Encore Encore (14 page)

“Hey, if you’re worried about HIV, I’m clean, honest. You can ring my mum and ask her to quote from the latest test report.” He nibbled at Tommy’s agile fi ngers. “At any rate I always make sure I’ve got…” Francis fumbled in his pocket.

“Don’t be daft.” Tommy turned in his friend’s arms. He was just as hard and excited, his groin pressing against Francis now and increasing the desperation. “I’ve got everything we’d need here anyway, I’m not some blushing innocent. It isn’t about HIV or anything like that, I just don’t do
it
fi rst time. Hand jobs, they’re OK—they do exactly what they say on the tin.” Tommy’s mad grin added to his allure. “Just a bit of fun between friends.

Anything else—anything else has to wait until I know you better.

Too much risk, putting your body in the hands of someone you don’t know. If you see what I mean.”

Francis shivered. “I see what you mean all right.” He could have sworn the cut on his arm had opened again and he could feel where the knife had glanced over it. “You’ve got sense. Hand job it is then.”

If Tommy’s fl ies had held a magnetic attraction for actor’s fi ngers it couldn’t have acted more powerfully. It was quick, it was straightforward, uncomplicated by any pretence of love. They kissed while they did it, lips and tongues on mouths or faces or necks, but that was all. It was nice, reminding Francis of how uncomplicated life had been, once.

“Bloody hell, I’d forgotten how messy this gets.” Francis laughed, looking at his hands in dismay. “It’ll ruin this bloody suit.”

ENCORE! ENCORE!
101

“Bathroom’s in here, we’ll soon get you sorted out.” Tommy didn’t even wait to make himself decent, leaving that until they’d both cleaned up a bit.

The bathroom was as classy as the rest of the fl at; soft cream coloured towels, expensive but not pretentious toiletries, the odd knick knack that was subtle and in excellent taste. “You really have got a nice place, haven’t you?” Francis, decent again and not a bit of semen on his crushed velvet, drew his fi ngers along the edge of the bath.

“I like it.” Tommy moved closer again, fi ngers smelling of lavender soap edging through Francis’s hair and caressing his face. “I like you, too. Here, wipe your face while we’re about it.” A soft, white fl annel got passed across, not one of the cheap ones from Superdrug that Francis’s blokes usually ran to, but a proper, thick, soft one. Like Francis’s aunt kept, to match her six inch deep towels. He remembered happy days as a boy swathing himself up in them and pretending to be a Roman emperor. He picked it up, but did nothing more than enjoy the feel of it in his hand. For a moment he was a boy again.

“Let me do it, then.” The water in the basin was tepid, the fl annel making gentle swathes across Francis’s face as Tommy wielded it with great care and tenderness.

He wanted to speak, to say that he didn’t want to be stripped of the makeup, that it wouldn’t come off with water alone anyway, but this was a magical moment not to be broken.

“How do you get this bloody stuff off? Bleach?” Tommy looked at the fl annel, looked at Francis’s face, then back to the fl annel again, like he was taking part in a mime show.

The magic didn’t break, just transformed itself into something equally delightful. Like the sudden illumination of a spotlight, Francis knew he’d spent too long amongst the theatre crowd, heard too many insincere compliments, been called “darling” and “love” on too many occasions. They’d been fun—they
were
fun—but they somehow couldn’t hold a candle to the charm of a shy, tongue tied architect-type-rugby player. He could sit here and
102 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

let Tommy scrub at him for a week. “You need makeup remover or cold cream. One of a dozen things from Boots the Chemist, none of which you’ll have in your bathroom cabinet.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Like a magician pulling a rabbit from his top hat, Tommy rummaged in the cupboard and produced a tub of Nivea Visage.

“Bloody hell.” Francis’s stomach suddenly turned. Girlfriend.

It had to mean a girlfriend somewhere, one for the nights when Tommy felt like swinging the other way. He didn’t like to ask, but he had to know. “Where did you get that? I don’t suppose it’s yours…”

“Don’t be an arse. It’s my sister’s. She was down here a fortnight ago, at a bloody hen night.” Tommy rolled his eyes, making it plain what he thought of crowds of pink-clad hysterical women.

“Left a load of stuff behind.” He rummaged in the cupboard again. “Here, you can have this. Just your colour.” Francis turned the lipstick in his hand. It was
just
his colour, the cheeky sod. “Very nice, but I never use Miss Sporty.”

