Shameless (5 page)

“But you have to tell him exactly what you think of him,” Caroline said, pressing a finger to her nostril and Hoovering up a line in one swift, smooth action. “The best thing that could happen now would be if he called. At least then you could tell him to crawl off and die somewhere. Unless you still want him back. Oh, Martin, you don’t still want him back, do you?”

“Of course not!” he snapped, sounding far more defensive than he’d intended. “Sorry. It’s just that this has all happened so quickly. Three days ago, I wasn’t even aware that there was anything wrong. Now I’m left with a flat I can barely afford and an ex-boyfriend who’s off playing happy family with someone who gets his cock sucked for a living and probably earns more in a week than I make in a month. It’s like a bad dream. I still haven’t got used to the idea of him not being here. I keep expecting him to walk through the door at any moment.” He could feel himself welling up as he spoke, and fell silent, embarrassed that he might start sniveling.

“Have a line,” Caroline said gently, sliding the compact across the table and handing Martin the straw. “I know it’s not really your thing, but nobody died from a little line of coke. Believe me, you’ll feel a lot better than you do now.”

Martin hesitated for a moment. Snorting cocaine in the afternoon definitely wasn’t his thing. In fact, he’d only ever taken coke once before, at a party with Christopher one New Year’s Eve. He couldn’t really remember what the effects were, except that he drank an awful lot more than usual that night and talked nonstop about things he normally had very little interest in. Still, coke on its own was probably no worse than alcohol. It certainly didn’t appear to have done Caroline any harm. And God knows he had just cause for getting out of his head if that was what he wanted. He took the straw from her fingers.

“You’ll be okay,” Caroline continued, watching as he struggled to get the crumbly white powder up his nose with short, clumsy sniffs. “And don’t worry about the rent. I can always help out if you’re stuck, you know that. The important thing is for you to concentrate on getting over him. Deciding you don’t want him back, that’s the first step. The next step is to make sure that he knows you don’t want him back. That’s why it’s best if he phones you. It’s all about power. He dumps you, so you feel powerless. You have to find a way of taking control of the situation; then you won’t feel so bad. Well, that’s the theory anyway. I think it probably works for men better than for women. It’s a macho thing. Men are so much more competitive. It’s pathetic really.”

Martin snorted, scattering the remains of his line across the table. For all her feminine ways, Caroline was one of the most competitive, macho people he had ever met. “So how are things with you and Graham?” he asked, sensing that Christopher wasn’t the only specimen of manhood Caroline was thinking of. “Are you seeing him tonight?”

Caroline shrugged and lit up a Dunhill International. “I don’t know. We had a bit of a row yesterday, and I haven’t heard from him since. To tell you the truth, I’ve been expecting something like this to happen for a while. There’s something going on, something he isn’t telling me.”

“What do you mean?” Martin asked, sniffing hard until he felt the coke hit the back of his throat and the tip of his tongue go numb. “You don’t think he’s cheating on you, do you? No, not Graham. He’s crazy about you. Anyway, he’s not the type.”

“I’m not sure what type he is,” Caroline said, dabbing her finger on the few remaining crumbs and rubbing it against her gums. “I feel funny just talking about it. The thing is, I’ve got a feeling that he might actually be gay.”

Martin laughed. “Caroline, you have always had a feeling that Graham might actually be gay. Besides, I thought that was what attracted you to him in the first place. Isn’t that what you said, that you had always fantasized about having a gay man for a boyfriend and that now you finally had one?”

Caroline scowled. “Yeah, well, obviously I didn’t mean it literally. I just meant that he had the qualities I look for in a man, and which most of the straight men I meet lack in abundance. You know. He’s gentle. He’s sensitive. He isn’t afraid to show his feelings. He knows how to dress properly. He loves shopping. And he can dance. He’s like a gay man, only straight. Or at least I thought he was. Oh, you know what I mean.”

