Rainbow Milk

by Paul Mendez

  * * *

  —

  He returned with his coffee upstairs to his room, sat on the edge of his bed and crushed a skunk bud in his grinder—just enough for a small-sheeter—rolled his spliff and sparked up. He twisted the blind rod to let in more light. The sky was clear and blue. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d changed his sheets. Was he allowed to do a load of washing on Christmas Day? Perhaps if he did it now, he thought, on fast, then it might be out of the machine and nearly dry by the time Owen came home to take over the kitchen. After taking a nice long draw on his spliff, he drew up his blind and opened the uPVC window to let in some fresh air that coolly licked him underneath his dressing-gown. He wondered if Owen, next door, ever smelt anything, whether it be a spliff or cigarette being smoked, an ashtray full of old butts, or the smell of Jesse’s body when he couldn’t be bothered to wash, which was most days, these days, unless he had something or someone in particular to get up for, which hadn’t been for six weeks, since that man, and in any case, some clients had liked him to be dirty and smelly, but since that man, his money had run down and he didn’t know when he might be able to work again.

  He lay back, with his feet on the bed, and took a long drag. The wound must have healed, but still twinged inside him. He could see that man’s face looking down on him, astride him, lifting himself up to remove the condom before easing back on, whispering, Is it in all the way to the hilt? You can come in me, if you want. Jesse slapped himself across the face for becoming aroused at the thought; how could he still want to give him the satisfaction? But it did feel good, the way his hole fluttered and quivered around his dick, warm and solicitous. It was as if he could still feel the friction pushing back his foreskin. They hardly even needed lube. He was too stoned to care that the condom had been ripped off. That man had said he never hired escorts, so wouldn’t be paying. That man kept begging Jesse to come in him, before he was ready. On top, that man wanked himself off until a rope of spunk leapt out of his dick and dribbled over his hand, which ended up between Jesse’s legs, in his hole, fingering him until Jesse came, a little trail that didn’t even pool on his belly. His own dick felt like a rubbery prosthesis in his hand. That man got up, went to the bathroom, got dressed, said, Good luck with your writing, and left. Jesse lit the rest of his spliff and stared at the ceiling.

  Almost straight away the stinging started. Burning. He neither ate nor shat nor slept the whole night. He went to the clinic the next morning, where a doctor called him through straight away. An Indian woman with thick glasses stuck a lubricated, clear plastic tube in his hole, and shone in a torch.

  “You’ve got a two-inch-long wound in there, full of congealed blood.” She looked confused, and a little bit disgusted, not quite at Jesse, but for him. Health advisers fussed and tried to get him to report what had happened to the police as a sexual assault, but who would protect him? He might have been trying to infect you with HIV, they said. There was a widespread resurgence in new diagnoses, and the most common transmission zone was the soft, absorbent, easily broken tissue of the rectum, just where Jesse had been breached. Who knows who else out there he might be targeting? they said. You must press charges. We can do it for you, but we need your permission. He wanted nothing to do with it. All they could do was test, monitor, and test him again in three months, once the incubation period had expired. Now he had another six weeks to wait.

  If his result came back negative he would have to find legitimate work. He needed to settle down; he could not keep quitting and running away when he was out of goodwill. He thought, in the new year, he would get himself a regular job, even if it meant stacking shelves in the local Safeway, anywhere that would have him. But he didn’t really want to do that. He wanted to be looked after, though he had ruined himself before he’d had the chance to prove himself. He’d never been on as much as a date in his life. He felt he would never be taken seriously as an object of romance. No man had ever taken him out for dinner at a restaurant. He’d been engaged by clients to visit them in hotels, but never had they been willing to be seen in public with him, for how would it look socially if a well-to-do white man took him out to dinner? How would they justify their acquaintance? This wouldn’t be something, Jesse imagined, white escorts would have to think about so much; they could be explained away as young relatives or junior colleagues if they wished to keep their intimacy discreet. Nobody wanted to make love to him. He was a skinny, twenty-year-old black boy with a big dick, which was all anyone ever seemed to briefly want him for. He was just a fuck machine they could pay then get rid of. He had been fucked, but only by white men who wanted to use his body to demonstrate their own strength, power and supremacy, or black men who would cross the street if they saw him the next day.

  Suddenly he jumped up from the bed, stripped it of its duvet cover, sheet and pillowcase, emptied his rucksack—JUST DO IT—and stuffed them in so that he could transfer them downstairs without offending the shared spaces of the house with their smell. He pulled his other set of bedding from the bottom of the chest of drawers and remade his bed. It was hot work, but the little wisps of cool air through the window that touched him every so often were refreshing. It was really more like Easter than Christmas.

