by Robyn Elliot
“I mean, to call France…”
Elisabeth and Guillaume glanced at each other.
“Of course, Stef. You know we talk to Delphine and Papa…” Guillaume's voice trailed away in slow realization. Stef very well knew that. It was Stef’s way of saying he was finally, at long, long last, going to take responsibility.
Stef made his way to Guillaume's study and closed the door. Instantly, he buried his head in his hands and slid onto the floor, enduring the renewed storm of pain crashing into him. Shit, this fucking hurt, he thought, this really-is-fucking-killing-me.
Being without the people that matter most to me in the world.
The two people.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It was a difficult phone call. How could it not be? But Madeleine made it easy for Stef. He remembered why he’d wanted so much to help her and Alys; not out of coercion or calling in favors, but because he'd wanted it as much as them. More than he'd realized. And Madeleine was a sweetheart. One of those people whom it would be churlish to dislike. Madeleine had the sunniest temperament in the entire cosmos, in contrast to Stef’s occasionally volcanic furies. In that, he was more like Alys.
He comforted Madeleine by his willingness to be silent. He’d let her rage at him, and cry and sob down the phone. And then, he apologized. Without reservation. He said sorry for all the times he’d deleted her texts without reading them; sorry for not answering any of her increasingly frantic calls; sorry for refusing to give her Guillaume's London phone number; sorry for leaving her to deal with the devastation of Alys dumping her for an embryonic fruitarian with breast implants; just plain old, bloody sorry.
Sorry for being a gutless shit, Stef said, sorry for being selfish and ignorant, and once he started, he couldn’t stop apologizing. It was Madeleine who made him stop.
Enough, she said, enough. Incredibly, she wasn’t punishing Stef. She was too mature and too emotionally intelligent to ever do that, not least because it wasn’t just her she’d be damaging. Stef was Stef. But this, this new Stef? What the hell has happened to you in England, she asked him. Have you had a personality transplant or something, laughing, even as she succumbed to little sobs down the phone.
Stef wanted to say to her that it was all very straightforward. That no surgery of a transplanting nature had been required. He’d fallen in love. He’d fallen so deeply and completely in love that all of a sudden, he was realizing that he was a much better person for it. Thanks to Danny. And the pain came back then, and Madeleine heard it in Stef’s voice, and she knew it was more than everything that had happened in France. After all, she’d known him since they were at university together.
But he prevaricated. If he started talking about Danny, he’d just break down again. He couldn’t do that. He had to start a life again in France, follow the path he'd set for himself, and that would involve facing his father, and likely having to stay at the chateau whilst he got himself back on track. Danny wasn’t fitting into all of this. Everything was too much a fucking mess, he thought, and Stef kidded himself that Elisabeth was wrong, and that in the end, it was the right thing to do, and just allow Danny to get over the break-up, and get on with his own life. Meet someone who deserved him, deserved his tenderness and sweetness; I don’t, Stef flagellating himself inwardly, and I never did. I was always on borrowed time with him.
He told Madeleine he’d be back in France tomorrow, and would come and see them after he’d landed at Charles de Gaulle. She said she’d make some lovely food, and they could talk everything through and that there was nothing to be afraid of; if it was what he still wanted, what he'd been so certain of whilst in France, then they could start afresh – and if not, then she'd be perfectly all right and move on. As he put the phone down, Stef wondered if he deserved any of the wonderful people in his life.
Sitting in Guillaume's leather, swivel chair, Stef twirled around absently, his body sagging with a deep ache, worse in his solar plexus. He closed his eyes. He kept seeing Danny, standing in the hallway, on the verge of a torrent of weeping, looking at him, imploring him to stay. And having the courage to ask.
He didn’t hear the soft knock on the study door. Annelise popped her head around, entered with a steaming mug of tea, and a plate of chicken, salad and buttered baguette. Stef gave her a wan smile, looking at the food and wrinkling his nose.
Annelise sat on Guillaume's desk, shoving his papers and other business detritus out of the way.
“He won’t like that,” Stef jokingly warned, “interfering with his vast business empire.”
