50 Reasons to Say Goodbye (11 page)

He invites me for breakfast the next morning, explains how to get to Union square; he sounds funny, clever, relaxed. When I hang up, I drift off to sleep
imagining him and listening to the distant police sirens.

The coffee shop is exactly as a coffee shop should be. A long Formica counter top, chrome swivel bar stools, a girl chewing gum with an order book pushed into the belt of her apron. Like much of America it is standard film cliché and as such it feels instantly familiar to just about anyone.

A hand waves from a booth at the rear of the bar, it is Julian – he's smiling. His crash helmet is on the tabletop.

I cross the bar nervously. He smiles broadly, shakes my hand firmly, says, “Mark! Hello!”

He's a big guy, maybe one metre eighty-five, no doubt a swimmer or a regular gym goer.

He's wearing leather motorcycle pants and thick biceps bulge from the sleeves of his grey t-shirt. His stubble is longer than his haircut.

He bangs the table. “Well sit down!” he says.

As I slide in behind the table, he stares at me. There seems to be laughter in his eyes. The effect on me is unexpected and immediate; I am aroused. I shuffle my feet under the table.

Breakfast goes well. We talk about my job, about New York, about motorbikes. He tells me about his parents, his brothers and sisters, nothing seems taboo. I will find out that for New Yorkers virtually nothing is taboo, but for now it simply strikes me that this man is exceptionally honest and open.

I am quite under his manly spell when he says, “I'm afraid I can't on Friday, I have a GMSM meeting.”

I sip my coffee, chew on a pancake. Something registers but it remains subconscious for the moment. “How about Saturday?” I ask.

Julian shakes his head, “Parents for dinner, maybe Sunday? Unless you want to come with us on Friday
…”

I stop chewing. “What did you say? A
what
meeting?”

Julian signals to the waitress for more coffee. As she swings by to fill his cup he says, “GMSM, the Gay Men's Sado Maso Group.”

The waitress offers me coffee and moves on without flinching.

He peers into my eyes. “Hello! Is anybody there?”

I laugh. “Sure, just taking in new information …”

Didn't I mention that to you in my mails? I was sure I did …”

I shake my head. “No, but it doesn't matter, what happens at GMSM meetings? Dare I ask?”

Julian forks bacon into his mouth. “Oh it's cool,” he says. “It's in like a really big bar, and there are, you know, slaves and masters, and spectators …”

“What happens to the slaves, I mean, what do the spectators watch?”

“It's a dungeon demo, so they're like tied to the wall or whatever, and there are demonstrations of all the different SM techniques.”

I nod and try to do this knowingly. “Like?” I say.

“Like hot-wax and tit-torture, bondage … Everything really. You should come, you don't have to participate in anything you don't want to.”

I stare at my plate and cough. I smirk slightly. “I don't think …”

Julian touches my hand. “Oh of course if you want to participate, if you want to be …” he looks into my eyes questioningly. “A slave … or whatever, then you can, you just tell them what you like; it's all very safe and controlled.”

An image flashes through my head. I am chained to the wall, I am blindfolded, people unknown, are playing with my body, pulling on my nipples, playing with my
arse … I shake my head. I laugh.

“I'm afraid I'm not really into SM,” I say. My dick throbs and I hear the lie. I realise something consciously for the first time in my life; that I could be, if I let myself.

Julian forks a potato and points it at me. “You need to let go, you need to just let it happen.”

“But do I?”
I wonder. I smile. “I think you've got the wrong end of the stick.”

He puts down his fork, grabs my hand and looks into my eyes again. “Have I?”

I stare him out, I nod, I lie. I say, “Yes.”

Julian waves over the waitress, asks her for the check, stands. “Let's go for a walk,” he says.

I'm embarrassed, I still have a hard-on, but I stand and follow him holding my bomber jacket in front. He slides his hand across my arse, pushes me out into the cold October air. We pull on our jackets; he's beautiful, glistening in his black leathers. He has a chrome ring clipped to his shoulder epaulet. I feel childlike in front of him.

He says, “This way.”

