really have to
teach me how to do this—but half the fun is being allowed to make a mess. Butter
on your chin and bits all over. It‟s almost as good as lobster. That was the only thing
wrong with the bouillabaisse at the Miramar, that the waiters do all the work,
taking the fish off the bone for you.”
“Saves us making a mess of their tablecloths,” I said, when I really wanted to
say tell me more about this being the yummiest artichoke ever. “That was why I got a
table right next to the waiters‟ station, so I could watch them at it. Technically it‟s
probably the worst table they have, but it was exactly the one I wanted.”
“Honestly,” he said—biting again and oozing butter all over his chin, just as
he‟d promised—“you‟re such a foodie. It‟s why we work so well together, I reckon.
One reason why,” as he slid a bare foot up my leg beneath the table, his wicked grin
speaking to another reason that didn‟t need such spelling out. “Because I‟m a bit of
a wine buff, and we just make a really good pair.”
I took a breath, opened my mouth, was on the absolute edge of speaking
though I still didn‟t know which way I was going to fall: either Benet, you do realize,
don’t you, that we’re really not a pair? or else Benet, hold still, I just want to lick that
butter off your chin. Either one might have come out independently of my torn
spirit. But—not for the first time, not for the last—he just went on talking, taking
my breath away.
“It‟s such a shame,” he said, “that I can‟t just stay for the rest of your holiday.
I‟d love to do that, really I would. Only I phoned my boss again while you were
cooking”—I‟d been anxious enough to chase him out of the kitchen, which is really
unusual for me—“and he does want me back at the vineyard tomorrow. He‟s got
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clients coming in from the UK, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with his
English, but even so he thinks he needs me there in case he misses a nuance or
whatever.”
It was, of course, what I wanted most, that he should leave before I wanted
him to. That sounds like some deliberate irony or an exercise in paradox, but it‟s
not. It was just my best-case scenario, that I should lose his company before I was
ready to see him gone, before we‟d had time to disappoint or disillusion or betray
each other. That would have to happen sooner or later. It always did; it‟s the human
condition. Better that this should end first, too soon, before we got that far.
Better yet, that he should be the one to end it. I didn‟t have to ask him to go,
which I‟d been privately dreading; we weren‟t both letting it drag on until my flight
home and one of those airport partings with its easy promises of phone calls that
neither of us would ever make, visits that would never happen. This was just ideal,
an act of supreme good fortune if he was telling the truth, supreme understanding
on his part if he wasn‟t. And generosity, that too, to do the difficult thing himself.
He must have known as well as I did that it had to be done; he might even have
seen how hard I would find it, and so stepped in himself. Swift and neat and using
his natural advantage, the convenience of his job. A couple of quick sentences and it
was done; we were over, no trouble at all.
It was ideal, and I felt it like a blade in the belly, twisted for maximum effect.
At least my body is reliable, even when my spirit is floundering like a fish
suddenly and appallingly out of water. I may even have kept smiling. Certainly I
kept moving, slicing and serving the tart, passing him the salad to go with it,
topping up his glass. Some little part of myself was still checking on the crispness of
the pastry, even, anxious not to disgrace myself on what had suddenly become our
last night together.
I guess autopilot just kicks in and you do what you have to do, what you‟ve
been trained for through a lifetime of good manners and English reserve. I could
think about it later, slither out from under that crushing sense of loss, find the
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distance I needed to feel what my rational mind was telling me already: that this
was absolutely the right thing, the only thing, the perfect thing to happen…
Meanwhile, my body just blundered on. I ate and drank and talked regardless,
not to let him guess there was anything amiss. We sat on the sofa and nestled
together like old lovers comfortable with each other; we played with the stereo and
the slightly weird selection of CDs left by previous occupants, laughing and
groaning and sometimes singing along with the most absurd; in the end, of course,
we went to bed.
And there too my well-trained body didn‟t let me down. It lied and lied for me
as we nuzzled and kissed, as we licked and bit and sucked at each other, as we
fucked. It said that all was well, that we were two young men enjoying a night of
hot sex with no meaning, that we could leave each other in the morning without a
backward glance or a regretful thought.
I did want that to be true. I did believe that it ought to be, that I needed it to
be so, that I had no protection else. In a world full of casual betrayals, what‟s a man
to do but hold on to his heart and give nothing away but his cum, which costs him
nothing?
And yet, and yet. I spent the night in a welter of misery, which was all the
worse for being so utterly unexpected. I‟d thought myself entirely in control, and in
a dozen words Benet had undone me entirely.
“Lord, Jeff, you look dreadful. Didn‟t you sleep at all?”
“Hardly,” I confessed, which was true; and, “Indigestion,” I added, which was a
downright lie and the first that I‟d actually uttered, the first to come from my
mouth unless kisses count when you‟re only using them as cover for a deep
deception. Oh, I was going to miss this boy so much, his presence in my bed and at
my side and in the corner of my eye, at the core of my attention. And I couldn‟t tell
him so; I couldn‟t even let him guess.
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He grinned. “That‟ll teach you. Old man.” I was five years older, and he loved
to wave that like a banner. “All that rich food last night, so much butter… Maybe
you‟d best not drive me back to the vineyard today. Run me into town and I‟ll see
about a bus. There‟s bound to be something.”
“Nonsense, of course I‟ll take you. I‟m not that wrecked. Besides, I want to see
where you work. You‟ve been talking about it so much.”
“Well, if you‟re sure. Just remember, drive on the right…”
“Okay. You yell out if I do something stupid.”
Apparently it was too late. I had already done something stupid. I‟d let him too
far into my life, way past the skin on skin of sex and the warmth and challenge of
good friendship.
Still. I was strong, I was grown-up, and I‟d weathered worse storms than this.
And faced more cruel partings. He didn‟t need to know that I was bleeding inside.
And I‟d grow scar tissue soon enough. Go home, move on. Alone and safe and
perhaps a little wiser. He was a life lesson for me, and sooner or later I‟d be
grateful.
My life lesson was quiet in the car, something to be grateful for. He gave me
directions when I needed them—“left at the next junction, over the bridge and then
just follow the canal”—and pointed out an occasional castle on the skyline or a scene
that might have gone unchanged for a hundred years: geese on a pond or an old
woman fetching cattle to a ford. The light, constant conversation was gone, though,
that lazy babble of his voice that I could just float away on. I might have teased him
with being sleepy himself if I‟d been in a teasing mood, or if I hadn‟t known exactly
how well he‟d slept, snuggled close against my side with his head pillowed on my
numb arm that I hadn‟t dared to move for fear of waking him.
I could be envious. I could almost be angry with him for being so oblivious.
Except that oblivious was exactly how I wanted him: oblivious and uncaring,
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content to see this little adventure end, with no regrets and no hangover. That was
how I wanted myself too, what I‟d always intended. If it hadn‟t turned out that
way—well, I‟d just have to live with the consequences. No need for him to suffer too.
No need, of course, for either of us to suffer, except that I was apparently
determined to do it.
Perhaps this was just one more residue of my long years with Tony—that I
only knew one way to treat with men these days, the way I‟d learned to treat with
him, all the tangled complications of a deep engagement. Perhaps I‟d forgotten how
to be frivolous and superficial, how to have a fling or a one-night stand, how to move
on and not look back and not care?
Well, I‟d just have to learn it again. Teach myself. This would be good practice,
an object lesson. Don’t let anyone get this close, this fast.
Don’t let anyone get this close at all.
“Left here, up this track. Where the sign is. Careful, there‟s a pothole in the
road…”
The sign, of course, promised wine tastings and a tour of the vineyard. Benet
had told me that he‟d been appointed chief tour guide, almost the day he arrived; it
was everybody‟s least favorite job, allegedly.
His too, allegedly. Actually, the way he talked, I thought he secretly enjoyed it.
The way he talked—talked and talked!—I thought he was probably very good at it.
Of course he‟d offered to take me around, a tour of one, but I‟d turned him
down. I really needed to get this over and be away. It might not hurt any less for
being suddenly done, but at least there was no need to linger over the pain of it, no
need to stretch it out.
“No? I thought you might like to stay for lunch. Meet the boss and so forth.”
“No, really, Benet.” Why would I want to meet his boss? That was a thing
couples did, introduce each other to their workmates and social circles. We were
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hardly anything more than a random shag. Or at least we ought not to be anything
more than that. I might have let him too close in to my heart; no way was I going to
let him draw me into his life. Oh, no. I wanted an end to this. I needed that. I was
determined; I‟d drive him to the door, kiss him good-bye, and be away.
The track climbed up between terraced vineyards, wire-straight lines of low
trimmed vines, until at last it brought us into the shadow of a big house that was
maybe not quite grand enough to be called a château but obviously everybody did.
“Drive round to the back,” Benet said. “Unless you just want to drop me here,
and I can walk…?”
“Don‟t be silly.” It was myself I was impatient with, for slipping too far under
the unintentional charms of a young beauty, risking more than I could afford. I
might be set on this course, one kiss and away, but now that we were here, I still
wanted to cling to every last second. To put off that moment, that kiss, just as long
as I could.
When had I become so inconsistent? I felt as if I was tearing myself apart. As if
I were Benet‟s age again, idiotically young. With no experience, nothing to draw on,
nothing to teach me better…
I‟d be better, as soon as I was away. Right now, this was the razor‟s edge and I
was bleeding.
Here was a stable yard; here on the cobbles was a horse, with a girl mounted
on it. A young woman, maybe, late teens or early twenties. Hard to tell, under her
helmet.
I drew up carefully, some distance from the horse. I would have given Benet
that last valedictory kiss in the car, I wouldn‟t even have switched the engine off,
only he had the door open and was stepping out before I realized, before I was
ready; and then the girl shrieked his name and came leaping down off her horse,
and someone else appeared from the house, and I was suddenly in danger of losing
him altogether.
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I could almost—almost!—have let that happen. Something in me wanted just
to slip quietly away, drive off, let the action speak for itself: one quick break, a final
farewell, live with it. Both of us. Warm memories not too much tainted by a slightly
regretful parting.
I didn‟t do it. I couldn‟t do it; I wasn‟t allowed to. Benet was still holding the
car door open with one hand while he tried hopelessly, gigglingly to fend the girl off
with the other.
She was, perhaps, doing that formal French greeting thing, kissing one cheek
and then the other and then the first again. Only this was clearly her own
affectionate version of it, which seemed largely to involve wrapping as much as
possible of a flexible body as intimately as possible around his, perhaps in hopes of
making him blush; and all the time she was nuzzling his cheeks, she was also
peering over his shoulder in frank curiosity, doing her very best to get a good look at
me.
In the end, I made it easy for her. I gave up and got out of the car.
Benet detached her physically from his body, huffed in exaggerated relief, and
introduced us.
“Jeff, this is Juliette. She‟s my boss.”
I may have blinked. She was perhaps twenty, certainly no older, now that she
was pulling her helmet off and I could see her properly. She was also rolling her
eyes, threatening to punch him; handing the helmet to him, for all the world like a
boss to an underling; holding her hand out to me for a very polite and proper
handshake, saying, “Hullo, Jeff. I‟m not his boss, not really; he just likes to say that
to be annoying.” Her voice was…tinted, more than accented. She was very obviously
French, but speaking English came easily to her. I guessed that most things came
easily to her.
“She dumped all her jobs onto me as soon as I arrived, and then stood over me
with a bullwhip till I‟d learned to do them as well as she did.”
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“Yes, of course. You are my victim. And not quite as well as me, not yet. Jeff,
come and meet Grandmère”—the elderly woman still standing in the doorway
there—“and talk to her while I see to Mariette. Then I will come to find you and
explain how you can be my victim too and save my life today.”
Sometimes it doesn‟t matter how determined you are, how resolute, how
convinced that a particular course is the right thing to do, the right way to go, what
you have chosen.
Sometimes you just get overruled. Redirected.
Hijacked.
Half an hour later, I was sitting in the kitchen with a steaming refill of good
French coffee, rubbing my finger around a seriously empty plate in hopes of
catching one more crumb of the flakiest, most buttery croissant I‟d ever
encountered, Grandmère‟s own fresh bake. Benet was across the table from me, his
leg nudging mine occasionally but offering no help otherwise, enjoying himself
hugely as he watched me negotiate the old woman‟s interrogation. I felt like a frail
vessel unwisely abroad on difficult waters: nothing stormy, but there were narrow
channels and hidden currents and I didn‟t have a chart. Or any warning.
I might have kicked back at Benet mercilessly, if I hadn‟t felt convinced that
Grandmère‟s eagle eye could see straight through the table to exactly what was
going on underneath.
Every now and then I took a breath and reminded myself that I really didn‟t
need her approval. I wasn‟t angling for anything here; a croissant and a cup of
coffee marked the limits of our relationship, and I‟d already thanked her as best I
could. There was nothing to be gained by her favor, nothing to lose at her scowl.
Nevertheless. For some reason utterly unclear to myself, I struggled to find
answers to her questions that wouldn‟t disgrace either me or Benet. Maybe I was
just trying to do him some good in the midst of this complicated family? At least I
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might want to leave a good impression behind me, just to reassure them that he
hadn‟t disappeared for two days with some disreputable drunk.
