Boy Crazy: Coming Out Erotica (15 page)
Read Boy Crazy: Coming Out Erotica Online
Authors: Unknown
He knew the routine by now. Sunday evening: find the digs, find something to eat, try the local pub. Monday morning: meet the new faces, wonder if he’d be up to the job—console himself with the hope that perhaps some of his youthful fellow actors were secretly wondering the same thing.
“I haven’t fenced since drama school,” he confessed.
“Neither have I,” said Tybalt with a rueful smile.
“Nor me,” said Mercutio.
“I’m glad we’ve all got that off our chests at least,” said the fight arranger, handing out rapiers as though they were pencils in a drawing class. “Very slowly to begin with. One, two, three, and lunge…”
“You’re going to be a bit good,” said a voice at coffee break. David turned round. It was Mercutio. The actor’s name was Howard, a handsome raven-haired young man, older than David by a year or so, and taller by an inch.
“Thank you.” David was pleased, and surprised. Although he tried to tell himself the compliment was no more than his due, the fact that it should have been offered at such an early stage was flattering. He felt relaxed enough to say to Howard, “You’re pretty good yourself,” and was rewarded by a bright-eyed smile in return: a smile that showed off a pretty array of pearly teeth.
David did not usually think of
pretty
in connection with men. Perhaps it would have been truer to say that he tried not to. He thought his girlfriend was pretty, and other women too, from time to time. But even that was seldom at the forefront of his mind. He had a girlfriend, as many young men do, because he had one. Because he’d always had one. He had sex with her when he was with her—whichever one it happened to be at this stage of his life—and gave her, or them, not a lot of thought when he was away. But to be fair, he didn’t waste a lot of time looking at or thinking about other women either. He didn’t play away from home. For the fact was, David was one of those ultracommitted, ultrafocused actors whose work and career absorbed him almost to the exclusion of everything else. It was not even that he was ambitious, at least not in the usual sense of desiring status, fame, and money. What he loved, what he lived for, was the thing itself: the acting, the roles, the theater; it was the whole of his world.
pretty
in connection with men. Perhaps it would have been truer to say that he tried not to. He thought his girlfriend was pretty, and other women too, from time to time. But even that was seldom at the forefront of his mind. He had a girlfriend, as many young men do, because he had one. Because he’d always had one. He had sex with her when he was with her—whichever one it happened to be at this stage of his life—and gave her, or them, not a lot of thought when he was away. But to be fair, he didn’t waste a lot of time looking at or thinking about other women either. He didn’t play away from home. For the fact was, David was one of those ultracommitted, ultrafocused actors whose work and career absorbed him almost to the exclusion of everything else. It was not even that he was ambitious, at least not in the usual sense of desiring status, fame, and money. What he loved, what he lived for, was the thing itself: the acting, the roles, the theater; it was the whole of his world.
Yet Mercutio’s—Howard’s—teeth were quite something, David had to admit. And those eyes of his too.
The break ended. The rehearsal continued, with David counting, “One, two, three, lunge,” under his breath, and showing his teeth a bit competitively when called upon to smile at Juliet.
“What a lovely actor you are to work with,” said Sian, who was Juliet, at lunchtime. “Your smile is something other. We’re going to have a great time. You’re so giving.”
She was very attractive herself, David thought, registering simultaneously the twin novelties of being complimented so boldly, and his own new sensitivity to the attractiveness of others. Did it have something to do with the role he was playing? He had found Mercutio’s smile attractive as well as enviable, if he were honest. And Sian, well, she had the loveliest deep-set hazel eyes above her high cheekbones. As for himself, he had never thought that he was especially good looking. Average height, average build, average facial features. And, as far as his limited knowledge went, an average-sized cock as well. He’d never made a point of looking at other men’s, though he saw them from time to time—in showers or at urinals, in theater dressing rooms. He’d rarely seen another man’s full erection.
But when he was onstage everything became different. If his character was handsome, then so was he, and he could make the whole audience, and himself, believe it. The same held true if he were playing someone ugly, of course, but this month, while he was Romeo, that thought could be laid aside. Things were starting well. He’d managed to charm—and had decided to like—two new people in one morning. As he donned the mantle of Romeo it was as though life were changing up a gear. A sepia-tinted phase of it was giving way to a Technicolor one.
Other people were nervous on first nights. Not David. He could be terrified on the first day of rehearsal, shy with new fellow actors, but soon his performance took on a momentum of its own. The presence of an audience might change it a little, and usually improved it, but it would not disturb him or make him anxious. Audiences didn’t suddenly materialize on first nights anyway. The first dress-run would find the wardrobe mistress sitting in, the second would furnish design staff and carpenters, too. The technical rehearsal would leave David in a private world, able to polish what he had not had time to do before: a little gesture tweaked, a new way to give meaning to a phrase… Nobody would be paying attention to him. Everyone would be busy with lighting, cueing, snagging, focused intently on props and buttons, leaving him to pursue his own inner goal: the perfect performance of his given role. Eventually…
“Half an hour please.”
“Oh, god, I’m right out of powder. Anybody got some?”
“Got any carmine?”
“What play are you in, darling?”
“Quarter of an hour please.”
“I’m shit-scared. Look at David there. Cool as a whatsit.”
“Anybody else get a card from Viv?”
“Beginners please…David and Uncle Tom Cobley and all to the stage please.”
