'Hi, it's me. Can I come over? I'd like to talk.'

There's a pause. A juggle of the handset. I can hear the cogs whirring in his head.

'Yeah, Vig, Umm...I'd love to see you. It's just -- Dom and Billy are coming. For dinner. And -- '

Another pause. I wait.

'Fun.'

'Fun is good, Karl. I can do fun.'

'I know you can, but it's -- it's Talents night. And you know how you can get. With your -- ah -- poems and things. And we're aiming at light. Fluffy, even. Can you do Fluffy?'

Like a fucking rabbit.

*

Talents night at Karl's house.

Everyone comes with a bottle and something to share. Bean always does Shakespeare, shoulders hunched, hands clenched and intense; Billy will sing, something melancholy and sentimental, that no-one remembers the words to afterwards, but which makes us tear-up by the end of the first chorus. Dom does whatever the fuck he feels like, depending on his mood, on how drunk he is, how horny, how tired. His rendition of The Jabberwocky in German is his party piece, already the stuff of Rings legend, always overdoing the Eins, Zwei! Eins, Zwei! Und durch und durch theatrics, grabbing meat cleavers or a poker to slice through the air: Sein vorpals Schwert zerschnifer-schn»ck...

Funny kid.

Elijah likes to read, from Huck Finn or Thoreau. Whitman, even, a time or two. It always makes us both homesick. Orli tells streams of filthy limericks about nuns and dead babies. Karl, if he does anything, plays his guitar.

Tonight is no different, even though it's only the four of us. We eat. We drink. We listen to Billy and Dom. Karl plays something by Dylan. I don't mean to imply it's boring; it's not that. It's comfortable and easy and keeps us going when we're too tired or sore from the grind of the shooting schedule to do anything else.

And then. At last and finally. My turn.

*

'I thought I'd do a soliloquy, of sorts. An observational piece. Something I've been working on for a while now.'

I ignore the stifled groan that comes from Dom. Billy hits him on the side of the head, a careless swat with the back of his hand. 'Go get another beer, Dommie, and one for me while you're up, yer bloody Philistine.'

Billy waits until I'm looking at him, then quirks his eyebrows. 'A recitation... that sounds... Wonderful, Viggo.'

Which would be a hell of a lot more convincing if his eyes weren't gleaming with barely contained amusement.

'What's it about?' Dom asks, returning to the couch, twisting the top off his bottle. 'Graves and popcorn?'

They all laugh. People really don't get my poems.

I take my time. Settle into my body. Feel the weight of air upon my skin. Feel time slow down, become heavy, fold in on itself like taffy.

I breathe. In and out; in and out. Taste the salt on my upper lip.

I have reduced our world to this.

Even Dom stops his incessant fidgeting.

'I want to talk about Love. About Desire. About what it is we're all after. About what it is we want. Who we want.'

'Who should I start with first?'

I pretend to hesitate, locking eyes with each of them in turn.

'Billy,' I sing inside. 'Take the bait. Such a tasty little fishy.'

'I'll go first,' he says, as I knew he would. As I hoped he would. 'This should be good. Observations from the Master.'

Sometimes I think he's too fucking clever for his own good.

Karl clears his throat, raises an eyebrow at me. I think he still has no idea where this is going.

'Vig -- '

'Yeah, I remember. Light. OK.' A slow pause. 'How about I start with sex?'

Billy -- clever fucking Billy -- stiffens slightly. Always holding himself in check, waiting a beat-and-a-half before he reacts to anything that anyone says. Watching everyone, all the time. The power vested in that knowledge. But how seldom he uses it against us. He smiles. A thoughtful, challenging smile. Looks at me in perfect understanding. Tilts his chin forward. Considering. He'll play along with me, for now.

'Go on Vig. Tell yer story.'

I can trust him. Billy never underestimates the importance of timing.

'Ever done phone-sex Bill?'

'As a regular thing, ye mean? No. It's a bit' -- he hesitates, rejects his original word choice for a safer option -- 'tame for a man of my tastes.'

Dom snorts and gets a sharp look in return.

'Yeah,' I agree, softly. God, I fucking love performing. All eyes on my face. Everyone listening to my words. No wonder actors have egos the size of planets.

'Breaking and mending. That's your thing, isn't it Bill? Keeping whoever it is you love, safe. Especially from yourself. I'd call you though, Bill, late at night, ask you a thing or two.'

My mouth is dry. I need a drink.