Actually, Grandmère could make me feel exactly like a disreputable drunk, if
she chose to. She was formidable. Maybe I only wanted her good opinion because I
thought it was worth having for its own sake; it would say something better about
me than I might ever say about myself.
Maybe it was a last-minute attempt to look good in Benet‟s eyes, to leave him
with a good taste in his mouth, one last happy memory of me.
Honestly? I don‟t know. All I know is I was doing my very best to shine in
tricky circumstances. It was an odd situation, slightly off-key in a way I couldn‟t pin
down. It kept reminding me of something, a stray memory I didn‟t have time to
chase. Stray but important, laid down deep. Later…
Juliette‟s return was abrupt relief, an absolute interruption. She came
bouncing in, showered and changed after her ride, full of urgency. “Good, Jeff, thank
you for being still here.”
Between her and Grandmère, I really hadn‟t had any choice in the matter. I
just shook my head, a little bewildered. “How can I help?”
“I have to collect Matthieu and Charlie from the airport at Marseille. In”—a
glance at her watch, a little petulant gesture at the world‟s inconvenience to her—
“two hours from now. I was going with Luc—Luc is my boyfriend, you understand—
but his stupid car is broken. So”—helplessly shrugging—“I am stuck. They will have
to take a cab and pay too much money and be cross with me. Except that you are
here now, in your car, and you could drive us. Please?”
There was, apparently, no doubt in her; she just assumed that I would do this
thing to please her. Of course I would; had the inconvenient world not changed its
mind at the last minute, given in, sent me along to make things work out after all?
I thought it likely this was how it always worked for Juliette.
It would work today too. I wasn‟t about to refuse her. Any more than I could
refuse Grandmère her answers about my life, my family, my work in England.
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It was Benet who objected suddenly, unexpectedly: “Oh, come on, Jules! Go in
your own car.”
“I cannot. You know my car won‟t take three people.”
Spoiled youngest child of a wealthy family, of course she‟d have a two-seater,
something low-slung and flashy. And loud.
“Take one of the others, then. This place isn‟t exactly short of vehicles.”
“Paul and Henri have gone off in different directions, Papa needs his car to
collect the Englishmen… There is nothing. Except Jeff, in his kindness.” She
frowned at him for being difficult, beamed at me for being convenient and no doubt
generous, certain to find her irresistible.
“Don‟t do it, Jeff. There are half a dozen other ways she can manipulate
somebody into this. It doesn‟t need to be you. And it‟s an hour and a half to
Marseille, even if the traffic‟s kind.”
“Yes, and we need to leave now, in case it is not. So I have no time to—
manipulate—anyone else.” She dug her fingers into his ribs in retribution and then
was on her feet all in a rush, trying to carry me along in her urgency. “Please, Jeff?”
“I‟m not sure my car can take five in comfort,” I said, equivocating just to
watch her squirm. “I only rented a small one.” I‟d only been thinking of driving
myself; passengers hadn‟t crossed my mind.
“Oh,” she said, shrugging easily, not a problem, “Benet can‟t come. Papa needs
him. It‟s just us, and the boys when we collect them. We can talk about Benet all
the way.” Laid before me as a temptation, the last inducement. Utter confidence.
Not misplaced. I spread my arms and capitulated. “Of course. Shall we go now?
You‟ll need to guide me. I don‟t really know where I am.”
Truthfully, I was all at sea but enjoying it more than I would have guessed.
And resolutely ignoring that little voice in the back of my head that said if you do
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this, if you go, it means you have to come back. It means you get to see Benet again;
this isn’t quite good-bye after all…
At least, I told myself that I was ignoring it. In fact, that thought just sat in
my head like a nugget beneath the day, precious buried gold. I didn‟t need to see it,
touch it, take it out and dwell on it. So long as I knew it was there, apparently, it
could lend a bright, warm glow to everything, that same way that encroaching
misery can cast a pall of gloom across the world.
Not that Juliette needed much help in the department of bright warmth. All by
herself she was a small radiant sun, if suns are chatterboxes. In my car, just the
two of us, she was like bottled concentrated sunlight.
“Come then,” she said at last, drawing breath, “tell me all about Jeff.”
“I thought we were going to talk about Benet?”
“Poo, we have done nothing else for the last hour,” which was actually almost
true, except that she had done all the talking. “And all I know about you is what
Benet has told me on the phone when he was done being boring with Papa. He
didn‟t want to talk about anything else, only you.”
“Well, then, you know all about me already, so—”
She made a rude noise, which seemed all the ruder coming from a chic young
girl. “Benet is a boy; he knows nothing about you. Nothing that I want to know. Tell
me how you met.”
“Oh, he must have told you that!”
“How you rescued him with a bowl of soup, yes. I do not care about the soup.
And then you went to a hotel room, but I don‟t want to know about that either.”
Actually I rather thought she did, from the way her eyes were gleaming at me. I
thought she wanted every little detail, but she certainly wasn‟t getting them from
me. “You tell me, when you saw him, standing there arguing with the waiter—did
you know absolutely then, that he was un gay like you? Or was that something you
learned from each other when you talked? And how did you find out? Tell me…”
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She suddenly seemed a whole lot younger than her age, when she was trying
so hard to be sophisticated. I hid my grin, not to make her blush and spoil the
illusion completely, and said, “Hasn‟t anybody told you about gaydar?”
“What? No. Gaydar—is that a real word?”
“I don‟t know, but it‟s a very real feeling. Sometimes, some people, you just
know. It might be something in the way they dress or the way they speak, but it‟s
not always that obvious, nothing that you can pick out and say I know he’s gay
because… But—yup. Gaydar. When you‟ve got it switched on.” She still looked
puzzled, so I relented: “Like radar, but it finds gay people. Not a real word, I
suppose—but everybody knows what it means. And it really does work.”
“So you did know about Benet?” she said, coming back insistently to what
really mattered. “Right from the start?”
“Yes, I did.” Before I‟d seen him, before I‟d even understood what he was
saying in his competent French. Something in the way his voice played on my ear,
something said it would be worth my turning around.
“Ah,” she sighed, “that‟s so romantic.”
No, it’s not. It’s just sex, is all. Biology. It’s written in the bone; we have to find
each other somehow… I wanted to say that; I even thought about telling her exactly
what he and I got up to in the dark, confronting her with the reality just to stop her
surrounding us with some emotional aura that really didn‟t belong, that I didn‟t
want anywhere near us, making everything even more complicated than it was
already.
I didn‟t do that, of course. I was still groping for some less cruel way to
disillusion her when she went on, “Well, you will not need your—gaydar—switched
on now, at the airport, when we meet Matthieu and Charlie.”
“Really? Why‟s that?”
“Oh, what—has Benet not told you?” Her eyes rolled dramatically in her skull.
“Boys! You are hopeless, all of you, hopeless. What do you talk about, ever?”
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When we came to the airport, I would have followed signs dutifully to short-
term parking, but Juliette was having none of it. She directed me instead to the
very front of the terminal.
“I can‟t park here! These slots are for rental cars…”
“Of course. This car of yours, she is rented, yes?” Juliette‟s English tended to
fragment, I was learning, when she was giggling hard.
“Well, yes.” From this very spot, it‟s how I knew we were trespassing.
“Well, then. Why worry? You wait with the car if you want to, and if anyone
comes you can tell them you heard a funny noise in the engine and want to change
it for another. But nobody will come. We always park here, in our own cars, and no
one ever comes.”
She patted my shoulder reassuringly and slipped out of the car. I assumed that
she was going in to wait for the arrivals while they made their slow way through
immigration, baggage, customs. That could be a long wait. Thankfully, I had a book
in the pocket of the car door. Of course I did; coming on holiday alone, books were
my ammunition against the dull drag of time. I hadn‟t anticipated Benet or
anything that came with him. Juliette included.
I tilted the seat back, fiddled with the AC, reached for the book, found my
page, settled down—and was startled back into the here and now by a sudden rap
on the window.
I glanced up guiltily, expecting officialdom come to tell me—despite all
assurances—that I was illegally parked. But no, it was Juliette back again, her
hands full of ice creams like a kid.
“Come out of there,” she said sternly. “Put your boring book away and talk to
me.”
By which she meant listen, obviously. We sat in the sun on the bonnet of the
car—well, she sat, cross-legged like a temple icon, while I perched awkwardly and
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kept looking around for that cross official—and licked ice cream while she told me
all about the boys we were here to collect, and why I really wouldn‟t need to engage
my gaydar.
When they eventually appeared—that is, when she scrambled up onto her feet
and stood on the car roof and waved both arms above her head, yelling, “Matthieu!
Charleee! Over here!”—I looked and saw two young men laughing together, waving
back, hoisting backpacks off a cart and starting to pick their way toward us.
I‟d have known, I thought. Even without forewarning. Even without gaydar,
maybe. Even in that short walk, even from a distance you could see the focus
between them, how each was at the center of the other‟s thoughts.
Oh, and the way the dark boy‟s hand kept straying to his blond friend‟s butt,
that was a bit of a giveaway too.
One thing I couldn‟t tell from a distance—which was which: French Matthieu
or English Charlie. They both had the same bronze tan, that deep underlying color
that you can‟t pick up in a summer‟s sunbathing, not even here in Provence; they
both walked with the same air of experienced exhaustion, two hardened travelers
coming home.
I would probably have gone to meet them halfway, but Juliette seemed quite
happy up on her car-roof perch. So we waited, and when they reached us, she held
out her arms like a little kid and the dark one hoisted her down, making it look easy
at the same time as he huffed at the great effort of it, the extraordinary weight of
her. She scowled and punched him, and then stood on tiptoes and kissed him, before
he passed her on to his waiting friend and turned to me.
“Charlie,” he introduced himself. His voice at least was pure distilled
Englishness.
“Jeff Lyman,” I said, shaking the hand he held out. Feeling the unconsidered
strength in it. “Um, I‟m from England, obviously…”
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“…And a new friend of Benet‟s,” he went on for me. “You didn‟t imagine there
were any secrets in this family, did you? There‟s only gossip that Juliette hasn‟t
quite got around to spreading yet, and not much of that. What with phone calls and
e-mails and Facebook, the Atlantic is no barrier at all. The only thing she hadn‟t
sent us is a photograph. Thanks for coming to pick us up. I‟m sure she conscripted
you, but trust me, we‟re grateful. Come and meet Matthieu. He‟s been hoping all
flight that we‟d get a chance to say hullo, see just who‟s been captivating our boy
Benet this week.”
“Jeff, you‟re blushing.” That was Juliette, done now with greeting her cousin,
standing with one arm still around his waist but shamelessly listening in to us.
Delighted to see me give myself away.
She was right, of course. I could feel the heat of it in my cheeks. I wanted to
scowl at her, to growl something ungracious about not sharing my private life with
strangers, thanks—but there was Matthieu‟s cheerful curiosity to be encountered
first; and Charlie‟s chuckle in my ear, his friendly hand on my shoulder; and
Juliette‟s heedless contentment; and both boys‟ obvious weariness underlying their
good humor and that general sense of homecoming, of reunion, of family.
A brief spasm of mean temper stood no chance in the face of all that. I wouldn‟t
spoil the day for any of them. So I smiled and shrugged and promised her
catastrophic retribution later, and shook Matthieu‟s hand—“Call me Matt; Charlie
does, all my English friends do, and Juliette is learning”—and packed them all into
the car, boys in the back and bags in the boot, and away.
On the drive up to the vineyard, Juliette nodded at a junction and said, “I
think we might go that way tomorrow. We could visit Arles. You would like that,
Jeff: see the Roman remains and drink pastis in Van Gogh‟s favorite bar. A friend of
ours has a little restaurant where we could eat lunch. And Benet can have the day
off, after working so hard and missing you today, so…”
I said, “Tomorrow? I wasn‟t planning to be here tomorrow.”
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She made that rude noise again, like a kid with a new trick who has to show it
off. “You weren‟t planning to be here today; you were just going to drop off Benet
and escape.”
“Exactly. That‟s my point.”
“So I have changed your plans for you,” she said, with massive and evident
self-content. “For today and for tomorrow too. You can stay for lunch and stay for
dinner and stay the night in our big house, and tomorrow we will all have an
expedition to Arles. It is decided. The boys will be all jet-lagged and sleepy, so they
can sit in the sun and drink coffee; and Benet will be excited to show you the
remains and tell you all the history; and we will collect Lucien on the way so I won‟t
be bored and we can all have our boyfriends together.”
He’s not my boyfriend—but really there was no point even trying to say so. I
kept my mouth shut, and just drove.
Families have rituals, and it‟s never a good thing to upset them.
All too obviously, Matt and Charlie‟s homecoming was a regular event that
had transformed itself into a ritual. Grandmère met them at the door. Her greeting
was a lot quieter than Juliette‟s, but no less intense for that. I hung back, a little
uncomfortable even to witness this. Juliette was maybe too young to get that, but
she noticed something; she was suddenly at my side, slipping her arm through
mine, saying, “What is the matter, Jeff?”