  He stepped in front of his mirror and opened his dressing-gown, letting it slip to the floor, and observed his nakedness as he stood in his dirty white socks. Didn’t men like men with more meat on their bones? He didn’t know that he had been pulling such a wretched facial expression, as if it was his new default. He held his dick in his hand, heavy and warm though unemployed. The reason he was sick, in mind, body and spirit, was his dick, which had developed a mind of its own. He was sick because he wasn’t a woman. If he was a woman he could enjoy men—although, for God’s sake, just one man—all he wanted. A man could come in her over and over and fill her womb with cum, and everyone would rejoice in her, even nuns and priests, because she would be married and having a baby. But because he had been born a man, his actions were a dereliction of his masculinity. He flexed an arm but was repulsed by the smell of his armpit, then scratched his balls and sniffed, and it was strong.

  Turning on the shower, he made it hot, and stood under it until he could hardly breathe for the steam, letting the water pressure warm him up. He helped himself to Owen’s products, washing and conditioning his hair with Head & Shoulders, and lathering up his body with Molton Brown. He dried himself with a fresh towel and after wiping the condensation from the mirror, shaved with one of Owen’s disposable Gillettes. Back in his room, he dried his hair as best he could with the towel, remembering Ginika when he combed it out and saw that it now really qualified as an Afro.

  Owen was back, pottering around downstairs, but Jesse couldn’t tell what sort of mood he might be in, as can often be judged by the weight and metre of someone’s footsteps and the way they close cupboard doors. It couldn’t have felt great for him, Jesse thought, to have left his daughters behind who, he imagined, would’ve cried and thrown their arms around their father’s waist, refusing to let him leave their grandparents’ house. Jesse tucked a grey shirt into a pair of black jeans and padded around his room barefoot, smoking a cigarette, feeling clean. He wondered why he could not leave his room. It was almost one in the afternoon. Could he not go down to wish Owen a friendly Merry Christmas, like any other normal person would? But then he heard the pop of a champagne cork, and Owen’s footsteps creak up the stairs. He wanted Owen to knock on his door, as much as he didn’t, and was surprised when he did, expecting him to go to his own room.

  “Hold on,” said Jesse, as if he wasn’t yet decent. He stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray and opened the door. Owen’s smile was more guarded than normal, but seemed to brighten as he took in Jesse’s refreshed state.

  “Merry Christmas,” Owen said, as Jesse accepted the glass of champagne being held out to him.

  “Merry Christmas,” Jesse repeated. It felt strange and
shocking coming out of his mouth, Christmas greetings as forbidden as swear words once were. They clinked and took a sip. The bubbles dissolved crisply on Jesse’s tongue.

  “I haven’t seen you for a bit,” said Owen. His smile had the capacity to convey every intention and emotion, and had faded slightly, transmitting concern. Jesse tucked his lips between his teeth. He did not know what to say. He was desperate to but could not tell Owen the truth; he wanted Owen to think of him as being strong and capable. Owen loved Jesse’s stories. He had not long come out himself, and told Jesse he was living his gay youth vicariously through him. He said he wished he had been as brave, and Jesse wanted to remain his hero. “How’ve you been keeping?” Owen said.

  “I’m alright,” said Jesse, as brightly as he could manage. “How are you?”

  Owen’s broad chest expanded and he breathed out hard through his nose. “Either my daughters don’t miss me at all, or they’re taking our separation much more maturely than anyone should expect of a six- and four-year-old. Anyway, they seemed happy enough. They loved their presents.”

  “What did you buy them?”

  “I bought them both iPods,” he said, and laughed. “I know. Is there anything wankier?”

  “Did they like them?”

  “It’s what they’ve been asking for. I gather some of their schoolfriends already have them, so there would’ve been strife if I’d left it any longer. Their grandparents sneered at me as if I was trying to buy the girls’ loyalty.”

  “Did they give you a hard time?”

  “Oh, I don’t blame them, really I don’t,” he said, with a smile of resignation. “They’re just being protective of their daughter, and grandkids, from someone they basically think is a sex offender. I only stayed for about twenty minutes. Gave the girls their main presents, told them I loved them, and left.”

  Jesse was happy for Chloe, six, and Emma, four, but he had never received a Christmas present in his life, at least not since he was two.

  “So, you really planned to spend Christmas by yourself?” Jesse asked Owen. Owen nodded, and smiled, sadly. “What are you going to do?” They had both got comfortable, Owen leaning against the doorframe and Jesse against his bedroom wall. Owen shrugged, and turned down the corners of his mouth.

  “Not much. Just treat it like any other day. Do a bit of work, listen to some music, have something to eat a bit later. How about you?”

  “The same, I suppose. Just chill in my room and write, a bit.”

  Owen beamed and stood straight. “Cool! What are you writing?”

  “Just a bit of silliness.”

  “Of course it isn’t.”

  “It’s nothing special. I just write to remember things and explain things to myself.”

  “That’s the best kind of writing.”

  “But it’s not poetry. It’s not what you do. I don’t even understand what you do.”

  “Don’t assume I do.”