“For you, I’ll take the risk,” she assured.
“Hell, someone on my side, fancy that.”
Annelise rolled her eyes. “This has nothing to do with taking sides, Stef.”
“This? You mean the shitstorm I’m in the middle of, or the fact that my family think I’m just a level beneath de Sade,” he quipped sourly.
“I didn’t know you were into bdsm!”
Stef smiled at her, despite how he was feeling. “There’s only room for one sadist in this family and that’s me; although I don’t think the Marquis de Sade wrote Justine as an exercise in beating ourselves up.”
Annelise nudged his knee. “Have something to eat, you look as pale as a ghost. And can we drop the analogies to sado-masochists while you’re eating the chicken?”
“I’m not hungry.”
“So what? It makes me feel better, giving you something to eat. I surmised you wouldn’t be in the mood for a bit of relationship counseling.”
“You’re not trained in that kind of thing.”
“Since when has that stopped Guillaume and Elisabeth?”
Stef shrugged, reaching for the mug of tea. “Even if you didn’t open that nice mouth of yours, Annelise, I’d have you known you were English.”
“Okay. Let me have it. For a change.”
“Tea and chicken and salad? Really?”
“At least I sliced the chicken for you; my vegetarian sensibilities were overruled by my concern for you.”
“How you’re going to manage in France, future sister in law, I don’t know.”
“Oh God, not that one again!” Annelise groaned dramatically.
“Well? We look upon you lot as downright disturbed.”
“I assume ‘you lot’ is code for the ten million vegetarians that live here?”
“That’s right. Not in France.”
Annelise paused, giving him a slightly challenging look. “I hope you give Danny more encouragement than you do me!”
Stef took the fork, stabbed the chicken, shoved some in his mouth. It was less a demonstration of sudden hunger, and more a gesture of annoyance. But he credited Annelise with her usual charming guile. It worked with Guillaume, and it worked just as well with Stef.
“That won’t be an issue any more, as you know.”
“An issue? Is that what Danny is now?”
Stef chewed carefully, weighing up his next words. “Leave it, Annelise. My mind’s made up, I’m booking a flight back to Paris in the morning.”
“Talk about a mad rush to get away. You couldn’t wait to escape France and now you can’t wait to get back! Have you even explained to him why?” she pressed, her head inclined to one side, studying Stef’s handsome face, knowing the answer already. That’s why she’d been sneaky, and whilst Stef had been in the kitchen sobbing like a little boy, Annelise had gone into the study and rung Danny. She’d already got the number from him, just in case of emergencies, she’d explained to Danny’s trusting face. She figured if this didn’t count as an emergency, then what the hell did?
“I told him I still wanted Antoine.”
“You what!” she suddenly snapped and, standing up, slapped Stef’s right shoulder, “No, no, Stef, tell me you didn’t, you bloody shit!”
The expression on Stef’s face confirmed the worst. At least he had the good manners to flush slightly under Annelise’s disapproving glare.
“It seemed…oh, fucki
ng hell, I don’t know, all right!”
“Why the fuck, Stef, didn’t you just tell him the bloody truth?”
Stef glowered up at her. “Because if I had, then he’d think me the weakest, most cowardly bastard to talk this earth!”
“But you are a cowardly bastard…”
“Yes, I fucking know that, thank you Annelise! I thought you’d come in here to give me…you know, a bit of moral support.”
“I did until you told me that! Don’t do this to Danny, Stef, please!”
“Why? It’s not as if we’ve known each other that long; we’ve only spent a short while together, and even that was mainly in bed.” Stef’s voice caught in his throat.
The very essence of Danny, his beauty, his gentleness, his honesty…yes, honesty…all made Stef want to burst with pride. As well as making him ache already for the loss of that lovely, supple body to kiss every inch of.
Tickets. I need to book the fucking tickets, he thought manically. Stef leapt out of his chair, adjusting himself before Annelise’s world weary expression of ‘seen it all before’.
