The Sexual Compass

by Michael Reed

  When I felt the conversation had come to a natural end, I said that I was going to limp home.

  “No you're not,” Alan said, taking me by surprise.

  “Right, where I am going?”

  “Come on, run to the end with me.” He pointed to the end of the seafront.

  “I can't,” I whined.

  “I caaaan't,” he mocked. The only camp moment so far.

  “Come on,” he said before setting off, and I was forced to follow him, out of politeness.

  I felt increasingly ridiculous as we progressed along the seafront. It occurred to me that this seemingly nice guy was having a bit of fun at my expense as he effortlessly pounded along. I started to flag, and when he noticed, he said, “Come on!” and increased the pace again. The bastard. There was a point at which I was ready to give in, but “No!” he commanded, and I followed. He sprinted the last bit so that he could turn around to watch me finish. The sod.

  “Come on, John!” he shouted from the finish point. “Sprint finish!”

  To show the bastard what I was made of, I did somehow add on some speed for the final fifteen seconds. Fortunately, a bit of the seawall railing came to hand when I gasped over the finish line.

  “For fuck's sake!” I exclaimed when I was able.

  “Not bad,” he opined.

  Alan was being a mate. I had struggled to start running again, and when I did, I trundled along like a wet lettuce that didn't want to be in the salad. I needed get out there and push myself a bit, just like everyone did. I had been going through the motions in the least painful way possible.

  We said our goodbyes and he headed off at a relaxed pace. I half walked and half jogged home. Physically, I felt awful. And great. I managed another early morning run that week, but thankfully and unfortunately, I didn't see Alan again. What I did do was push myself as hard as I could. What I had thought of as the give up point was actually the pain point, and I could cruise along at that level for most of the run.

  By Thursday my face looked thinner, amazingly.

  ***

  At 10pm, I set off on a quick trip to Tesco. Ironically, although I had the chemicals that everyone else was struggling to obtain, I had run out of jelly.

  As usual for that time of night, the car park was half empty. I picked up a trolley, and headed around to the front of the store. As I approached the entrance, I noticed, high up on the wall, a small plastic box with a flashing light on it. No one else was around, so I stopped for a moment to look at it. It must have been something to do with security. I tried an experiment, and sure enough, each time I moved, the little light flashed. Infrared, no doubt. More experimentation proved that I could move a small amount without setting it off. I estimated that I had nearly six metres to go before I reached the covered entrance of the store. Could I make it all the way without setting off the little light?

  “Control? It seems like I'm not going to be able to simply walk into the complex after all.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Infrared–one scanner about two metres up, on the side of the wall.”

  “Okay, hang on John. We're bringing up the schematic now. Whatever you do, don't move until I find out what it's linked to.”

  “I'm not going anywhere,” I whispered.

  A moment later: “Okay, it looks like there's something we missed. The entrance is rigged with an infrared scanner, and it's wired into the security system.”

  “Yes, I know that. I just told you.”

  “Yes, well there's something you don't know: The complex has four security 'bots just inside the entrance. Walk past them, and they won't do a thing; set off the system, and they'll become active, and then they'll cut you to ribbons.”

  “Sounds nice. What do I do now?”

  Would it have been whining to ask why they didn't check the schematics before I attempted to enter a supposedly unmanned computer complex?

  “Our technical people are saying there may be a solution, John. If you can get to the entrance without triggering the system, you should be okay. Those sensors are very basic. Move as slowly as you possibly can. You can–maybe–set the sensor off, once or twice, extremely briefly. It will be interpreted as background noise by the system. There is one bit of good news.”

  “I'd like to hear it.”

  “Set off the alarm, and you won't have to time to worry about it.”

  “Thanks,” I said before setting off.

  Slowly, I proceeded, shuffling one foot in front of the other. It was painstaking, the empty equipment trolley rattling along the ground. We'd just have to hope that the sensor wasn't keyed for sound too.

  “Damn it!”

  “What's wrong?”

  “I just set off the sensor. I think I got away with it though.”

  “Stop a minute. There's someone who needs to speak to you.”

  “Can't it wait?”

  “No, it can't wait,” said the familiar voice. It was Judi Dench, my boss. “John, we're scrubbing the mission. We had no idea that security was still active around the complex.”

  “No can do, I'm afraid, Ma'am.” She hated it when I called her that. “I'm past the half way point now.” That was a lie.

  “I don't care. There's no telling what's still active in the complex itself. I'm pulling you out. That's an order.”

  “Sorry, Ma'am: your transmission is breaking up.”

  “Damn it, John!”

  Slowly, inch by inch, I moved forward. It took me nearly three minutes to cover four metres. Practically out of range of the scanner, I took a risk and rushed towards the automatic door. The world saved, I checked my inside pocket to make sure I had my Tesco Club Card. I was always forgetting that thing.

  ***

  Everything I did was in service of the weekend. It was my goal, but it was also the test of how well I was doing as a gay man. Working out was knocking me for six and making me feel great at the same time. Apart from the small but noticeable improvement in my appearance, I now felt that I was a work-in-progress rather than something that was gradually going downhill. The changes in my life were like figures in a sum, and hitting the dance floor was the bit between the lines at the bottom, the moment of truth.