“I don‟t belong here,” I said bluntly, feeling that anything more subtle might
just misfire. “Not now, when your family‟s home and you want to be with them. The
last thing you need is a stranger hanging around; and Benet won‟t be free until the
evening, so…I should just go, that‟s all.” Except that I didn‟t know how to say good-
bye without interrupting, which was the very last thing I wanted to do. The very
thing I was trying to avoid.
“Don‟t be so silly. Of course you cannot go. Benet is expecting to find you here
when he comes back with Papa, after they are finished with their silly Englishmen.
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Their other silly Englishmen.” She gave my arm a little shake of disapprobation.
“Listen, I will tell you what we will do. See, Grandmère is taking the boys in now.
They will sit in the kitchen and drink a glass of marc together, because that is what
Grandmère likes to do”—clearly her part of the ritual—“when they come home from
away; and we will not disturb them, no. But we will take the boys‟ heavy bags from
the car, which they have forgotten all about, and we will carry those up to their
room. They will go up soon, because they are tired and dirty after traveling all this
way. They will have a shower and a little sleep together”—her eyes sparkling, as
though she knew and I knew that sleep might not come first—“and come down in
time for supper this evening, when Benet and Papa and everyone will be home.
Between now and then, you and I will eat an omelette with Grandmère and walk
around the estate so that you can see where Benet works, and perhaps have a little
swim in the pool before everyone comes home. And you will not speak about going
away, because that would make Benet sad and me angry and everyone else puzzled,
because why would you want to go away when we all want to meet you? So. That is
what we will do. You can carry the heavy bags”—said triumphantly, as she opened
the boot—“while I show you the way and open the doors for you. Yes.”
And so, of course, that was exactly what we did. She was a force of nature,
Juliette: young and spoiled and delightful, determined and manipulative and
impossible to resist. I staggered along behind her with a backpack on either
shoulder, while she led me into the château a different way, up what must have
been servants‟ stairs and along narrow passages till at last I could unload the bags
onto a broad king bed in a bright room hung with photographs. I could recognize
Machu Picchu and Kilimanjaro, take a guess at Mongolia—wild ponies thundering
in a dust cloud across an endless plain—and somewhere in the Himalayas, a
mountain that might or might not have been Everest seen from a hiking path
below.
“Who takes the pictures?” I asked, as I gasped for breath.
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“Oh, that‟s Matthieu. Charlie is the real traveler; he just likes to go places and
look. Matthieu has decided to take photos. I think he hides behind his camera,
because really he just likes to stay home. It is a…an instrument of distance, yes?”
“Yes—but if he wants to stay home, why doesn‟t he just let Charlie go alone?”
She looked at me as if I had said something monumentally thick. “Because he
wants to be with Charlie, of course. They are no good on their own. It makes them
miserable. They nearly broke up about it, and then they were both miserable and I
had to shout at them to make them sensible. And now sometimes Matthieu travels,
and sometimes Charlie stays home. For me it is best when they‟re both at home,”
she added, sounding amazingly young again, “even though they always bring me
presents when they go away.”
Just for a moment, her acquisitive gaze turned to those fat backpacks. I
laughed and steered her out of there before nimble fingers could start picking at
straps.
After that, the day went pretty much as she had predicted. I thought probably
most days did. We went out to the stables to meet her horse, a brief encounter I
hadn‟t expected; and when we went back to the kitchen, Grandmère was there
alone. She said the boys had gone for a lie down, so it would just be us for lunch and
could I eat an omelette?
Oh yes, I said, I could definitely eat an omelette.
I already knew about her croissants; if anything, her omelettes are even better.
With a glass of the house wine—which in their case, of course, means their own
house, their own wine—and a salad from the garden, a baguette from the local
village baker, that‟s a meal to die for. Which I told her, awkwardly and at length.
Juliette did her best to translate into legal French, and Grandmère tutted at me
and cut me a slice of apricot tart, and honor was satisfied all round.
After lunch, Juliette took me for the promised tour of the grounds, in full
tourist-guide mode, and afterward a tour of the house in the same mode, so that I
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got to giggle over her outrageous descriptions of the history of various rooms, the
boys‟ and her brothers‟ not excluded.
Benet‟s not excluded either. “This is the servants‟ wing,” she said, “only we
don‟t really have servants anymore, so he has it by himself most of the time. This is
his bedroom, where he likes to bring strange young men—”
At that point, I clamped my hand firmly over her mouth and turned her back
out into the corridor.
“Never mind Benet‟s bedroom, and never mind the rest of the tour. Whatever
the gossip is, I really don‟t want to know it.”
Sharp white teeth nipped at my palm, until I snatched it away; then she
smiled at me, all innocence, and said, “I was joking, actually. He‟s been very boring
since he got here; there really isn‟t any gossip at all. Until now. It‟s why we‟re all so
interested in you.”
“Well, damn,” I said lightly. “And here was me thinking it was down to my
natural charm.”
She considered me, more thoughtfully than I‟d been quite prepared for. “This is
true too,” she decided. Announced. In another fifty years, she‟d make a terrifying
grandmère. “You are charming, in that very quiet English way. Not like Benet at
all. Benet uses charm like a, like a weapon; you just have it. Even if you don‟t know
it. Like my Luc, who is an idiot about such things. I will telephone him, I think, and
tell him to come. Then we can all swim before dinner. The pool is best at this time of
year, when the water is cool under the sun and then warm in the evening when the
sun goes away. And if Luc is here tonight, you can charm each other, and he won‟t
feel left out because of his stupid car, and we won‟t need to pick him up in the
morning,” she added disingenuously.
I grinned at her, all conspiratorial. “Has his own room here, does he? In the
servants‟ wing?”
“Actually, yes—but he won‟t need to use it. Luc is family.”
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I envied him, I realized suddenly; I thought this whole house was charmed,
and everyone who belonged here. Sunshine helped, of course, and so did money, but
it was more than the comforts of wealth and weather. Juliette was young and
frivolous and entertainingly self-centered, but even she had a solidity beneath her,
a core of confidence that came from generations of love and care. A part of me was
looking forward intensely to meeting the rest of her family.
Another part was deeply anxious about that same meeting. Apparently I
wanted to impress them. Her parents, her brothers. Grandmère too. Grandmère
particularly, perhaps. I thought Grandmère was the rock on which this family was
founded.
I hadn‟t felt quite like this for a long time. It was nothing like wanting to
impress a new boss; this was something deeper, more personal, more meaningful.
More long lasting, or I wanted it to prove so.
Thinking about that, puzzling over it as I tracked Juliette through corridors
and hallways, wondering quite why it mattered so much to me, I had another
realization that stopped me dead on the carpet there, had Juliette braking on her
heels and turning, tilting her head at a quizzical angle, saying, “Jeff? What is
wrong?”
“Oh—nothing. Never mind me. Just a thought, that‟s all; it‟s nothing…”
I was lying, of course. It wasn‟t nothing at all.
What it was: I hadn‟t felt quite this way since Tony took me to meet his
mother.
That was it, exactly. This was like being introduced to my boyfriend‟s family,
and I wanted above all not to let him down.
Except of course that he was not, was not my boyfriend, and I‟d probably never
see these people after tomorrow, and that might be a shame because I did very
much like them, but even so. Ships that pass in the night. A handful of happy
memories, a tale for future dinner parties, nothing more.
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I was quite determined on that.
It was just a shame that my subconscious hadn‟t got the message yet, still kept
trying to make this something more than it was.
I could only hope that Benet was doing better than I was. One thing for sure,
Juliette was being no help at all. She was just a kid, romantic to the core; of course
she wanted to see this as a great sudden love affair. And she was used to getting
what she wanted, so of course she did see exactly that. The rest of her family,
Benet‟s adopted circle—well, they might all buy into her rose-tinted view. It was
probably just easier that way.
All except Grandmère, perhaps. I thought she‟d be more rigorous. Stiff-backed,
ruthless with herself and others. Hard to persuade. An ally, I thought she‟d be.
She‟d know the difference between a holiday fling and a serious engagement. Even
if all the rest of Juliette‟s family let me down, I thought I could depend on
Grandmère.
At the moment, though, I was in Juliette‟s hands: all too literally, as she seized
my arm and towed me out onto a terrace. Here was the promised pool, blue water
glinting under late sun; here were loungers and sunshades for the lazy, tables for
drinks. She pushed me toward a cabin. “Boys change in there. Choose what trunks
you like, find a towel, shower if you want to. When you are ready, come and swim.
Don‟t wait for me. I have to phone Luc and scold him because he is not here.” She
practiced a mighty frown, suitable for making absent boyfriends stammer in
apology; then she grinned contentedly, gave me a pat on the shoulder and a wave of
farewell, and disappeared through another door.
I followed orders, found everything as promised: hot shower, luxurious towels,
a selection of swimming trunks still in their wrappings. The pool was still empty
when I came out, although I hadn‟t hurried.
Still following orders, I slipped into the water and began to count laps.
How often do you get a swimming pool to yourself? It was a luxury in a way,
but also a little lonely. A little intrusive, that too, given that I wasn‟t family and
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hadn‟t even met my hosts yet. When a shadow fell across me as I swam, I was
mostly relieved: dropping my stroke and treading water, clinging to the poolside,
glancing up in search of Juliette—
Oh. Not Juliette. Two young men, but not Matthieu and Charlie either.
Peeling off bathrobes, stripped to their trunks already, crouching down to offer me a
handshake each.
“Paul.”
“Henri.”
“Hullo. Um, my name‟s Jeff. I‟m a friend of—”
“You are Benet‟s friend, we know. And our sister, Juliette, has abandoned you
without even a drink.”
“Oh—no, she‟s just making a call. I think perhaps I was supposed to help
myself to a drink”—I‟d seen the fridge in the cabin—“but—”
“But you are English and too nicely raised to do that; so here you are,
swimming all alone and thirsty. Benet will be here soon, I think. We are here now,
and I will swim with you while Paul brings drinks. Would you like beer or wine?”
“To be honest?” It might be heresy in a winemaker‟s house, but… “I‟d love a
cold beer, if there is one.”
“Of course. Bien. We will swim and drink beers and not wait for anyone. If
Juliette is talking to anyone, she will be a while; if it is Luc, she will be forever.”
Soon there were three of us in the water, then: racing and fooling, swimming
laps underwater, improvising a game of water polo with a beach ball and a couple of
poolside chairs for goals. I couldn‟t remember the last time I‟d made such an idiot of
myself, or enjoyed it so thoroughly.
Eventually Juliette was there, in a complicated one-piece swimsuit, still on the
phone.
“Juliette! The sooner you stop talking to him, the sooner he‟ll be here…!”
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She just waved a dismissive hand at me and went on talking. So I scooped up a
double handful of water and flung it at her, making her squawk and scuttle
backward, all undignified. She put the phone down with one swift last word and
came back, all avenging angel, to give me a thorough dunking.
When we‟d stopped trying to drown each other, we teamed up, us against her
brothers; and I guess that game got a little out of hand, because soon enough
Matthieu and Charlie came down, grumbling that we were making too much noise
to let them sleep.
Their complaints might have been more convincing if they too hadn‟t had
swimming trunks on beneath their bathrobes.
So then it was three-on-three and noisier than ever, until I surged into the end
zone from a sneaky underwater attack, clung to the ladder gasping for air, felt a tap
on my shoulder, glanced up—and there was Benet.
Fully dressed and sober and oh so beautiful—and I was this close to pulling
him in just as he was, getting him so utterly drenched that he‟d need a hand, two
hands to undress him, and…
But there was another figure behind him, an older man who had to be his true
boss, Juliette‟s dad. This really wasn‟t the time to humiliate him. Or myself.
Those bright eyes were laughing down at me, suggesting that he was half-
inclined just to jump in and join me, dressed or not. Sober or not.
Aloud, he said, “You look…I don‟t know. Younger than before.”
“You mean drunker,” I said, though I‟d only had one beer.
“No, I don‟t. I mean younger. It‟s nice. I should get you wet more often. Wash
all those years away. Not right now, though. Jeff, can I introduce you to Maurice?”
“Yes, of course. Wait half a minute…”
I suppose it must be possible to make polite conversation with a stranger
across a pool‟s edge, but it would feel a little weirdly like being interviewed in the
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bath. Besides, I was worried that I‟d pull entirely the wrong guy into the water, if I
reached up from here to shake his hand.
A quick scramble out, then, a snatched towel and a hasty rubdown—feeling
Benet‟s eyes on me like something physical, reading his mind again, just knowing
how much he wanted to twitch that towel out of my willing hands and rub me down
himself—and I was halfway decent at least, knotting the towel around my waist
and stepping forward, fit to be presented.
The paterfamilias was old-school, old money, and as charming as his children,
utterly unfazed to find himself introduced to his employee‟s half-naked new fancy
dripping wet. After a few minutes he excused himself to go and change out of his
suit. I was planning to propel Benet into the boys‟ cabin to make him do the same,
to get him into trunks and into the water; but he forestalled me, glancing at his
watch and crying, “Lord, do you guys know what the time is? Dinner‟s in fifteen
minutes! Get dressed quick, or we‟ll all keep Grandmère waiting.”
All too clearly, that was a notion too awful to contemplate. I‟ve never seen so
many bodies exit a swimming pool so fast, streaming water as they snatched up
towels and robes and rushed away. Juliette was last out of the pool and last to
leave, but even she was halfway gone when a long, lanky boy suddenly appeared.
