by Robyn Elliot
“Then please tell me, Stef, why you’re being like this? Stephane,” Danny paused, his eyes starting to swim, “I love you so very much...and I’m not ashamed to say it, or feel it. I love you so much and nothing you’re saying is going to change that.”
I love you too, Danny. I need you as much as breathing. You’re my baby, my sweet, beautiful, darling Danny…
But instead, the words came out all wrong. “Then it should!” Stef hissed at him, a slight snarl curling his upper lip, “it should, and you should get some fucking self-respect.”
“What, in the way you have? Because from where I’m standing, Stef, all I see is a man who has very little respect, either for himself or anyone else!”
“Listen, Dr Jung, don’t even try to psychoanalyze me…”
“You got the psycho bit right, at least,” Danny said, hating the bitter sound to his words. He suddenly thought of his father, and how outrageously funny he’d have found this; his disappointing son, being disappointed. Again.
“Insult me all you want, Danny, but if you don’t mind, I need to book these tickets…”
“Is it really Antoine? Was he this secret after all? It doesn't fit.”
Stef shifted uncomfortably, avoiding Danny’s scrutiny, and trying to deflect Danny’s intuitive ability to read him. He sat down, flipped up the lid of Guillaume's laptop, switched it into life from stand-by.
“You started all that, Danny. Secrets! What secrets? I never admitted to any kind of secrets, it was easier to just go along with you and indulge your inner barrister.”
Stef found the site he was looking for, starting tapping at the keyboard, purposefully ignoring Danny.
He felt Danny come and stand behind him, the aroma of fresh air and shampoo making him want to growl with lust. For a fleeting second, Stef wondered if they could; make love, that is, just this one last time, right here, in Guillaume's study. The idea dissipated as quickly as it was formed, when Stef discovered that heartbreak didn’t really do it for him.
“I know that Antoine is in London with his partner; Annelise has told me that...”
Stef swung around, looking up at Danny. “Annelise should keep her mouth shut. None of this is her business!”
“Mathieu, isn’t it? Is he your competition, then? Are you intent on getting Antoine back, no matter what…no matter you cannot stick with one guy for long? Doesn’t make a lot of sense, Stef; however, what does make sense, perfect sense actually, is that you’re lying to me.”
Stef turned to the laptop again, frowning. He pulled his wallet out of his jacket, seeking out his credit card.
“I am not lying to you.”
“Yes you are, Stef. So, you’re going back to France, even though the alleged object of your renewed affection is still in London…with his partner? Now, either I have entered into an episode of Days of our Lives, or you a very bad liar indeed.”
“It’s irrelevant.”
“What is? The fact that I love you, or the fact that you love me and are too scared to face up to that?”
“I told you before; this is what I do, Danny. I…I need to go back to France and start getting my life together. See if I can salvage something of my teaching work.”
For the first time, Danny sensed a flicker of honesty. He gathered his thoughts for a moment.
“And you don’t want me to be a part of that?” he asked Stef, the question hurting him deeply. “You want to start afresh, and forget me. Add me to your conquests, that kind of thing?”
“That kind of thing,” Stef muttered, as he wrote down the ticket number and details for his flight. Tomorrow, 10 am. No London. No Stef.
Danny watched him write what might as well have been a farewell note on Guillaume's yellow business pad.
“Stef, please tell me the truth,” he tried, one more time, “why won’t you let me help you? “
Stef leaned forward, resting his head in his hands, sighing heavily. “I don’t need any help, Danny. I can’t be clearer than I’ve already been. It’s over, it’s done with, we fucked, it was great, we fucked again, it was great again, and now it’s over. Christ, will you get the message?”
He heard the rustle of Danny’s coat, and then, the soft touch of his fingers on the nape of Stef’s neck. Stef tensed up against the welcome caress. Every nerve in his body seemed to tingle and respond, synapses flickered and burnt bright in his body's cells, as Danny tenderly stroked his neck. Stef squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the wetness on his lashes, his throat constricting. Then, Danny bent down and kissed Stef’s cheek, a caress as chaste as it was loving. Filled with longing, and sweetness, and goodbye.