Martin knew exactly what she meant. Graham was one of the gentlest, most sensitive, most “gay-acting” men he had ever come across. In fact, Graham presented a far softer front than a lot of the men you saw on the gay scene these days, who to all intents and purposes were just like a straight man, only gay. The irony of this wasn’t lost on Martin. He wondered if a straight woman fancying gay men was the same thing as gay men fantasizing about sex with straight men. Did it involve a certain element of self-loathing? Was there even such a thing as “internalized heterophobia”? He did find the whole thing rather confusing. Most of the women he knew seemed to spend half their waking hours complaining that men were insensitive, selfish animals who didn’t know the first thing about personal hygiene. And then when they finally met one who wasn’t like that at all, they invariably found something else to complain about. He was too fussy, or too vain, or just not manly enough. It did make you wonder if straight men these days weren’t getting a bit of a raw deal. No wonder some of them were envious of the gay lifestyle. You rarely heard a gay man complain that somebody was “too macho.” On the contrary, most of them would give their eyeteeth for a man who acted the way straight men were supposed to behave. And thinking of teeth, he had heard it said that gay men generally gave far better blow jobs than women. All things considered, there were quite a few advantages to a straight man choosing to have sex with other men. Even a straight man with a girlfriend as gorgeous as Caroline.

“People are always assuming that Graham is gay,” he said eventually. “It doesn’t mean anything. You know that.”

Caroline reached for the compact and began chopping another line. “I don’t know what I know anymore. I told you how he never talks about his family.”

“So? How often do you talk about yours?”

“Come on, Martin! You’ve met my mother. You know what an embarrassment she can be. It’s different with Graham. I get this feeling that his family know something about him that I don’t. And he’s been acting very strangely lately. I told you he joined a gym recently. And he went to a tanning salon the other day. He’s even started reading
Men’s Health.
”

Martin laughed. “Oh well, in that case he must be gay. No question!” He paused and quietly scolded himself for being so insensitive. “I think you’re being just a little bit paranoid,” he continued in a softer voice. “Reading
Men’s Health
does not prove that a man is turning homosexual. Not conclusively anyway.”

Suddenly the phone rang. “If that’s Christopher . . . ,” Caroline shouted as Martin bolted into the bedroom. She heard the door click shut behind him, then turned her attention back to the little fold of paper in front of her. Not for the first time, it struck her how much she loved the rituals involved with taking coke—the positioning of the mirror, the careful unfolding of the wrapper, the precise arrangement of the lines of pure white powder on the glass. There was something so satisfyingly methodical about it, so neat and orderly, like a well-planned shopping list or a two-page presentation complete with bullet points. It wasn t a drug she associated with people whose lives were spiraling out of control. There was nothing remotely messy about it, nothing that fitted with the popular image of a drug addict. It was all so clean, so tidy. It was, she decided, a very minimalist chic kind of drug, and one which suited her lifestyle perfectly. Once she had finished chopping two of the neatest lines she had ever seen, she poured herself another cup of tea, lit another cigarette, and sat tapping out the seconds with her coke straw.

She was on her third cigarette by the time Martin reappeared, looking decidedly flustered. “Sorry about that,” he said, reaching for his mug and gulping down the lukewarm tea.

“Well?” said Caroline impatiently. “Was it him?”

“No,” Martin replied. “It was my dad. He’s coming to London next weekend, and he wants to stay here. Says he’d like to spend some quality time with his favorite gay son, or words to that effect.”

“How many gay sons has he got?”

Martin smiled. “Just the one. My brother is so straight, it hurts. That’s just Dad’s way of letting me know I’m not a disappointment to him.”

This was typical of his father. While most of the gay men Martin knew complained of fathers who flew into a homophobic rage at the mere mention of their offsprings’ sexual leanings, his own father had always been fine about him being gay. In fact, he had handled the news far better than his ex-wife. Martin’s mother meant well, but she spent far too much time worrying about what the neighbors might think. This wasn’t something ever likely to concern his father, who never stayed in one place long enough to develop more than a passing acquaintance with the neighbors. This pattern had been set years ago when Martin’s mother filed for divorce on the grounds of irreconcilable differences and his father moved out of the family home and into the first of a string of temporary abodes. Much as this had upset him at the time, the only thought Martin gave to his parents’ failed marriage now was trying to work out how they ever got together in the first place. These days, the differences in their outlook on life were more pronounced than ever. His father saw himself as a free spirit. His ex-wife saw him as just another victim of male menopause.

Caroline had met Martin’s father once before and found him rather sweet—a bit of an old hippie perhaps, but a damn sight more fun than her mother. She was certain he didn’t keep old photos of Martin around the house, just to embarrass him. Plus he had probably experimented with more drugs than his son. She could think of worse people to have as a houseguest. “Well, I think it’ll be nice for you to spend time with him,” she said, Hoovering up her line.