“Go on, sit with Guillaume and Maman and discuss how appalling I am, will you? I need to use the computer to book my flight…”
“You know, I’m so disappointed in you, after all the times I’ve defended your crappy behavior! You’d rather leave Danny, than let him see you vulnerable, wouldn’t you? You’d rather throw away that beautiful man’s love for you, than allow him to share your life...”
“It’s not the life he’d want; there would be compromise, and entirely on his part.”
“But you’re not letting him have the chance to decide, Stef! Instead, you’re breaking his heart.”
Stef ran his hands through his hair, gripping handfuls. “My heart is breaking too!” his voice quavering, and Annelise made to put her arms around him.
She saw it. It was in the dark shading underneath his eyes, the dullness of the usually luminescent gray She saw heartbreak in every deliberate movement of Stef’s body.
Before Annelise could respond to Stef’s confession, the doorbell rang resoundingly, and the hint of desperation in the urgent tone made Stef instantly lock furious eyes with her. “I called him,” she said defiantly. Stef rubbed at his face, unable to explode at her. He liked her too much. “I know you love him. I mean, you shaved your beard for him, didn’t you?”
“Don’t be flippant. I wanted a change, that’s all.”
“Now’s your chance then, Stef...to be brave, and treat Danny with some respect?”
She opened the door, to the sound of Guillaume's voice as he let Danny in, mingled with Danny’s softer, melodic tone. But there was tension there too. Danny sounded brittle, as if his voice might be made of crystal. Stef closed his eyes, listening to the man he loved, all smooth toned and well-modulated, polite vowels.
“Er, Stef? Danny’s here,” Guillaume, looking awkward, turned and smiled, then left with Annelise back to the kitchen, that had apparently become the hub of the United Nations of healing break ups.
Annelise made a brief detour, and hugged Danny, kissing his cheek, the cool, smooth skin feathery soft beneath her lips. She squeezed him, saw the emptiness in his eyes, hollowed out by hurt.
Danny appeared at the doorway, Stef standing by Guillaume's desk, waiting for him. For a long while, they simply looked at each other, their breathing giving away their emotions in the awkward silence between them.
Stef noted everything about Danny. Dressed in a heavy, black coat, collar up, scarf tied neatly, keeping out the bitter chill of rejection. His blonde, curly hair was messy, slightly tangled at the sides from the wind outside, or maybe he’d just left his flat without bothering to brush it. But it was Danny’s mouth that captured Stef. He knew Danny, even in their short time together, he knew him. Oh, it might have taken longer to start getting on each other’s nerves, with all the annoying habits that are part of the deal with relationships, but he just knew Danny was for him. It didn’t change anything, it just made the nature of the pain just short of agonizing but a long way from bearable.
Stef saw the tight line of Danny’s mouth, denoting him trying to contain every drop of emotion, but the tiny little quaver of Danny’s bottom lip made Stef want to hold him and kiss him, and tell him everything was going to be okay. A ‘let’s talk it through’, a ‘I’m sorry for being such a dickhead’ okay? only, it wasn’t okay. It was especially not okay.
Someone had to speak first. But in the end, they both did, at the same time.
So neither heard the other, too busy concentrating on trying to say whatever would bring some sense to all of this.
“Sorry,” Danny muttered, “you first…”
Stef bit his lip. He translated that as Danny giving him a way back in; a chance for Danny to forgive and forget. Stef decided bluntness was going to be the best tactic. “It was a waste of time you coming here, Danny.”
Danny took the blow with barely a flinch, but he felt it even so, like a punch in his solar plexus. Seeing Stef so cold, cruel even. He wanted to help Stef, whatever it was, he wanted to be there for him, only Stef was intent on freezing him out with Ice Age finality. Danny decided to try a little fight back, gingerly, to get Stef flustered and see if that might loosen him up to volunteer even a hint of an explanation. He also got the distinct feeling that everyone else knew what was going on. As if he didn’t count, and never had, as far as Stef was concerned. “Waste of time for whom?” Danny said, in his clipped and correct English accent, “for you, Stephane? Am I getting in the way of your escape to Paris?”
Stef cursed Annelise inwardly.