Danny whispered in his ear, putting everything he was, all of his love, all of his heart, into his words.
“I love you. Please be happy, my darling Stephane.”
With that, he quietly left the room, walked down the hallway, opened the door, down the path. He couldn’t see, and had to pause, the rain swept world shimmering before him, his body starting to rack with involuntary sobs.
Stef got up and looked out of the window, watching Danny walk away. Or had attempted to watch Danny walk out of his life forever.
Had he been able to see, too.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6 long and interminable weeks later, a reasonably tidy flat in London...
Katharine looked at the uneaten food on the plate in front of Danny. He was still sitting in his pajamas, two hours after being threatened with death by macaroni cheese if he didn’t shower and clean himself up.
“You’re worse than my mother,” Danny sighed, shoving the plate disdainfully away, as if a plague of locusts were crawling over it.
Katharine shoved open the kitchen window, then came and sat down, offering Danny a cigarette. He was a fully-fledged member of the school of stressed smokers. One simple membership rule; when he was stressed, he lit up. And he hadn’t smoked at all after that first date with…well, you know who. Stef had smoked enough for the two of them. Besides, Danny was making up for it now.
Katharine flicked her own ash into the ashtray.
“I’m a terrible friend,” she conceded, dragging appreciatively on the cog.
Danny nodded, absently. “Hmm.”
She shot him a faux offended look. “You’re supposed to say, ‘no, Katharine, you are a truly wonderful friend’, not agree that I’m a terrible influence on you.”
He glanced at her, shrugged. “You are a terrible influence. See?” He flapped his hand, the cigarette flickering.
“I suppose I should be honored that you even let me in…”
Danny lapsed into renewed silence. Caroline had rung her. “For God’s sake, he won’t listen to me, Katharine, I think he sees me as some fellow conspirator with Stephane and his family…have my key, let yourself in, and tie him to a sturdy piece of furniture while you pour food down his throat,” came the maternal entreaty.
Katharine hadn’t needed to let herself in. She’d thought about it, but decided to ring the bell first. After three attempts, she was fishing the key from her bag when the door opened. And her heart lurched. Danny had appeared, standing there, dressing gown, pajamas, a few days’ beard growth (not on Stef’s level, but noticeable as fuzzy fluffiness), staring at Katharine with swollen eyes, a cigarette dangling precariously between his fingers, looking like something from a Noel Coward drama.
Once inside, Katharine had done a speedy recce, and the place was reasonably tidy; Caroline, expecting her OCD son to clean even more when in the pit of despair, had managed to be surprised. For Danny had let the cushions lose their ninety-degree angle, books were even allowed on the floor and, horror of horrors, there was a wine stain on the carpet. Once Katharine had recovered from the seismic shock of the assuredly relative chaos in Danny’s living room, a more normal service was on display in the kitchen. Everything in its place, neat, clinical. Because essentially he was spending most of his time in this room, so some control had to be maintained. But beyond that, he wouldn’t communica
te. Caroline had cooked some meals, froze them, begged him for the nth time to talk to her, then left, ringing Katharine in desperation as she sat in her car.
In truth, however, Katharine wasn’t sure who she was more annoyed with; Danny or Stef. She’d only met the sun king at Chambers, but even then she’d known that he was a force of nature that Danny would be barely able to withstand. All right, he’d pissed off back to France, and in a weirdly undignified haste, at that. He’d treated Danny abysmally in the manner of his leaving, not even deigning the briefest of reasons other than something along the lines of ‘I want to fuck men with sun tans', or so she’d managed to get out of Annelise.
For, wait for it… they were in communication. Like Macbeth’s witches, only the third one was a split between Caro and Elisabeth. The women were plotting, and it was their most solemn duty to get these two answers to a gay Gone with the Wind back together again.
Unbeknownst to Danny. Naturally. Stef was not on the menu of topics of conversation.
“I don’t want to talk about him. I don’t want to talk to you about him, or my mother, or Annelise, or the milkman. I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-him now, or ever! It’s the only way I can cope, so just drop it, Katharine.”
