by J. L. Merrow
It occurred to him as he settled onto the cushion-strewn bench that it was entirely possible he was now sitting in the exact location where he'd been conceived. Simon shuddered. The thought of Mim having sex he could just about cope with--but Mummy? And with a waiter? Not that he was a snob, but the only memories he had of his mother were of her frail, final years, her thin, pale features topped with a brave little headscarf. He felt somewhat queasy at the thought of her getting down and dirty with a bit of rough. "Still, like mother, like son, apparently," he muttered to himself and drained his wineglass, only then realizing that meant he'd have to go back into the bar for another.
Apparently, however, the staff in this hotel was trained to hear the sound of an empty glass hitting a table at several hundred yards. Simon was still halfway through his huff of annoyance when Matt appeared.
"What can I get you?" he asked, his tanned face as cheerful as ever.
Simon found himself smiling back instinctively, his inner turmoil banished for the moment by Matt's easy manner. He hesitated. It felt rather selfish to make Matt keep coming out here just for him, but neither did Simon fancy going back and forth from the bar for drinks all night. "A bottle of the Veltliner, I think," he said finally. After all, he didn't have to drink the whole bottle, just because he'd ordered it.
"Excellent choice, sir. Shall I bring two glasses?"
Simon stared. Not that he'd object to having a drink with Matt, but it seemed a bit forward of the young man just to invite himself. Wasn't he supposed to be working? "I-- Pardon?"
Matt gave him a sidelong look. "Or is Mrs. Lavoisier not planning to join you?" he said slowly and with emphasis, as if for the benefit of the hard of understanding.
All the heat rushed from Simon's stomach into his face, leaving an unpleasant sensation in its wake. "Ah. No. She's, ah, no." He laughed awkwardly. "No, it's just me."
"Right, then. Just the one glass." Matt strode off, but not before Simon caught sight of an expression on his face that gave the strong suggestion he was struggling not to laugh.
Simon settled back uneasily into the forgiving embrace of the cushions. God, how mortifying. At least he hadn't said anything stupid. Quite.
Matt returned after far too short a time, clutching the bottle and one long-stemmed glass. He opened the bottle with a practiced economy of motion and poured a couple of fingers into the glass, then waited, looking expectant.
In the face of such professionalism, Simon felt like an idiot. "Oh, I'm sure it's fine," he said in a tone intended to be smooth and sophisticated, but which turned into a squeak as his airy gesture narrowly missed knocking the wine for six.
"Sure about that?" Matt's hand hovered near the glass, but didn't quite touch Simon's as he moved to save it.
"Yes. Thank you." In sudden, desperate need of that drink, Simon tensed to avoid fidgeting as Matt filled the glass.
"Right, then." He paused. "Anything else I can do for you? Anything at all?"
Simon looked up sharply, but Matt's face was bland and innocent. He must have imagined the suggestion in that tone, Simon decided. "No, thank you. That's all."
Matt retreated to the hotel, and Simon wrenched his thoughts back to his mother. So strange, to learn something new about her after all this time. He'd always known he was the product of an ill-advised fling of which his grandparents had violently disapproved-- to the extent of throwing his pregnant mother out of the house. Of course, she'd hardly been cut off without a penny: in fact, there had been a rather generous trust fund involved. But there had been no personal contact from that day on. They hadn't even come to her funeral.
Simon remembered being positive they'd turn up. He could see Mim's face in his mind's eye--it had looked much as it did now, except back in those days, it had moved more--as his ten-year-old self assured her she wouldn't have to look after him much longer, "Because Mummy's Mummy and Daddy will take me home."
Mim had taken him for ice cream in Harrods afterward and kindly pretended not to notice as he sniveled into his chocolate sprinkles. They'd never mentioned his family again.
The mountains in the backdrop were no longer visible and all of the other tables had been cleared by the time Simon decided he really ought to go to bed. The bottle was empty in any case. He rose, thinking the way back inside seemed a lot longer, somehow, than it had before dinner. And perplexingly strewn with obstacles. Simon made his unsteady way around the tables someone had, with criminal negligence, placed in his path, narrowly avoiding tripping over chair legs on several occasions.
