“I think there’s been some sort of mistake, Michel.”
His face looked as though he had trodden in something unpleasant.
“M. McNaught, I do not make ‘mistakes’.”
I’d only known Michel Girault for a couple of hours, and already I
could tell this was typical of him. I would come to know the always
exquisitely dressed little Frenchman a great deal better in the coming
years, and he would never change.
“This isn’t the kind of apartment I was told I was getting.”
“No?”
I could tell that this didn’t rank too highly on his list of problems to deal with.
“I wasn’t expecting something so... spacious.”
Never look a gift horse in the mouth, they say. I should’ve just
accepted it, or perhaps have realised what it represented. Perhaps a
little background will clear the sediment from these muddy waters;
please allow me to explain myself.
I’m an environmental scientist, specialising in marine ecosystems. This
was my first job working for the US government, and I was entering the
bizarre and convoluted world of oil exploration. I was employed to
produce an environmental impact assessment for a proposed drilling
programme.
At the time, I had no idea that a negative report from me would knock
the programme on the head before it even got started. I had no idea I
had that kind of power – if I had known, I would have been a little
more suspicious about the sudden upgrade in accommodation.
“I can assure you, M. McNaught, that there is nothing incorrect here,”
said Michel, glancing at his notebook. He would never be seen without
that notebook, or one of its successors, in all the time that I knew
him.
“Ok, as long as you’re sure.”
“M. McNaught, I could be no more sure.”
I left Michel to attend to a few details with the apartment agent and
wandered through the vast expanse of the open living space to the
balcony doors. I slid back the huge pane of glass, marvelling at how
something so large could move so easily, and stepped out onto the
wooden boards of the balcony.
Immediately the warm, salty breeze blowing in off the sea brushed my
face. The scent of the ocean was something I would come to think of as
an old friend over the years I spent in Florida, but for now it was
something new and wonderful. I could see the waves breaking on the
shore over to the left, the main strip of our little community to the
right, and straight down beneath the window was quite possibly the most
surprisingly massive pool I’d ever seen in an apartment complex. At
this point in time, with the warm afternoon sun beating down on the
water, it was majestic. The lithe form of a young swimmer was making
its way rapidly up and down, dragging a bulky pair of white board
shorts through the water. It was as if a Hollywood director had
carefully set the scene. I smiled to myself at the perfection of it all
and turned back into the apartment.
I sat down and flicked on the television. As was threatening to
become all too predictable, it was hooked up to every channel possible.
I sighed, because realisation had just dawned that for the next six
months the TV would be my best friend. I had been briefed on the
realities of being the EIA reporter – everyone would be pleasant
towards me, but I would still leave the place having made no real
friends.
I would end up annoying one or other of the parties involved, and would
probably leave town under a bit of a cloud. The chance to do something
truly positive had swayed my mind despite all of the warnings – at the
end of the day, I would be ensuring that the environment was
safeguarded against the threat posed by drilling, and that meant more
than making a few enemies.
Leaving the TV running, I got up and walked around the stark, empty
apartment. The very few possessions I had brought with me made little
or no impact on the space around me. It echoed, and was cold,
unwelcoming. I began to think of ways to spend the relocation budget I
had been given.
I gravitated to the balcony again. Now the breeze was cool, bringing a
sweet tang on the air. I looked down at the water, a black mirror to
the night sky, the bright stars reflected in its wavering surface. With
a surge of rather childish excitement, I realised that there was
nothing at all stopping me going down there right now and taking a dip.
As if to encourage me, the underwater lights chose that moment to
flicker into life, turning the pool a vivid shade of aquamarine.
I rummaged through my clothing, and after a few brief moments of panic managed to find some trunks.
The water was wonderful. Slightly cooler than the humid air which
all of the residents excluded in favour of air conditioning, it was the
perfect tonic for sore muscles and a tired mind. I swum lazily back and
forth a few times, feeling the tension of the last few days leave my
mind. I felt myself returning to a happier place.
When I finally heaved myself out of the water I was surprised at quite
how weak I felt. I sat heavily on the side of the pool, puffing
slightly and wondering how I’d let myself get so out of shape.
“Nice night for it, dude.”
I jumped, in an alarming and frankly embarrassing fashion. Turning my
head, I was confronted with a young lad, maybe twelve or thirteen, I
couldn’t really tell. Though there was no way of being sure, I thought
he may have been the boy I’d seen earlier in the pool. He had shaggy
brown hair, highlighted in blonde tones by the sun. His skater shorts
and short sleeved shirt were matched by the board hanging from his
right hand.
“Yeah,” I replied. “Looked too good to refuse.”
I stood and faced him, dripping somewhat, and extended a hand.
“Zack.”
He took the proffered hand and shook it, his grip light, and yet solid.
“Haley. You the new guy in number 2? Are you British?”
“Yes, and yes,” I answered, with a smile. “I’m here for a few months. Maybe we’ll see each other around?”
He smiled shyly, and shrugged.
“Yeah, maybe.”
I watched him disappear into the apartment building. If all of the
other residents were as friendly, perhaps this wouldn’t be so lonely a
time after all.