She snatched his hand and towed him away with her; I thought he was trying to
hold her still long enough to say something, but between her hurry and the
distractions of her slipping towel, the poor boy didn‟t stand a chance.
I turned toward the cabin door, obedient to that same hurry. Benet checked me
with a hand on my wrist and a wicked grin.
“I need—”
“You need,” he said, “to come upstairs with me, so that I can get you properly
dry and make you all pretty for dinner.”
He was the pretty one, but that wasn‟t the issue right now. It was more than
good manners that had impelled me to wrap that towel around my waist before I
talked to his boss. I was suddenly aware just how much I‟d missed his company, all
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this good long day. I couldn‟t miss it, nor could anyone who looked at me; my cock
was stiff as a rod inside the tightness of these trunks.
He knew. More than his eyes were dancing at me now; his fingers danced over
my ribs, over my wet belly, tried to slither beneath the towel before I pulled away.
“Don‟t,” I said breathily. “We don‟t have time…” Alone with him, I‟d want
nothing except that, except him. His body and mine, in that ancient dance. We‟d let
dinner go by, disregarded; we‟d disgrace ourselves and disappoint Grandmère,
lingering behind a locked door, rampant and indulgent and outrageous, just plain
rude…
“Yeah, we do,” he said, pulling me close again, delighted with himself. “I lied.
None of you was wearing a watch, nobody could check on me once Maurice had
gone. So oops, I misread the time; there‟s plenty. It‟s forty-five minutes till dinner.”
“Evil boy. Don‟t you want to swim?”
“Yes, I do—but I want you more. I‟ve been working all day, remember, while
you played with my friends. It‟s the only thing that kept me going, the thought of
you at the end of the day. You and me. Now, please. I‟d drag you into the changing
room and fuck you there, only someone would be sure to come in and find us. In my
room, we‟ll be safe—but we need to go now. Right now…”
So that‟s what we did. We went right then: running almost, hand in hand into
the house and through the maze of passages and stairs, until at last there was a
door closed behind us and a bed in front of us and two pairs of hands free to
untangle him from his clothes. Mine were no trouble at all except for the clingy
nature of wet swimming trunks, which in the event wasn‟t so much a trouble as an
excitement, his fingers thrusting under the grippy fabric and tugging almost hard
enough to rip. And no, neither one of us was going to worry now about getting me
properly dry. Wet was good, wet was better. I‟d be wetter soon enough.
Nor the bedclothes, we weren‟t going to worry about those either. Whatever
state we left them in. He toppled me backward onto the bed and lay on his elbows
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above me, grinning savagely. All his body sprawled over mine, and I was taking
enough of his weight to feel that unexpected strength in him, and the unlooked-for
determination. He was taking charge, and he wanted me to know it.
When a young man decides what he wants, when what he wants is me—well.
Best thing to do, maybe the only thing to do is just let it happen, see where he goes.
Where could he go, after all, what could he do to me in the half an hour that
we had, before we‟d have to dress for dinner…?
Where he went, what he did: he started at the top and worked his way down.
Worked himself hard, and me too. Sometimes when you‟re just lying there,
utterly in the grip of the moment, that‟s real hard work. Sweaty work. Work that
demands utmost effort from what seems like every separate cell in your body, never
mind every bone and muscle and sinew.
I guess your lips and tongue are muscles, more or less. Do teeth count as bone?
I don‟t know, but that‟s where he started, conventional boy. He kissed me.
I had an American boyfriend once, early on at college, who didn‟t like tongues
at all when he kissed. Just a brush of the lips, a token of affection: California kisses,
he called them. Dry and sensitive and all about the romance, really nothing to do
with sex. That set my baseline for a scale, from Californian up to English kisses—as
far as an uncertain teenager dares to go when he knows that tongues have
something to do with the project but he really isn‟t sure what exactly, and he‟s just
hoping the other guy is more experienced; there are people who spend their whole
lives kissing like that, thus far and no further—and then the classic French, the
full-on let‟s-see-if-I-can-reach-your-tonsils-this-time, which is nothing to do with
romance or affection and really just all about the sex.
And here we were in France, and here was Benet trying to eat his way inside
me, trying to entangle us so deeply he could turn us both inside out just with a tug
on our inextricably knotted tongues. It was so far beyond French, it didn‟t even
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qualify for a country of its own; this was pan-galactic kissing, alien and soul
shaking.
Alien and soul shaking and wonderful—do I need to spell that out?
My jaw was aching, before his mouth left mine.
When it did, I guess I made some garbled, inarticulate sound of protest, don’t
stop!
He answered me with a chuckle and a mean hesitation, a moment of perfect
poise where he hung on his elbows above me while the world hung utterly
motionless: holding its breath, waiting for whatever came next. Even physics, even
the rotation of the planets went on pause for that brief, eternal tick of time.
Then he took pity; he dropped his head; he closed his mouth on my throat.
Not a bite, not a kiss, not a nuzzle. I don‟t know the word for what he did to
me. I barely knew the feeling, barely recognized it from way too long ago. Back
when Tony and I were still together, when we were still really good together: when
just the touch of his hand in public was an electric tingle, when the intimate touch
of his body in private was something immense, immeasurable, disruptive on the
cellular level. He could melt me entirely, slide the flesh off my bones, reduce me to a
radiating skeleton of heat.
So it felt then, at least. Too much time had passed since he used to do that. He
lost the knack of it, or I did. Something. Something changed between us, more than
just time and familiarity. In the end sex was just sex, pleasant enough but nothing
like enough to shake me this deep. I thought it was a young man‟s experience and
I‟d just grown too old, moved on, left it behind. Nearly thirty, after all.
And now here was Benet waking that same fire in my bones again, after so
long; and maybe it was just as well that I kept remembering my early days with
Tony. It would serve as a reminder why I was never going to do that again, never
bind myself to another man. Keep it loose, keep myself free, no commitments. No
risk, no hurt.
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Well, no lasting hurt. Benet nipped at my neck and that hurt, oh yes, but in a
good way. It was sharp and local and immediate, demanding, all about desire and
need, here and now; it was deliberate and personal and a delight, even if it did
make me yell out loud. Nothing, nothing at all like the slow, dull ache of betrayal,
the bitter hurt that you wake to and live with and drag back to bed again at night,
the kind of pain that hollows you out from the inside and leaves you full of poison
and rot.
I didn‟t want to do that to myself again, nor to anyone else. Better just to enjoy
this—teeth and skin and warm, wet breath, oh God!—and then make a swift, clean
break of it, take whatever hurt came with that, move on, and not look back.
It might not be what he wanted. Hell, it wasn‟t what I wanted, right here and
right now; I just knew from savage experience that I couldn‟t bear the alternative.
Not again, not from Benet. I never wanted to see those bright eyes through a gray
fog of disappointment and loss.
Right here, though, right now his body was making demands of mine that I
could at least respond to and try to satisfy. I didn‟t have the choice, but I didn‟t
want it. This was what I wanted, entirely: to feel all my anxieties and resolutions
slide away like ice over hot, slick skin; for thought to give way before the
imperatives of touch and stretch and grip and thrust; to lose myself entirely in him.
His straying, seeking mouth found my nipple and lingered there, lips and
tongue and teeth, until he felt me kick and surge beneath him. His breathless
chuckle was something I could feel through his ribs, through his sticky skin as I
clutched at him, as he slithered farther down my body.
His mouth passed over my heart and must have felt its pounding.
Passed over my belly, stopping to taste, stopping to tease, nuzzling at my
navel.
Passed on down to where my cock was rigid and straining, urgent for him. He
was still inclined to tease, lipping up and down the length of it, mouthing at where
my balls were tight in their sac; but now I was suddenly taking charge, because I
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had to. Gripping his head in both hands, drawing his mouth up to where my poor
blind cock could find it, could burrow its way into the dark, wet warmth of it, the
welcoming tongue, the suck and gasp and—
And I arched beneath him as I came, as fire flooded from my body into his, and
it felt like I was being drained to the very bones of me. His hands clenched on my
butt, and his body spasmed in response; and then we both just lay there, airless and
emptied, sodden with sweat.
I stroked his damp hair, where his head lay pillowed on my belly. At last he
lifted up and said, “We should…we should, y‟know. Shower, change. We‟ll be late
else, and Grandmère hates that.”
It was an effort even to move, even to think about moving. But we dragged
each other up off the bed and through to the bathroom. Sometimes it‟s easier when
there are two of you, when you can each take responsibility for the other. When you
can soap and shower him and not have to worry about yourself, because you know
that he‟ll see to that on your behalf. When—
Sometimes it‟s not so easy, when you catch each other‟s eye through the steam
and suddenly collapse into helpless giggles, and all the strength leaves your legs
and you slide down the tiled wall and he has to try to drag you up again, though
he‟s laughing just as hard himself and neither one of you truly knows what he‟s
laughing at.
But we hung on to each other and dried each other and dressed each other
after, and were hardly late at all; at least, not as late as Juliette and Luc, who came
sidling in to the dinner table after the rest of us had all sat down. They were damp
and blushing and muttering apologies, while we were just grateful; their absence
had pretty much taken the heat off us. Juliette scowled ferociously across the table
at Benet, trying to make him understand in dumb show how it was all his fault. His
false alarm over the time must have sent her scurrying to her room, where her
arriving boyfriend would have shown her the truth of it, how much time they really
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had, how there wasn‟t actually any hurry at all. After that, no doubt nature had
taken its course, and they‟d genuinely lost track of time in their tender exploration
of each other. They seemed very young and rather sweet together. I hoped they‟d
never need to learn my kind of bitter lesson, or acquire the cynical armor that I
wore in self-protection.
I was hoping against hope, I thought—but I hoped it anyway. They were cute
kids, and maybe it would work for them. Maybe the dream would last.
Me, I was long past dreaming. One day at a time, though, real life was being
good to me. I reminded myself once more not to build anything on it, to hold myself
ready to walk away; and then I reminded myself to enjoy it while it lasted, to stop
dwelling in the too-grim future. To hold Benet‟s hand and gather a rosebud or two,
to have something good to take with me when I went. Something to remember.
Then Juliette said something utterly outrageous, and both of her brothers
tried to squash her at once while her mother looked appalled and her father winced
and everyone had half an eye on Grandmère, but I happened to be the one the old
lady was talking to at the time, so I‟m the only one who saw the sudden twinkle in
her eye before she came over all censorious. I didn‟t say a word—certainly not to
poor blushing Juliette—but I suddenly felt, well, not family exactly, but adopted,
welcomed for Benet‟s sake. Benet, of course, had been welcomed for his own sake;
but it was massively generous of them to be so openhearted to a casual partner.
Mind, there was a price to be paid, sitting next to Grandmère. At the other end
of the long table, Matthieu and Charlie were telling Matt‟s uncle and aunt all about
their trip—or all about the business side at least, maybe edited highlights of the
rest. I was fairly sure those two had found some trouble they wouldn‟t want to tell
their elders about.
In the middle of the table, Paul and Henri were being merciless to Juliette,
who sought refuge in Luc‟s shoulder every now and then but mostly gave as good as
she got. I picked up snatches of that, would have liked to have shared the whole
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conversation—but I couldn‟t, because I was at this end of the table, being
interrogated by Grandmère.
She was, actually, fabulous. And she was, actually, terrifying. And I was
secretly delighted that Benet‟s adoptive family would take such good care of him,
and secretly anxious that I wouldn‟t come up to scratch. And I struggled to
remember it didn‟t matter if I failed the test, because I wasn‟t planning on being a
fixture, so I didn‟t need to impress anybody. Sometimes I nearly—nearly!—said that
exact thing to Grandmère, just to take the pressure off. Just, never quite, because I
really didn‟t want to disappoint her.
She asked about my work, my family, my life. I didn‟t tell her everything—
very little indeed about Tony; like the boys at the other end of the table, I was
practicing edited highlights—though I‟m fairly sure she divined a lot more than I
actually said, and I did say quite a lot. Rather more than I meant to, maybe. She
was ruthless and the wine was seductive, and Benet was no help at all, just
beaming at me across the table and playing footsie underneath. Saying nothing,
sheltering me not at all, giving me no protection. His evil, contented smile said I
went through this, when I first came here. Charlie too, when he linked up with Matt.
Your turn now.
Blessedly, Grandmère seemed to be satisfied more or less. I felt as though I‟d
been tested and approved, found suitable for adoption. It was just a shame that I
wasn‟t applying. I liked these people more and more, and not least because they had
so very obviously taken Benet into their hearts. Their kindness to me was generous
and welcome; the place they‟d made for him touched me somehow more deeply, as if
it could matter more…
Whoops. That was boyfriend thinking again, and I was not going to go there.
Was not.
No. I was going to sit quiet and enjoy myself, go wherever this unexpected
adventure led me, be the nice, polite English doctor that I actually was, and be
grateful. And be wise, not try to carry anything away except a few happy, easy
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memories. No promises, no commitments. Certainly no adopted families. Nothing
that was Benet‟s. He might be willing to share, but I was not. That way lay trouble:
unspoken assumptions, lives entangled where they should have been kept apart.