'Oh please Bill, can I touch myself? I'm so hard for you Bill. Oh that hurts Bill, do it again can I come now, please, harder Billy, more, Bill, please Billy, fucken please I'm begging you Bill -- '

Despite his resolve, Billy's breath has quickened. I think it's fair to say that any lingering concerns about lightness have passed.

Dom -- avid, greedy, hungry Dom, who's learnt the best way to hide is to be completely himself -- finishes his beer, and barely notices as Karl passes him another. He jiggles like a kid with a pocket full of nickels. He doesn't care that we know my words have made him hard, openly rearranges himself, pressing his hand firmly against the bulge in his jeans.

'Jesus Vig. Gotta say, this is better fun than your bloody poems. Is it my turn now?'

Yes Dom.

I count to myself. 'One-Mississippi. Two-Mississippi.' Billy's right. It's all about the timing.

'What would I do with you?'

Beat.
Beat.
Beat.
The beat of my heart.
The beat of the room.

'I'd call, late at night. Long after you'd decided I wouldn't. You, all curled up and disappointed on the couch, picking up the phone on the first ring, your heart hammering in your chest, you drop it; shit; pick it up again, hoping I'm still there, receiver warm against your ear. Your head full of my voice. Me, careful and quiet, wanting to know if you're alone.'

I risk a glance at Karl. He's part of this now, in spite of his reserve. Part of the story I am weaving about our lives. Wiping his palms against the soft denim of his thighs. A faint tremor in his fingertips.

'Wanting to know, Dominic, if you're wearing your leather belt.'

Dom swallows. Gnaws his bottom lip.

'The one with the silver buckle? Undo it for me Dom, I'd say, pull it out slowly, one loop at a time, smells good doesn't it? Sharp. What does it taste like? The buckle, cold, metallic, chattering against your teeth the leather mmm, so good -- '

Bill's fingers whiten on Dom's thigh. His chin presses into Dom's left shoulder. Wondering, I know, how far I'm prepared to go with this. How far he's prepared to let me go.

All the way home.

'What do you want to do with it, Dom?'

Dom is mine for the moment, enthralled; the tip of his tongue working feverishly over his bottom lip. He's taken Billy's fist and is kneading it into his groin, pushing up against it with his hips. Billy is breathing hard.

Hot breath.

Hard and loud in the silence of the room. The night is all around us.

Karl, Billy, Dom. Rapt.

'Stretch it out now Dom, feel the length of it between your hands. Snap it. Once. Twice. What will it feel like around your wrists Dom? Shall we -- '

'Viggo -- '

'That'll do, mate.'

Billy's tone is jovial. But his eyes are hard.

'You'll have Dommie coming in his jeans, and we can't have that.'

Telling me that I'm to be done fishing in another man's water. I nod an apology, slow my breathing, and work to slow my heartbeat. To remember why I'm here.

Karl. I'm here for Karl.

*

There's a wood and leather footstool, by the side of the couch he's sitting on. I hook it with my foot, pull it towards me, until it's a few feet in front of him, and lower myself onto it.

Billy and Dom have settled into one another's arms. I'm glad they're here. I want them here, these people who've come to matter to me. I want them here to bear witness. To see a reflection of their relationship, and the trust we all place in it. To become part of our history. 'Remember that night,' they'll say to us, over dinner, over drinks, in whatever country we find ourselves all together, years in the future. 'Jesus Vig -- heart in the throat stuff. We've never forgotten it, have we?' Nods of agreement. Laughter. The stuff of celebrations, milestones and speeches.

To witness us, moving openly together. To witness the slow sweet blossoming of Karl. To see him, finally, as I have always seen him.

'Hey Karl.'

He smiles. I have to say: a little apprehensively.

'Hey.'

He comes from silence, as all the best men do.

A good a place as any, to start.

'I bet you don't like phone-sex, do you Karl? It makes you feel... self-conscious -- '

'And weird,' he says, softly.

'Yeah, weird.'

I see the tip of his tongue, wet and pink between his teeth. A pulse stutters in the smooth arch of his throat as he tilts his head back, and then from side-to-side, to loosen the tension in his neck. Karl: long-limbed and strongly muscled, with big square hands that could cover most of Billy's or Dom's face. His forearms, cheeks -- all the places that see the sun -- are tanned and robust; but I have seen the blue shudder of veins that lie so tantalisingly close to the surface of the skin on his wrist. I can imagine the same tenderness in the dip of his hipbone, in the near-invisible seam of his thighs and belly.

I close my eyes, imagine him spread out before me in the dark.