The other residents were as welcoming, it turned out, perhaps even
more so. By the end of my first week I’d been invited to a dozen
dinners and two separate rooftop barbeques. I wasn’t even aware that
the complex had apartments with rooftop terraces, though when I saw
them I suddenly realised that my earlier perceptions of my own
apartment were somewhat overblown.
I attended every event I was invited to. I was naturally a shy person,
but the move to the States had given me the opportunity to be someone I
wasn’t back in the UK. I could be outgoing, be a different man
altogether. It worked, too – because I could act a role, I could talk
to people more easily, and in fact I ended up just being me, but a more
confident version of me.
I began to learn a little more about who lived around me, too. There
were Bob and Helen, in the apartment above, for instance, retired now
and living a relaxed life on the coast. And of course there was Haley,
who lived directly across from me at number 6, with his mother, Jeanna,
a successful lawyer who always seemed to be working on a case, and was
therefore rarely home.
As for me, I managed to get up early and therefore get home early. With
only myself to answer to for the time being, and only needing access to
records for which I didn’t require anyone’s assistance, I was able to
make my own schedule. I decided that I was quite happy to work from
seven in the morning until three in the afternoon, and then have a
decent block of time to myself while the sun was still up.
I settled very happily into a routine of getting home and going
straight down to the pool, which I usually had to myself on week days.
At the weekend the rhythm of the place seemed to change somewhat –
seemingly from nowhere children of all ages would materialise, filling
the pool to bursting point. I discovered these were the grandchildren,
nieces and nephews of my fellow residents, and each Saturday when it
was warm would be spent having a grand communal pool party.
I always excused myself from attending, feeling somewhat out of place
without a family of my own, but would instead content myself with
reading a book or the newspaper on my balcony. More than once in those
first few weeks I spotted Haley coming out onto his balcony and looking
down at the mob, shaking his head slightly as if annoyed or
disbelieving. I think he thought the pool was his territory, and wasn’t
so happy that it was being invaded each week. On one occasion he caught
my eye across the gap and gave me an exaggerated shrug before turning
back into his apartment.
I slotted so easily into life at the apartments that I was surprised
to discover one day that I was already a third of the way through my
secondment. Work was going well, because it was a fairly cut and dried
situation, and that rather disguised the fact that the time was really
moving by.
The level to which I had become a part of the community was
demonstrated one afternoon when I was disturbed from my reading by a
knock at the door. Opening it, I was confronted with the stern visage
of one of the local officers of the law. I panicked at first, wondering
what I could have done to cause my arrest. My mind immediately turned
to the private thoughts I had been having about certain people. But
they couldn’t read your mind, could they?
I needn’t have worried so much. Very politely the officer asked if he
could have a few minutes of my time. I assented, and he followed me
into my apartment. After refusing the offer of a drink, he explained
why he was there.
“Sir, are you familiar with a one Jeanna Oslette?”
“Yes, she’s a neighbour of mine. Lives with her son over in number 6. Is something up?”
“We’ve been trying to contact Ms Oslette, but have been unable to do so.”
“Oh, well, she’s usually in court at this time, or at her offices. Have you tried there?”
“Yes, sir, she’s not been there today, though apparently that is not
unusual in her line of work. Having failed to contact her, we were
asked to talk to you.”
“Me?” I asked, incredulous. “Who asked you to talk to me?”
“Haley Oslette, sir, Ms Oslette’s son. Apparently you two are familiar.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen Haley around the building. Why would he ask you to talk to me?”
“Sir, Haley’s been in a bit of trouble. Nothing he’s done wrong, just
got on the wrong side of some unpleasant kids. We need to ensure that
he is looked after until his mother can be around. I asked him to
suggest someone we might call, and he said that you were always in
during the afternoons, and that we should talk to you. He didn’t have a
number for you, so we had to come down.”
“Oh, I see,” I lied. I wasn’t quite sure what was going on. What kind
of trouble could he get himself into? And why would he ask them to call
me?
“So, can we bring him up here, sir?”
“Oh, yeah, of course.”
It was twenty minutes later. Haley was sitting watching my TV, and I
had just finished chatting to the two police officers about what had
happened and the possible reasons why Haley had asked for me to be
called, of which there were very few indeed.
They finally left me alone with him, and I wandered back into the
living room to see how he was getting on. For a second I just looked at
him – he was going to have a serious black eye, and the cut on his
cheek had been serious enough to need those little sticky strips you
get these days instead of stitches. He looked a bit of a mess, quite
frankly, and my heart went out to him. Unless he really caused someone
else some damage, there was no way he’d won the fight.
“Don’t s’pose you want to tell me what happened, do you?”
He was hugging one of my cushions, knees drawn up, feet on the edge of the sofa.
“No.”
Well, at least he’d spoken, which is more than he’d done up to that point.
“Ok, well, we’ll just have to stay here until your mum gets back.”
“It’s ok, I can go home if you want,” he said, though with little enthusiasm. “I have a key, you know.”
“Yeah, I know, mate. I’m happy for you to stay here, though, if you want. To be honest, it’s nice having someone else around.”