There were steps up to the hotel, it seemed. Simon stumbled over the first of them. All at once, there was a hand under his elbow and a familiar voice saying, "It's all right, sir, I've got you."
Simon beamed at his savior. "So kind of you to offer your ass--assistance," he said, noting with embarrassment that his diction was a little less clear than was customary.
"That's all right," Matt said cheerfully. "Whoops! Careful there!" The floor appeared to be tilting under Simon in an alarming fashion--clearly an effect of the thin air here in the Alps. "What was the room number?"
"Forty-eight," Simon told him with admirable clarity.
"Right, then. Can you manage the stairs, or would you like to take the lift?"
Simon's stomach heaved alarmingly at the thought of travelling in the lift. "Stairs."
"Okay, then, this way," Matt replied, steering him toward them.
Stairs, Simon decided, were A Good Thing. Not in themselves so much, but because they were most conveniently equipped with handrails. Handrails were lovely. People who helped you were also lovely, Simon decided. "You're lovely," he said to Matt, feeling a strong sense it would only be polite to show his appreciation.
"Thanks," Matt said. He sounded like he was laughing.
Simon tried to focus on his face to see if he was, but had to give it up as a bad job.
Once arrived at his door, Simon fumbled with his key--a proper, old-fashioned key with a large fob, not one of those new-fangled credit cards most hotels seemed to insist upon these days.
"Yeah, I like the old-fashioned keys, too," Matt told him.
Oops. Had he been thinking aloud?
"'S all right. I'm very discreet."
"Ah," Simon said knowingly. He went to tap his nose, and was somewhat disconcerting when he missed. "That's good. I'm a man of many secrets, you know. Even I don't know mosht--most of them."
Matt led him over to the bed and sat him down. "C'mon, let's get your shoes off. There you go. Are you all right to get the rest of your kit off?"
Simon laughed. He definitely didn't giggle. Giggling would be silly. "Are you trying to sheduce me, Mrs. Robinson?"
"I'd never take advantage of a bloke when he's drunk," Matt said. He had a lovely smile. Simon may or may not have mentioned it to him; he wasn't quite clear on that point. "Do you want me to knock on Mrs. Lavoisier's door? Get her to take care of you?"
"God, no." Simon shuddered. "She'd never let me hear the end of it." He made a shushing sign with one finger against his lips. "Mim's the word."
Possibly he giggled that time.
Matt sighed. "Yeah, and just you remember it, all right?"
The door shut. Simon seemed to be alone. He lay back on the bed and slept.
* * * *
Matt lay under the thin summer duvet of his narrow bed in the staff accommodation. He idly touched himself. God, Simon was a cute drunk. You're lovely, he'd said. Matt smiled in memory. There was just something about Simon, with that floppy dark hair and pale skin. Even his glasses were cute. Matt wanted to take them off him.
Yeah, all right, he wanted to take a bloody sight more off than just Simon's glasses. But there was just something so sexy about the thought of lifting those dark-rimmed specs off Simon's nose and folding them up before placing them on a table.
And then shagging the bloke silly. God, he was probably a goer in bed. The studious-looking ones always were. Maybe that was why the missus insisted on separate
rooms, Matt thought maliciously. At her age, she needed all the beauty sleep she could get. No wonder Simon fancied a bit on the side. He was only human. Unlike the bride of Frankenstein, who probably slept in one of those oxygen tents, all slathered in anti-wrinkle cream and mummified in clingfilm.
Matt laughed briefly, then sighed. Pity he'd had to get himself so pissed. A little bit tipsy would have been fine--Matt could have worked with that--but Simon had been completely out of his tree. Matt drew the line at that. He didn't mind bedding married men--if they wanted to cheat on their wives, it was their business, not his--but a man had to have some morals.
The heat was stifling tonight. Too hot to wank, even. Matt threw off the duvet to lie naked on top of the sheets.
Eventually, he fell asleep.
