Ok, so first things first. I want to post my story assignment for this week here. It's pretty long, the longest I have written so far, and I'm pleased with it. I was up till 3.30am this morning working on it. It had to meet a structure we were given which I think it does. Anyway, here it is:
Ignorance Is Bliss.I walked out of the office into the cool August evening and past the bar with the steel walls and big windows.
I felt someone’s eyes on me, a heat on the back of my neck like the first rays of summer sun. I turned around and that’s when I saw him; I felt my face burn red. He was looking directly at me, unflinching. His smile widened but I turned and carried on walking. My stomach twisted with excitement and I looked back; he was still smiling. I walked to the end of the road, then stopped. I slid off my wedding ring and turned around.
The moment I walked into the bar I panicked; what was I doing here? But I ordered a drink, picked up a magazine and sat alone at a table, pressing down my arms to stop them shaking. I knew he was watching me, waiting for me to approach him. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
After a couple of minutes he came over.
‘Are you waiting for someone?’ He asked.
‘No,’ I replied.
‘Do you mind if I join you?’
‘No,’ I moved my briefcase from the seat beside me.
He sat down, his knee brushed against mine and I moved my leg as if it’d been scalded.
‘You looked in quite a rush just now,’ he said, lifting his glass to his lips.
I felt his eyes bore into me, looking through every pore of my skin.
‘I’ve got a train to catch.’ I lied, ‘I can’t stay long.’
‘So what stopped you?’
I didn’t know what to say. Lust had stopped me; lust that I’d only ever dreamed of satisfying.
‘I’m Cameron,’ he said, breaking the silence.
‘Stuart,’ I replied as we shook hands.
We spoke for a while and I liked him. I liked him a lot. He was good looking, witty, intelligent: everything my wife was. But his body wasn’t one I’d made myself desire; his was one I wanted to hold more than anything else in the world; a body to which I would never allow myself close: because this was the body of a man. The swelling in my trousers betrayed me; how could I lust after him? I wasn’t gay; I was married.
After an hour I made my excuses and left, ignoring the voice in my heart screaming for me to stay. He wrote his number on the back of a beer mat and handed it to me; I slid it into my jacket pocket where it rested against the cold silver of my wedding ring: guilt swelled, ugly through my body. I hoped it hadn’t shown on my face.
‘Call me sometime,’ he said.
I wanted to; I wanted to call him the moment I left him.
That night Sarah’s breathing was the only sound in the room as I lay staring at the ceiling with his face imprinted in my mind. I hated myself for the feelings I was having; feelings I thought I’d tied up with wedding vows, feelings I thought I’d suffocated with marriage.
I was wet, hard against the duvet; I wrapped my hand around myself and started to pull; I closed my eyes, his face was etched on the lids. My mind raced, became a blur of his face and blackness. A forbidden part of me wanted to imagine him: imagine the taste of his tongue in my mouth, the strength of his body, the smell of his skin. But the part of me that I knew wanted to drive him from my thoughts: to bind him with the other men in my mind. The men whose faces lay redundant throughout the day surfacing only on nights like this: men that my wife became when we made love.
I came in silence, biting down on my lip and holding my breath as my body trembled. And as usual she didn’t wake up.
I slid out of bed and walked to the bathroom. I wiped myself clean, threw the tissues into the toilet and pulled the flush watching the evidence of my fantasy disappear; if only it was that easy, I thought, if only it was all that easy.
The next morning we sat at the breakfast table because it was a Saturday; we always had breakfast together on Saturdays.
‘Chris,’ she said, as she poured coffee into the Saturday cups, ‘I’m sorry but I need to go to into work today. One of the nurses on my ward is off sick so I need to cover.’
Twenty minutes later she leant over the newspaper, kissed me goodbye and walked out of the house.
The moment she left I took my phone from my pocket and wrote a text. But I didn’t send it.
It was three weeks after that I sent it, when Sarah was away at her sisters.