So, true to form, Katharine had, well, not dropped it...
And the conspiracy had begun, with the sweetest of intentions.
She tried again now, sick of Danny’s vacant expression, gazing into space, indulging himself in his Kafkaesque misery.
“If you miss him this much, and you obviously do considering you’re not sleeping, eating, painting or even getting dressed, then why don’t you bloody well do something about it!”
Danny stubbed out his cigarette, and gave Katharine a wicked look. It was his best courtroom look.
“And you think I didn’t try? You think that abasing myself, virtually begging him not to leave me wasn’t trying? Throwing every last shred of self-respect down the pan was not suggestive of my being prepared to try anything to make him stay!”
Katharine sat back in the chair, gave Danny an appraising look. “You still let him walk away,” she deliberately goaded. Anything was better than mopping his moping brow.
“Actually, I was the one who walked away,” he huffed.
“Stop being sniffy and raising technicalities, Mr. Hastings.”
A bolt of pain seared into Danny at those words. I love you, Mr. Hastings…only, I’d been crossing my fingers every time I said it.
“Has he rang me? Texted, even? Not a word, not a fucking word except the unspoken one – finis!”
Katharine thought for a few moments. She was a good barrister and as sneaky as they came when the occasion required. This was such an occasion. Annelise had rung her on her mobile phone last night; she’d had to go into the bathroom, and run the shower. Significant reportage from across the Channel, Annelise advised, via Guillaume.
“Every day?” Katharine had asked her co-conspirator, “really?”
“Yes, really, Katharine! He’s still a bit cool with me, but he’s been talking to Guillaume since he left.”
“Are you sure Guillaume isn’t trying to see things that aren’t there?”
Annelise paused, for a slug of wine. “I tell you, if anyone knows Stef, it’s Guillaume; and Guillaume wouldn’t say something like this if it weren’t true…”
“Of course, of course, I didn’t mean…”
“Oh, hell, Katharine, I wasn’t having a go! No, it’s just that I needed to be sure myself, considering how Stef has behaved.”
“But why, Annelise? Why is he doing this? Do you seriously believe the real reason he’s ringing every day is to ask how Danny is?”
“Definitely! Okay, he’s being interrogated by Elisabeth, of course, but then he asks after Danny, when what he really means is 'has Danny moved on yet?' Because I’m telling you now, Katharine, Stef hasn’t.”
“Christ, what the hell is going on? Look, I know you know why he went back to France, Annelise, and I understand that Danny should know before me, but…well, just tell me one thing, would you?”
“If I can,” said Annelise, sworn to family secrecy. This was Stef's responsibility to 'fess up.
“Is there someone else?” Katharine had felt goose bumps rise on her arms at the silence on the other end of the phone. Just when she thought she knew what answer was coming, Annelise threw the curve-ball.
“Not exactly.”
“Not exactly?”
“That’s all I can say. Guillaume and Elisabeth would kill me; don’t get them wrong, Katharine, they think Danny should know the whole kit and caboodle, but it’s a bit difficult when the Channel is the obstacle.”
“And Danny’s pride.”
“And Stef’s ridiculous and frankly warped concept of doing the right thing.”
“For whom? Did he have to shatter Danny to pieces when doing this…this right thing?”
“I’ve known Stef a few years now, Katharine, and all I can tell you is this...I have never seen him act with anyone the way he was with Danny. God, he was practically swooning over him! He was loving and tender and protective, and I promise you, it was no act, it truly wasn’t. He was like a ghost when he left for France, he hadn’t slept all night, and I think he expected, in a strange way, I don't know, but I got the feeling he was expecting Danny to come and see him again…so Stef could admit he still loved him, still wanted him. Mad, I know, completely mad.”
“Well, Danny has entered his martyr’s role very enthusiastically, Annelise,” Katharine conceded.
“Oh, poor Danny, I miss him. You can’t blame him.”
“I don’t blame him at all for being upset, and heartbroken. But I do think he shouldn’t give up so easily, not considering how much he loves Stef.”
“Perhaps Stef has left him with little choice…but to let go, I mean.”
