A Fluffy Tale

by Ann Somerville

He leaned forward. Zachary was making fish impressions. “What?”

  “B-Boy?”

  “Well, I'm gay, Zachary.” Julian thought about their conversations over the last two months. “Uh, did that not come up before?” He’d definitely told Leo.

  “Your sexuality isn’t something I’d want to come up, no.”

  “Does it bother you? Me being gay?”

  “Did I not just express very clearly my total and utter lack of interest in the subject?”

  “When we get to that lake, I'm dropping you in it, I'm warning you now.”

  “If it gets me away from this inane discussion, I’ll release the brake myself.”

  “You’re just not a people person, are you.”

  No reply, but then a little… Julian leaned forward and found Zachary grinning. “You’re impossible,” the man said, trying unsuccessfully to sound severe.

  “And you’re just being a snot. Okay. First kiss—girl. Thirteen years old, on a dare, she had terrible breath and told all her friends about it afterwards. First kiss—boy. Hmmm. Fourteen years old, in my parent’s garden, in my tree house. He tasted like jelly beans, punched me in the arm afterwards and said it was gross. It was, a bit. Didn’t put me off though,” he added with a grin, thinking of how much better he’d got at the kissing thing. Man, it had been six months since he’d even been out with a guy. Well, unless you counted breakfast with Zachary before the accident, which he didn’t. Not really.

  Zachary wasn’t talking. Julian poked him in the shoulder. “Well?”

  “Well, what? It sounds perfectly awful. Subject and colour and then we’re done.”

  “Biology and blue. Now it’s your turn.”

  “Not applicable, law and yellow.”

  “Yellow? I’d never…hang on, what do you mean, not applicable? How can a kiss be not applicable?” Zachary ignored him. “Come on, that’s cheating.”

  “It’s not. I answered your questions truthfully.”

  “It’s cheating if you don’t answer them in a way that makes sense! Zachary, be fair.”

  Zachary grabbed the brake and applied it, forcing them all to stop. “All right. I’ve never kissed anyone. It’s not applicable. Is that ‘fair’ enough for you?”

  Julian opened his mouth, but no sounds came out. He stared at this handsome, wealthy, well-educated man and wondered if it was even possible for someone like this to get to the age of nearly thirty-one and… “How? How could you not have—”

  “I just didn’t. It never came up. If you don’t hurry, it’ll be cold before we get back to the car. Linis? Pyon? Where are you?”

  The kems came bounding out from the bushes, looking for affection, and Zachary busied himself in giving it, while resolutely ignoring a dumbstruck Julian. Never been kissed? Did that mean…?

  “Zachary, are you a virgin?”

  The man glared at Julian over the top of Linis’s head. “I thought I already answered your three questions, and what kind of upbringing did you have that you consider that a polite thing to ask? Can we move, please? Or at least go back? I'm tired.”

  Julian looked at his watch. It was still early, so he decided to press on to their destination. Zachary was exaggeratedly attentive to Linis and Pyon, making it clear whose company he really preferred—like that was a secret. Julian didn’t feel like talking anyway because everything he wanted to say came back to the same thing—how the hell did someone like this, even with his personality, stay a virgin this long?

  Julian had known guys who smelled like a three-day-old dead rat. Guys whose idea of a really good lark was pissing on drunks in the street. Guys who snapped the bra straps of the women they were chatting up. Guys with acne that made them look like the dark side of the moon. Guys who were ugly, obnoxious, unintelligent, uninteresting, flatulent bores. Every single one of them had managed to get laid at least once, and usually more than once (though rarely by the same person.) No healthy male could survive without sex. Could they?

  Another fifteen minutes and they came to the lake. The view was pretty spectacular with the still water reflecting the vivid hues of autumn, under a clear blue sky. They had it all to themselves but Julian wasn’t really capable of appreciating it, with all that was in his mind.

  He parked the chair by a little bench that looked over the water, and as soon as they stopped, the kems jumped down and trotted down to the lake edge to inspect it. Julian sat down and looked at Zachary, who definitely didn’t want to look at him.