And so it happened: I met him in a coffee shop in the centre of town; the whole journey there I thought I was going to be sick: my nerves were tightening my throat and pulling at my stomach.
I sat in the coffee shop and waited for him, my hand shaking when I lifted my coffee to my lips. The moment he arrived, my blood pumped so hard in my veins I thought they’d burst.
He sat opposite me.
‘So, did you make your train the other week?’
I must have looked completely blank because then he spoke again.
‘You were running for a train when I met you.’
‘Yes,’ I said, remembering the lie I’d told him. ‘Yes, I caught the train.’
I reached for my drink and that’s when he saw it, that’s when I saw it – my wedding ring. His eyes looked from my hand to my face but he said nothing; he must have seen my longing because he simply smiled a knowing smile that broke my heart.
We spent that afternoon together.
As time went by I began to relax, to feel more comfortable with him, with myself; the conversation flowed easily and everything felt right, as if it were meant to be. I couldn’t remember ever feeling like this.
After a couple of weeks we ended up at his flat and the moment we stepped inside, he pushed me against the wall and started kissing me. It was as if I’d never been this close to anyone before. And maybe I never had. His stubble scratched against my face, my neck; my hands dropped to his waist and slipped into his trousers. I felt him hard against me and I felt alive: more alive than I had in years.
We staggered through to the bedroom and had sex that I’ll never forget - sex that made me want to scream that I loved him.
Afterwards I went to the bathroom. I sat on the side of the bath and with my face in my hands, I cried; I cried for all those wasted years and all that I’d denied myself. I cried for the future I couldn’t picture.
I studied my reflection in the mirror; I looked no different but I felt like a stranger in my own body; was this really me? Had I finally done what I’d been afraid to for so many years?
I walked back into the bedroom where he lay naked on the bed. He patted the mattress and I slid beside him: my body the right piece of a jigsaw.
We lay like that for what felt like hours. And then my phone rang. It was Sarah. I answered, told her that I’d be home soon; that I was stuck in traffic. The lies got more complex as time went on; black and white lies woven to make a blanket of deceit that we hid under.
I hung up and kissed him goodnight.
Ten minutes after Stuart left, Cameron’s phone rang; he looked at the display – Philip. He answered and within a few minutes agreed to go round. He had a quick shower, called a taxi and left.
By the time he got there, it was 11.30pm. He pressed the bell for Philip’s apartment; the buzzer sounded and he walked in. As he walked up the steps he willed away the dread in his heart, telling himself, ‘It’s just a means to an end.’
He’d always liked Philip’s place: large Andy Warhol prints hung from the walls and the furniture matched the room perfectly: everything looked right; the whole place had style. Philip had good taste for a man of his age. Not that Cameron knew exactly how old he was, having always put him in his late 50’s at least. He’d never asked because he’d never wanted to know. Sometimes, he’d found, ignorance really was bliss.
‘So,’ Philip handed him a drink as they sat down on the leather sofa. ‘Long time no see.’
He pressed his face against Cameron’s; slid his hand up his shirt as his fat tongue filled his mouth.
Only moments later they were in bed, Philip inside Cameron and the cash in an envelope on the dresser.
Cameron stepped out of the shower and began drying himself. Feeling a presence, he turned to see Philip standing naked in the doorway.
‘God, Philip,’ he said, startled. ‘You scared me.’
‘I saw you the other day,’ Philip said, as if he hadn’t heard him. ‘You were with some man in a coffee shop in town.’
‘Oh, did you?’ Cameron asked casually as he tied the towel round his waist. As he went to walk past, Philip raised an arm blocking his exit.
‘I don’t like the idea of you seeing other men,’ Philip whispered, his face only inches from Cameron’s, ‘I love you.’
‘What?’ Cameron laughed awkwardly as he looked away. Philip didn’t move keeping his arm pressed hard against the doorframe. The silence between them was suddenly shattered by Philip’s laugh.
‘I’m joking,’ he said. ‘God, Cameron, you should have seen your face.’