It went like a dream. All that had been good in the three weeks of rehearsals came together in that evening’s two hours’ traffic. David came off after his final curtain call feeling ten feet tall. The supporters’ club had drinks laid on afterward. David and Sian were feted and toasted, separately and together. A magical new stage partnership had been born, people said.
“Party back at Simon’s,” word went round. “Get away when you can.”
“I don’t have a bottle,” David said.
“Come anyway.” David went.
An hour later Sian was sitting on David’s knee and making him recount his life story. There was much to be said for playing Romeo, he thought, aware of his excitement.
“I’ll get you some more wine,” Sian said, and got up, disappointingly.
There was a knock at the door, welcoming voices. “Tom, we didn’t know you were back. How did it go?”
Sian introduced Tom to David. He could hear in her voice the pleasant uncertainty of one spoilt for choice. Then she took Tom away to the kitchen to get him a drink. David remained in his armchair.
“Some you win, some you lose,” said someone who came and perched on one of the arms. It was Howard. Mercutio.
“Your Queen Mab speech was magic,” David said. He really meant it, but the words came out without enthusiasm.
“Aren’t you the kind one? Do you know what you were?”
“What?”
“Fucking ruddy brilliant from beginning to end.”
“You’re pissed,” said David a bit more kindly.
“So are you.”
“I am?”
“I think so,” said Howard. “I can tell by that smile of yours. I didn’t notice it when I first met you, but it’s grown day by day. Now it’s bigger than you are. Must be the wine smiling. Seems to have worked a treat with Sian anyway.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“Why not?”
“I’m not sure,” David began, uncertain what he was going to say, uncertain whether it would make any sense, but vaguely sensing that it wouldn’t much matter. “I’m not sure what this smile is doing for me. Or what I’m supposed to be doing with it.”
“With Sian, you mean?”
“Anyone. Anything.”
“Probably the wrong thing,” Howard suggested, nodding his head at his own shrewdness. “Most people do.”
“Probably,” said David, without knowing what he was agreeing with.
“Perhaps you should be looking in a different direction.”
This woke David up somewhat. “If you mean what I think you do, the answer is no.”
“What do you think I mean?” asked Howard teasingly.
David only laughed in reply so Howard tried, “Your glass. You haven’t got one.”
“Sian took it out to the kitchen. I think.”
“To fill it up and give it to that Tom fellow. How diabolical. Perfidious. I’ll get you a new one.”
“I’ve had more than enough already,” said David, but Howard had already set off toward the kitchen. David watched him go. He certainly was a good-looking man, as well as a good actor. David had admired his panache and his smile and had made a point, as Romeo, of copying them. Now Howard had paid David the compliment of admiring the reflection.
“David, you should be circulating,” someone said.
“I daren’t,” he answered. “I’m afraid the room might, too.”
Howard returned with two glasses of something. It no longer mattered what. There was a new warmth in his eyes that David found appealing. He wanted to say,
You remind me of someone
, but he couldn’t remember who, so he left it. Big Norma passed by. Big Norma, who had played earth-motherly roles up and down the country for years (she was the Nurse in this production). “I didn’t know about you two,” she said. For Howard had somehow half slipped off the arm of David’s chair and looked to be nearly in David’s lap.
You remind me of someone
, but he couldn’t remember who, so he left it. Big Norma passed by. Big Norma, who had played earth-motherly roles up and down the country for years (she was the Nurse in this production). “I didn’t know about you two,” she said. For Howard had somehow half slipped off the arm of David’s chair and looked to be nearly in David’s lap.
“Just good friends,” said Howard lightly and rested his spinning head on David’s shoulder.
“Exactly so,” said David, and completed the tableau by leaning his own head against Howard’s.
“Well, well, well,” said Norma, and gave them an old-fashioned look as she walked away.
“She’ll have forgotten by the morning,” said Howard from somewhere near David’s right ear.
“I’m rat-arsed,” Howard volunteered as they spilled out into the street.
“I’ll walk you home,” said David. He didn’t think he’d been quite so drunk in his life. But Norma’s throwaway remark had somehow crystallized the evening for them, and had set it on a tentative course that was previously not even remotely possible, at least for David. They had refilled their glasses twice more afterward. Now the night air laid about them like a boxer. “Where are your digs?”
“Furnace Road,” said Howard.
“Jesus, that’s miles away. Never mind, we’ll get you there somehow.” They staggered arm in arm toward a railway viaduct. A late express thundered across it, a dazzling necklace of light, blinding and out of focus as a vision. “Look at that,” said David.
“Brilliant,” said Howard, as if David had conjured the effect for his own special benefit. The train disappeared like a fire-work hissing into the blackness and left them in starless silence, together, alone.
“Look,” said David, “It’s another mile to Furnace Road, and I live just up here on the left.” What had he just said? His mind dredged up the fact that there was only one bed at his disposal. There was the floor, of course…They’d sort it all out when they got there.
David was on a level of consciousness that was new to him. He unlocked the front door of the darkened house and propelled his companion upstairs. In his room he put on the light. Howard immediately dived onto the bed as people in his state do, but he dived rather tidily to one side, leaving a space next to him, and into that space David, with only the briefest pause for thought, slid his own body. “Come on,” he said, playing the put-upon host, “Let’s get you ready for bed.” And he began to unbutton Howard’s shirt for him.
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