Don't You Want Me

by Liam Livings

  “Are you still up for going out tonight?”

  “Absolutely. Totally. Completely.” Tony rubbed his eyes and yawned. “Just give me a moment. I might jump in the shower. Or have a nap.”

  “Use my bed if you want,” Kieran offered.

  “Shower.” Tony put his phone on charge, noticing he had dozens of notifications. Unlocking his phone, he was faced with a series of texts from an unknown number, as well as some Twitter notifications about him being in Greenwich and asking was he still in London.

  “Are you getting ready?” Kieran asked. “No time to nap now. I’ve got us on the guest list for Heaven. A friend from work is a host in the Departure Lounge, and he owes me a favour.”

  “Some random on Twitter is asking if I’m still in London. And I’ve got loads of texts. Honestly, modern life’s exhausting, isn’t it? I wish we could go back to landlines and pagers.”

  “Do you?”

  “Not really. Sometimes.” Tony shrugged.

  “Who’s texting you? Is it…?” Kieran left the question dangling.

  “I don’t know,” Tony said. “I deleted his number.”

  ***

  Seeing Tony’s tweets about being in London, visiting his friend Kieran, Nick had been texting but received no reply.

  He’d spent the last month or so since leaving Wiltshire, replaying that terrible, hurtful night in the pub. He could have handled his emotions better. He could have explained why he felt so uncomfortable with Tony’s drag act and that with time he should get used to it. Accept it. Wouldn’t he? That he had all sorts of conflicting emotions and thoughts about Tony’s drag, some of which made no sense, even to Nick.

  “Hello?” Tony’s voice was uncertain as he answered the call.

  “It’s Nick.”

  “What do you want?”

  “To speak to you,” Nick said.

  “To tell me I can do what I like as long as you don’t need to see it? To tell me how brilliant London is in comparison to Wiltshire? To say how much better your job here is than in stupid old Salisbury?”

  This was going to be harder than Nick had expected. He’d thought Tony wouldn’t even take his call—maybe the only reason he had answered was that he’d deleted his number and hadn’t realised it was Nick calling—but this, actually, was more difficult.

  “I deserve that,” he said finally.

  “You don’t really deserve me talking to you. Not after how you treated me.”

  “Meet me? I’m near you at the moment.”

  “How do you know where I am?”

  “Twitter. I saw your tweet in Greenwich Park with Kieran.”

  “Oh.”

  “Meet me for a drink?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “A coffee, then.”

  “I’m off caffeine.”

  “A lemonade.”

  “Too much sugar. I’m watching my figure. Got to make sure I fit in the cocktail dresses. Sorry, did that offend you? Have I upset your fragile and narrow view of what it means to be a gay man?”

  Wetting his lips as he considered what to say next, Nick tried one last time. “Meet me, please? I’ll explain it all then.”

  “Explain? I don’t want your explanations. I don’t give a shit about your explanations. In fact—” Tony was gathering a bit of a head of steam now. “—I could do without hearing you explain why you can’t bear to see me expressing myself in a way that I love. You can actually stuff your explanations up your homophobic arse.”

  Oh dear. This really was going badly. Much worse than he’d hoped. Why were all the words Nick chose the wrong ones? Why was everything he said making the situation worse? “I’m not homophobic,” he said because he was sure of that. “Let me tell you now—”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Tony interrupted. “I don’t care why you can’t accept me. I don’t need to hear that. I’m not asking for you to dress up like me. All I was asking for was a bit of support and understanding. It’s my life. I don’t need other people’s approval. I need some support and understanding.”

  “That’s it,” Nick said. “I don’t understand.” Why Tony wanted to wear women’s clothes. Why Nick found that uncomfortable. Why it changed what he thought about Tony.

  “Then we don’t have anything to talk about.”

  The phone went dead, and when Nick called back, it was met with voicemail. Tony must have turned his phone off.

  ***

  “Bastard fucking cheek of the stupid bloody man,” Tony said to Kieran, who’d been watching in interest.