* * * *
The next morning, Simon awoke with a thumping headache, a mouth that tasted like the kitchen compost bin, and a queasy certainty that he had rather embarrassed himself last night. He winced as he knocked on Mim's door. "Coming down to breakfast?" he asked faintly.
Mim raised a disapproving eyebrow. "Fortunately, darling, I've already been, as the sight of you would have quite taken away my appetite. I did try to wake you, but you just grunted at me to go away. And not, I might add, in so many words."
Simon swallowed. "Ah. Sorry. I think perhaps the altitude is affecting me. I'll see you later, then?"
"I'll be at the pool, darling. Come and join me--if you're not feeling too prostrated by the altitude."
Her tone, Simon noticed sourly, was so arch you could have used it for a bridge support.
Making his cautious way to the breakfast room, Simon discovered his stomach was somewhat unhappy about matters, too. It didn't help his composure to realize that the waiter who came to save his life with some strong, black coffee was none other than Matt. Simon wasn't quite sure what had happened when Matt escorted him upstairs, but he had a nasty suspicion there might have been some flirting involved on his part, and an even nastier certainty it hadn't been reciprocated.
"I, ah, think I owe you an apology," he forced himself to say. "I have a feeling I made a bit of an idiot of myself last night."
Matt gave him a bland smile. "Not at all, sir."
"Well, anyway, thanks for helping me up to my room, and I'm sorry if I got a little, ah, familiar." Simon blushed as he remembered his inadvertent fondle of the previous evening, which Matt probably now thought had been intentional.
"Don't worry, sir." Matt leaned closer. "You didn't do anything you wouldn't want Mrs. Lavoisier to know about." His tone was laden with hidden meaning.
Simon couldn't help a groan. "She's bound to have guessed, anyway. I'm going to be teased horribly for the rest of the holiday."
Matt fussed with the flowers on the table. "She's the forgiving sort, is she?"
"Mim? Oh, she doesn't mind what I get up to. As long as I tell her all about it afterward so she can make fun of me."
"You're a lucky bloke, Mr. Lavoisier." Matt straightened, the flowers now, it seemed, arranged to his satisfaction.
"I suppose I am," Simon mused, his mood lifting. After all, he'd never had anything less than total acceptance from Mim. Coming out to her had been a total non-event--walking in on Simon inexpertly kissing his first boyfriend, her only reaction had been a put-upon sigh and a plaintive cry of, "Please tell me you know all about condoms. I simply can't go through all that ghastly business of Having The Talk." Simon and--what was his name? Oh yes, Mark--had blushed matching shades of crimson and assured her they'd learned all that at school. Not that they'd ever even approached to the stage of needing condoms--for heaven's sake, they'd only been fourteen.
Smiling in memory, Simon looked up to find that Matt had disappeared. Ah, well.
At least they'd cleared the air.
* * * *
"Well, I've found out why he married her," Matt announced to Heike when he got back to the kitchen. "She doesn't give a shit who he shags on the side. And she likes to hear about it after."
Heike made a face. "You English. You are very strange."
"Not me, love. Just posh tossers like the Lavoisiers."
"And is he going to shag you on the side?" Heike asked with a wicked smile.
Matt grinned. "Who knows? Maybe I'll be shagging him." Opening the door to the restaurant with his hip, he swaggered out, putting a little extra wiggle in his stride.
* * * *
After breakfast, Simon's head felt a bit clearer. Actually, all in all, he felt a lot better than he deserved. Looking out from his balcony, he saw Mim reclining in full splendor on a lounger next to the pool and decided it would be best not to disturb her for the morning. She could be vicious in her lack of sympathy for the hung-over. It wasn't for nothing he'd dubbed her "Mim the Merciless" the day after his eighteenth birthday.
In any case, he was rather keen to get out on the lake. Its rippling blue waters seemed to beckon to him, and although the rowing season was over, that was no reason to get out of condition. Remembering the sun was fiercer here in the mountains, he jammed a floppy cotton hat on his head and ambled down to the path to the village.
