Muscling Through (9 page)

Then Daz clapped us both on the back. “Got off with who?”

“No one,” Phil said. “You feeling better now? Come on, then, let’s go look at some more girls.”

I think maybe Phil had had too much fizzy wine too. Or something. I asked Larry about it later, and he said it was definitely
something
. Then he took his shirt off, and I forgot to ask him what he meant.

Toby gave me a cheque for my paintings that sold at the do. It was more than I make in six months pulling in punts. I didn’t know what to spend it on, ’cause my mum said she didn’t want me to buy her nothing. So I was going to buy Larry something, but he said I should spend it on something I always wanted. So I bought a cat. I asked Larry first, because it’s his house and all. The cat didn’t cost much, because it was from the Cats Protection League and they don’t have posh cats there, only ordinary ones. I didn’t want a posh cat. I got Larry for when I want posh. I bought a litter tray for the cat, and some food bowls and a scratching post, and then put the rest of the money in the bank. I thought maybe I could buy Larry something later when he wasn’t looking.

We went together to the cat place, and there were all these cages and the cats were yowling like someone was stepping on all their tails at once. It was kind of cute, but Larry started frowning like he was getting a headache. I asked him what cat we should get, and he said it was my choice, so I got this little black one called Minnie. I think the cat place must not have known Minnie’s a mouse’s name. I thought maybe we should change it, but then I thought, if Minnie doesn’t know, either, then it’s probably okay. I got her a pretty pink collar and a little tag with her name on and our phone number in case she gets lost.

Minnie’s really cute. She’s little and she’s dainty, and she likes to curl up on my lap when I’m watching the telly.

I guess I like her ’cause she reminds me of Larry.

Chapter Seven

One night when I got in from work a bit late, ’cause it was really nice weather and everyone wants to take the punts out when it’s sunny, I found Larry just sitting on the sofa staring at a blank TV screen. At first I thought maybe he’d forgotten to turn it on, but then I thought, no, Larry’s not stupid. He’d have noticed. So instead of going for a shower like I usually do when I get home, I sat on the sofa next to him, sweaty shirt and all, and I asked him what was wrong.

“Sometimes I hate this place,” he said, still looking at the TV. It was still switched off. I hadn’t switched it on or nothing.

I looked around. I didn’t think the house looked so bad. It wasn’t messy or nothing, and the walls were a nice colour. White with a touch of apple, they called it in the shop. “I think it’s kind of nice, but we can move if you want, Larry.”

He laughed a bit at that, but he still didn’t sound happy. “No, the house is fine. I mean Cambridge. The University, not the town.”

I was glad he’d said that, ’cause that would’ve been my next guess. “You want to tell me about it? Not that I’ll understand or nothing, but I’d like to hear you tell me.”

“There’s not much to understand, really.” He sighed, and I put my arm round him. That usually makes him feel better. “You know what we do to students here?”

“Teach them stuff?”

Larry laughed again. I didn’t like the way it sounded. “What we do is take the brightest kids, the ones that were always top of all their classes back in school—kids who, all their lives, have had people telling them they’re brilliant. And we shove them all together in the hissing, spitting cauldron that is Cambridge, and we say to them, so you think you’re one of the clever ones? Well, you’re in Cambridge University now. You’re not one of the clever ones any more. If you’re
lucky
, you’re one of the average ones. A simple application of the law of averages will tell you that now, in fact, half of you are the
stupid
ones.” I stroked his hair. He was shaking a bit; I didn’t get why. “And then we give them a lecture timetable and a book list and say, off you go, get on with it. Oh, and by the way, everyone at home is expecting you to get a First because
they
still think you’re one of the clever ones. And if anyone complains about the way we do things, well, we’ve done it that way for centuries, and anyway, you can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.” He didn’t say nothing for a moment, and then he spoke again. “Nobody ever warns the eggs they’re going to get broken. They say, ‘We’re making the finest omelet in the world, come and be a part of it.’ And then they take the eggs, and they break them and use them up, and then they throw away the shells.”

Larry’s face was in my neck, and it felt kind of damp. So I thought maybe there was more to it than he’d said, and despite what he’d said, I didn’t think it had nothing to do with eggs and omelets. ’Cause nobody gets that upset about omelets. Or eggs, even. Maybe someone had said Larry wasn’t clever or something? But that didn’t seem right, because Larry’s really smart. My head was starting to hurt, so I just asked him. “Larry, did something happen today?”