He sat there motionless, apparently content to stay. I watched him over
the next few minutes as the tension slowly began to leave his body. He
still hugged the cushion like a protective blanket, but his feet moved
to the floor, and he leaned back against the sofa. For a few brief
moments it almost seemed as though nothing had happened, as though he
had simply come over to watch basketball highlights with me. It was a
nice feeling, but false. Funny how being very alone in a foreign
country can make the smallest friendships seem much more significant
than they are.
The spell couldn’t last, because Haley hadn’t come over to watch TV and
hang out with me. He’d come over because his mother couldn’t be
contacted, and as soon as she came home and found the note I’d popped
out and left on their apartment door, she was banging on mine.
“Where is he?” she asked as I opened the door, rushing past me and finding Haley on the sofa.
Embarrassed by his mother’s actions as any normal teenager would be,
Haley made every effort to avoid his mother’s hug, but couldn’t manage
it for long. I could hear her crying in amongst the inevitable
questions with which she was peppering him. Feeling rather conspicuous,
as if I were invading on some private moment, I quickly ducked into the
kitchen and pretended to be fascinated by the contents of my fridge.
I heard them talking in low tones for a few minutes, and then heard the
front door closing. Jeanna came into the kitchen, looking like she had
the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Zack, I don’t know how to thank you enough for that. I’m so sorry you were disturbed.”
I tried to be as reassuring as I could be.
“It’s fine, Jeanna. No problem at all. Is he going to be ok?”
She shrugged.
“Honestly, I have no idea. He won’t talk to me at all, won’t tell me why it happened. I don’t s’pose he told you what went on?”
“No, nothing. I thought it was better to just leave him to it, so we just watched the NBA highlights.”
Jeanna nodded, as if agreeing.
“Well, I’d better go and make us some food or something. Thanks, Zack.”
I gave her another reassuring smile, and watched as she disappeared out
of the kitchen. When I heard the door banging shut, I let out a huge
sigh. I wasn’t even aware I’d been holding my breath.
I went for a swim. It seemed like a good way to get rid of the
tension. I couldn’t even work out why I was so tense. There was a knot
in the pit of my stomach, though, and swimming always relaxed me.
About ten minutes in, as I was approaching the end of one of my laps, I
looked up and saw a bare pair of feet at the pool’s edge. I stopped and
stood in the shallow end, looking up at Haley. He was wearing his
swimming kit, and had a wry smile curling the corner of his mouth.
“Do you mind if I join you?”
I was a little taken aback by the question. Of course I didn’t mind. Why would I mind?
“It’s your pool, too, Haley. Of course you can swim.”
“Cool, thanks.”
He jumped into the pool and we spent the next twenty minutes or so
swimming together. Haley, I discovered, was a prodigiously talented
swimmer, putting in at least two lengths for each of mine. I tired
eventually, and hauled myself out onto the pool’s edge. Haley swam
another couple of lengths, and then pulled himself up next to me.
For the first time, I really looked at him. Not just saw him, but
really looked at him. I don’t know why stared that way, but something
in me had changed, and I began to notice that Haley wasn’t just a
little boy. He was beginning to become a young man, albeit only just
beginning. I’d not yet come out to my neighbours and co-workers, but as
a gay man there was a lot to notice.
He was about five foot four, and really quite slender. Not toned, yet,
but the puppy fat was gone. His limbs were skinny, the bones of his
elbows quite pronounced, and his knees jutted out. He was a skater boy,
and often skated without his t-shirt on, I knew that much. The sun had
lent his skin a glorious tone, a bit like light brown sugar. The water
which dotted it highlighted quite how smooth and youthful it still was,
his bare arms and legs devoid of all but the lightest dusting of soft,
blonde hair. His graceful neck held up a head shrouded in damp,
straggly brown hair, bleached blonde in the sun and then darkened again
by the water which drenched it.
He turned his head and smiled at me, meeting my eye. My God they were
blue, his eyes. They almost had to be, in that face. High cheekbones, a
button nose with freckles scattered across its bridge and a mouth made
for kissing. Yes, the eyes deserved to be the deepest pools of blue
heaven, eye to get lost in for hours, eyes to give you the feeling in
the pit of your stomach.
Oh shit. Had I really just thought that? Oh no, I had, hadn’t I? I’d
imagined kissing him. My heart jumped into my throat. This was not
good, not good at all. I was sitting less than six inches to his right,
his bare skin so close to touching my own. I began to shake with
excitement, unable to control myself.
“Getting a bit chilly out here, isn’t it?” he said, no trace of mocking in his tone.
I nodded, not trusting myself to speak. As I glanced across, I could
see goosebumps forming on his perfect skin. Perhaps it really was
cooling off, as the sun disappeared behind the apartment buildings.
“Well, I have to get inside,” he said, after a few moments of silence, filled with ever heightening tension.
As he got to his feet, the damp material of his board shorts clinging
tightly to his lithe form, I found myself checking him out. Not in the
way I had before, but in the way I looked at hot guys at the beach, or
at the gym. It wasn’t a conscious thing, not a deliberate act on my
part.