  “Aren’t you even curious what you’re missing?”

  “You assume I'm missing anything. I don’t consider I am.”

  “But sex—“

  “Is a messy, complicated, time-consuming, animalistic act and only necessary if one wants offspring, which I don’t.”

  “I don’t either—at least, I don’t now. I don’t screw guys because I want kids!”

  Zachary went red. “Do you mind? Some of us don’t consider rutting to be a suitable topic for conversation.”

  “Prude.”

  “If you insist.”

  Julian threw up his hands in disgust. “You’re a freak. No wonder you can’t cope with people touching your kem. God knows what would happen if they touched your cock instead.”

  “What?”

  “Me, touching Linis. I know what you felt—it’s the same for me when you pet Pyon. It’s not—”

  Zachary’s expression was horrified. “You mean…when I stroke your kem, you feel—”

  “The same as you felt when I stroked Linis. I guess it’s the same for everyone. Only most people don’t get hard.” Nasty of him to add that, but this whole ‘sex isn’t suitable for my delicate ears’ crap was annoying as hell. “Hey! Where are you…Zachary, you can’t push yourself all the way back…stop it, you moron!”

  He grabbed for the push handles, but Zachary kept trying to wrench control away from him. “Will you stop? You’ll break that damn arm of yours again!”

  “Let me go. I want to leave. Get your hands off me!”

  Julian stepped back at Zachary’s anguished bellow, holding his hands up in surrender. “Look—they’re off. Now calm down. There’s no way you can wheel yourself all the way back. What the hell’s the matter anyway?”

  “You knew what you were doing with Linis?”

  “No, not exactly. You react more than I do. It’s not a crime.”

  “You used him to molest me.”

  “I had no idea what effect it’d have on you, until it did. I pet Nuji all the time too and if you think I’ve got the hots for Leo, you’re even more deranged than I thought you were. Just calm down. I won’t touch Linis again if it bothers you. Simple.”

  “But you said…when I touch Pyon…it felt—”

  “Nice. Just nice, Zachary. Like the sun and the breeze does just now. Pleasant. Not like someone jerking me off.” From Zachary’s expression, that had definitely been the wrong thing to say. “It’s not sexual just because it’s nice. It’s like…someone playing with your hair. I guess you don’t know what that’s like.”

  “No,” Zachary muttered. “I don’t like being touched.”

  “How would you know if you never let it happen?”

  “I just…know. I don’t like people being close to me. Or touching Linis.”

  “Were you always like this? Even before your Mum and Dad…I mean, even when you were little?”

  “Yes. I…yes, I think so. I remember at school…playing sports and learning to dance with the girls, was just…awful.”

  “Before they died?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  Julian frowned. “Didn’t your grandma ever give you a hug? Kiss it better when you fell down?”

  “No. I…I don’t remember them doing that. When Mama…when Grandfather came in and told me, he just…patted me on the shoulder and told me to be a brave boy and not to cry. So…I tried very hard. I did what they wanted me to do.”

  Julian shook his head. “That’s awful. Surely you can see that wasn’t w
hat a little boy needed.”

  “I won’t have you say a word against them.”

  “I'm not! But…hell, Zachary, every kid needs a hug sometimes. If your Mum and Dad just died, you should’ve been able to cry.”

  “I didn’t want to make Grandmother sad. And later…I just…couldn’t.”

  Julian sat on the grass. Pyon scampered over and gave him a quick head butt, wanting to be petted, but then he ran off again. Linis was still exploring which was odd—Julian would have expected him to come back to Zachary as soon as he became distressed. The big kem’s behaviour had been very strange all day. “You know babies who don’t get held and given affection, die. You said kems were like that. You don’t think it’s unhealthy for you not to let anyone near you?”

  “I manage perfectly well, thank you.”

  “Until you get run over by a car.” Julian stared down to the lake edge where Pyon was grooming Linis, the tawny kem lolling on the ground while Pyon licked him. “I know this is hard for you, but can I just…try something?”