Along the way, Simon passed a couple of buildings that seemed to be more-or-less attached to the hotel. Apparently they housed those of the staff who needed to live in, as his gaze was arrested by the sight of Matt stretched out asleep on the grass in the small garden at the rear, clad only in a pair of cut-off denim shorts. He was breathtaking. Despite his youth, he had a broad chest with the faintest traces of hair, which formed a teasing line leading down from his belly button to below the waistband of his shorts. His arms were thrown up above his head, displaying dark-blond tufts in the paler skin of his armpits. Sunlight glinted on a silver barbell through one nipple--didn't it get hot? Simon's mouth went dry at the thought. His gaze was drawn as if by an irresistible force back downward to the faint bulge in those shorts. Simon swallowed and forced himself to look back up--directly into Matt's amused face.
"See something you like?" Matt asked with a grin.
"I--" For the life of him, Simon couldn't think of a single thing to say. His face was burning.
Matt stood and padded slowly across the grass in his bare feet to where Simon was standing, rooted to the spot. "Off anywhere special?" he asked.
"The lake. I, I was going to take a boat out," Simon managed to say.
Matt gave him a sultry smile. "Fancy some company? I'm free 'til two."
It must be the climate, Simon decided. Or the altitude. His face never got so hot back in Britain, and his mouth was certainly never this dry. He pushed his glasses back up his suddenly slippery nose. "I...yes, that would be...yes," he found himself stammering.
"Great! Just let me grab a shirt." Matt winked at Simon. "Wouldn't want to burn anything."
Matt disappeared into the house, then emerged moments later clutching a faded blue T-shirt, which he pulled over his head as he walked back toward Simon. His tousled curls sprang back into place as they emerged. Simon couldn't help wondering what they'd feel like to the touch--could they really be as soft as they looked?
"Right, I'm good to go," Matt announced, vaulting over the low hedge to stand at Simon's side. He'd jammed a grubby pair of trainers on his feet. "Know where to get the boats from?"
"I was just planning to head on down to the lake and look around," Simon admitted.
"Well, there're loads of places, but I'm mates with a bloke who works at one of them. If we're lucky, Rudi will give us a discount."
"Oh, I'll pay," Simon blurted out, feeling a bit awkward. "I mean, it was my idea."
"So?" Matt shrugged. "Don't want to waste your money, do you?" He nudged Simon. "I'm sure you can think of better things to spend it on."
They set off at an easy pace down the hill. The closer they got to the lake's shore, the busier the village became, and the higher the proportion of gift shops. All of them seemed to have the same stock of faux-rustic tea towels and cow bells in an assortment of sizes, ranging from "migh
t fit a mouse" to "would overburden an elephant." There was a pretty village square just before they got to the parish church, whose spire Simon had admired from the hotel balcony. People wandered along the middle of the streets with scant regard for the occasional slow-moving car or rather faster cyclist.
Not that the cyclists seemed to show any more consideration for other road users. "Do you, ah, cycle?" Simon asked after a narrow brush with a mountain biker.
"Me? Nah." Matt shrugged. "I mean, I've borrowed one of the hotel bikes a couple of times and gone round the lake up to Strobl, but they're no good for getting anywhere proper. Too many mountains round here. I've got a Honda CBR600 I use for getting around on." He stared out over the lake. "I mean, it's pretty old and a bit beat up, but it gets me about."
"I'm afraid don't know a lot about motorbikes," Simon said apologetically. "Not really my thing." He'd always found them a bit frightening, frankly. Or possibly it was just the bikers themselves, with their black leathers and unkempt hair. Thank God, Matt wasn't like that.
Matt gave him a sidelong look. "Yeah? Let me guess. You drive a BMW?"
Simon smiled. "Actually, I've got a little MG Roadster. It takes a bit of looking after, but I think it's worth it." He was rather pleased with the look of respect Matt threw him.
"You maintain it yourself?"
"Well, not entirely, but I've had to learn a little bit about it. If nothing else, so I can tell when the garage is trying to pull a fast one."
"Yeah, they'll rip you off if you're not careful. I do all the work on my bike." Matt laughed. "Can't afford to pay anyone else. The insurance on it pretty near wipes me out."