“I wish you wouldn’t use any of it. Not here anyway. I like it when you’re up on the stage, it’s nice then.” It was like a little boy talking, not some hunk of a bloke with muscles on his arm like most guys in the company had on their legs. “Here, face to face, I prefer what’s underneath.”

The Nivea was having its effect, stripping away foundation, mascara, great streaks covering Francis’s cheeks and being pared away, layer by layer.

“Look.” Tommy turned Francis’s face towards the mirror.

“You’re fucking gorgeous and you have to go and hide it all underneath the slap.”

“Don’t you like me when I’m dressed to kill?” The voice was trying to sound light and sophisticated, but the hurt couldn’t be hidden. He remembered, even if Tommy didn’t, what the blokes had said outside the pub.
Hello darling, come over here and get them out
for the boys.
And that was just the repeatable part. He remembered ENCORE! ENCORE!
103

Tommy’s reaction, too. The magic was crumbling. “Don’t you get turned on by it?”

“Yeah, of course I do. When you’re up on the stage. You’re lovely then, but it’s not real, is it? None of it’s fucking real.” He caressed Francis’s now bare cheek. “This is real. And it’s lovelier.

I want to kiss this,” he drew his thumb across the mouth, now without any trace of lipstick. “You taste of blusher and powder.

My tongue’s covered in the stuff. I only want to taste sweat and skin—I don’t want to have to kiss you when Boots’ cosmetic counter’s ladled on thick.” He leaned in for another kiss, a long drawn out one, a little step on the road to getting to know each other better, with all the promises that held. Tommy’s body in Francis’s hands.

Except he was starting to make demands, already. All the anger, dissipated earlier in the evening, began to re-gather its forces, buzzing into Francis’s brain and making him break the clinch.

“I’m not getting rid of the makeup just for you, Tommy boy.

I’ve done it before, been something I wasn’t just to suit some bloody bloke. I’m not doing it again. Not for you, not for anyone.” They’d known each other a few hours, shared a bit of a fumble and a snog—Tommy was in no position to go dictating the odds.

Francis was wondering whether to show the tosser how hard a trannie could punch when he realised Tommy was apologising.

And asking him something. “What the fuck is it now?”

“What happened before? To make you so fucking angry?” Tommy sat on the edge of the bath, hands between his thighs like a little boy, unsure what to say among the grown ups. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, Francis, I like you too much. I didn’t realise I’d put my foot in it.”

“What the fuck is that to you? I…” How the hell could you stay angry when you had such a nice lad looking so intently at you, obviously really interested in what you had to say and not trying on the agony aunt bit because he just wanted to get into your pants? Maybe he should tell him. Then he could bugger
104 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

off and forget about this evening. Only Francis didn’t think he’d forget this evening in a hurry. “There was this guy…”

“That sounds just like that bit in Casablanca.” Tommy reached over to stroke Francis’s hand.

That felt nice. Dear God he was knackered. Francis didn’t even have the strength to be angry any more. “Can we take this conversation back to the settee? I’ll have a ridge on my arse from sitting on the side of this bath.” The lounge was warmer, too and the settee was comfortable.

The shy silence which developed between them from bath to sofa—the tentative silence only broken by the sounds of far off city life, the comfy silence in which some kernel of deeper affection was budding—had to be broken at some point or they’d have been asleep. “There was this guy, just after I’d left university.

I really thought he was
the one.
You know, the great mythical prince who’s going to come on his white charger and sweep you off to his palace for a bit of happily ever after?”

“Oh yeah. The one all the little girls hope for and then they end up with some randy, beer swilling slob.” Tommy stroked Francis’s hand again. “Did yours turn out to be a randy, beer swilling slob?”

“You got the
randy
bit right. Like a bloody tomcat. Only I didn’t know, not until I’d put all my emotional eggs into one sodding basket, and started playing pseudo-housewife.” Francis sighed, a great heaving sigh which seemed to come from his Cuban heels.

For all the bravado that he could still force into his speech, he was inching the metaphorical curtain up, baring a stage which no one had been allowed to see before. Even Freddie had only been allowed glimpses. “We got a fl at together. It was fun for the fi rst few weeks.”

“And then?”

“And then we couldn’t stay cooped up there all the time. We’d had a holiday and barely got out of the bedroom, let alone the place we rented, but once we were back to work, James wanted to have his colleagues from the law fi rm around, or meet up with them. And he wanted me to come along.” ENCORE! ENCORE!
105

“You did better than I did with Rickie, then.” Tommy’s hand made its way up Francis arm and stroked his hair.