Larry sniffed. I gave him my handkerchief. It was mostly clean, and he always says he doesn’t mind a bit of my sweat anyhow. You get hot pulling in punts, so I sweat a lot at work. “A boy in college tried to kill himself today. A maths student. He’s in Addenbrookes now.”

Addenbrookes is the hospital in Cambridge. I got my face stitched up there after that bastard glassed it. I had to stay in for a few days ’cause they were worried about infections. The nurses were really nice. They called me Big Al. “Is he going to be okay?”

Larry nodded. “Physically, yes. They caught him in time. Thank God for text messages.” He laughed. It wasn’t a nice laugh. “Suicide note in text-speak—can you imagine?” He sort of hiccupped. “I’m going to see him in hospital tomorrow. I wanted… I mean, he’s not one of my students but I just thought…”

“You want me to come with you?” I asked, ’cause he looked really upset. “I can get the day off. My boss knows I don’t ask unless it’s something important.”

“Would you?” Larry asked. He looked like he needed to be kissed, so I kissed him, and then I kissed him some more, and we ended up with our hands down each others’ trousers. I thought Larry needed more than that, though, so I pushed down his pants, and I knelt down and took him in my mouth. “God yes!” Larry said, as I swirled my tongue around the head of his prick. His taste went even saltier, ’cause his prick was leaking, so I took all of him into my mouth and sucked. He made a funny noise, sort of like a dog when it’s startled, and shoved into my throat. “Sorry!”

I was okay, though, so I didn’t pull off or nothing. I just kept sucking, and then I used my tongue again, and then Larry was saying, “Stop! Al, stop.”

I stopped ’cause he’d asked me to but kept my mouth around his cock. I was a bit hurt, ’cause I’d thought I was doing okay.

“C-can’t talk, when you’re doing that,” Larry said, his voice sounding all strangled. He breathed hard a couple of times, then he said, “I want to see you jerk that fat cock of yours off while you’re sucking me.”

I like it when Larry talks dirty. I pushed down my jogging bottoms, and I got my cock out. It felt hot in my hand as I got my mouth back round Larry’s cock and started to wank off.

“God, you’re amazing,” Larry said. “So big and beautiful and strong… Oh yes!” Then I did that thing with my tongue that he likes, and he didn’t talk no more, just kept gasping and moaning. I had to concentrate to keep my hand moving on my cock, ’cause all I wanted to think about was the way Larry’s cock felt in my mouth, all smooth and hard with the veins standing out. When I moved up to tease that little spot under the head, I felt it jerk and throb, and then Larry moaned really loud, and my mouth filled with spunk.

I swallowed it all down. I love the feeling of a bit of Larry being inside me. Then Larry sank to his knees, and I held him tight. “But you haven’t come,” he said after a moment. And then he put his hand over mine on my cock so we could wank me off together, and it only took a couple of strokes before I was coming all over his hand.

Then Larry grabbed the box of tissues and cleaned us both off, and I held him while he kissed me.

Later, we were all cuddled up on the sofa with the TV on this time and the table all scattered with takeaway boxes, and Larry suddenly said, “Can I turn this off?”

I said yeah, of course, ’cause it was only some comedy repeat on Dave. I like watching the repeats ’cause it’s easier to get the jokes the second time, but I didn’t mind missing this one. So we sat looking at the blank TV screen again, and I was kind of hoping this wasn’t going to be some new thing of Larry’s, ’cause it wasn’t very interesting, when he started speaking again.

“Did you ever think of killing yourself, when you were younger? I did.”

I didn’t like Larry saying that. “Don’t say that,” I told him. I put down the special fried rice, and I grabbed his arms.

“It’s true. I—I tried it once. When I was eighteen.”

It hurt, hearing him say that. It really hurt. Deep in my chest, like I’d taken a punch to the heart. “Larry, promise me you won’t never try nothing like that again,” I said, and my voice sounded all funny.

Larry looked up at me. His eyes were really big, like cups of coffee. “No—I mean, God, no, I’m not going to do anything like that! Al, listen to me, that was years ago. I swear I wouldn’t do that now.”

I sniffed, and he gave me back the handkerchief I lent him earlier, but it was kind of soggy, so I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and blew my nose on a paper napkin. “Why did you do it, then?”