Eventually I managed to break through Grandmère‟s barrage of questions by
slipping in one of my own about the dinner, how she‟d cooked the duck. That was
the way to her heart, apparently; she gave me a thin, approving smile, and we
talked about food from then until Maurice fetched the brandy. Then we talked
about brandy until Benet rescued me, his hand in mine and a swift apology for
taking me away, a determined tug leading me out onto the terrace.
The others had gone this way before us. I figured there was probably a
gathering of the younger generation somewhere in the garden under the stars, and
we were invited to join in.
Maybe there was, and maybe we were; but Benet took me round the side of the
house to a back door and a servants‟ stair, bare, narrow treads and peeling
whitewash.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“Bed,” he said bluntly.
“Oh.” I didn‟t feel at all tired. I gathered that was rather the point. Just for a
moment, my heart pined for what I thought we were missing, a last drink and quiet
conversation by moonlight, maybe a midnight swim, skinny dipping for anyone who
felt bold enough…
But his fingers tightened against my palm, and I couldn‟t tell if our grip was
slick suddenly with his sweat or with mine.
And we came by devious back ways to his room, and here we were again,
ripping all our clothes off in a hell of a hurry and leaving them strewn across the
floor.
Here was I again, looking to him again to see what he wanted, feeling curious
and excited and alive. First time in months. No—first time in years…
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For a few minutes we just frolicked together, kissing and touching, learning a
little more about each other‟s bodies and how they responded, what they responded
to. Then he said, “Roll over. I only did your front, before.”
And he reached across me for a little pot on the nightstand and began to oil up
his hands.
I rolled over.
In the morning, we went to Arles, as arranged by Juliette. As ordered, really.
Matthieu and Charlie were jet-lagged—as predicted, pretty much as ordered—but
they came anyway.
“It‟s just easier,” Charlie said, shrugging amiably as Juliette strutted about
organizing who was driving, who was going in which car, who knew the better way
to go. “If we‟re just going to groan and mumble at each other anyway, we might as
well do it somewhere nice.”
I thought it was quite nice here, actually, but I didn‟t want to argue him out of
coming. The more the merrier, on an expedition like this. Which reminded me:
“Don‟t you have to work?” I asked Benet, almost accusingly.
“This is work,” he said. “Matt gets crabby when he‟s jet-lagged, so someone has
to keep him out of Maurice‟s hair. That‟s my job, every time they come back from a
trip.”
Matthieu heard that, as he was clearly meant to, and glanced over and nodded
seriously. “It‟s quite true, Jeff. It‟s what we pay him for.”
I grinned and asked another question. “Will Grandmère come too?”
“No, she won‟t,” Juliette said, “which is a good thing, because we don‟t have a
seat for her. But she would love it if you invited her. Go on, go…”
So I did that; I went back into the house and asked Grandmère to come with
us. And was firmly and scoldingly rejected, in that scathing tone of voice that
confirmed that her granddaughter was right: she was utterly delighted to be asked.
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She sent me away with a flea in my ear—how could I imagine that she‟d have time
to fritter all the day away, she who had so very much to do, all this great house to
look after and all the family to feed? And why in the world would she want to spend
her day with a gaggle of foolish children, even if she could afford it?—but she added
a basket of fresh pastries, to see us through till lunchtime.
In Arles, there were Roman ruins, as advertised, and also sunshine and high
dark medieval alleyways and cafés that Van Gogh had painted and like that. All the
tourist-type history that a person on holiday could want. If he‟d only remembered
his camera, and if he didn‟t have a bewitchingly pretty young man at his side,
constantly distracting him with just a touch or a whispered word, anything to make
him turn his head.
Or less than that, even. We stood in the great half circle of the ancient theater
and he didn‟t speak, I don‟t think he even moved, but I still turned my head.
“What?” he said, amused.
“I could feel you looking at me.” The weight of his gaze, the heat of it. “What
are you thinking?”
“You know what I‟m thinking.”
Yes, of course I did. In a way it was nothing but relief that we could both be so
physical, like two stags in the rut, keeping it all about the body. In another way, it
was a wild frustration. “Well, stop thinking it. You‟ll just have to wait till we get
home. I‟m not sneaking off into the toilets with you.”
“God, no. But—well, look. Charlie and Matthieu are nicely settled at the
restaurant. They‟re not hungry, they‟ve got pastis, so they‟ll keep the table as long
as they need to, until we turn up. Juliette and Luc want to be kids—they want to
hold hands and lick ice creams and get all serious together without us old folk
mocking them. And you see that path there, that goes into the woods behind the
theater? Well, that leads to a tunnel that the old Romans used to come through
from town…”
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“I know it does, I read the signs. And you see that sign there? That one says
that the tunnel is closed for repairs. That‟s why the path is all roped off. Your
French is better than mine; you know what it says…”
“Yes, I do. I also know what the time is. All good French people are at lunch
already, including all the men working on the tunnel. All good tourists will keep
away because the signs tell them to. Long dark tunnel, Jeff. You and me, and
nobody to watch us except the ghosts. Come on, we don‟t even need to step over the
rope where anyone can see. We can sneak through the trees…”
An electric shiver ran through me as he stroked the soft skin of my wrist, just
where my pulse beat hard beneath.
“Benet, we can‟t!”
“Yeah, we can. Trust me.”
The crazy thing was that I did trust him, for everything except the one big
thing, letting me walk away when this was over. Making it easy for me, walking
away himself. I didn‟t trust him to do that. I‟d just have to depend on my own
strength when the day came, leave him standing, shake him off if he tried to come
after me.
But that was still for the future, even if it came nearer every day; I didn‟t need
to worry yet. Here and now, one day at a time, my new mantra. I looked at him,
looked at the pathway where it squeezed between old walls of stone and the
seclusion of the trees—and reached out, claimed his hand, led him where he wanted
me to go.
I‟d never had sex in a public space before. All right, it wasn‟t rampant, full-on,
naked fucking. I only gave him a blowjob, deep in the shadows of that cool stone
tunnel; but still, there I was down on my knees with his lovely cock in my mouth,
and we could have been disturbed at any moment. Workers returning from an early
lunch, tourists astray who hadn‟t read the signs, kids exploring forbidden territory,
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another couple looking for exactly what we‟d found—anyone might have come to
catch us at it.
That risk, just the chance of some stranger‟s outrage added a frisson, a little
kick of secret glee in my heart. Benet must have surely felt the same; I could sense
it in him, a breathless excitement that was more than hands and mouths and the
urgency of sex, more than bodies altogether. He was giggling as he came. Afterward
he pulled me to my feet and kissed me, and it wasn‟t only the taste of his cum in my
mouth that we shared; it was that adolescent taste of wickedness, the thrill of
breaking rules and defying convention. Not getting caught was almost a
disappointment.
Almost.
The kids were too young and too wrapped up in each other to notice anything,
when we found them again in the shade of the museum garden. Charlie or Matthieu
might have been quicker, but by the time we joined them under a restaurant
awning, the moment had passed. Benet‟s flush might easily be blamed on the high,
hot sun, and my own sweat-sticky skin likewise. If they noticed how we constantly
caught each other‟s eye, how one or the other of us would suddenly grin for no
reason, how we were frankly behaving like teenagers in love—well, no doubt they‟d
jump to their own conclusions. And be a little surprised, perhaps a little
disappointed when I vanished back to England next week with no follow-up, no
ongoing romance.
Food and wine, sun and easy friendships, Benet‟s leg nudging me every now
and then beneath the table; I was warm and relaxed and happy, in a mood to relish
these unexpected days. I‟d come on holiday with a kind of grim determination,
looking for nothing beyond what I brought with me, books and solitude. Benet had
surprised me utterly, confounding my few expectations, bringing me physical
delight and more, all the pleasures of good company. And now introducing me to his
adoptive clan, this family that had embraced him and was apparently happy to
embrace me too.
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I may have sighed, a little. I may have looked entirely blissed-out. I saw
Charlie nudge Matthieu, and I was fairly sure they were laughing at me. No matter.
I couldn‟t remember the last time I felt this good; being teased wasn‟t going to touch
my deep contentment. It couldn‟t last, of course. Nothing lasts. But I rehearsed my
new mantra in the privacy of my head—one day at a time, here and now, enjoy what
you’ve got—and found it plenty good enough for me, for now.
“Hey. What are you smiling at?”
You, mostly—but aloud I said, “Oh, nothing.”
“What nothing?” he insisted. “What are you thinking?”
It was something I‟d almost forgotten these last months: that urge to share
even stray thoughts, to grant someone else deep access to what went on inside my
head. Longer than months, perhaps. It was obvious that I hadn‟t had access to
Tony‟s true thoughts for a long time; that might have been mutual. I did think
perhaps I‟d been shutting him out of my own head too, even if that was mostly
unconscious. I was almost surprised now to hear myself say, “Sufficient unto the
day is the Benet thereof. If you must know.”
“Oh, yes,” he said softly. “I think I must know that. I think it‟s important.”
I would have gone on to spell out just what it meant to me, perhaps: how this
brief idyll was recharging me, how I‟d be going home so much lighter of heart. How
incredibly glad I was to have met him and had these few days in his company. Even
how grateful I was, though gratitude is a difficult emotion to confess, especially
with someone who‟s sharing your bed. I might have done it even so, if Juliette
hadn‟t interrupted from the other end of the table. Not that she‟d been listening in.
She was too far away to overhear; she just wanted to get her own plans sorted. Her
own plans for us, of course, as well as herself.
“Tomorrow, then, what shall we do? And the day after?” Absolutely no good at
living in the moment, our Juliette. She wanted more than that; she wanted it all. I
wanted to say settle for what you’ve got, here and now, this is good enough for
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anyone—but you can‟t teach wisdom to kids, and you can‟t stop them grabbing for
more. They have to learn by experience.
It was Benet who said, “Juliette, sweetheart, I have to work tomorrow. And the
day after. You know that; you drew up my schedule.”
She shrugged, magnificently heedless. “I can change it. You should be with
Jeff,” meaning the two of you should be with me, it’s more fun that way.
“Honey, I can‟t. All those tourists showing up, wanting tastings; someone has
to show them round and make the place look busy. And you know you don‟t want to
do it.”
“No, but—”
“It‟s my job, Juliette. You don‟t have to keep your dad happy, but I do.”
“But then who is to keep Jeff happy, while you are working? I suppose I will
have to do it myself.” She gave another complicated shrug at this so-terrible burden.
“Do you ride horses, Jeff?”
“No,” I said quickly. “No, I don‟t. And I can‟t batten on your family‟s hospitality
any longer. I have my own gîte I should be—”
An airy wave dismissed my gîte; a frown chased after it. “Batten? What is
batten? I do not like this word.”
“It means to take advantage,” Matthieu said, “to grow idle and fat on someone
else‟s labor.”
“Pfui! That is nonsense. He is our guest.”
“Of course, and very welcome. But we have to allow guests to leave, as well as
arrive. If Jeff wants to go back to his own place, we must let him.”
“But then how will he see Benet?”
“I am sure they can work out something. It is really their business, chérie.”
She snorted, not at all happy. I was suddenly not so happy myself, realizing I‟d
argued myself into leaving, which meant calling an abrupt end to my idyll. It had to
happen, of course, I was still resolved on that—but not yet, surely? Not quite yet…
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One day at a time. And I did have to go back to the château that day, because
my car was there; and besides, Grandmère was expecting me for dinner. One more
night, then. Live in the moment, and never mind tomorrow…
Tomorrow dawned, of course, as tomorrows always do. Now it was here, I
found that I did mind, very much. Benet stretched luxuriously in the bed beside me,
ran his fingers down over my ribs, and murmured, “Do you really have to go today?”
“I think I do. I can‟t just hang around here, getting under people‟s feet. Do you
really have to work?”
“I‟m afraid I do, yes. I can‟t batten either; I‟m no good at battening.” Juliette‟s
confusion had made it our word of the moment, apparently. “But I‟ll be done by five.
Grandmère would love to have you for dinner again.”
“No, Benet. Really not.”
“No,” he agreed, sighing. “I suppose not. But—oh, fuck it, Jeff. I don‟t want to
say good-bye.”
“Nor do I.” That was a confession, to myself as much as him. Entirely true and
entirely unwelcome, at least to me. “It has to happen sometime, though.”
“Yes, of course—but not yet. Not yet.” There was a stubborn flare in his voice
that made my heart sing. Though I told myself that it was only relief: “of course,”
he‟d said, accepting the obvious, that this was just a passing affair doomed to an
early closure. With the two of us in different countries, that was obvious anyway,
but I decided that he was as sold as I was on a quick end and no commitment.
Perhaps he‟d learned my lesson—that trust is always open to betrayal, and
promises are to break. Or else he‟d just seen how damaged I was inside, and had
resolved not to make things worse for me. Not to put any more pressure on what
was broken already.
Either way, if he‟d accepted the inevitability of that last good-bye, then
perhaps I needn‟t be so ruthless about making it happen right here, right now. Even
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so, “I do need to get back,” I said gently. “My turn to want clean clothes, for one
thing.”