  “But you went to Cambridge. You got a proper education. You spent years learning all that. I just had the Bible.”

  “The greatest piece of literature the world has ever known. You’re just as privileged as I am for an education.”

  “Except what was used to educate me is now used to judge me,” Jesse said.

  “Well, I’m sure the life you’re living, set against the way you were raised, is giving you plenty to think about, and writing is the best way to order one’s thoughts, so keep it going.”

  “It’s just rubbish, really.”

  “The important thing is to have something to say. You can be taught how to say it. If you ever want me to read anything, I’d be delighted to.”

  “Thank you,” Jesse said, conscious of the pressure on him to produce something, now.

  “Cheers to that.” They clinked again, and sipped, and stood awkwardly in the doorway.

  “I’ve not seen your room, have I?” Owen said, looking past Jesse. “Not since it was empty anyway, before you moved in.”

  “Come in.” Jesse stepped back. He never liked anyone to see his room, especially not after his most recent visitor—that man—and was relieved he’d tidied and cleaned up, though he still darted his eyes around looking for missed traces of squalor.

  “Wow, love your posters,” Owen said, nodding at the two centrefolds from AnOther Magazine, one of a muscled man in ballet pumps, tights and flesh-coloured bondage-wear from the John Galliano Archive, the other of a leaping Kate Moss in an Alexander McQueen tutu. The VIBE cover tribute to Aaliyah and Beyoncé’s cover from The Face flanked the bedhead like guardian angels. The room seemed to shrink with Owen in it, as if they might be tipped into each other. “So, is this where you make your living?”

  “I almost never have anyone here,” Jesse said. “It’s my personal space. I come here to escape that.”

  Owen sat down on the bed, and tested the mattress by gently bouncing up and down; Jesse leaned back on the radiator and watched him, unsure of what to do or say. “Do you actually enjoy it?” Owen said.

  “Yeah, it’s alright,” Jesse shrugged.

  Owen nodded his head, and insisted on maintaining eye contact. “Are they ever completely disgusting?”

  “Sometimes.” Jesse shuddered as bodies he wished he had never seen, smells he wished he had never breathed in, loads he wished he had never had to wash out of his hair, passed through his mind and still fed blood into his dick.

  “But you fulfil the engagement anyway?”

  “Yeah.” He didn’t know whether Owen would be impressed by his steadfastness, or pity him for his desperation.

  “Have you ever made arrangements with someone, then got there, and been unable to perform?”

  Jesse thought about it for a second. “Dave.” He remembered running to catch the bus, clutching the waistband of his trackies, with a hard-on. I should’ve fucked the fucking shit out of him anyway, he thought. It was exercise, as much as anything.

  “No.”

  “You’ve always managed to keep it up for everybody?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Wow,” Owen said, and laughed. Jesse began to wonder what might happen between them, spending at least the next twenty-four hours in the house together alone, undisturbed and emotional. Owen gulped down half his glass of champagne and stared into space for a moment, then said, “I never met the guy who was in here before you but Bryan told me he was the dullest person he’d ever met, which nobody could ever say about you.”

  “Thanks,” Jesse laughed, modestly. “I’m quite boring, as far as prostitutes go!”

  “You’re much more than a prostitute, so stop thinking of yourself like that,” Owen said, and drained the rest of his glass. “You’re an intelligent young man with a world to discover.” He stood up and stretched, and his T-shirt rode up. The density of his body hair increased towards the waistband of his boxers, obliging Jesse to look at his crotch.

  “Want a top-up?”

  “Yeah. Shall I come down?”

  “Or maybe you’d like to listen to some tunes in my room?” Owen said. “Fuck it, it’s Christmas. Bring your weed.”

  * * *

  —

  Owen’s room was much larger than Jesse’s, clearly the master bedroom. Jesse sat on the settee in the bay window and started rolling a spliff. The walls were mauve-coloured and hung with prints, one of a woman in a dress and a hat, red shoes and no facial features, sitting in a deckchair; one of a Russian film featuring a woman in stockings and heels spiralling down through the air from the top of a skyscraper; another of a bunch of roses against a grey background, a promotional poster for the New Order album Power, Corruption & Lies. Jesse felt the warmth of being trusted to be alone—if only while Owen had popped downstairs for a moment—in his room, with all his things. Owen kept a little framed picture of his daughters on his bedside table, with a digital alarm cloc
k. His vinyl was arranged in two boxes either side of the fireplace, though Jesse had never heard any loud music and suspected Owen rather listened on his headphones, attached by a long, coiled cable, as he worked on his laptop or sat marking papers. Owen came back with the champagne in an ice bucket—pleased to see Jesse already skinning up—which he placed on the coffee table, topping up their glasses with the aid of a napkin, then crouching down to flick through one of the record boxes. His T-shirt clung to the toned muscles of his back, and failed to cover the little patch of hair above the waist of his checked boxers.