“Oh…pretty much for the same reason Matthew did, I suppose. The student, I mean. I was stressing out over exams, everyone else was taller and better-looking and more confident than I was and, well, the gay thing really didn’t help.” He looked at me. “Al, I promise you, it’s not going to happen now. I’m fine with who I am. If I wasn’t me, well, I wouldn’t have you, now would I? And I love being with you.”

So I thought it was probably okay, but just in case, I hid the kitchen knives again.

I put them in the airing cupboard this time. Under a pile of towels.

I thought Larry would probably remember to look in the hall cupboard.

So I got my boss to give me the day off, and we went to the hospital next day. Larry drove, ’cause it’s a bit outside town.

The kid was in a private room. I had a private room when I was in Addenbrookes with my face. One of the nurses said it was so I wouldn’t scare the other patients, but she said it like it was a joke, so I laughed and split two stitches.

His mum and dad were there. His mum was smiling, but it didn’t look right, and her eyes were all red. I think it must be awful to have your kid in hospital ’cause he tried to kill himself. I know my mum was upset when I was in with my face. She always tried to hide it when she came to visit, but I heard her talking about it with one of the nurses, and she was saying stuff like “another three inches further up and he’d have been blinded, and what the bleedin’ hell would he have done then?” So after that I stopped being a bouncer, and I started working on the punts. The pay’s not so good, but I don’t like it when my mum gets upset.

The kid didn’t look too ill. Just really, really sad. He was lying in bed, and he had a drip in his arm, and his other arm was all bandaged up. I guess he tried to cut himself. Or maybe took an overdose with a really blunt needle. I had a mate who shot up heroin with a blunt needle, and he ended up with blood poisoning and nearly died. But after that he stopped taking drugs, so it was all right in the end. Which is funny, ’cause you’d never think blood poisoning was a good thing, would you?

Larry smiled at them all. It was the same smile he uses for Dr. Hardwicke, not the one he gives me. “Hello, Matthew. And you must be Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright? I’m Dr. Morton from Matthew’s college. I lecture in History of Art.” He held out his hand, and Matthew’s dad shook it. “And this is Al Fletcher.”

“Nice to meet you,” Matthew’s mum said, but she was looking at me like it wasn’t really all that nice. “Is, er, your friend a member of college staff?”

“No, Al’s an artist. And, ah, he’s my partner,” Larry said. I like it when he calls me that.

I don’t think Matthew’s mum liked it. “How…lovely. Is that how you met? Through…art?”

Larry said “Yes” just as I said, “No, we met when I was having a piss in an alley.”

I felt a bit awkward about having said that, but then I saw that Matthew wasn’t looking so sad anymore, so I didn’t feel so bad.

Larry sort of coughed. “Mrs. Cartwright? Maybe you and your husband would like to go and get a cup of coffee, or something? I’m sure you could do with a break while I have a chat with Matthew.”

Matthew’s mum gave me a look, but his dad said, “Yes, why don’t we, Helen? I’m sure Matthew’s fed up with us moping around his bedside by now.” So they went, and Larry sat on a chair by the bed, but I stayed standing by the window, ’cause I didn’t know the kid.

“I just came to see how you’re getting along,” Larry said.

“Oh,” Matthew said. He had a nice voice, sort of posh but not too posh. Like Larry’s. “Okay.”

I was looking out the window. It didn’t have much of a view. Just hospital buildings. But I could see blackbirds flying in the sky and pigeons perching on TV aerials. I wondered if they made the picture go fuzzy.

Larry took a deep breath. “And I wanted to tell you, it gets better. I know right now it feels like exams are the most important things in the world, but they’re not, trust me. Ask Al.”

I looked round then, ’cause I heard my name. Larry sort of jerked his head at me like he wanted me to say something, but I wasn’t sure what he wanted me to say. But I thought I’d better say something, ’cause they were both looking at me. “I got zero on a maths test once,” I said. “The teacher said he’d wanted to give me a minus number, but the computer wouldn’t let him.”

Larry smiled, and even Matthew did a bit, so I guess I hadn’t said anything too stupid. “But you’re still happy, aren’t you, Al? It didn’t ruin your life, did it?”

“Nah. Don’t need maths in my line of work, do I?” I smiled, and the kid’s eyes went wide.