“I can lend…”
“You‟ll have to. I plan to raid your knicker drawer, as soon as we get up. But I
need my own stuff, Benet.”
“Yes, of course,” he said again, resigned. “And your own space, I expect.”
“That too.” Not that the gîte was mine in any lasting sense; but for this
fortnight it was. Bought and paid for, and I could use it as I liked, pad around butt
naked if I chose to, unobserved and unworried. The château here was amazing, and
its people were delightful, but I was very aware of being in someone else‟s home.
Not truly even a guest of the family; the guest of a guest, rather, tolerated for
Benet‟s sake. They went out of their way to make me feel welcome, and I valued
that—especially as it said how very welcome Benet was, that they would go this far
to make him happy—and even so. I was feeling an increasing need to close my own
door on the world.
Even if that meant putting Benet on the wrong side of the door.
Two birds with one stone, then. Get back to my own space, get my head
together, put a definite end to this frenzy of pleasure.
His face dropped a little at my firm agreement, but that was okay, actually.
Even if his disappointment was like an arrow in my heart. I‟d get over that, and so
would he. The sooner he felt it, the sooner he‟d be over it. Deal with it now, and get
it done.
I was really working hard to convince myself that it was all for his own good
really.
I reckoned I had no hope of convincing him, but he might come to see it that
way later. With any luck.
No, not luck: with the clear sight of retrospect, it should be obvious. He was a
smart guy; he‟d figure it out.
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I hoped.
For now, well. We shared a shower, but not with much fooling, not with any
sex at all. It was just practical and affectionate, a fond farewell to a well-fucked
body. If I stood awhile with his balls cupped in my hand, it was only to learn the
shape and weight of them a little more definitively, to be a little more sure of
carrying their sweet memory with me into the future. No more than that.
Never mind that I knew them well enough already, that the touch of them was
coded into my DNA, that I would know them in the dark from a thousand others.
Never mind any of that: he didn‟t need to know, and I didn‟t need to say. I didn‟t
even need to tell it to myself, so long as I could pretend convincingly. Hey, just one
last lingering memory, you wouldn’t begrudge me that…
And then there was breakfast, under Grandmère‟s eye, and we pretty much
had to behave ourselves: no touching, no tears.
And then there was good-bye, the classic scene in the courtyard: me dressed
secretly in his underwear and too many people standing about, wanting to say good-
bye on their own accounts, spoiling our last moment together. We kissed; we
hugged; we were terribly brave and English and stiff-upper-lip about it all.
I got in the car and drove away.
Drove slowly back to the gîte, more or less feeling my way through the
countryside. Looking at a map would have been quicker, but there wasn‟t any hurry
now. This journey was all about the leaving, not going toward anything. I‟d done
what I promised myself I would do, one quick, clean break and put the boy behind
me; in my head, I guess I was waiting for the relief to hit.
Waiting for it, searching for it. Wanting to think well, that was fun while it
lasted, but it’s over now and just as well…
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Finding only loss, regret, a hollowness at the heart. None of the bitterness that
had filled me when Tony left, that I still carried like a brand in the soul, that served
to remind me even now that I was doing the right thing here. For both our sakes,
and however much it hurt.
We weren‟t Matthieu and Charlie, caught up in a love affair that was all too
clearly real and abiding. I used to think I was lucky like that, but I wouldn‟t be
fooled again. And we weren‟t Juliette and Luc either, young and hopeful with our
eyes full of stars. Stars and each other.
Even if we had acted that way sometimes, Benet and I were old enough to
know better, to be wiser. To know when to step back, to call it quits, not to leap off
the cliff hand in hand and full of dreams.
It ought to be a relief. Surely, it ought…?
At the gîte at last, I tried to settle. I should be grateful to be alone again. I‟d
always enjoyed my own company; if it wasn‟t forced on me by circumstance, I‟d often
seek it out. Even living with Tony, I‟d been glad enough to have an evening to
myself when he was out with his mates. Or to have the bed to myself, those nights
he was working; or those—increasingly common—nights he phoned to say that he
was drunk or deep into some complicated game on his friend‟s computer and
wouldn‟t make it home.
Those nights I was sleeping alone and he wasn‟t, as it turned out.
I liked my own space, and I liked solitude; if that hadn‟t been true, I would
never have come on holiday by myself. And I‟d been way overexposed to other
people these last few days, between Benet and all his winemaking clan. Oh, they
were lovely people, kind and welcoming, interesting to talk to; Benet himself had
been a joy and a revelation. And yet, and yet: I should be glad to set them all behind
me, to catch my breath, to close my door and be alone awhile.
And yet, and yet.
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I was suddenly restless and unsettled, uncertain; I felt lost in this little house,
the way I never had in the Romaines‟ grand château. I kept startling at Benet‟s
absence, listening for his voice or his footsteps on the stairs, expecting to catch him
in the corner of my eye. It was only habit, after a few days of being permanently at
his side. Of course it was. I tried to break it half a dozen different ways, but nothing
worked.
I had a shower and couldn‟t stop remembering the touch of his hands soaping
my back, soaping my butt, his slippery fingers probing between my cheeks.
I got dressed and remembered his hands dressing me, fooling with me, slipping
inside my clothes, undressing me again.
I picked up a book and couldn‟t read it.
I went for a walk and his shadow strode beside me, step by step; I couldn‟t get
him out of my head.
I paced the house, I muttered, I thought about getting very drunk indeed—and
in the end I flung myself into the car again and drove all the way back to the
château.
Family and friends park in the yard behind the house. There are no signs to
point you that way; you know it or you don‟t. If you don‟t, you follow the signs
meant for holidaymakers and tour buses, which will lead you round to a gravel car
park at the front.
I went that way. Uninvited, unlooked-for, I felt like a stranger where I had
been so welcome before; unaccountably shy, I parked among the day-trippers and
stayed in my car while families and couples and groups came and went, in and out
of the reception area for tours and tastings and the chance to buy bottles and cases
of wine, corkscrews and caps and all kinds of souvenirs of their day.
I knew the routine now; I‟d seen it from the other side. And I knew that
Juliette and Benet were sharing tour duty today, and I knew that when they had a
full coach party to show around, protocol always brought them out into the car park
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to say good-bye. So I stayed hunkered down in my rental car while Juliette came
and went, confident that she‟d never notice; and then I waited breathless while
Benet came out, while he lingered chatting to the tour leader and the driver, while
he cast one long glance out across the valley, while he turned to go—reluctantly,
despondently, I thought—back inside…
While he checked and turned and looked again.
And this time saw me and was sure.
And stood quite still, hesitant, not quite daring to move, not quite certain that
he wanted to: so it was up to me, as it ought to be, to open the car door and come out
and walk over to him.
I could see uncertainty in him, and confusion, and also a rising happiness; he
couldn‟t keep the smile down as he said, “Um. Hullo?”
“Hi,” I said. And then, “Sorry,” which was almost meaningless; even I didn‟t
know what I was apologizing for, exactly. For being myself, most likely. And then,
“Can you come out tonight?”
“Yes,” he said too quickly and caught himself, and thought about it and said,
“Yes, of course. But why don‟t you come in?”
“No. No battening, not tonight.” And no family either; no curiosity, no
assumptions, no eyes on us. “I‟ll take you out to dinner somewhere, just the two of
us.”
“Okay. Give me ten minutes, let me change?”
“Of course. I‟ll be in the car.”
“You could at least go in and say hullo.”
“Benet, if I go in there, I‟ll never get away. You know that. They wouldn‟t let
us go. Juliette would be all over us with her questions: where did I go, why did I
come back; and before I knew it I‟d be in the pool, and then we‟d be trapped for the
night.”
“It doesn‟t feel so much like being trapped to me.”
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“Me neither. That‟s why it‟s so dangerous. You come with me instead.”
“Of course. I said I would. Should I bring my toothbrush?”
“Oh yes,” I said. “Definitely, you should bring your toothbrush.”
We stopped for dinner at a restaurant somewhere halfway between the
château and the gîte. To be honest, I really wasn‟t paying attention: not to the drive
except for the simple mechanics of it, not to the scenery or the towns we passed
through, not to the food on my plate. I was focused entirely on the young man in the
seat beside me, or now the other side of the table. How candlelight touched his hair,
how the skin around his eyes crinkled when he smiled, how he gestured with his
cutlery as he talked.
How he made me feel as young as he was. Younger. Full of joys and doubts,
and helpless in their grip.
How he frowned, trying to understand me as he listened, as I tried to explain.
“It‟s not that I don‟t trust you,” I said helplessly. “It‟s the situation, the
promises… I don‟t believe in promises, not anymore. If Tony and I could go that
sour, then anything can. And I don‟t believe in long-distance relationships, either.
Tony and I couldn‟t keep it together when we were living in the same house. He said
I was never there, but—well, you and me, neither of us would ever be there for the
other. Two different countries, it‟s impossible…”
He had an odd little smile on his face as I finished. He gave his head an odd
little shake; he said, “You know, I‟ve always heard doctors were arrogant, but I
never really understood till now.”
“What? I just—”
“What you‟re saying, Jeff dear, is that there‟s no point my falling in love with
you, because all you want is a fuckfest, and when we‟re done you‟ll just waltz off
back to England and leave me with a broken heart if I‟ve been silly enough to let
that happen. That‟s it, isn‟t it?”
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I flinched from that bald exposé, which was almost cruel in its revelation of my
character; but I couldn‟t really argue with it. At heart, yes, that was what I was
saying. What I wanted, except:
“I don‟t want to break your heart,” I said, as earnestly as I could. “I‟m just
saying, be careful, because—”
“Trust me, Jeff,” he said, “my heart is in no danger. That‟s the arrogance, the
way you assume that I must be doing what you‟re far too self-controlled to do
yourself. Maybe a fuckfest is all I want too. Did you think of that? Speaking of
which”—draining his lonely glass of wine, which I‟d bought him to soften the blow
because no one should have to take such news on water—“why don‟t we settle up
here and get in the car, go back to your sweet little gîte, and get started?”
So we did that, wholeheartedly. Heart-free. We only had a few days left before
the inevitable end, my return flight, and a fond farewell. Now that I‟d cleared the
air, now that we both understood that really would be the end, I felt my anxieties
just slide away. I could enjoy Benet again for what he was, open and willing and a
joy to be with; if he was openly laughing at me now, if arrogant joined battening in
our private vocabulary, no matter. He was right, of course; it had been sheer
arrogance to assume that he was more involved than I was, or in any danger of it.
He might not be carrying my own bitter history or anything like it, but that didn‟t
mean he was any more liable to fall in love with a man he was casually sleeping
with.
Or not so casually, actually quite intensely, but still: it was a brief and joyful
fling, we were both quite clear on that now, and I could relax. I could sweat and
grunt with him, we could fuck each other to exhaustion and fall asleep in each
other‟s arms and wake weary in the morning to do it all again, and I didn‟t need to
worry.
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I could drive him all the way back to the château, and we could talk all the
way about his life and mine, his family and mine, we could share secrets like lovers
do, and I still didn‟t need to worry.
I could even talk about Tony and the way he had left me, the condition he had
left me in. I could do that and find that talking soothed my soul, at least a little. I
hadn‟t really unburdened myself to anyone before this. Well, except my mother, who
didn‟t count. She‟s the best person on the planet, my mother, and she understands
me better than anyone ever has—but there are some things she will never say to
me, and some things I will never, ever say to her.
Apparently I could say them all to Benet, as I drove.
When we reached the château, I was hijacked.
Mobile phones generally have a lot to answer for. So does Benet, specifically
and individually.
He‟d obviously been busy making calls behind my back. Of course I drove him
to the stable yard, and of course they were waiting for me.
It was a conspiracy that embraced generations. As soon as I parked up, I heard
the clatter of hooves, and there was Juliette, mounted and helmeted like a guard,
standing her horse foursquare in the gateway so that I couldn‟t just drop Benet and
scoot away again.
And there was Grandmère appearing in the kitchen doorway, beckoning
imperiously, offering no choice at all.
Kitchen breakfast was a family tradition. Grandmère presided; people came
and lingered and went as their various duties and appointments demanded, but
everybody came. Charlie and Matthieu still had jet lag in their bones, allegedly.
They were at the one-more-cup-of-coffee stage, picking crumbs from their empty
plates and moaning gently about how long they‟d been awake already; but in reality
I thought they were there for me, part of the conspiracy, bait in the trap. Charlie
slid a coffee down the table, Matt passed me a croissant, and here came Juliette still
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in her jodhpurs and boots, apparently starving hungry after an early ride so that
she just had to sit beside me, demanding pastries and full of plans. “It is ridiculous,
Jeff, that you don‟t know how to ride a horse, a man your age. It is the greatest
pleasure. I will take you and teach you, after breakfast. We have the perfect horse,
he is big enough for you but totally a gentleman, he will give you no trouble at all,
and—”
“Whoa,” I said, finally managing to cut across her, “wait up. Who says I‟m
staying? I just brought Benet in for work—”
“Pfui,” she said, or something like it. “Of course you are staying. You have
driven all this way; it would be very bad manners of us to let you drive away again.
And very bad manners of you not to stay for lunch, when Grandmère invites you.”