God. That's all it takes. I'm hard.

'I'd want you to be relaxed, to know that you'd have had a shower, dinner, a few drinks. That you'd lit a fire, you're sitting where you are now, feet up, listening to music. What would I say to you, when I called? There's a moon, I'd say, have you seen it? The sky is awash with stars. I can smell the sea from my porch; I wish you were here... '

He shifts nervously.

'Then I'd be quiet. Nothing but the sound of my breathing, and yours, the crackle of your fire. A moment and then another, just resting Karl, the two of us, in that hush. And then I'd tell you... '

a breath-holding, exquisite pause,

'that I knew I was in love with you the third time I saw you. Huddling under the tarp, drinking coffee, it was pissing down, your hair all wet and stringy. I came over and asked you if you knew some good places to climb; I'd heard you were a climber. Do you remember?'

Karl nods. Smiles a little. Exhales. There's a noticeable easing of the tension that has been humming, like electricity, in his body.

'You offered me a sip of your coffee, I could see a bruise on your arm, you'd had a fall, two of the nails on your left hand were torn and bloody, there were scratches on your fingers. I remember thinking why am I noticing this?'

'I didn't want the coffee in the cup, Karl. I wanted the coffee on your lips. I wanted to suck the coffee off your tongue.'

He closes his eyes for a second. A slight shake of his head as if he's trying to get his bearings. For a moment I'm afraid. But then --

There are small sounds he can't help making, in his throat,

'I wanted to back you against the nearest tree and warm my hands against your skin. Wanted to drop to my knees in front of everyone, unzip you, there and then, take you in my mouth, have you lace your fingers in my hair, taste you,'

'drown in you,'

the raggedness of his breathing --

'make the world fall away... '

I reach over for his hand, trembling, take it and press it against my chest so he can feel it, for himself.

My heart.

Karl's tripping pulsebeat against my chest is his heartbeat, hammering. Hammering in time with mine. I put my hand up, palm towards him, press his hand to mine: palm to palm, every finger perfectly aligned, then fold my fingers over his, anchor my fingertips in the hollows of his knuckles. He does the same to me.

The miracle of a smile. A long unflinching gaze. Two men, holding hands.

'All you have to do,' I say, simply, but it feels like a vow I am making, 'is fall, as I have fallen.'

A stifled gasp from Dom.

'Oh... Viggo... '

Reverence from Bill.

My words feel soft and heavy in my mouth, laden with all the tenderness and desire I've kept hidden for so long.

'I want you so much. Want to make you feel good. Yeah?'

I can see him considering. But then he nods. Simple as that: 'Yeah... '

As simple as that:

The chance to see what lies beyond friendship.

The stool is forgotten, I am on my knees before him, cradled by his thighs, my hands on his shoulders, the blood light and hot in my veins, then skimming tender fingers along his collarbones, up the sides of his neck to cradle his skull, to smooth my thumbs across his cheekbones, to lean in, to breathe, to rest, to press my mouth against his. With his everyday mask of restraint stripped away, Karl's face is young, vulnerable, beneath my touch. Eyelashes impossibly long, his skin silken-smooth in one direction, and stubble-sharp in the other.

We move together with grace, two strong, beautiful men; I know that's how we must look to Dom and Billy, almost forgotten, only a few feet from us, their heads so close together there is no room for light or shadow, their mouths busy.

I move my hands to the buttons of Karl's shirt, undo them with delicacy, economy, then part the fabric and trace, with my tongue, the cleft in the centre of his chest, across to one nipple, and then the other, feeling them harden to stinging sensitivity in my mouth. With one hand braced on his unevenly lifting ribs, I lick a searing line of sensation to his navel, swirl my tongue in and out; his abdominal muscles twitch in response, down, then, to the swirl of hair on his belly, placing my left hand on his hip, the disc-shaped bone filling my palm, my forehead pressed against the rise and fall of his belly; I'm panting, hungry, my skin suddenly too small to contain the universe of my longing.

I pull him to his feet, and I don't know how long we stand there, chest-to-chest, belly-to- belly, cock-to-cock.

I am made light. From the inside out.

'I just don't think,' I whisper to him,

as Dom and Billy get up to leave,
as the front door closes with a careful click,
as Karl's jeans fall heedlessly to the floor,
as he moans, a soft, unguarded sound,
as he reaches for my belt,
nothing but his eyes before me,
black and hungry in his face,
Karl
Karl
and nothing but Karl...

I just don't think

I'll ever

get over

you.

Slashababy 2004 Stories