We turn and start to walk down the road; he slides a hand into my back pocket. I let it remain for a while, then pull away.

He stops, turns to face me, looks at me questioningly. He says, “I know what I forgot.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What?”

“I didn't welcome you to New York.” With this he places his crash helmet on the newspaper distributor beside him, wraps an arm behind my back and kisses me, forcing his tongue into my mouth.

He crushes me towards him, then pulls away, looks into my eyes and reaches inside my jacket to pinch my nipple, grinning as I gasp. “If you're not ready for the
Dungeon Demo, you could come out and visit us at our place,” he says. “We have a fully equipped playroom … we could give you a nice, soft introduction. Just whatever you want to try.”

I run a hand across his jacket, down over his back pocket.

I have three thoughts simultaneously: that no offer has ever excited me more, that it is quite a big surprise that this excites me so, and that I am heading onto dangerous ground, very dangerous ground. I could actually end up dying in some basement somewhere or, be held captive in a cage for years.
“Hey, I've seen pulp fiction,”
I think.

Finally, I think that even if I don't get hurt in the process, even if it all goes “fine”, that I may never get out of this thing again, that it could be like tasting heroin –
the first one
, as the dealers say,
is free
.

I pull away, but this time there is decision in the movement. Julian lets go of me, stands back, smiles at me. He picks up his crash helmet, pulls his keys from his pocket.

“If you decide you want to try something, or even if you just want to talk about it, you have my number …”

I nod; I shrug. “Sorry,” I say.

Julian shrugs. “You'll get over it, and when you do, well you know where I am.” With this he turns and walks away, shooting me a wink as he rounds the corner.

I think about calling Julian Barclay every day that I stay in New York – that's at least once a day for six months.

Sometimes, even now, I think I should have called him, sometimes I think that I still might, but I never do; I just never have the nerve.

He smiles. “Hi! How are you?” he says. I look at him and wonder if I know him. He is clean-cut, tall, thin, fit – short blond hair, blue eyes peering through oval Armani glasses. The light in the bar is low. I feel fairly sure that I don't. “Sorry, I don't think we've …”

He holds out a hand. “Brian.” His smile bares long, white-capped, all-American dentistry.

“Mark.” I shake his hand.

“So Mark. Where are you from? You sound British.”

I scan the man's clothes as I reply, expensive grey suit, white shirt, double cuffs, and discreet grey tie. “I am, well originally from the south-east of England, then France, and now here.”

“Oh, you live here. Cool! Manhattan?”

“Yeah, thirty-seventh and sixth.”

“Nice address, how many square feet do you have there?”

I frown. This is starting to sound like a marketing survey. “Um, don't know really, it's a small two-room apartment.”

Brian nods. “A brownstone?”

I smile. “Yes, do you work in real estate or something?”

Brian frowns. “No why?”

I shrug. “You just seem interested in where I live, that's all.”

Brian raises the palms of his hands. “Hey man, just making conversation.”

I have offended him, and I guess that this is simply yet another culture gap to be bridged. “Sorry, I guess people aren't so inquisitive in the UK.”

Brian visibly relaxes. “So what do they talk about in the UK?”

I shrug again. “Don't know really, normal stuff I suppose, the weather, clothes, music …”

“OK let's try again,” says Brian. “Nice suit you have there, very smart.”

I smile. “I was thinking the same thing about you. You work near here?”

Brian opens his eyes wide and cocks his head to one side. “Hey now who's the inquisitive one?”

“I haven't seen you here before, that's all.”

“Oh, I often call in for a drink, mainly Fridays though.” He reaches out and strokes my lapel. “Very nice though, is that an Armani?”

I laugh. The suit is from Marks and Spencer's.

Brian appears vexed. “Hey what is it with you? What
do
you want to talk about?”

I shrug. “Sorry,” I say.

“If you prefer,” he continues, “we could talk about you coming back to my place, and me blowing you.”

I can feel myself reddening and glance around to see if anyone is listening, but everyone nearby is seemingly engrossed in their own conversations.

“That's pretty, um, direct Brian.”