“Um, she hasn‟t…” But one glance down the table showed me Grandmère‟s
glower, her evident outrage at the very thought that I might slip away unlunched.
“And then,” Juliette went on blithely, “you will need to stay for dinner, because
Maman and Papa would be disappointed not to see you, and my ridiculous brothers
too; and then you will need to stay the night, because Benet would be very
disappointed if you left then, after he has not seen you all day, and—”
“Enough,” I said, “enough!” Remembering that everything was sorted between
Benet and me, that I didn‟t have to worry anymore. Deciding that I really didn‟t
want to hear her spell out—in front of Grandmère, yet!—all the reasons why Benet
would be disappointed if I didn‟t stay. “All right already, I‟ll stay. I‟ll even sit on a
horse if I have to, if you‟ll promise to just stop and take a breath every now and then
before you start talking again.”
She pulled a rude face at me and giggled like a kid. I turned magnificently the
other way, to find Benet looking almost unbearably smug at what he‟d achieved.
“Oh, such trouble you are in,” I assured him, sotto voce. “Laying an ambush for
me, forsooth. You are going to be so sorry, once I get you alone.”
He just beamed at me. “Oh, good. That‟ll be tonight. Did you bring your
toothbrush?”
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Actually no, but he had. He‟d packed a sneaky bag for me, behind my back.
And carried it for me up to his room, unpacked it for me, laid my things in among
his—and then disappeared, went off to do his job, left me among his stuff with all
that awareness of him and no actual Benet.
I‟m fairly sure that was deliberate too. Part tease, part punishment: designed
to keep me thinking of him, wanting him all day long.
Guaranteed to work, that too.
Juliette was my best distraction that morning. She dressed me in her brothers‟
cast-off riding gear, then paraded me about the estate on what I gathered was her
brothers‟ cast-off hack, a heavy old boy who might have been a fit ride for teenagers
back in his own teens and was certainly fit for a novice now that he was portly and
elderly and not in any hurry to go anywhere.
She rode properly, and we ambled in her wake; she was alternately amused
and frustrated, which amused me, which only added to her frustration.
I was frustrated myself, but more intimately. Of course having a big hot live
creature breathing and swaying between my legs made me think constantly of
Benet, in the best and worst way; I yearned to be wrapping my thighs around him
instead. In the back of my mind I could feel the clock ticking away our time
together. And never mind that this time was all bonus, that I‟d tried and failed to
call a halt yesterday. That only made me more aware that this bonus time was
finite and that we were wasting so much of it while he worked and I just frittered
with his friends…
His friends knew, I think, and did their best. After we made it back to the
stables, all four of us still together and in one piece each, I had an hour‟s lesson in
grooming horses and cleaning tack. There was barely time then for a quick shower
and change before lunch. Where there was Benet, of course. And a tableful of others,
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but I didn‟t really notice and they pretty much let us be. We were shockingly rude, I
guess, talking only to each other in a soft and private murmur; on the other hand,
we were thoroughly well behaved, at least insofar as we kept our hands strictly to
ourselves. With Grandmère at the head of the table, we wouldn‟t dare do anything
else. I might want to pull him into my lap and slip my fingers in under the
waistband of his smart work suit, but I could live with the wanting. Just about.
And then time had passed and he was gone again, and I had the afternoon to
fill. I tried to do the dishes, but Grandmère wouldn‟t allow it; indeed, she chased me
out of the kitchen at the very suggestion.
Charlie rescued me, tucking his arm through mine and dragging me along as
he walked Matthieu through to the office, where apparently Matt had to buckle
down but Charlie didn‟t. Charlie, apparently, could spend his afternoon with me:
first showing me around various undisclosed corners of the house, then driving me
down to the town at the end of the valley. He said he needed to shop, but that
mostly seemed to mean wandering the narrow alleys, stopping here for a coffee and
there for a box of crystallized fruits to take home for Grandmère. Still showing me
around, I thought, encouraging me to sample the local specialities and get a taste of
untouristy life in the region.
Also talking. He did talk a lot about the challenges and the fun of being an
Englishman in France and having a boyfriend who lived here. And the challenges
and fun of a long-distance relationship, that too: how they made it work when
Charlie was traveling and Matt had to stay at home, how they kept things going.
In the end, I did have to say, “Um, Charlie? You do know that Benet and I
aren‟t planning to keep this going, after the weekend?”
He stopped, stared at me. “You‟re not?”
“No. Really, there‟s no point. We‟re too far apart, our lives are too different…”
“Matt and I had the same problem, but probably more exaggerated. He was a
homebody; I was a rover. We found a way to make it work.”
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“Even so. Charlie, I really don‟t do relationships. Benet knows this, I‟ve
explained, we‟ve talked it through…”
“So explain to me?” he said. “It all sounds kind of familiar, to be honest; I never
thought I could settle anywhere. I got over it. Decided Matt was worth it in the end,
so we found a way. So could you and Benet, for crying out loud. He‟s only here for a
year, you know. Tho‟ we‟d like to have him back, as often as possible. Hell, we‟d like
to have you both. You‟re a serious hit with Grandmère. Or you will be, so long as
you don‟t muck around with Benet‟s heart. He‟s her pet.”
“I am leaving his heart strictly alone. We agreed on that.”
“Ah, right. And it‟s that easy, is it? You agree—or you decree, maybe, and
Benet just accepts it—and that‟s that, everybody‟s safe, nobody gets their heart
broken?”
“Yes,” I said stubbornly. “Though it wasn‟t like that, not my decree,” even if it
had started out that way. “Benet was the one who called me arrogant for assuming
he might fall in love. For worrying about that. It‟s just a fling, that‟s all. For both of
us.”
“Uh-huh. That‟ll be why Benet‟s every conversation these days starts with „Jeff
says this‟ and „Jeff does that‟…”
Charlie was exaggerating, of course. Or if I really was that much on Benet‟s
mind, it could only be because we were having what he called a fuckfest, this brief
physical indulgence. For sure he was all the time on my mind, and it was for that
exact reason, the sweet access of his body: all-consuming, a fire that burned all the
hotter because it would be extinguished all too soon.
Hotter too because the mind, the personality, the boy himself was both sweet
and sharp, a delight to be with—but that only made him sexier. It was still and only
and all about the sex. Desire and satisfaction, not to be confused with love or
romance or anything complicated beyond the moment.
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Back at the château by early evening, I determinedly didn‟t ask if Benet was
still working. I knew the routine by now: trunks and towel, I could swim the time
away until he found me.
Which I did, and he did; and this time he swam too. We had half an hour
playing together in the sunlight, in and out of the pool, his sleek golden body
tangling with mine in ways that might have gotten us arrested in a more public
place, except that a scrap of fabric and a whole lot of water traditionally made them
legal if not exactly decent. Someone did call “No heavy petting!” from the side, but I
ignored him till I happened to be swimming that way; then I reached an arm up,
snared Charlie‟s ankle, and tugged him in.
Then it was warfare, all of us doing our best to drown each other until more
sober voices called us out: “You children, you‟ve only got ten minutes to get dressed
and dry for dinner. Hurry!”
This time it was true. We made it, just—but only at the cost of intense
frustration, at least on my part, watching Benet towel himself off and not having
the chance, not having the time to do it for him. Not daring to help, not even
offering, because we both knew where that would lead.
As soon as we could after dinner, we made our excuses and slipped away. Good
coffee and better brandy would normally have been enough to keep me in company,
never mind the conversation—but this night we were both of us too eager for each
other.
No one quite threw catcalls at us as we headed for the door, but it was a near
thing. Mocking eyes watched us all the way. The mockery was affectionate, I
thought, I hoped; if not, if it was meant to sting—or if it was meant to mean
anything, if Charlie in particular had any message for me that he wasn‟t quite
saying aloud—then it missed its mark. We rode it like surfers on a wave, swiftly
through the house and up to bed.
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Well, bedroom. Didn‟t quite make it to the bed, straight off. My fingers seemed
suddenly as thick and clumsy as sausages; I could barely manage my own buttons.
With my tongue just as thick and awkward in my head, I couldn‟t even ask for help,
but I didn‟t need to. Benet was suddenly right there, nimbly stripping me where I
stood. And then, well, maybe I couldn‟t undress myself, but I could surely undress
him; and three steps to the bed seemed just too far, when there was a perfectly
serviceable rug right there on the floorboards.
Next morning, I don‟t think anyone even imagined that I might be driving
away today. Not even me. Not even when we still thought Benet had a day‟s work
ahead of him, when I foresaw nothing for myself but another long drag of killing
time.
In fact, Maurice gave him the day off, quite unexpectedly, and more than that,
better than that. “Take the rest of the week. Until Jeff goes home on Saturday.”
“Friday,” I said firmly. “I have to leave here Friday. I need to pack up at the
gîte and be there ready to give the keys back, first thing next morning.”
“Of course. And of course Benet will come with you, and see you to the airport
and away.”
“How‟s he going to—”
“I‟ll collect him from the airport,” Juliette said instantly, as though she‟d only
been waiting for the opportunity. “We‟ll come and see you off, Luc and I. Be sure you
behave yourselves,” she added with a fearsome frown. “There. Now that‟s arranged.
What shall we do today?”
“Today,” Maurice said sweetly, “you will have to do Benet‟s work for him, my
daughter. Tomorrow, perhaps we can make another arrangement…”
And that more or less spelled out the rest of my time there, the last days of my
holiday: Benet and I coming and going from the château, with one or more or none
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of the family in tow. We went on a quick expedition to local markets with
Grandmère, and a daylong excursion to distant mountains with Juliette and Luc.
We walked the canal one morning with Matthieu and Charlie, and came back to
fuck all afternoon in an orgy of self-indulgent glee.
We had too much of everything that‟s best, food and wine and sex and
company. Too much, and I still wanted more. And time slipped away all too quickly,
and then it was just the two of us for one last night at the gîte: sticky bodies
tangling, cocks and mouths, as though we were trying to force ourselves inside each
other, get under the skin, deeper in. As though we wanted to matter more, mark
each other more profoundly. Be remembered.
I don‟t think we slept that night at all, either one of us. And still time passed,
still the sun came up, whatever we did to delay it; and all too soon we were
showered and dressed and in the car, and all he could tell me now was the best
route to the airport, and all I could do was listen.
For a wonder—or more likely because Luc was with her, and he at least
understood about tact—Juliette didn‟t fall on us in the airport car park, nor in the
terminal itself. She very discreetly sent Benet a text, saying they were in the coffee
shop when he was ready to go, and please would he tell me to have a good journey
and come back soon.
We were almost that discreet ourselves. We‟d already said good-bye the best
way we could, with our bodies. One last quick hug now and I checked my baggage
and went through security and left him behind.
Didn‟t look back.
If he was standing there watching me go, I didn‟t want to see it. I wanted to
think he‟d turned as abruptly as I did, made his way to the coffee shop, found his
friends, and gone home.
Two easy hearts, quite unbroken.
Right.
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Thom Lane
It‟s a two-hour flight, and three times the stewardess asked me, quite kindly, if
I was feeling all right. By the third time, maybe it wasn‟t quite so kindly meant; I‟d
already driven my neighbors away in search of other seats, apparently. I hadn‟t
noticed.
I just apologized and said I had allergies and asked if she had any more
tissues.
Maybe I really did have allergies. Delayed horse allergy, perhaps? I couldn‟t
believe I was making such a fool of myself, but it seemed like I couldn‟t stop crying.
Two-hour flight, half an hour to get out of the airport, half an hour to get
home. Plenty of time, surely, to pull myself together. It was just the traveling that
had shaken me out of myself, the abrupt uprooting, from a haven of pleasure and
good people to the company of stressed strangers, all unwillingly headed back to
grim, gray England. I‟d settle, once I was in.
I‟d need to. Saturday is inevitably followed by Sunday; and Sunday, I went to
see my mother.
My mother is another force of nature, small but potent. If something that just
sits still can be a force. She has her own local gravity; she doesn‟t need to travel, she
just draws everyone to her, as and when she wants them.
Me she has for Sunday lunch, any week I can‟t find a decent excuse.
It used to be me and Tony. Week in, week out, through years and years. Even
now, she always seemed to look over my shoulder as she opened the door and be a
little disappointed not to see him. She didn‟t quite lay him a place at table or turn
down an empty glass for absent friends, but I always did feel that he was still a
ghost at the feast.
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She‟d never say so, but I did also feel that she blamed me for our breakup. She
thought I hadn‟t tried hard enough, I hadn‟t paid attention. The relationship went
down the tubes because I wasn‟t looking. Why wouldn‟t Tony find someone else, if I
was never there?
Sometimes—often, actually—I thought she was right.
Which was all the more reason not to do that again, if I couldn‟t trust myself.
It‟s a definition of madness, to do the same thing again and again and hope for a
different result.
Can‟t say that to my mother. She‟d say, “If at first you don‟t succeed…” And
roll her eyes at me for giving up so easily.
This particular Sunday, she opened the door and glanced over my shoulder as
usual, just to confirm I was still on my own, and let me in and sat me down and
said, “You didn‟t drive?”
“No, I took the bus today.”