  “Nick?”

  “Who else?”

  “Still wanna go clubbing?”

  “Fuck, yeah. Let’s get completely and utterly pissed!” That was exactly what he needed: to drink and dance his feelings about Nick into oblivion.

  They arrived at Heaven, under the arches near Charing Cross station, and Tony strode up to the neon-lit bar and ordered six tequila shots from the barman, who only wore a pair of tight white shorts.

  “We’re not in Kansas stroke Salisbury anymore,” Tony said, handing Kieran a shot and toasting.

  “Thank fuck for that!”

  They danced and drank until the club closed at six a.m., somehow getting back to Kieran’s place—that part of the night became a bit blurry in Tony’s mind—waking mid-morning to a knock on his door followed by Kieran arriving with a mug of strong, black coffee.

  “I’ve never seen you like that,” Kieran said.

  “Just what I needed.” Tony closed his eyes against the pain. His head banged with every slight movement. “Painkillers and some vodka and I’ll be fine.” Looking up slowly so his head didn’t explode, he added, “And a shower.”

  “I’ll get you some paracetamol and water. Sure you’re all right?”

  “Fan-fucking-tastic!” Tony felt like he was about to die, but he was determined not to waste the time he had left with Kieran.

  *

  That afternoon, they walked along the bank of the Thames to the Tate Modern.

  As they entered the enormous old turbine hall filled with white bricks arranged in a seemingly random pattern with large butterflies suspended above them, Kieran asked, “Do you think maybe it would help to meet him?”

  “I’m here to enjoy myself—with people who support and love me for who I am.” Still wearing sunglasses to protect himself from everything brighter than a match, Tony turned to Kieran and said, “That’s you by the way.”

  Kieran nodded.

  “Just hearing his voice reminded me how much I used to…” Tony stopped talking. He couldn’t bear to say the next word. The actual word that expressed how he had really felt about Nick. Shaking his head, he said, “It’s over. Not that it really started. That’s the last time I open myself up to someone.”

  Kieran looked around the art filling the turbine hall. “What do you think all this is?”

  “My love life?” Tony peered over his sunglasses, shrugged and laughed. “I think the next bit is where the butterflies land on the bricks, and then they dissolve into tears. Because they’re too swishy.”

  Hugging his friend, Kieran said, “Don’t ever change. Ever. I love you just how you are.”

  “Shame no one else does.”

  “Oy, that’s enough of that. What happened to the strong warrior person you told me about? Imagine you’re about to go on stage. Chest puffed out. Big smile.”

  “Teeth shining, tummy in, tits out.” Tony did the actions to go with the words.

  “Time, I think, to go ahead with the original plan,” Kieran said.

  “Original plan?” Tony leant against an oversized white brick, then stood up straight again when a guard told him off.

  “No dating. No men. No nothing.”

  “I know I said I would. Previously. But I have needs. I can’t become a monk all of a sudden. I tried that for a fortnight, and before I knew it, I was giving some stranger a blow job around the back of a nightclub in Southampton.” He shuddered. “It wasn’t my finest
hour.”

  “We’ve all been there, love.”

  Tony raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t.”

  “Maybe I have.”

  “Right, let’s get this art culture stuff seen to, and I’ll think about how I’m going to go full-on Mother Teresa. Friar Tuck, actually.”

  “This way,” Kieran said, leading him to the escalator and up to the first room of modern classic paintings.

  The first few sculptures reminded Tony of things he’d seen in the local recycling centre metal section when he’d been dragged along by his mother to do their bit for the planet.

  “I’ll meet you in the café,” he said. He’d already had enough.

  “OK. I won’t be long,” Kieran replied, still reading intently the description of a sculpture Tony could best describe as if a washing line and a tool shed had mated with a branch of Laura Ashley.

  “Take your time,” Tony said and left him to it.

  Sitting in the café, he turned his phone back on and was faced with twenty-eight missed calls from the unknown number he now knew to be Nick. And six voicemails.