  I headed out as usual. I had already begun to get to know a new crowd in the clubs and I was on nodding terms with some of the staff. Each time out, step one was to find a quiet corner and start getting a bit drunk. I reasoned that a huge shift in lifestyle would require a bit of assistance. For some, that may be a supportive partner or family, or even working with a councillor. “Go with what works” was my mantra these days, a shot followed by a pint my starting point on an evening out.

  As I danced, I surveyed the club. It felt subversive to be having deep thoughts in a place like this. My thinking was muddled due to the alcohol, but as always, direct and clear at the same time. How much closer was I to having a sexual relationship or just simply getting laid? Maybe I was rushing things.

  Steady on, John. You're only a few weeks old, in gay terms.

  An uncomfortable thought began to form in my mind. How much of this could I have done without the mouse? Don't get me wrong, I had already accepted that a lot of my problems had been my own fault all along. Could I have made the improvements that I had made without going gay? I could have started exercising without the mouse, for example. However, the sequence of events would have been different, and the thought probably wouldn't have occurred to me. The changes I had made were positive, but it was ironic that I hadn't made an improvement in the main area that I had wanted to: my sex life, or my lack of one.

  Why had a simple change in sexual orientation brought about such massive changes in other areas of my life? That was a mystery. I concluded that my sexual compass had been drawn in the wrong direction for me in the past. As a heterosexual man, I was a complete failure. I had been forced to play a game that I could never win at. The end result was that I had been trapped in a perpetual losing streak in every part of my life
. This month had been instructive, I'd go as far as to say life-changing. Even if I ran out of the ingredients, or if mouse stopped working for some reason, I was determined to preserve the new attitude to life. I was sure that I could do it through willpower alone.

  After Gypsy, I stumbled in the direction of Brite House. It was a club that catered to a group I that would have dismissed as teeny-boppers when I was young enough to go there. Maybe, I was secretly jealous at the time. Maybe, I was scared that I wouldn't be good enough. Back then, I would put my Queen album on and shake my head at people who were desperate to be cool.

  “Who are you?” exclaimed eighteen-year-old me upon seeing the projection before him.

  “I am you,” said the ghostly hologram as it shimmered and flickered. “I have used technology that exists in the future to project my image back in time. I am thirty years old now. It is the year 2014.”

  “What do you want?” my younger self asked.

  “I want you to get a haircut and some nice clothes,” I replied. “There's a club called Brite House. I want you to go down there and make an effort to get off with someone. At least try.”

  “Brite House? Get off with someone? I don't understand. Why is that important?”

  “Because in the future, you are a miserable, fat, thirty-year-old virgin!” I told me.

  “And this… will definitely work?” I asked.

  “It is impossible to say, but not making the slightest effort definitely won't work. That is certain. Oh, and start exercising, because you're a right fat bastard in the future.” The image spluttered out of existence.

  Bang! And then it hit me. The police car, that is.

  I'd been wandering around in my fantasy world when I walked into the middle of the road. The car had been travelling slowly and the driver had managed to slam the breaks on in time. I instinctively threw my arms out, touched the front of the car and I was knocked onto the ground. I was too drunk and too stunned to know whether I was injured. I lay there, feeling fairly relaxed when the door of the police car opened.

  Oh well, I'm in trouble with the police now. Finally, Steven can be proud of his brother.

  “Are you okay?” the policewoman asked me. Her tone was a mixture of concern and annoyance.

  The reality of the situation began to take hold of me. I was not the sort of person who wanted to get into trouble with the police.

  Oh, what have I become? The kind of idiot who gets into trouble, that's what. All while drunk, and technically, on drugs. I didn't mean any harm, and there are special circumstances in the form of profound dilemmas and hand-wringing about sexuality. But the end result is the same: Sunday morning, sleeping one off, probably in a police cell.

  I started to pull myself together.

  Holy shit, I'm going to get into trouble!

  New plan: apologise like mad and try to talk myself out of it. I'll assure her that I've never done anything like this before, and that I'm heading straight home.

  I started rambling as I got to my feet: “I'm very sorry about that. I wasn't concentrating and I walked out in front of you. To be honest, I've had too much to drunk, I mean drink. I'm not used to it. I am sorry.”

  “Okay, are you all right?” she asked.

  “Yes, as far as I can tell, I'm fine,” I replied. I tried to inject a tone into my voice that said, Let me go, and I'll never do it again. I'm a goody and I don't need a proper punishment when I do something wrong. It was my simpering version of the Jedi mind trick.

  Fortunately, the whole thing happened on a side street; a crowd forming would have complicated things. She must have known what was going on. She must have known she was dealing with a total wimp, who was terrified. She looked around, as though uncertain what to do next.

  “Where do you live?” she asked.

  I told her my address.

  “Get in,” she said wearily.