“Sure. I love to blow a man in a suit, and you don't seem to like the small-talk so …” he grins. “What the hell.”

I smile. “Yeah, what the hell.”

“So?”

“What?
Now?
”

“Sure, now.”

The situation is absurd. We have talked real estate for ten minutes, and here he is inviting me to his place for oral sex, but I want to do it. I swig at my beer raking through my thoughts to get a handle on my motivation.

He's very cute, self-assured, well dressed, and sexy in
a rather bland, lawyer kind of a way. The offer is obscene and yet naive at the same time, almost childlike, as if coming from a space I had once known, a space where none of this stuff was meant to be bad or dirty.

Of course the only time that none of this was bad or dirty was before I even knew that it existed, but all the same. I feel an urge to accept precisely because this is so entirely un-me, to go back with someone for sex, at nine p.m. on a Friday evening, after ten minutes of polite chat.

It seems ridiculous and story-like, and I feel driven to experience something different, something that someone else would do, probably someone in a film I know, but as the man says, what the hell? At least it doesn't sound as dangerous as visiting Julian Barclay.

“Sure,” I say.

Brian has been looking concerned. He punches my arm. “Good!”

His apartment is a short taxi ride away; during the journey he stares from his window in silence. I doubt my reason, sift through the possibilities that he's a sadist or serial killer, but just as I am plucking up courage to stop the cab, to jump out, we have arrived, and he's leading me past the doorman. “He's with me,” he says, taking me on into the elevator.

It is not until we have stepped into his apartment that he speaks again. “Hang up your coat,” he says pulling his own coat and jacket off. He's wearing grey silk braces; they match his tie.

I start to undress too but Brian stops me. “No keep the suit, just take off your overcoat.”

I do as he requests. He pushes me against the closed apartment door, kneels before me, pulls at my zip, pulls my dick from my trousers and immediately slips it into
his mouth. I smile, amazed and disconcerted.

Brian pumps away, reaching up, pinching my nipples through my shirt. I try to stroke his head, to unzip his own trousers, to kiss him, but he refuses any involvement on my part. I resign myself – it isn't so bad.

When I come, Brian flops my dick back into my trousers and stands up. He grins broadly. “Thanks,” he says pulling me towards him.

For an instant I think that he will kiss me, I imagine that it is now his turn, but he just wants to open the door behind me.

He hands me my coat – I am dazed. He grips my shoulders, spins me around and points me towards the corridor. “This is where we say goodbye,” he says.

As the door closes behind me I start to laugh.

We meet in Champs, a large, smooth, disco-bar. It's three times the size of the biggest bar I ever visited in France. I am standing watching others watch the sterile, body-perfect go-go dancer. Everyone is drinking
Bud
. Disco lights swing across my face blinding me in time with the beat.

A voice says, “Hello.” The man holds out a hand. “Darren.”

“Excuse me,” he says. “But could I ask you what you do for a living, because I have a bet with my friend. He says you're in TV and I say you're some kind of an artist.”

I tell Darren I'm setting up a branch office for a French company.

He says, “Oh.” He looks disappointed.

I add, “But I do write in my spare time.”

He grins. “Wait. I'll get my friend Henry.”

They form a comedy double act. Darren talks a lot, it's like having a personal TV channel – he's witty, fast, funny. He kind of sounds like the guy in the American sitcoms, you know, the funny one, the one who thinks of all the great put-downs on the spur of the moment instead of the next day like real people do. Henry is his stooge – he gently smiles as he's ragged to death. Though Darren is sharper, I like Henry best.

I tell them that I have only been in New York for two weeks. “I don't really know anyone yet,” I say.

“Oh my God!” exclaims Darren. “It's just like Clueless!”

“You will be Tai,” he tells me, “the new girl in
school.”

“I'll be Cher, and …” he prods Henry in the stomach, “you can be Diane.”

They laugh at their new project; they'll teach me the ropes, tell me what to do, where to go, how to be.

“What to wear is easy,” says Henry. “This is New York, so just wear black.” I note that virtually everyone
is
wearing black and make a mental note to go shopping.