“I can tell by your voice, Annelise, you don’t believe that for a minute.”
There’d been a noticeable silence before Annelise replied. “I think it’s up to Danny, now.”
Of course it was. It had always been up to Danny, despite Stephane’s uber confidence and charm. Quiet, sensitive, lonely Danny, who had been wooed into falling deeply in love, before even the café latte had arrived.
A love that intense couldn’t die so easily.
It shouldn’t be allowed to just wither away, as if the whole affair was nothing more than that; an affair, brief, heady, gorgeously erotic. Because it was more than that. Far, far more than that.
And the women were banging that drum, incessantly. Elisabeth and Annelise with Stef, as well as a delighted but infuriated Delphine in Paris - Caro and Katharine for Team Danny.
Danny was aware, now, of Katharine’s piercing scrutiny, his defensiveness proving a wholly inadequate shield of deflection. Still, defensiveness was better than nothing, akin to being naked in a blizzard wearing nothing but a pair of shoes. Defensiveness was better than sitting in the dark, not opening the curtains, not eating, not even feeling anything, because the numbness had seemed to usurp the searing pain in his chest, whilst immobilizing Danny into a state of disbelief.
Unable to believe it had come to this. Danny was still asking himself, day in, day out how had it come to the deafening silence of untexted messages, unmade phone calls, the absence of explanation, the void of longing created, the ache of love denied; from tenderness and adoration, urgent lovemaking, promises of a blissful future, the steady, gray gaze of a Frenchman who had seemed to mean every single word when he’d said, every chance he could, that he loved his Englishman so much he couldn’t breathe without him...to the emptiness in Stef’s eyes when he told Danny he had never meant anything to him.
Heavy stuff, true love. It demanded satisfaction, not half-hearted guff about things running their course. True love expected happy endings, and if they didn’t come, there was a lifetime of loneliness ahead and a whole array of other ‘what ifs’. Danny thought, what if I never know why, what if I never see him again. And that was t
he one hundred percent, undeniable, unflinching question.
What if I never see him again?
“I know you’re going to tell me to pull myself together, but don’t bother…I...” Danny was cut off by Katharine.
“I’ve been talking to Annelise,” she announced.
For a moment, Danny’s fingers hovered over the cigarette packet. He’d never been an enthusiastic smoker; he didn’t particularly like it and hated it in others. Well, hated Stef smoking. The last time he recalled actually feeling like he needed a cigarette had been that first...what was it…date? Pacing up and down outside Guillaume's, desperate to see Stef, and terrified to see Stef all at the same time. After that, happiness had usurped the cigs, and every time he saw Stef light up, Danny felt that little twinge of fear just below his solar plexus - the twinge of love, the twinge of loving someone else so much, you wanted them around forever…
“Okay,” Danny ventured, his mouth feeling dry, wondering what this portentous piece of news meant.
Katharine raised her brows. “I thought you’d be angry.”
“Why? I know you, and Annelise now. If the pair of you had lived 500 years ago you’d have been conspirators in some plot or another.” Danny gave his friend a sidelong look, “And?”
Katharine rested her head on her hand, sighing, as if addressing a very naughty boy. Which of course Danny had been, and look where that had got him.
“Your man has been asking about you every day…”
A cold sweat broke out on Danny’s brow. He suddenly felt clammy, boxed in and…and…elated.
He swallowed, keeping up a show of apathy. Hold tight, and stay on terra firma. After all, it wasn’t as if Stef was knocking on the door, was it, begging to be let in, so he could tell Danny it had all been a mistake.
Danny’s silence was misread by Katharine. “I thought you’d be dancing on the table.”
“Why?” he replied, as matter-of-factly as he could manage, considering he wanted to not only dance on the aforesaid table, but focus on the memories of how Stef and he had made it a multi-purpose piece of furniture. Something to eat on, something to prepare food on, a bed, something to eat on, prepare food on, a bed, bed, bed…it was magnificent for the kind of impromptu sex they had, with Stef coming over masterful, just as Danny liked, and the kitchen table took on a whole new identity from distressed Victoriana to the nirvana of orgasmic pleasures.