“Are you
mad
?” Martin said. “Next weekend is Gay Pride. I tried telling him that, but it only made him more determined. He said it would be the ideal opportunity for him to get to know my people, whoever they are. The biggest gay party of the year, and I’m going to have my father in tow. What am I going to do?”

Caroline laughed. “Finish your dinner,” she said, pointing to the one remaining line of coke. “Then get dressed. I’m taking you out.”

Four

N
o, not there,”
Caroline said, grabbing Martin’s arm and steering him toward an empty table at the opposite end of the bar. On a video screen above their heads, Ricky Martin was shaking his bonbon for what was probably the third time that evening. In the middle of the room, a man with terrible skin was dancing with a fat girl in a fuchsia-pink party dress. Brightly colored drinks in hand, they sashayed between the tables, doing their best to imitate Ricky’s moves and failing miserably.

“The lighting is terrible over there,” Caroline explained as she and Martin sat down. “Look at that girl at the far end, the one in the yellow top. She’s probably fairly attractive, but she looks awful in that light. I just can’t understand girls like that. You’d think someone would have told them by now. What’s the point of going to all that trouble with your hair and makeup and then ruining the effect by sitting under a bad light? She might as well go home. There isn’t a man here who’ll chat her up while she’s sitting there.”

Martin smiled politely. He had heard Caroline’s theory about good lighting many times before, and he was still no closer to understanding it. To him, the girl in question looked perfectly presentable. And if the men weren’t exactly queuing up to talk to her, that was probably because most of them here happened to be gay. They were in Soho after all, albeit a short walk from the gay stronghold of Old Compton Street. Martin preferred slightly more mixed venues like the Escape Bar—places where straight women and even some straight men came to hang out with gay friends, and everyone appeared to have a good time, even if they were sitting under the wrong kind of light. It was so much more relaxing than standing around in a bar full of gay men where nobody really talked to each other and you were left feeling like a piece of meat. He could still remember the first time he took Caroline to a gay bar—the Brief Encounter on St. Martin’s Lane. Some old queen in a tuxedo who had stopped off for a swift drink on his way to the Coliseum announced very loudly that he could smell fish in the room and that it was making him feel sick. Martin had felt sick, too, not to mention angry that another gay man could even think like that, let alone talk like it. Of course that was in the days when he still believed that the gay world was one big happy family, rather than a vipers’ nest full of people waiting to ruin your one chance of happiness by stealing your boyfriend.

“You okay?” Caroline said. “I thought I’d order a bottle of champagne to get us in the party mood. My treat. What do you say?”

Martin looked up. “Sorry? I was miles away. What are we celebrating?”

“I’m sure we’ll think of something. That’s the great thing with champagne. A few glasses and you feel like you’ve got something to celebrate even if you haven’t. Anyway, it’s the only thing to drink with coke. I’ve got another gram somewhere. I was going to save it for later. Sex on coke is just the best, but I don’t think I’ll be seeing Graham this weekend. And you know me. I can’t sleep if there’s a gram of coke in the house.”

Martin forced a smile and wondered if he was the only person in London who hadn’t experienced sex on cocaine. He wished Caroline wouldn’t insist on ordering champagne every time they went out together. He always felt so conspicuous drinking champagne in a gay bar. It made him feel like one of those aging queens you saw hanging around the clubs, flashing their money about in a desperate attempt to impress the younger pretty boys. Still, there was no point arguing with Caroline when she was in this mood, and it was kind of her to offer to pay. “Right,” he said brightly. “Champagne it is.”

They polished off the first bottle in less than an hour, punctuated by frequent trips to the toilets for what Caroline liked to describe as “cheeky little bumps” of coke. By the time the second bottle arrived, Martin didn’t care how naughty he looked. He was feeling more confident than he had felt in a long time. He was also beginning to understand how Caroline managed to stay so slim, despite her aversion to exercise and a job that seemed to revolve around boozy business lunches. He hadn’t eaten anything except a slice of toast all day, and he had no appetite whatsoever. A few more nights like this and he could soon stop worrying about the love handles. What’s more, he couldn’t remember the last time he had felt so horny. So this was what Caroline meant about coke being the best social and sexual lubricant there was. Not only did it keep you slim and give you the confidence to chat people up, it also turned you into some kind of sexual athlete. He felt like he could fuck for hours. The only problem was, at this precise moment in time, he didn’t have anyone to fuck with. Images of Christopher engaged in a variety of sexual positions with Marco flashed before his eyes like the trailer for a particularly bad porn movie, and he felt his confidence begin to drain away.