Cameron walked past him into the bedroom. Unaware of Philip’s eyes on him, he picked up the envelope and counted the money inside. Philip watched him and felt his anger climb with every fifty-pound note Cameron counted.
I started seeing Cameron more and more regularly: lunches here, dinners there. I was falling in love with him. I loved him and the person I was when I was with him.
‘Don’t you find it difficult?’ He asked me over dinner one night. ‘This cloak and dagger routine. Doesn’t it drain you?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I don’t care about it. I just care about you. Before I met you I felt nothing. I was numb. Now, I feel as if I’ve been given a second chance.’
‘What about your wife?’ He asked.
I hated talking about Sarah with him; it was only when we spoke about her that I realised I was unfaithful. Only then did it become clear that the man I was with her and the man I was with him were one; any other time it was as if they were two separate people: one I liked, one I hated.
‘I love her,’ I told him, cutting the steak on my plate into cubes. ‘After that long with someone you can’t help but love them, but when I’m with her, I don’t feel anything anymore. You must know how that feels? To be with someone but not feel anything for them, to be just going through the motions. You must know.’
‘Yes,’ he replied, not looking up from his plate. ‘Yes, I do.’
Sometimes I wondered what was going through his mind; sometimes he seemed so deep in thought, so tortured. But then, like everyone, he was entitled to his secrets.
That night we were lying in bed; I was holding him, my arms wrapped tight around his taut body as we drifted in and out of sleep. And then his phone rang. He checked it but didn’t answer.
‘Answer it if you need to,’ I told him.
He didn’t want to.
Then it rang again, and again, and again. In the end he turned it off.
‘Who was it?’ I asked.
‘No-one,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
The restaurant was full but Philip had still managed to get the best table for them: if there was one thing about Philip, he never took no for an answer.
‘Don’t call me like that again,’ Cameron said after the waiter placed their starters in front of them.
‘I wanted to see you,’ Philip replied. ‘Isn’t that allowed? Isn’t that what I pay you for?’
‘But if I don’t answer, Philip, it means I’m busy.’
‘With him, you mean. You’re busy with him.’
Cameron sat back in his chair; this was getting to be a very tired routine. If it weren’t for the money, he would have been long gone by now.
‘Yes, actually,’ he leaned across the table, spitting out the words. ‘You’re right. You pay me for my time, Philip. And when you’re paying me, then I’m yours. But when I’m not with you, my time’s my own; my body’s my own. Do you understand?’
Philip didn’t answer, looking at Cameron with empty eyes as if he were speaking in riddles; he lifted the bottle of Rioja, pouring a glass for the pair of them.
‘I understand perfectly. And I’m sorry,’ Philip said, his words slow and deliberate as he lifted his glass. ‘A toast then; to you and all who sail in you.’
As long as I still get my time, he thought as he tore open a mussel, as long as I still get what I pay for.
After lunch Philip took Cameron to an exhibition in South Bank; Cameron didn’t want to go. He’d told Stuart that he’d meet him at 3pm and it was already 2.45pm. Thinking Philip wasn’t looking he glanced at his watch.
‘Am I keeping you?’ Philip snapped, irritated by his behaviour. ‘You do remember you’re still on my time don’t you?’
‘Yes, of course. I just don’t feel very well,’ Cameron lied. ‘I think it might have been something I ate over lunch.’ He pressed his hand to his stomach. ‘Sorry, Philip. I need to go to the bathroom.’
He pushed through the crowd who stood admiring the artist’s work and took the stairs to the washrooms two at a time.
Locking himself in the cubicle he took his phone from his pocket.
‘Shit,’ he whispered. It was already 3pm. He called Stuart who picked up on the second ring.
'Hi, it’s me. I’m going to be late. I’ll be there about half past. Yeah. Yeah, same place. Okay, see you then.’
He came down the stairs and joined Philip in front of a set of three prints of a man bound head to toe in leather.
‘Philip, I’m sorry. I have to go. I’ve just been sick. I’m sorry. I can make up the time with you next time we meet. I’m sorry.’