I glanced only momentarily, and saw very little, but as I stood under
the steaming water of the shower in my apartment ten minutes later, I
felt myself becoming aroused at the picture in my mind’s eye. As the
damning evidence of my terrible act washed away down the drain, I felt
the familiar feelings of guilt flooding my body. This wasn’t the first
time I had felt such inappropriate emotions.
It wasn’t the reason I’d left the UK, but I can’t say I hadn’t been relieved to be removing myself from temptation. The job offer came at just the right time, and I jumped at it.
Daniel was fourteen, so a year older than Haley. A year less
inappropriate, I suppose, but being twice his age I don’t imagine that
distinction mattered at all. He was the son of a close friend, a girl
I’d met at university. She was a mature student, and a single mum, just
like Jeanna.
Daniel turned up rather unexpectedly when Sarah was only seventeen, and
she’d missed her first chance at university. We met on our course, and
quickly became good friends. Had we been closer in age perhaps
something might have happened between us – at that point, I hadn’t
realised I was gay. Don’t ask how. But nothing ever came of it, and
Sarah became the friend who would first receive the confession of my
sexuality four years later.
After graduation, we were both struggling to make it in the real world.
Marine Biology is a great degree, but it’s rather hard to find fitting
jobs if that’s what you’re interested in doing as a career. We
eventually hit upon the idea of sharing a small two bed house, with
intention of going our own ways as soon as we could afford it, or as
soon as one or other of us was in a serious relationship.
Neither seemed to happen all that soon, though. It was comfortable
living with Sarah and Daniel, and so we never really made the effort to
move apart. At the beginning, when Daniel was seven, he shared a room
with his mum, but as time went by he became less and less happy with
the idea, and ended up sharing with me instead. That meant every time I
had a boyfriend (by this time I was out) I had to go to his place if I
wanted any fun, but that didn’t happen as often as I would have liked,
and actually Daniel and I became like brothers sharing our room.
Poverty didn’t last forever, though. Eventually I got a job with the
university, and Sarah managed to find work in a marine park. We both
had the money to move into our own places at last, and yet somehow it
didn’t happen. We upgraded, shared the deposit on a three bed house,
and finally we all had our own space to exist, as separate entities.
I didn’t miss sharing with Daniel. He was a great boy, but was just
beginning to feel the oncoming rush of hormones that signalled puberty,
and it was messing with his head. Occasionally he would flip, and
become a little monster, with a horrendous temperament. When he was
like that he was always sent to his room, and so having a space of my
own without an angry boy in it was certainly a bonus.
Things went along fairly ordinarily for the next few years. I grew into
my role at the university, and whether through luck or judgement
managed to publish a few papers which gained a little recognition. All
this time, Daniel was growing from a gawky little kid into a young man,
with the odd hiccup along the way.
The biggest hiccup of all came when he was fourteen years old. He’d
only recently had his birthday, and with no-one else to treat in my
life I had gone to the extent of buying him a laptop of his own. Sarah
had been shocked, and had at first insisted that he couldn’t accept the
gift, but later admitted to me that she thought it was a wonderful
thing to have done.
Daniel took to it immediately, as teenagers tend to. He became a little
bit of a recluse at first, spending hours in his bedroom on Facebook
and all those sites. At least, we had thought he was on Facebook. As it
turned out, he was visiting the kind of sites young lads will tend to
visit, even if their parents would prefer to think of them as still
innocent.
We discovered exactly what he had been looking at by accident. We
shared a lot of the mundane jobs around the house, including doing the
laundry. I had just folded a load of dry clothes and was dropping a
bundle of Daniel’s stuff on the bed in his room for him to put away
once he’d finished in the shower. His laptop was on the bed, and as I
carefully put down the tottering tower of clothing, the backs of my
knuckles brushed the touch pad of the computer.
I suppose there’s a school of thought which says he should have locked
the computer. Or at least shut the browser window. Either way, he had
done nothing to prevent the screensaver disappearing and a picture of a
rather large, very hard penis attached to a cute young man appearing on
the screen. My first reaction was “oh shit, what if Daniel sees that I
saw that?”, my second was “shit, Daniel might be gay!”, and my third
was utter dread, because at that moment I heard a gasp from the
doorway. There, wrapped only in a towel and with dripping wet hair, was
Daniel.
He stormed into the room, slammed shut the lid of the laptop, and shouted at me to get out.
Things were pretty bad between us for a number of weeks, but when
finally Daniel stopped hating me, he instead turned to me for advice.
After all, I was a gay man, and one he knew well. After reassuring me
that his sexuality had in no way been influenced by my own, he started
to ask all sorts of questions.
I tried to be neutral, I really did. Daniel was like a little brother
to me, as I’ve already said. But the reality was that, as we chatted, I
began to appraise Daniel differently. I began to look at his beautiful
warm brown eyes, his little upturned nose, his wonderful shy smile. He
kicked the tantrum habit in those few weeks, too, becoming something
much more akin to younger Daniel, and a thousand times more likeable
for it.
If it had been limited to my dreams and fantasies, I would have been
able to cope, but after three or four weeks of Daniel and I having
long, deep and meaningful conversations I began to notice him flirting
with me. It was pretty subtly done, which surprised me a little given
his inexperience in such things, but there was a definite overtone to
our relationship. It took me a few days to work out what was going on,
but by the time I was ‘accidentally’ afforded a brief but very explicit
view of his young body I knew something was up.