  Damn. I was hoping that I could talk my way out of the whole thing. Great, taken home in a police car. Once again, Steven would be so proud. Older brother was finally living up to the younger brother's example. The difference was that it was the result of poor judgement and carelessness in my case. Briefly, I wondered if my twat of a brother would make the same claim about the situations he found himself in. I quickly concluded that yes, he probably would try to claim that, but no, it was generally his own fault when he got into trouble. The other difference was that as this was a woman, she'd end up falling in love with him on the way home. She'd be his girlfriend by the end of next week.

  I'll get bollocked for this, and he'd get laid.

  She pointed to the passenger side door and I got in as she got back in on the driver's side. Off we went. As we drove along, I tried to sum her up, psychologically. I could still retrieve something from this situation if I was careful. I'd estimate her to be in her mid forties. Did that make me surrogate son material? That was my best shot. Back in the day, I would have found her attractive. No, very attractive. Voluptuous, bouncy body and a pretty face. I could try to feign an interest along those lines, but even when I was straight, chatting up women was my weakest area.

  “What a nob head. Are you pissed up?” she enquired.

  “I am. It was a mistake. To be honest, I've been going through a tough time recently. A very strange time.”

  She seemed slightly amused at my earnestness. I still couldn't work out whether I was in life-ruining trouble or not. We arrived at my house.

  “Okay, off you go, John.”

  “Right, so I can just go?”

  Idiot. What I just said implied that I might still be in trouble. I should have made it sound like I expected to leave.

  “Yes, John. You can go. But don't do that again. You're a nob head. Some of my colleagues would have nicked you for that.”

  “Thank you,” I said, gratefully. “And I won't do it again, I promise.”

  Yuk. I sounded like I was twelve.

  It's just as well that I was out of the heterosexual-with-intent business, because such a display of uncool weakness would have undoubtedly ruined things for me.

  “Thanks,” I said before quickly letting myself out. I stood on my doorstep and waved at the police car while it departed. I wondered if it was the proper thing to do. I let myself into the house, had a quick pee, and then slept on the couch. As I settled down, I considered the validity of “go with what works”. Was it still working?

  ***

  I was awoken at 8am by a loud knock at the door. It was the policewoman.

  I had thought that I had got away with the whole thing, but obviously not.

  “Remember me?” she asked.

  “I do remember you,” I replied, ready to start making more excuses, and wondering why she wasn't in uniform.

  It seemed that she had come over to follow up on the incident last night. A sensible person would have said the minimum amount possible, but the exhausting effect of how things were at the moment combined with being hung over loosened my tongue. I told her the whole lot, minus the bit about how I obtained the chemicals. I had the feeling that this story would soon be repeated for the entertainment of the other police officers at the station… As I raconteured the whole thing to her, she periodically gasped, shook her head or laughed. How the hell was she going to fill the forms in on this one then? At least she wouldn't think I was boring.

  “You've not seen the news then?” she enquired with a weary smile.

  “News?” I asked.

  She fumbled with her iPhone until she found the story she was looking for.

  Oh great, I thought to myself on reading the news that mouse was not real and didn't work. Her smile gave me the impression that she had never encountered someone as daft as me before. I had utterly humiliated myself at every turn. A shame, as I would have found her very attractive once. Oh wait, I did find her attractive, I mean. I'm crackers.

  Susan's epilogue

  Mice Were Not Gay, Says Top Scientist

  A scientist from an Edinburgh University has
debunked the widely reported story that a group of laboratory mice had exhibited homosexual tendencies when exposed to the chemical insulin. Speaking on BBC Breakfast News this morning, Doctor Alvin Burke told the presenters that the mice had engaged in homosexual behaviour. However, it almost certainly had nothing to do with the insulin-based medications that he and his colleagues had been testing.

  “The mice did exhibit homosexual behaviour, which is somewhat unusual in mice,” he told them. However, he went on to add that the behaviour quickly dissipated and was never repeated. Subsequently, he and the rest of the team had spent a further month or so attempting to recreate the effect with other subjects without any success whatsoever.

  When asked why the laboratory had not retracted its earlier findings, he said this: “We did not retract anything, because we never made a statement to retract.” It would seem that the information had been leaked to the press by a junior member of the team who had since been dismissed. When asked why he didn't release a statement to calm the furore, he repeated his earlier point that he had nothing to retract.

  Pressed further, he acknowledged that he had been aware of widespread myths that had spread in regard to the effects of insulin on human sexual orientation.

  “Yes, I observed the social effects,” he said in a tone that he probably normally reserved for a casual aside to one of his lab mice.

  I was twenty-one years old, a single mother, and things were looking up. Mouse wasn't for real, it would seem. It was good that things were back to normal. However, maybe the upheaval had forced people to confront some uncomfortable truths, which was probably for the best too. Comfortable situations are never deadly, by their nature, but they can be utterly stifling. Mouse had given the bottle a damn good shake, long after all of the pieces had been allowed to settle at the bottom.

  As for the gay mice, they had the greatest adventure of all. A week after the television appearance by the scientist, after having already inspired, quite possibly, the most notorious sexual scandal in the history of the order Rodentia, they added to their legend by escaping the laboratory. This fuelled the fire within Internet conspiracy mills about the nature of the experiment; the main gist was that mouse had worked and that it was being covered up by the government/huge pharmaceutical corporations/the liberal media elite.