Before waiting for a response he walked out of the gallery and into the dense summer air; in his haste he didn’t look back to see that Philip was following close behind.
When I met him that day he seemed distracted, restless. It was as if his body was with me but his mind was elsewhere. I knew that feeling well. I suggested we went back to his for the evening; Sarah was at the hospital on a night shift. Those were the best times with him, the most intimate.
We were just about to get on the tube when a man tapped him on the shoulder. He turned around and the colour in his face disappeared as quickly as the train was approaching.
‘Cameron,’ the man said with a thin pencil smile across his face. ‘You’re feeling better I take it?’
I didn’t like the way he was looking at him, with eyes that were soaked with lust.
‘Yes, yes thanks,’ Cameron replied.
He didn’t introduce us; the train came and we got on.
‘Who was that?’ I asked when we sat down.
‘No one,’ he said, too abruptly to be believed.
The moment Philip got home he called Cameron; his phone went straight to voicemail. So he left a message.
An hour later, another message.
Two hours later, another message.
Every hour throughout the night he left a message.
But Cameron didn’t call back.
I woke that morning to find him sat on the side of the bed, his phone pressed to his ear; I reached for him; he almost jumped out of his skin.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked.
‘Nothing,’ he said as he walked from his bedroom to the bathroom. He looked back and smiled that smile that had drawn me to him; that smile that made me remember I could love again.
And that’s the last time I saw him alive.
Cameron pressed the bell for Philip’s flat and, hearing the buzzer, pushed open the door. As he walked up the stairs he ran through the conversation in his mind, bracing himself for Philip’s disappointment, his hurt caked words.
The moment he walked into the flat, he knew that something was wrong: the pictures had been torn from the walls, lying in tatters all over the floor, there was glass everywhere and the room smelt as if it had been soaked in gin.
Hearing a sound behind him, he turned as Philip’s fist caught the side of his head. His temple cracked against the stone fireplace; his head bounced onto the wooden floor. He lifted his arms in an attempt to block the punches that fell like bricks on his face; he felt teeth fall back in his throat and his nose smear across his face. Philip was shouting something but after a couple of seconds all he could hear was a ringing in his head: a ringing that slowly, slowly, slowly, silenced.
When he woke in the hospital he thought he was dead, that he was dead and this pain in his head was his hell.
The curtain was pulled back and a nurse with hair like his mother’s walked in.
‘Hello, Cameron,’ she said, her voice as soft as wool, ‘I’m Sarah. You probably don’t remember but you came in last night. You had a knock to your head.’
‘Stuart,’ he said, ‘Stuart. You need to ring Stuart.’
Another nurse stood to his right fiddled with the bandage around his head.
‘And who’s Stuart?’ Sarah asked, but it was too late, he’d passed out again.
‘Jo,’ she said to her colleague over his unconscious body. ‘Can you find a contact number for Stuart in his personal effects.’
When I got the phone call my heart stopped beating; my legs buckled beneath me and I collapsed on the settee as I listened to the voice at the other end of the phone: stable condition: heavy internal bleeding: chances of brain damage. I couldn’t listen anymore; I hung up. I don’t remember how I got to the hospital anymore but I remember racing through the corridor, led by a black nurse to his bed.
She pulled back the curtain and I barely recognised him; she said something I don’t remember and walked away. I felt tears in my eyes seeing him lying there, his face swollen, smashed and scarred; I held his hand in mine. No sooner had I done so than the machine beside him made that noise; that long monotonous drone that no one wants to hear.
I pressed the buzzer again and again and again.
And that’s when she came running in, a man running close behind. In my worry she’d ceased to exist; she’d ceased to exist for years.
When she saw me it was as if the last few months pieced together in her head making a picture at which she couldn’t bear to look. And in that moment before she left I saw her heart break.
I watched as her colleague tried to resuscitate him. But it was no use; he lay there still and silent until the doctor looked at me and shook his head.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he told me.
I understood.
Death claimed three lives that day.