“That guy over there keeps looking at you,” Caroline said, nudging him under the table. “The one standing by the cigarette machine. Sexy, don’t you think?”

Martin looked. It wasn’t often that he agreed with Caroline’s assessment of what made a sexy man—Graham was a rare exception—but there was no denying that the hunk standing next to the cigarette machine with the curly black hair, the tight red T-shirt and the bulging biceps was indeed sexy. As a matter of fact, he was one of the sexiest men Martin thought he had seen in his entire life. And to top it all, he was smiling—not in a cocky “Yes, I know I’m gorgeous” sort of way, but in a friendly “Yes, I’d like to meet you” sort of way. Martin’s mouth went dry. A sheepish grin spread across his face. He blushed and quickly turned to Caroline.

“I think you’re in there,” Caroline said. “Quick, go and talk to him before he decides you’re not interested.”

“But I’m not really used to this sort of thing,” Martin protested. “What shall I say?”

“Well, you could always start by saying hello,” a voice said. Martin looked up. His admirer was standing over him, still smiling and looking even sexier at close range. “I’m Rob,” he said, offering Martin his hand. Then, glancing at the half-empty champagne bottle: “So what are you two celebrating?”

Martin shook Rob’s hand and blushed even more intensely. “Nothing really,” he mumbled.

“Actually, that’s not true,” Caroline said firmly. “We’re celebrating the fact that my friend Martin here has finally seen the light and ditched the boyfriend from hell. He is now young, free and single again. If you’d like to join in the celebrations, you’re more than welcome. Isn’t that right, Martin?”

Martin nodded bashfully. “Yeah. Of course. The more the merrier.”

Rob, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Martin for one second, pulled up a chair and sat down. “Thanks,” he said, looking directly at Caroline for the first time. Then, turning back to Martin, “That’s the best offer I’ve had in a while.”

Martin didn’t believe this for a moment, but he wasn’t about to argue. “Great,” he said, suddenly aware that his nose was about to drip and sniffing sharply. “Sorry. I’ve just got to pop to the toilet. Don’t go away.”

Rob grinned mischievously. “Don’t worry,” he said, checking out Martin’s groin as he stood up. “I’m not going anywhere.”

John was sitting in front of his computer, wearing nothing but his Calvin Klein briefs. Next to the keyboard, the ashtray was overflowing with cigarette butts. Apart from a brief break for something to eat and a quick trip to the newsstand for another pack of cigarettes, John had been on line for almost six hours. The phone bill would be enormous, but he didn’t care. It wasn’t every day that he met someone in a chat room who was as stimulating as “CuriousCute28.” Their initial conversation had lasted a little over an hour. By the time it drew to a close, John was convinced that this guy really was the genuine article. It was a shame that he didn’t have a photo to swap, but from the way the conversation had gone, John had already formed a pretty clear mental picture of him. He was six feet tall, clean shaven, with dark hair, brown eyes and the kind of naturally muscular physique that came from years of playing contact sports and lifting building materials, rather than months of intensive weight training at the gym. He had a girlfriend, lived a completely straight life, and had only recently begun to explore the possibility that he might be bisexual. He had never stepped foot inside a gay bar, never bought a Madonna record, never shaved his chest, and never worn an item of clothing that was a size too small. He was the ultimate gay fantasy figure, the “Great Dark Man” that old queen Quentin Crisp had dreamed about, and John was about to have mad passionate sex with him—sort of.

Their earlier conversation had only been a warm-up, a kind of first date, a means of discovering if they were really compatible. Clearly “CuriousCute28” had decided that they were, because he had asked John to meet him again, on-line at 9:00
P.M.
The plan was that they would both be naked and would indulge in a spot of cybersex, exchanging sexually explicit instant messages while simultaneously masturbating. John had heard of people doing this, and had even read somewhere that cybersex was the new phone sex, but he had always considered this sort of behavior beneath him. Tonight he felt rather different. He had drunk the best part of a bottle of wine to get himself in the mood, and had a bottle of poppers waiting. He had spent the last half hour checking out some of the gay porn Web sites and was feeling extremely horny, if a little ridiculous.