“Well, I do need to book my tickets; the longer I’m here, the less chance I’ve got of being in France by tomorrow,” and he knew he sounded completely lame.
“What about the Tunnel?” Danny asked, his pale eyes boring into Stef’s.
“What about it? When I can get a flight from Heathrow?” Stef snapped back.
Silence again. Danny came into the study and closed the door. He plunged his hands into this pockets, stood there, his face pinched with concentration.
Then he asked Stef a killer of a question.
“Have I done something to upset you? Is there something I’ve done that’s hurt you, Stef? Because if so, please tell me so I can make it better between us…”
Danny swallowed hard, feeling all the courage he’d brought with him swishing about in his stomach. The vodka had given him a numbing sensation, but it had seemed to heighten his coherency rather than deplete it.
“I don’t deserve you,” Stef conceded, meaning every word, “I never have.”
“Why would you say such a thing?”
Stef gave him a challenging look. “Because I am and always will be a man who can never stay with one guy for too long.”
Danny shook his head decisively. That barrister look again. One of the many looks that Stef loved about Danny. “I don’t believe you. Not for a second, Stef. All of the things you’ve said…and done,” Danny paused, his eyes flickering over Stef in remembrance of all the wonderful sex and the endless lovemaking. ” That wasn’t fake, I know it, I just know it.”
Stef laughed, a bitter, hurtful sound, making Danny recoil slightly. Stef looked at him, shaking his head as if addressing a child. “Do you think you’re the first guy to have ever said that to me!” It wasn’t a question. It was as bold a statement as he could make, short of telling Danny to fuck off. “That is exactly what I do, Danny! That’s the whole fucking point!”
“Then why bother?” Danny said, his voice rising slightly, his cheeks starting to burn, “why go to all the trouble, when you could just pick up any guy, looking the way you do, screw them then move on! Why all the white knight shit, hmm? Why the ‘I love you’ stuff and coming to see me in the hospital, Stef? Or was that all part of the game for you?”
Danny hated how he was shaking, trembling, wanting to appear stolid and stoic. There’d be plenty time later to retreat into a corner and howl with grief.
/>
Stef wanted this finished and finished now. Dragging everything out was only going to make him…relent.
“You were a challenge for me, Danny; not my usual type you see. That’s where Antoine comes in. Yeah, now he’s definitely my type! I like them like that, you know…muscled, light sun tan, sexually confident.”
They stared at each other.
“Why are you doing this, Stef?” Danny whispered, his eyes glassy from trying to hold his tears back, “what did I ever do, for you to treat me like this?”
“I got bored, Danny. Don’t make a fucking drama out of it! These things happen. Look upon it as a learning experience, so that the next time you’ll be more clued up…try out a few guys, see how you feel.”
Now, Danny felt the cavalry coming - the slow, suffusing heat of anger starting to uncoil in his gut.
“Try-out-a-few-guys?” he said carefully, trembling with the insult, “how dare you compare me to you, Stephane; contrary to what you might believe, not every gay man is like you, and thank God for that. Just because you haven’t got a clue how to be a grown up, or even begin to understand love and trust between two people, doesn’t mean that I should behave like you to try and make myself feel better!”
Stef put his hand on the back of the swivel chair, needing to steady himself. Not only was he rejecting Danny, he was playing with some serious fire…he could almost hear the bridges collapsing.
“How old are you now, Stef? 33? So, will you be still playing these kind of games at 53 and 63? Only by then, the guys might not be so available, or even willing to be treated like a piece of rubbish to be thrown away…”
“I don’t think that about you!” Stef interrupted, still reeling from the sense of terror that had gripped him with Danny’s words. He couldn’t bear the idea that Danny would leave, and come to remember him as the guy who behaved like a shit, heading for a sad, lonely life, ageing but never really growing up. He couldn’t bear it that Danny would meet someone else, someone who loved him, and that he loved right back. Stef couldn’t bear how Danny would talk about how he was screwed over by this vain French guy, but frankly, he just saw the whole sorry episode as a lucky escape…