  “Julian, I’ve had almost as much as I can stand today, honestly.”

  His expression was uncharacteristically pleading, and if it wasn’t so important, Julian would have just dropped it. “I know,” he said gently. “And…now I know what I do, I can see why…why you’re like how you are. But I think maybe Linis was up to something, and I think I know what. I know you don’t trust me, but do you still trust him?”

  Zachary stared at the ground. “I do trust you,” he mumbled.

  “Then will you just humour me? I don’t think you’ll like it much, but I’ll stop if it really bothers you.”

  “Is it important to you?”

  “Yes. It really is.”

  “Then go ahead.”

  The lack of enthusiasm didn’t exactly shock him, so he persisted. “I just want to know how me touching you makes you feel. I just want you to…say out loud what it does to you. I know it’s hard for you to say that sort of thing.”

  “Just get on with it.”

  Julian almost stopped then. Zachary was so clearly at the edge of his tolerance and what he wanted to do would push him quite hard. But he might not get a second chance.

  “Okay.” He scooted a little closer to the wheelchair and put his hand on Zachary’s foot. “What does that do?”

  “Annoy me.”

  “Anything else?” Zachary shook his head. Julian moved his hand to Zachary’s knee. “Now?”

  Zachary’s lips thinned. “I…want you to move your hand.” Julian lifted it. “No, I mean…that’s the emotion. A real…desire for you to just go away.”

  “So there’s nothing pleasurable about it at all?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “Okay.” He reached further up and took one of Zachary’s hands in his, taking care to be gentle, to use the touch to massage very carefully. Then he twined his fingers with Zachary’s. “And now?”

  “I…feel trapped. Like…let go, Julian. Please.” Julian obeyed immediately. Zachary exhaled—hard not to miss the raw relief in his eyes as Julian sat back on his heels. “I'm sorry.”

  “Me too. So basically, you’ve never felt any pleasure at all from anyone touching you?” Zachary looked away. “You have? Not your grandparents. Your Mum and Dad?”

  “No. Except…one time.” He rubbed at his eyes like he had a headache. “That day in the hospital when…the day Leo…”

  “Yes, I remember.”

  “I…got upset and you…for a second or two, I felt…comforted. Then I just panicked. But there was that short period…when I almost felt like…I could just let go. But I couldn’t. I didn’t dare.”

  “Because you don’t trust people not to let you down.”

  Zachary’s expression closed in a little. “Yes, most likely. I accept who I am. The only difficulty I have is with other people refusing to do that.”

  “People like me.”

  “And Leo. Other people who presumed to know me better than I do myself, or who wanted to force themselves on me. I'm not innocent. People throw themselves at me from time to time, attracted by money or my status—”

  “Or the fact you’re amazingly good looking.”

  Zachary flushed. “A mere accident of genetics. But these people offer nothing, only want to take, and I see how they behave to each other and their kems and they just revolt me. Sex could never blind me to that.”

  “It does for some people.”

  “I am not ‘some people’. What other people do, doesn’t concern me. If my lack of sexual experience was a burden, I’d have no difficulty in relieving myself of it. It’s not.”

  “People used to believe in waiting for the right person to come along before losing their cherry. It’s a pretty old-fashioned idea.”

  “I'm not waiting for anything or anyone. I only need Linis.”

  “And Leo.”

  “And Leo. And you.”

  Julian blinked. “Me? You mean, while your leg’s busted.”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh. Well, that makes sense. I’ll be out of your hair when—”

  “Do you have to interrupt me when I'm trying to be nice?”

  “That was you being ‘nice’?” Julian raised his eyebrows at the man in disbelief. “You’re so bad at this stuff!”

  “Yes. Isn’t that what we’ve just spent any amount of time discussing?”

  Julian laughed and shook his head. “Yes, we did. So…go on. Be nice. I wish I had a video recorder or something.”

  “You’re spoiling things.”

  “Sorry.” He tried to look innocent, like Pyon when he knew he’d been naughty. “Well?”