What if the whole thing had been a windup? It was already 9:10
P.M.
and there was still no sign of “CuriousCute28.” What if he didn’t show up? It would be so humiliating. That was the funny thing about the Internet. Unless you had a Web cam, you knew that nobody could actually see you, that nobody need ever know that you had spent the past half hour sitting there in your underwear, waiting in vain for a man who probably didn’t even exist, or at least not in quite the same way, shape or form that you imagined. Still, the lure of the chat rooms was so strong, and the fantasy so seductive, that just as you could picture the man of your dreams at the other end of the line, so you could convince yourself that a thousand prying eyes were watching you through your computer screen and laughing quietly at your misfortune. It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase “mind fuck.”

John flicked in and out of the various gay chat rooms and felt his erection dwindling. He took another slug of wine and lit another cigarette. Five more minutes, then it would have to be that porn video.

A message flashed up. It was him. “Hi,” it said. “Feeling horny?”

John stubbed out his cigarette and typed furiously. “Very. How about you?”

“Yeah. Sorry I’m a bit late. Playing squash with a mate. Worked up quite a sweat.”

John felt his cock harden. This was even better than he had anticipated. He stabbed at the keyboard. “So what are you wearing?”

“Just a jockstrap. You?”

John typed in “Calvin Kleins,” then decided it sounded too gay. He quickly deleted the words, replacing them with “Same here.”

“Cool,” came the reply. “You like to get fucked from behind or on your back?”

John reached for the poppers and inhaled deeply. For someone who claimed never to have had gay sex before, “CuriousCute28” certainly knew all the right things to say.

Martin couldn’t remember the last time he had enjoyed himself quite this much. It felt odd to be feeling so happy after the events of the past few days, but then admirers with Rob’s many attributes didn’t come along very often. He was so attentive, such good company, so good-looking, and such a good listener. This last quality was especially welcome. Caroline, bless her, had made her excuses and left shortly after Rob appeared, slipping Martin the remains of the coke as she hugged him good-bye. Since then, Martin hadn’t stopped talking. It was partly nerves, he was certain, but he just couldn’t seem to stop. He talked about his job, how he hated it, and how nobody respected him at the office. He talked about Caroline, how he loved her, and how she was the best friend a gay man could wish for. He talked about his father, how he meant well, and how his arrival in London next weekend was certain to end in social embarrassment if not complete disaster. And he talked about Christopher, how he had lied and cheated, and how his sudden departure had left Martin feeling foolish and miserable and barely able to carry on—until tonight that is, tonight when he had met Rob and was feeling on top of the world.

Rob smiled and nodded. Martin thought he resembled one of those advice columnists they trotted out on daytime television shows, only a far better listener and far better-looking. He really was extremely handsome, so handsome in fact that Martin wouldn’t have minded at all if Christopher and that Italian hooker with the beautiful arms had strutted into the bar at that precise moment and spotted him sitting here feeling fabulous with this gorgeous man lending a sympathetic ear. Besides, Rob’s arms were every bit as beautiful as Marco’s, and Martin was certain that Rob didn’t spend every day in the gym or make his living sleeping with ugly old men in exchange for vast amounts of money, which he never paid any tax on. He was sure that Rob had a proper job, one that involved a certain degree of responsibility. He just didn’t know what it was.

Had Rob told him this already? Or had they not got around yet to the subject of what Rob did for a living? Did he know anything about Rob at all, aside from the fact that he smiled a lot and was clearly a match for Marco any day of the week? Had he really been talking about himself all this time? Oh God, was he being boring? Maybe he should make a joke about it, say something like “Well, that’s enough about me. So what do you think of me?” Would that work? Would it sound funny? Did lines like that ever sound funny? Or was it already too late? Did Rob have him down as an alcoholic, egotistical bore? Or worse, had he written Martin off as some kind of drug addict? Maybe the constant sniffing had given him away. He could always say that he had a bit of a cold. Then again, it was late June. Allergies, then. He could claim that he had hay fever and that his doctor had prescribed antihistamine tablets and that they had made him speedy.