  Well, I give him ten out of ten for persistence.

  Stirring his coffee—the no-caffeine thing had been a lie—Tony listened to the messages. Lots of stuff about Nick wanting to explain, needing to see Tony, and a few bits about him being shocked and surprised and a bit scared.

  Scared, Tony mused as he dipped the biscuit in the coffee. Nick wasn’t the one sometimes getting abuse hurled at him on stage or being accused of letting the side down by some of the men he’d dated because he was too OTT, too much, and all—without even telling them about his drag act.

  OTT, he now knew, was homophobic, self-hating, gay-man speak for camp or swishy. And Tony was done with men like that, from the soles of his shiny red platform clubbing shoes, via the hem of his floral T-shirt right up to his perfectly coiffed eyebrows. Done.

  If he could so easily brush off similar insults from other men and tell them to fuck off, why was Nick so hard to forget?

  Was it because he rarely told others about his drag act and only then when he felt sure they’d be supportive? Maybe, but that wasn’t the main reason.

  Thinking back to the time they’d spent together, Tony really did think Nick had ‘understood’ him, and his comments proved that to be absolutely not the case.

  Before he could dwell on that thought any longer, he felt a hand on his shoulder.

  “Ready?” Kieran asked.

  “Strong warrior person is ready.”

  “Late lunch?”

  “Of course,” Tony said, finishing his coffee and standing.

  “Up west?”

  “Leicester Square, Charing Cross, Oxford Circus. I want to eat in the middle of London’s beating heart.” Because Tony felt sure that would make him feel more alive again.

  “They’re quite touristy areas, but we’ll find somewhere.”

  As they left the Tate Modern and walked towards the nearest Tube station, Tony said, “Six voicemails.”

  “Six? Persistent.”

  Tony smiled. “Didn’t call him back, though.”

  “Wise.” Kieran nodded as they arrived at the station.

  “Not one apology. Not for what he said, for upsetting me, for being tactless.”

  “Doesn’t he know how much he’s hurt you?”

  “I think he does.” Tony took a seat next to Kieran. “But I don’t think he cares. And the worst bit is he doesn’t think he has anything to apologise for. Like, I sprang this on him, so he was scared and confused and now it’s my fault he couldn’t cope with it.”

  “Two more stops,” Kieran said, looking at the map above the heads of the passengers sitting opposite. “If he doesn’t apologise, how can you forgive him?”

  “I know, right?” Tony said, and they continued the rest of the journey in silence.

  ***

  Sitting on his bed, in a room full of people he was living with yet who knew nothing about him, Nick rang Laura.

  “It couldn’t have gone worse,” he told her after explaining what had happened.

  “Why do you have such a problem with it? It’s not like he’s sacrificing live animals.”

  “That’s what I wanted to explain to him. He didn’t know about the ex and how years with him meant I always feel a bit embarrassed when a gay man is making a big show of something. It’s why I’ve toned myself down too, I suppose.”

  “Sad that he’s still influencing what you do.”

  “I didn’t expect it. What Tony did.”

  “Which is why it shocked you?”

  “I hadn’t expected him to be that honest with me. To show that part of himself.” Nick hung his head, realising how much worse that made his behaviour. “I rejected him. Twice.”

  “Twice?”

  “Moving to London and then the drag show. But I didn’t mean to. They were separate and not related. I really did want to move to London. The job’s great. Really enjoying it. Lots.”

  “Is that why you’re calling me every night?”

  “Not every night.” Nick had known it would take a while to settle into his new life in London and that he’d be a bit lonely at first. What he hadn’t banked on was how much he missed Tony.

  “Missing Wiltshire?” Laura asked.

  “Yeah—the drunken sports fans in the pub, the lack of night life, having to drive everywhere… Great fun.” People who talked to him on the street. Having housemates he knew and who wanted to know him. Yes, he missed those aspects too. The people he shared a house with in London had made it clear he wasn’t welcome in the living room on his second night when he’d sat next to them on the sofa and had been asked why he was sitting there when he had a TV in his room.