“That means you want to drink.” Sharp, my mother. It was the only way I
thought I‟d survive the day. She cocked her head to one side and surveyed me. “You
look younger. What have you been up to? Getting all adolescent over a boy again?”
“What? No!” Yes. “I—”
“I haven‟t seen you this mooncalf since you first brought Tony home. You sit
down; I‟ll get the sherry. Then you can tell me what‟s wrong.”
“Nothing‟s wrong…” But she was gone already, so my denial fell on empty air;
and when she came back, when I said it again, she just snorted.
“Jeff, boy, I‟ve known you a long time. That suntan doesn‟t cover the fact that
you‟re as pale as a ghost beneath. You went away for two weeks and you‟ve come
back looking worse than you did before you left, and that was bad enough. Have you
slept at all, this last fortnight?”
“Not much,” I admitted. “That might not be a bad thing. Fun and frolics, late
nights, man things…”
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Thom Lane
“No, perhaps—but your eyes say you‟ve been up crying all night when you
should have been sleeping off all that holiday excess. So come on, level with me—
who is he, and what went wrong?”
“Oh, what? Mum—”
“Jeff. You can‟t fob me off, you know that. Tell all, my idiot son, and let‟s see
what we can do to fix it.”
I did tell her; of course I did. It‟s what you do, with my mother. What I do.
Tony too, when he was with me. He always used to reckon that it helped.
Not me, so much. I always reckoned she was softer on Tony than she was on
me.
Here, now, she listened to my confession—it wasn‟t meant to come out that
way, but it always did seem to, when I started telling my troubles to my mother—
and then she sighed and said, “Well, for goodness‟ sake, just phone the boy. You do
have his number, don‟t you?”
Yes, of course I did; but, “Mum, no.”
“Why on earth not? What are you afraid of?”
“You know what. I‟m afraid of it all happening again, like before.”
“So, what, it‟s better not to risk it?”
“Yes, exactly that.” Better to stay heart-whole and be ruthless, with myself
and with Benet, with anyone.
“Oh, don‟t be so feeble. That‟s not how I raised you. It‟s better to have loved
and lost, did you ever hear that?”
“Once, maybe. It‟s better to have done that once. I couldn‟t bear to do it again.”
To build my life around someone and have them walk away again, leaving it hollow,
uninhabited, a broken shell.
“And yet you are doing it again, you fool. You‟re obviously madly in love with
each other, you and this Benet boy; and you‟re prepared to let that just shrivel and
die, for fear of something going wrong later?”
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“That‟s not true. We‟re not in love. We said that, we agreed, it was just a
fling…”
“Tell that to the Swiss marines, my lad. Don‟t tell it to me. You might as well
agree that the sun goes around the earth; the two of you could sit and nod your
heads and say it‟s so, but that still wouldn‟t make it true. You laid down the law,
this or nothing, and he agreed to it because any part of you was better than nothing;
and now you‟ve left him crying himself to sleep at night and you‟re not getting any
sleep at all, and why? Because you‟re too scared to take a chance, you‟ve argued
yourself into this insane position, and now you‟re too damn arrogant to admit you
were wrong.”
Arrogant again, and this time for almost exactly the opposite reason.
Sometimes my mother can be pretty hard to take.
Sometimes she can be right, though. Even at her most bullying and
confrontational, she can still be right. And I am obliged to admit that she does know
me better than anyone else on the planet, and very possibly better than I actually
know myself.
“Come on, son,” she said more kindly, over beef and a tower of veg. “You‟re not
usually this dishonest. You can maybe deceive a boy you‟ve left behind, but you
can‟t deceive me, and what‟s the point of trying to deceive yourself? You do know
your own heart, however hard you try to deny it. You don‟t have to do anything
about it if you‟re that dead set against being happy, but at least do me the courtesy
of admitting you‟re in love. I know I didn‟t raise a cold-fish heartless bastard for a
son, and I would like to think I did my job well enough that you actually know that
too.”
I didn‟t know how to answer her—but as she‟d already said, she knows me
better than I know myself. She was already reaching for the box of tissues on the
fireplace before I burst into tears.
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Thom Lane
Even so. I didn‟t phone Benet, and I didn‟t intend to. Maybe I was in love; it
seemed all too appallingly likely. That didn‟t make it inherently true that Benet
was in love with me too. My mother is a prejudiced witness; she thinks I‟m
adorable. Dim, but adorable.
I only agree with her about the dim part.
Besides. Even if he did want me as I wanted him—passionately, desperately,
hungrily—he couldn‟t have me. We couldn‟t have each other. Even if I trusted him,
even if I could come to trust myself; even if someone out there could persuade me
that love was worth a second mad adventure, with all the likelihood of heartbreak
and catastrophe. He was in France and I wasn‟t, and long-distance relationships
never work. I did believe that, as profoundly as I believed the other thing, that love
is no safe ground to build your life upon. Self-preservation was on my side and so
was practicality, and there was only my mother to stand against me; and I only had
to see her once a week. I could endure that, and I didn‟t have to see Benet at all, so
he need never learn about my late conversion; he could just go on in ignorance into
forgetfulness, and…
And then I was back to work at the hospital and my schedule threw me up a
week of nights, and I suppose it was inevitable that eventually, Friday night, that
threw me up against Tony‟s schedule.
It wasn‟t the first time we‟d found ourselves working together, since the split.
A doctor and a nurse, working the same wards in a not too big hospital: bound to
happen. It was how we‟d met, after all. And we‟d fought to keep together, his job
and mine, even when that hadn‟t been at all easy. In this new post-breakup world,
there was bound to be retribution.
Even so, this was the first time we‟d found ourselves in the same space, on the
same break, on our own. Clustered around the coffee machine, if two people can
make a cluster. Two people who shy away from each other as if by instinct, where
they used to draw together.
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“Hey, Jeff,” he said. “How‟re you doing?”
It was an icebreaker of sorts. If he could be civilized, so could I. Besides, we
were pretty much trapped in this little room together for the next twenty minutes.
We could glower silently at each other, or else we could talk.
I shrugged. “I‟m okay, thanks.”
“Liar.”
I blinked at him, startled. That was hardly civilized. It was very Tony, though;
never mind common politeness, cut straight through to what matters. And my
mother might know me best, but he did still come a very close second.
I shrugged; he said, “Seriously, Jeff. I‟ve been watching you all evening.
Something‟s eating you—and it‟s not being around me, not anymore. I‟m not that
arrogant. You look like a kid again, nursing a hurt you can‟t bring yourself to share.
What‟s up?”
“Long story,” I muttered.
“Condense it. Somebody might come in any moment. You don‟t want to be
talking in front of them, do you? And you know I won‟t let up until you tell me.”
I did know that. Persistence was one of his extreme virtues, if it was a virtue.
Hell, he‟d persisted with me for years, until he broke in the end.
It was odd, how I‟d suddenly come round to my mother‟s way of thinking—and,
no doubt, Tony‟s—that the breakup had been inherently my own fault, even though
he‟d been the one who cheated and the one who left.
I guess perspective shifts, when the end of a long relationship is suddenly not
the worst thing in the world. When the worst thing is your own stubborn
determination not to allow a new relationship to start.
He‟d have it out of me sooner or later, I knew. Or, worse, he‟d call my mother
and ask her. He was interested now, and implacable.
So I told him. Bluntly, briefly.
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Thom Lane
Not brief enough; he boiled it down further. “Let me see if I have this straight.
You met a boy; you fell in love; you don‟t even want to get started with him because
you and I split up. Is that it?”
In a nutshell, I supposed it was. But, “You make it sound…ridiculous.”
“There‟s a good reason for that, Jeff. It is ridiculous.”
“No. No, it‟s not. I‟m entitled to be careful, aren‟t I?”
“Careful, of course. Not paranoid. Taking care of your heart isn‟t the same as
walling it off and sealing it up forever. You‟re not Miss Haversham—but you could
be. You could drive yourself mad this way. And blame me for it, apparently. Fuck
that. Look on me as an object lesson, if you like—but don‟t use me as an excuse for
ruining the rest of your life. Don‟t you dare. Sure, it‟s your life, you can choose to
ruin it—but you‟re on your own if you do. Literally. And where‟s the fun in that?
Give yourself a break, man. Do what everybody else does: take a breath and start
again. Start with this nice French boy. He sounds ideal. At a safe distance, too, in
case it all goes sour.”
“He‟s not French,” I said helplessly. “And—”
And even I didn‟t know where I was going with that, whether I had any
arguments left. Most likely not. It wasn‟t that I‟d really needed Tony‟s permission or
his encouragement—but apparently I really had needed this conversation, just to
give me a push to get me started. Just then the door banged open and a stream of
nurses came in, laughing together; but I went back to work with a new
determination, as if I‟d suddenly been cut free. As soon as my shift was over and the
sun was up, I was going to phone Benet. Just to test the water…
Anticipating the moment saw me through the long hours of the night. I was
half-eager and half-anxious, torn between a sudden urgency after such a long denial
and a sudden fretfulness. What if he didn‟t want to hear from me, if he‟d taken my
attitude to heart? What if he‟d actually meant it, that we weren‟t anything more
than a fling to him? What if…?
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And so on, and on. Imagination is a curse sometimes, not a gift. I lived through
a thousand rejections that night and came out of the hospital like a man stumbling
dream sick from his bed.
No cell phones allowed in the hospital. I turned mine on in the car park and
found a voice mail waiting.
A message from Benet.
His voice sounded nervous and impatient and amused—all three at once. “Oh,
hell, Jeff, where are you? I thought I‟d be getting you out of bed. Are you still in bed;
are you sleeping? Well, wake up, then. Please wake up. I‟m at Stansted Airport, and
I‟ve done this stupid thing. I‟ve flown in to see you. I have to see you. Only, I don‟t
know how to find you. I don‟t have your address. It was just a wild impulse and it‟s
raining buckets out there and I don‟t know what to do now, so I‟m just going to sit
here until you come to rescue me. Please come. Please come soon…?”
He was right; it was raining buckets. I was standing in the rain there, getting
soaked. Hardly feeling it, in the rush of sudden emotion; hardly breathing under the
impact. Hardly daring to feel the way I did, the way I wanted to. Like a man in a
dream, hardly daring to believe…
There are odd and unexpected reasons to be grateful for the weather. I might
have broken every speed limit in the book on my way to the airport, if it hadn‟t been
pelting so hard. I had to go slow, just to keep the car on the road, just to make sure I
arrived.
Which I did, eventually; and there was Benet, impossibly standing in Arrivals,
staring out through glass at all that rain.
At me, as I ran through the rain.
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Thom Lane
“Hey,” he said, as breathless as I was, though all he‟d done was stand and
wait. “I‟ve got so many messages for you, everyone from Grandmère through to
Juliette. They sort of get increasingly aggressive, mind. Juliette‟s is positively
violent.”
“Never mind Juliette.” If she‟d heard me say that, she‟d have been more violent
yet, but she wasn‟t here and he was, and that was all that mattered. “What are
you—no, wait. Forget that. You don‟t have to explain a thing. I need to do some
talking first. Whatever ideas you have in your head”—and by now that head was
forcibly nestled into my shoulder, so that I had significant, happy notions of what
those ideas might be—“we only need to be doing this because of my own bright
ideas, so I get first go.
“All I have to do is apologize, anyway.” His head lifted at that, which made it
easy; all I had to do was kiss his forehead, his eyes, his cute nose, and then at last
his lips, while I murmured, “I‟m sorry. I‟m so sorry. I was being stupid, trying to
make rules for both of us that my heart was breaking already. I didn‟t break your
heart too, did I? Tell me your heart‟s not broken…”
“Not broken,” he assured me. “Here, feel. Still thumping away, feel that? It‟s a
bit sore, maybe. A little bit bent. No worse than that.”
“Good,” I muttered. “That‟s good. Will you forgive me?”
“For what?” he asked innocently, all eyes and solemnity.
He was going to make me say it, then. Actually, by now he couldn‟t stop me.
“For being such a melancholy clown I couldn‟t see when something wonderful came
my way.”
“What, Grandmère? You‟re quite right, of course, but—”
“Oh, don‟t you do that. Don‟t you dare. I love you, damn it…”
It wasn‟t the most graceful confession ever made, but he seemed happy
enough. His mouth came back to find mine, and it was a while before I could
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disengage convincingly enough to shepherd him out into the rain and steer him for
the car.
“You‟ll be sorry, mind,” I said, with a degree of malicious satisfaction, as we
headed for home.
“Will I? What for?”
“Sorry that you ever came at the weekend. Tomorrow, you get to have lunch
with my mother…”
Loose Id Titles by Thom Lane
Red Light
White Flag
The TALES OF AMARANTH Series
Dark Heart
Healing Heart
Hidden Heart
Thom Lane
Author Thom Lane is an English writer who has published romances and
erotica as well as fantasies and other books under other names. In his tales of
Amaranth, he is combining as many of those genres as possible…
Document Outline
Wyszukiwarka
Podobne podstrony:
Thom Lane White Flag
Thom Lane Tales of Amaranth 01 Dark Heart
Pink Fizz Thom Lane
Dido White Flag
Dido White Flag nuty(1)
Dido White flag
Dido White Flag
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