  Zachary sighed. “I was trying to say…thank you. I know you care and you’ve tried so hard to help me. You have helped me. I just…can’t be the person you’d like me to be. But I appreciate that you give a damn that I'm not that person.”

  “I only want you to be happy, Zachary. If changing would make you happier, then I’d like that to happen. But if it wouldn’t, then no, don’t change. I just wanted to understand a little better and now I do. I can be a bit more sensitive about stuff. But I can’t stop Linis if he wants to crawl all over me again.”

  “He doesn’t do that normally. Perhaps he needs to get out of the apartment more than we do.”

  “Maybe.” Personally, Julian thought he knew exactly what Linis was up to, but kems were no match for more than twenty years of emotional isolation. Maybe by the time Zachary was Leo’s age, Linis would wear him down. “You want to go back now?”

  “Please.”

  It wasn’t just emotional fatigue that put that quiet plaintiveness into the request. By the time they got back to the parking area, Zachary was drooping, and they still had a two-hour drive back to the city. It would have been easier to just roll the wheelchair into the back, but Julian couldn’t do that to him—it was uncomfortable and undignified and Zachary loathed it even for short trips. So Julian helped him swing his long legs into the front seat, careful not to let him put the slightest weight on his injured one, and settled a cushion behind him for extra support. He put the chair in the back and then got behind the wheel. The kems were asked to dematerialise for safety and then Julian put the key in the ignition.

  But then something occurred him, so he stopped and turned to his companion.

  “Has it been bothering you that I’ve had to get so close to help you, all these weeks?” The attendants had done the heavy stuff, but now he thought about it, he had to touch Zachary a dozen times a day to do little things that helped him out. He hadn’t realised just how strong Zachary’s phobia was.

  “A bit. But…I always feel safe with you. Much more than those people,” Zachary said, his mouth turned down. He hadn’t liked most of the attendants, and the attendants hadn’t much liked him either. Now Julian realised what had been the basis of the antipathy.

  “Uh…good. I’d never hurt you—physically, I mean.”

  “Julian…just so you know, I’d never
have let anyone else do what you did today. I do trust you. I just…”

  “Don’t like people close to you. I know. Does it matter that I'm gay?”

  “Not in the slightest. I don’t categorise people like that. The world’s divided into good kem hosts and bad kem hosts, so far as I'm concerned.”

  Julian grinned. “What a surprise. Seatbelt on? Let’s go.”

  Chapter 8

  The new understanding of Zachary’s issues took away most of Julian’s remaining irritation with the man. He realised now that Zachary simply couldn't help being the way he was, and that all things considered, he was remarkably stable.

  He still couldn’t get over the way Zachary’s grandparents behaved. Though Julian didn’t want to breach his confidence, Leo brought it up himself one day. The contents of his old apartment had finally cleared Customs, and though Julian had arranged for most of the boxes to be carefully unpacked, there were a few marked as ‘fragile’ or ‘personal’, which he and Leo spent time slowly going through when Zachary needed his apartment to himself. He was now working again, still from home, his secretary visiting the apartment once a day with files and to take notes. Julian made himself scarce in the mornings while she was around, in case she asked why he was still on secondment when the patient was so much better.

  A large box of photos and albums had them engrossed for hours—Leo had travelled all over the world, and Julian could listen to him talk for any length of time about his experiences. But it wasn’t travel photos Leo had been hunting for. From the bottom of the box, he lifted out a very large and rather old album, and opened it carefully. It bulged with pictures of people Julian didn’t recognise. Leo took one out of the holders and showed it to him.

  “Ah, I’ve been meaning to send these to him for years, never got around to it. Look, Julian—these are his parents. And this is Zachary when he was four. That’s when I first spoke to him—I didn’t see him after he was born until that age.”

  Julian took the photo from Leo, and mimed shock. “He’s smiling. And look at Linis! He’s so little and cute.” He showed Pyon, who sniffed and resumed playing with a ball of paper, while Nuji dove into one of the empty boxes on the floor. “Doesn’t recognise him. Zachary looks happy.”