The reality was that with his newly emerging sexuality taking his body
by storm, Daniel needed something to direct it at. That
something, or rather someone, was me, because I was convenient and gay.
I’m not sure it was even a conscious thing on his part, just a reaction
to the circumstances. Daniel became massively provocative, in both word
and deed, and the worst part was that I found myself beginning to
wonder if it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to give in after all.
The logic seemed straight forward at first. He was horny. He obviously
knew what he was doing. He understood the implications. Oh yes, he was
a bit young, but I remember at his age being absolutely certain that I
wanted to have lots of sex, and that adults were keeping something from
me. All these things justified it in my mind for at least five minutes,
until the daydream stopped and reality hit home – as sexy as Daniel was
becoming, there was no way I could give in to my desires. No way. Full
stop.
Frankly, the letter came just in time. My research really had been
noted, it turned out, and now, contrary to all probability, the US
government was after me to work as an environmental advisor. Only when
I followed it up did I realise that my old professor was on the
advisory board, proving once again that it’s not what you know, it’s
who you know.
I jumped at the chance to remove myself from a situation which would
have had one ending, and one ending alone – heartbreak for Daniel and
jail time for me. Sarah was sad to see me going, but Daniel was even
worse. He behaved as though I had betrayed him, as though I had plunged
a knife into his heart. He became so distressed that in the end Sarah
and I, on the night before I was due to fly to the States, sat down and
had a very frank and honest conversation. She was left a little the
wiser about her son and the problems he faced.
Which brings us neatly back to Florida, and my growing physical
attraction to Haley. It didn’t take a genius to realise that falling
for two separate lads in a short space of time wasn’t some kind of
freaky coincidence. Clearly I had a bit of a thing for boys. I wish I
could say I was particularly disgusted with myself, but I wasn’t. I’d
already gone through a massive phase of self-loathing and then
acceptance about my sexuality, and wasn’t about to go through it again.
I was a bit messed up, sure, by I didn’t hate myself, and quite frankly
I wasn’t even that shocked.
I analysed it, studied my attraction, tried to discern what it was
about the boy which caught my eye. In the end, it came down to the fact
that I just found him really attractive, both physically and
emotionally. I couldn’t tell you why, any more than I could explain
what drives some men to like skinny blondes with big tits – it’s just
that way and there’s nothing anyone can do about it.
I decided there and then that rather than running away this time, I
would face my daemons and see where it took me. It would mean
resisting, and I hoped that I would have the will power to do so.
There’s something to be said for the modern world, with single
working mums everywhere. Oh yeah, of course it’s not the ideal society,
but is does have certain fringe benefits.
Jeanna was working all hours, again. This I discovered from Haley as he
settled into the sofa and accepted the Coke I handed him with a
‘thanks’ and a cute smile. It had become almost a regular thing, us two
hanging out together and watching whatever was on ESPN, to the point
that Jeanna called my apartment if she ever got home and Haley wasn’t
there. It was as likely as not that he would be at mine.
This time his mother was going to be out of town until the following
afternoon. I was out on the balcony reading a book in the late
afternoon sun when he emerged onto his own. He waved and gave me a
grin, and as soon as I shouted over to ask if he wanted to come and
watch some sport he disappeared back into his apartment, only to be
opening the door to mine less than sixty seconds later.
I could give you a blow by blow account of every last word we spoke
that evening. It’s etched onto my memory. But I think the edited
highlights are a bit more interesting, and so we’ll jump to the point
where the bet was made. That stupid, damned bet.
“Phoenix are going to win, you know,” he said.
“No way!” I replied, with my vast (read: non-existent) knowledge of American sports to back me up. “Chicago all the way!”
“Oh yeah, of course,” he replied, voice laden with sarcasm. “If you’re so sure, why don’t we have a little bet about it?”
“Ok, fine. How does five dollars sound?”
“Um, well, I don’t really have much money or anything.”
“So, what were you planning to wager?” I asked.
He sat there in silence for a few moments, pondering what he could put up. When finally he spoke, his voice caught a little.
“Well, how about the loser does ten lengths in the pool?”
I shrugged. Didn’t seem that bad a deal even if I lost. It was a humid night, a swim would be perfect.
“Ok,” I said.
“But they have to do it naked!” he cried.
Oh. Well, now suddenly this was a different matter. I couldn’t leave
him hanging there, and so I had to race through the internal struggle
as fast as I could. On the one hand, the responsible adult part of me,
the part which was trying to resist temptation, was screaming at me not
to take the bet. On the other, the part of me which was beginning to be
infatuated with this young boy was egging me on. It was as though I
were a moth drawn to the flame, unable to resist. Feebly, I accepted
the bet.
Of course, Phoenix won. There was no possibility in the world that
Haley was going to lose the bet. I was always destined to be the one
doing the dare. I should have realised before I agreed that the fates
took it upon themselves to make me look like an idiot as frequently as
possible.