  “This is our TV. Our sofa. Our room,” the man who seemed to be in charge of most things in the house had said.

  “What do you do for work?” Nick had asked. “I’m a social worker. Bit of a promotion, actually—”

  “We know. You told us when we interviewed you for a lodger.” Turning to the TV, the man said, “If you don’t mind, we’re watching this.

  Nick had gone back to his room, clear he wasn’t their housemate; he was only a lodger.

  Now, Laura said to him, “Right. He showed you that part of himself and you…well, what did you do?”

  “Rejected him. Showed I was disgusted. Said I didn’t understand.” Nick looked around his bedroom and recalled how much happier he’d been in the hotel room for those three nights sharing with Tony. Much happier.

  “All your problems. Not his.”

  “I did it because I needed to push him away.” Nick’s throat felt dry as he finally prepared to tell someone his real reason for what he’d done.

  “Weren’t you getting on really well?”

  “Too well. Too well for me having to leave. It was getting a bit too serious. And then he opens up to me. I couldn’t do the same. Tell him how I felt. Open up about why I found him like that so difficult.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because then we’d both be vulnerable. And that’s what you do with people when you…”

  “When you?” Laura prompted.

  “When you commit to someone. And I wanted to be free. Just me. Alone.” There. That summed it up.

  “How’s that working out for you?”

  “Like I said, the job’s great. London’s great. Really great.”

  “If I see him, in Salisbury, I’ll tell him how sorry you are it didn’t work out.”

  “If you want.” And then something occurred to Nick he’d not thought about before. “I never actually apologised to him for what I said that night. In the pub, when he was in drag.”

  “Not about what you’d said? What you’d done? How you’d left it?” Laura asked, clearly incredulous from her tone.

  “I got so used to apologising for everything, even if it wasn’t my fault, with the ex, that since then, I’ve sort of run out of them. Apologies. I told myself I wouldn’t apologise anymore
.”

  “Does he know this?”

  “I told you. I haven’t spoken to him.” But he could have apologised in a voicemail. “I didn’t want to go on about the ex. Gets boring, no?” And it was painful to relive the memories, which he hadn’t wanted to spoil his time with Tony. “I need to say sorry.”

  “In person.”

  “Yeah, in, as you say, person. Do you think it’s too late?”

  “Are you sorry?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you say anything you can’t take back?”

  Nick thought for a moment. “I’m less sure of that. I did say some really shitty, hurtful, unthinking stuff. I said I didn’t want to see him like that or something similar. But I didn’t mean it. I was surprised, and I lashed out because I didn’t want him getting closer. I don’t really think those things about men in drag. I’ve always loved Tony’s sense of style—the way he’s so fearless. Admired it, actually. I was so shocked, I didn’t think about what I was saying. I should have said nothing. You can’t hurt someone by saying nothing.”

  “Maybe. Do you love him?”

  “I’m unhappy without him. I think of him every day. I wish he was here with me now. I want to spend a day in bed together.”

  “Pretty much yes, then. Even if you can’t say the word out loud.”

  “I should be able to, though, shouldn’t I?”

  “In time.” After a pause, Laura said, “When you come down, tell me.”

  “For moral support?”

  “Yeah, and—if you fuck it up again—so I can hit you.”

  “Understood,” Nick said, smiling as he ended the call.

  Chapter 11

  Tony was exhausted. An eleven-hour day was finally ending, and he did one last check of what he needed to have done for tomorrow. Satisfied he was prepared, he switched off his computer and left the office.

  This office had, since Nick’s leaving, become much more his second home. OK, so before, he’d felt more at home there, since Nick had been sitting opposite him and the day had been punctuated by friendly chatter and regular social and then sexual shenanigans. But since Nick had left, the combination of being one staff member down—they hadn’t replaced Nick’s post—and much of his social life evaporating overnight had meant Tony preferred work to dealing with anything else in his life.