“I thought so, when he fi rst suggested it. I’d just got into this,” Francis swept his fi ngers along the edges of his jacket, “I should have realised he wouldn’t want me to go out in it. Drag was okay at home, but he wanted a booted and suited bloke he could take out and show off to his straight mates, and their signifi cant others. He used to make out I was just a fellow player, that we chased a bit of skirt together. I allegedly did it with the chorus girls while he was telling dodgy tales about knocking off some tart from the embassy.”

“Sounds like a beard in reverse.”

“It worked like one. Come on, Tommy, you’ve seen it yourself.

It’s like hiding in plain sight. You and your team mates can hug each other or arse around as much as you want on and off the pitch and no one bats an eyelid. All lads together.” Francis ran his hands through his hair, met Tommy’s fi ngers and entwined with them. “Everyone at his work thought I was just the lodger, someone to help fund the mortgage and share the bills while he was a trainee. It was only a few of
our
crowd who knew we shared a bed as well as a kettle. And they knew he screwed around most of them, which was more than I was aware of.”

“Okay, I now offi cially hate him, is that what you want? I guessed early on there’d been someone who’d pissed you off and I felt grateful to him because he’d left the fi eld free for me, but now I could kick the bastard.” Tommy’s eyes were full of pain, a little boy who’d been punched and didn’t understand why. “I know how much it must hurt, both ways.” His free hand traced the edge of Francis’s jaw, caressed his mouth once more.

“Have you got ‘Miss Otis Regrets’ among your CDs?”

“That’s bloody random. Yes, the Barrowman version. And the Kirsty McColl. Why do you…ah.” Tommy broke into one of his idiot grins. “You didn’t shoot him, though, did you? Even if he deserved it.”

“Wish I had, at times. No, that became my theme tune for a long while. I’d put on all the works and give it all I had, whether
106 Cochrane ~ All That Jazz

it was at a party sprawling over the piano or at home with just a backing track and a bottle. I survived on white wine, cruising and being Miss Otis.” Francis leaned back, shutting his eyes and humming the opening few lines. “I was tempted to stagger all the way down to Canary Wharf on my stilettos, turn up at his fi rm and tell his boss what the set up had really been. I’d have loved to see his fat corporate cat face when he found out the offi ce stud was really the offi ce bicycle.”

“But you didn’t?” Tommy still fi ngered his friend’s face, probably making the most of the time when it was clear of any cosmetics.

“I didn’t. Freddie came along with the chance of a show and I had something else to put my energy into, rather than looking for rough trade.” Francis caught the worried look in Tommy’s eye, took his face between nimble hands. “I wasn’t a nice bloke for a while, Tommy boy. I’m glad I didn’t meet you back then. You’d have hated me.”

“You’re probably right.” Tommy nodded, as if that settled the matter. Yeah, it was better they’d run across each other now.

“And is that why you go for this?” He smoothed the velvet suit, instinctively picking off any little fl ecks which marred the surface.

The latest wave of anger, never far away from breaking through tonight, crashed in. All the worse for Francis realising that he must have been waiting for that remark, waiting ever since James fucking Mannering got mentioned. “Amateur psychology time is it, because I’ve heard all the variations already about why I cross dress.” Francis counted them off on his fi ngers. “A reaction to having had to pretend I was Mr. Macho and hating every moment.

Some congenital hormonal imbalance, too much oestrogen or something, showing up as a post traumatic reaction. People have always got to have something to blame it on, like analysing why I’m gay. My sister’s ‘ex’ said men got turned into pansies because we’d all been given girls’ toys when we were young. I’m sick of all the pseudo-psychology crap I’ve had thrown at me.” ENCORE! ENCORE!
107

“I never had dolls or anything remotely like them. Always a ball in my hand. Aw, come on I didn’t mean it like that.” Francis didn’t think he knew anyone who turned quite so red at a mildly dirty joke as Tommy managed to. Or someone who could turn anger round at the fl ash of a smile or a glance of the eye. If you were looking for the archetypal fairy tale prince, he was probably sitting on this settee, right now, out Disneying Disney for goofi ness. “I have two sisters, I couldn’t help playing with their toys, and they used to play with mine. That’s life. I don’t know why I need to dress up, Tommy. Freddie reckons it’s a reaction to the constraints Mannering put on me, and I bet that gloating bastard would say the same. That horse doesn’t run, by the way—I used to put on my mum’s dresses and dance around to her old Tamla Motown records when I was nine. I’ve always wanted to do it, just took some time to fi nd the nerve.” He rested his fi ngers on his friend’s still red cheeks. “That’s why it hurts when you say you don’t like me dressing up.”