Which is how I came to be standing in the deepest black shadows beneath
the canopy which fronted the apartment building. Between me and the
relative safety of the pool, with its underwater lights turned off,
there lay a strip of concrete maybe twelve feet wide which was lit by
the various security lights which glowed all night long. I was already
naked as they day I was born, my hands cupped across my genitals.
Despite the shadows, I held no illusions regarding my invisibility, or
lack thereof.
I could see Haley on my balcony, looking down. I wondered if he could
see me in the shadows, then realised that he couldn’t, as he scanned
back and forth looking for me. Well, then, this was it. This was the
moment. With a sharp intake of breath, I ran out and dived as
noiselessly as I could into the pool.
It dawned on me about half way through my third frantic lap that
actually this wasn’t so bad after all. Nobody could properly see me
without the pool lights on, and the water felt fantastic on my naked
body. I loved the feel of it rushing past my unclothed form, and
started to slow down to appreciate the sensation. I was just getting
properly into my stride when something pale shot past at close range.
At this point I panicked. Who the hell else was in the pool, and had
they noticed my state of undress? I stopped at the end of the length
and wiped the water from my eyes, scanning around the pool. There,
right at the far end, swimming much faster than I could, was the lithe
form of my companion. I realised with a jolt to the stomach that it was
Haley. What shocked me even more was the realisation that, from what
I’d seen, he had joined in the dare too.
He swam up and joined me crouching in the shallow end, trying not to
let on to anyone who might be watching the fact that beneath the water
we were both quite naked. There was a faraway look in his eyes, as if
he were seeing something other in his mind’s eye than he was in
real life. He smiled at me, a gentle, shy smile, and said,
“It looked so nice and cool. I thought I might as well join you.”
“A little too cool, maybe,” I replied, running my hand over the
goosebumps which had formed on his upper arm. I let my hand linger
there, feeling his smooth skin, the way it flowed over his skeleton
beneath. Slowly I grasped harder until his shoulder was enclosed in my
grip, and with him held so I pulled him closer through the water, until
his face was mere inches from my own.
His eyes had been downcast, embarrassed, but now he raised them and met
my gaze, his expression almost one of defiance. We both knew what was
coming, though for a moment I wondered if my imagination was getting
the better of me. Banishing those thoughts from my mind, I leaned
forward to kiss him, my other hand going to the back of his head to
guide him closer to me.
As our lips touched, an electric shock went through me.
I awoke with a start, my arm trapped beneath my body and my hand covered, it turned out, in my own emissions. It was some time in the early hours, I guessed, and I was lying face down on my bed, naked. The window was open, letting in the gentle chirping of the cicadas outsides, as well as a cool, fresh breeze, and the earthy scent of heavy rain.
Rising, I flicked on the light in my bathroom and washed my hands,
before splashing a little cold water over my face. I returned to my
bedroom, noticing for the first time that a dull blue light shone
beneath the door to the living room. I slipped on a pair of shorts and
opened the door.
Haley was asleep on the sofa, the TV still on, sound down low. His
shoes and socks were on the floor nearby, the socks neatly rolled and
placed in the left sneaker. A cushion was his pillow, and he snored
softly. The same breeze which disturbed the air of my bedroom came in
through the open balcony doors; there was a slight chill to the air,
and I quickly found a spare blanket and covered him with it.
I stood there for a moment, feeling guilty about the dream I’d had, as
if I could have controlled it. He looked so peaceful and innocent that
I felt almost as though I had violated him with my unconscious
thoughts. I sighed heavily and wandered out to the balcony.
The pool lights were on, as they always would be, giving lie to my
poorly-constructed fantasy. So many things were wrong with the dream –
they always were, in hindsight. It had seemed so real in my sleep, but
now it was apparent that our naked swim was nothing more than wishful
thinking.
I was just turning to head back inside when I saw a light coming on
over the way, in Haley’s apartment. It was the kitchen light, and
immediately I recognised Jeanna walking around, still dressed in her
suit. I glanced at my watch – the only thing I was wearing other than
my shorts – and was surprised to find that it was only half past
eleven. Jeanna was meant to be out until the following day – that part
of the tale was true enough – but had clearly come home early. Grabbing
the security card and my spare keys, I nipped out of the front door of
my apartment and headed over to theirs.
Jeanna was somewhat surprised to see me, as you might expect, but
quickly invited me in. Suddenly I was very glad I had grabbed a t-shirt
on the way out of the door.
“Haley’s asleep on my sofa,” I explained as I passed her and followed
her direction into the kitchen, sitting down at the breakfast bar.
Jeanna went back to making herself a sandwich of epic proportions.
“Thanks Zack. When did he come over?”
“About eight o’clock. We did the usual sports watching thing together.
He told me you’d be out all night so I didn’t want to force him to come
home.”
“Thanks, that was kind. I was meant to be staying overnight for an
early meeting, but it was cancelled so I changed my ticket and came
home early. Thought it might be nice for him if I was around when he
woke up.”
She gave me a wry smile.
“Well, I’ll tell him as soon as he wakes up that you’re home,” I said. “Or should I just go and wake him up?”
“Oh, no, leave him there. If that’s ok with you?”
“Yeah, it’s fine, no problem,” I replied.
We chatted for a few minutes longer, about nothing in particular,
before I headed home. Only as I returned to my bed did I realise quite
how exhausted I was.
Haley was unexpectedly excited about his mother’s early return. It
was a Friday, and his school was closed for the day for some Founder’s
Day type occasion. With Jeanna’s suddenly free schedule, there was now
ample time for them to spend a day together, a rare occurrence in their
household.
I myself was having a long weekend, treating myself to a couple of days
leave either side, and was thinking about wandering down to the local
book shop and spending a leisurely morning looking around and having a
coffee, before heading to the beach in the afternoon and having a walk
among the rock-pools there. For a marine biologist, I spent
surprisingly little time on the beach, and wanted to experience it
before I left.
I wandered across the sand, feeling its gritty texture between my toes
and revelling in the salty breeze which enveloped me. Gulls circled
high overhead, eyes on the water, looking for shoals of bait fish to
devour.
As I walked, I reflected on the time I had spent in Florida. The work
was easy, and interesting, but to a certain extent I had struggled to
settle. I came to the conclusion that this was because I didn’t want to
form attachments to any of the people around me, because I would be
leaving so soon.
Five months and one week of my time had gone by. The report was largely
done, and we were just waiting for some poll results to come in. I had
a week to finish and submit it, and then there would be two weeks of
digestion and consultancy before my time was up. I’d spoken to my boss,
who had another assessment lined up to start three or four weeks after
the end of the current one, up in Alaska. I was already thinking about
travelling there, because it would come as a relief to be gone.
That’s right, a relief. Because I was falling for Haley, in the same
way I had fallen for Daniel. His smile, his laughter, his little
wisecracks, his intelligence. Oh, of course, his good looks, too. He
was a long way from being an unattractive young lad. And there was that
indefinable attraction, for all kinds of reasons which cannot be
written down.
I had reached a rock wall I couldn’t traverse, and turned back on
myself, realising with a start that the apartment block was barely
visible on the horizon. I’d never walked this far down the beach
before, and looking down at my watch noted that I had been wandering
for more than an hour.
I cut up from the beach to a short strip of shops, finding a cafe where
I could sit in the shade for a while, sipping on an ice cold Coke and
watching the world go by. There were a few young lads about, I assumed
compatriots of Haley’s on the basis they weren’t in school. I watched
them for a while as they tried to perform tricks on their skateboards.
All were without their shirts, and I felt a depressing, familiar lurch
in my stomach at the sight. Damn.
I jumped at the metallic scraping of one of the cafe chairs on the
concrete of the pavement. Looking up, I found myself staring into the
smiling face of Michel.
“May I?” he asked, though I felt that my answer was irrelevant – he was going to sit down regardless.
“Of course,” I replied. “How are you, Michel? I’ve not seen you in the offices for a while.”
“I have been busy, Zark.”
That’s how he pronounced it, ‘Zark’. Always got a smile from me.
“Anything interesting?”
“Oh no, nothing in which you may be interested. Unless, M. McNaught, you wish to work for the evil oil company?”
He said it with one raised eyebrow, as if it were a deep, dark conspiracy. Nevertheless, I shook my head.
“No, thanks, Michel.”
“You do not want even to know what is the job?”
I shrugged. I suppose it wouldn’t hurt to hear it.
“Very well. The company, they are looking for an environmental officer.
It is a permanent position, Zark. It comes with the apartment. You are
not interested?”
I smiled and shrugged my shoulders.
“I would be finding excuses for them to do evil things, Michel. I’m not sure I could live with myself!” I laughed.
“Very well. But you will miss it here, no?”
“Well, I can’t deny that, Michel. I mean, look at that view.”
The sweep of my arm unintentionally took in the young skater lads, a
fact I realised with some embarrassment when Michel, with a wicked
glint in his eye, said,
“Quite, Zark, quite.”
We chatted about work for a few minutes longer, before Michel announced that he must be gone.
“Just before you go, Michel,” I said, “what bought you down here this
afternoon? It’s nowhere near the offices or the marine station.”
“The view, of course, Zark, the view.”
He gave me a sly smile, threw enough notes on the table to cover both
of our bills, and stalked off along the street, his gaze shrouded by
sunglasses which undoubtedly cost more than my monthly wage. I saw his
head turn slightly as he passed the skaters and chuckled to myself.
Fast forward a few weeks. The report was in, and the company were
ecstatic. The reality was that their programme really didn’t stand much
chance of causing long term damage, even if there was an accident.
Parts of this coastline represented absolutely vital ecosystems, but
this particular stretch was strangely sterile, the result of an odd
confluence of currents which made it difficult to form anything
permanent.
There weren’t even that many objections from the environmental lobby –
with limited resources they had to concentrate on the really important
fights, and this wasn’t one of those, especially with the company
making all sorts of noises about their new social programme. I’d seen
from the inside that they really did appear to be investing in cleaner
ways of doing things, though I knew that there was an economic
advantage for them doing so. It was a lot cheaper to prevent
environmental objections rather than fighting them in court.
So it was that I found myself doing the rounds of my neighbours and
inviting the whole apartment complex to a leaving party in my flat.
Although I couldn’t accept anything from the company for my positive
report, there had apparently been a mix-up of some sort with a local
supplier of some kind and suddenly there were five crates of beer
sitting on my doorstep. No-one at the supplier would accept that they
weren’t mine and that I hadn’t paid for them. They insisted they had my
credit card details and my signature, and that since I’d ordered the
beer, and it was perishable, they couldn’t take it back.
I’d been a bit late organising things, and so it was the day before
I was intending to leave that I had everyone round for a bit of a
farewell. It was my opportunity to say thanks to all of them for
accepting me into their little world so eagerly. Despite my negativity
about the personal side of the job, I realised I had made some rather
good friends here, and if I was to stay any longer, some of them would
definitely have ended up on the Christmas card list.
Although I had the apartment for a few weeks longer, my job was done
and I intended to take a holiday. I’d not really planned anywhere, and
as I chatted to people throughout the night I was bombarded with a
wealth of suggestions, from the ridiculous to the extremely attractive.
The best of all of the ideas was packing my stuff up into a trailer,
hitching it to the back of a truck (a truck in the American sense), and
driving my way up to the job in Alaska. No planning required, just a
map and a credit card.
I was stunned by quite how many people turned up to say goodbye, though
I imagine when word got around about the crates of beer which had been
spotted stacked up outside my door, a few ‘maybes’ became ‘definite’.
One presence sorely missed, though, was Haley. In fact, he’d been
avoiding me ever since he had discovered that I was leaving. It wasn’t
as though he was unaware – after all, I had mentioned it on several
occasions over the months – but the notion that I wasn’t a permanent
presence in the apartment building, and more importantly his life,
seemed to hit him hard.
I was both upset and pleased by this. It’s always nice to know that
you’re important to someone, that they want you around. But it was
upsetting because I knew that my feelings for Haley weren’t the nice,
safe platonic ones I would have preferred them to be. I was so angry
with myself for falling for him like this, for ruining something so
innocent and special, for tainting our friendship with adult overtones.
Jeanna noticed right away that I’d spotted his absence.
“He’s gone out skating, Zack. Said he didn’t want to go to some ‘dorky’
party. And that’s a direct quote. Is it bad that I think he should be
past using a kid’s word like that?”
I laughed at her, and pointed out that it was probably better than
profanity, to which she reluctantly agreed. We chatted pleasantly for a
while about nothing in particular, and in fact we got on like a house
on fire, until she happened to throw a spanner in the works.
“It’s a shame you’re not sticking around longer, Zack. Haley could have
done with someone like you around to talk to. I think he’s going to
have some tough times ahead.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied. “Like me how?”
“You know, Zack, gay.”
Now, I still hadn’t come out to anyone in America, so I can imagine
that the look on my face must have been priceless. It was enough to
have Jeanna dissolving into a fit of giggles, though.
“Oh, come on, Zack,” she said, rather asthmatically, when her laughter
had subsided. “I know you’re not exactly queening it up, but it’s
fairly obvious. To me, at least. I have some experience in that area,
though.”
I was still struggling for words, and the back end of her sentence merely piled confusion on top of bewilderment.
“Sorry?” was all I could manage.
“Well, don’t spread this too far,” she said, leaning in and lowering
her voice, “but my little boy’s not exactly out there hunting down
girls.”
“Jeanna!” I spluttered. “He’s thirteen years old! How can you possibly
be so sure of his sexuality that you’re willing to go round telling
people?”
“Oh, you won’t tell anyone,” she replied, unworried. “Besides, a mother always knows.”
The annoying thing was that she was right, too. My mother, when
informed that I was gay, immediately replied that of course I was. I
wish she’d told me a bit earlier – it would have prevented a whole
awkward phase of trying to like girls.
The party didn’t last long after that. Most of the people in the
apartment block were, if not actually old, at least heading that way.
We were done by nine o’clock, but it had been a great evening, and as I
bade the last guests farewell, I let out a huge sigh of relief.
I was just clearing the last of the beer bottles into the bin when
there was a gentle knock at my door. I dropped the bottles in with a
clank, and padded on bare feet down the polished stone corridor to the
doorway. I wasn’t in the habit of using the peephole, so it was a
surprise to see who stood the other side of the door.
Haley had been crying, that much was evident from his red-rimmed eyes.
He looked at me, his face a medley of emotions, each trying to crowd
out the others. I didn’t know what to say, so I took a couple of paces
back, implicitly inviting him in.
The heavy wooden door slammed shut behind him, the last of his anger
used to propel it. He looked at me as though I had run over his dog,
and then with a lunge grabbed me around the middle in the strongest hug
I had ever felt. His body was racked with sobs, and I could feel damp
tears soaking into my t-shirt. The familiar sinking feeling was back in
the pit of my stomach.
As I held him there, I looked over his head to the small shelf by the
door where I always dumped my mail. Sitting there, almost accusing by
its very presence, was a single page letter, on the embossed, headed
notepaper of the oil company. In three short paragraphs it offered me
an amazing job, with extraordinary pay, and a free apartment. All I had
to do was sell my soul to them.
And, I realised, love this boy.
The End