Kicking Up My Heels...in Heels

by Liam Livings

  I dropped the half-eaten crumpet on the duvet cover, butter side down. So, it was that sort of police reconstruction I’d stumbled into, one where the victim is found in a bin round the back of a night club in a town no one expected. My mouth felt like it was full of cotton wool and my stomach churned and gurgled, trying to reject the few mouthfuls I’d swallowed. I picked up the crumpet, put it on my plate, then wiped the duvet with a napkin from the tray.

  “Do you want me to do you another one? You can’t eat that, not with fluff and whatever else in the butter.” He pointed to my crumpet.

  So, I did the only thing I knew would get rid of him for a few minutes as he cleaned himself off. I licked both my hands, reached under the duvet and grabbed him firmly with both hands and started pulling and squeezing. His eyes opened wide and a smile spread across his face. He pushed the tray of food off the bed, knocking a few pots of jam and butter on the floor. “I’d better…” he started to say.

  I was by now under the duvet, making myself busy with what was by now well and truly woken in his groin. Never before had I put so much effort into a blow job. I was literally blowing for my life.

  As he finished, I made sure to make a good mess all over himself, wiping it around his belly button and chest. He leant forward, kissed me then said, “I love you so much,” then jumped out of bed and into the shower.

  I waited for the shower to start, then jumped out of bed, grabbed my clothes, threw on my jeans without underpants, my top, and shoes, then ran out the door, creeping past the bathroom silently. Once in the hallway, I pressed the lift button waiting for it to come to the eighth floor. I waited what seemed like an hour for the lift to arrive, debating whether to run down the stairs. The shower was still running inside his flat, so I stood firm, crossing my fingers and waiting.

  As the doors opened, the shower stopped. I ran into the lift, pressed the doors button as many times as I could, willing the doors to close. The doors closed just as I heard him shouting my name from within his flat. The lift swished me to the ground floor, I ran to my car, ignoring the phone call on my mobile from an unrecognised number, which I took had to be him. He must have got my number while I was sleeping. I ran to my car, shuddered as I sat, locked the doors, and sped off in a cloud of blue smoke, the engine wheezing and coughing slightly like my heart pushing the blood loudly through my ears.

  I drove without stopping, without checking my mobile phone until I was nearly home. From the car I called Tony, there was no way I could let Mum overhear this conversation.

  “Hello darling, how’s things? I hear you stayed out all night. You dirty bitch. Fun was it?”

  “How’d you know that? Who told you my business? Who’s been spying on me?” I swerved to avoid a car in my lane on the Salisbury ring road, honking my horn loudly. “CUNT!”

  “Calm down, love. Everything all right?”

  “Just some twat who can’t drive. How come you know where I’ve been?”

  Tony replied slowly, “First of all, breathe. Your mum called me, wanted to know if you were staying at mine last night. I said no, you’d be fine, scratching about the next morning with a hangover, and not to worry herself.”

  “You’re not gonna believe what happened to me…”

  “Not another little accident, please tell me no.”

  It occurred to me we’d done that once, and I definitely remembered a little shiny packet appearing. In fact, I remembered him making a bit of a pig’s ear of it, not knowing what to do and asking me to do him, which since it was his first time, now made sense. No, that was all OK. “No, not that, so I was in the pub…” I told him the whole story, in all its glorious Technicolor detail.

  Tony listened, in complete silence for the whole time. “Fuck me, that’s a lucky escape?”

  “Is there a stalkers department at police stations? Who do I report it to? Should I change my mobile number, do you reckon?”

  “Sorry, love, but I’m at work. I’ve already been gone too long. Which reminds me, I’m at work, and so should you be—in whatever form work takes for you nowadays.”

  “Oh!”

  “Indeed. Your Mum’s being really supportive of you jacking in your job, and as I said, I would be too, but it’s not an excuse for you to stay out all the time and get pissed like some layabout student. Now, if you don’t mind, I’ve got a job to get back to.” He put the phone down as I arrived home.

  Bloody hell! Get him, telling me what to do with my job. What a bloody cheek. Who the hell did he think he was? I walked through the front door and received a hard slap around my head from Mum.

  “Don’t you ever do that again, you hear me? My heart can’t cope with the worry, or the stress. Do you want me back in hospital with another heart attack? You want to stay out till all hours, doing whatever it is you’ve been doing—which by the looks of you, isn’t exactly choir practice—you tell me you’re staying out, and you make sure you’re contributing to the housekeeping still, none of this laying around all day. If you’re not going to make a go of this, you might as well go back to working in the shop. Like I said, my place has plenty of hours cleaning if you want.”

  I pursed my lips, bracing myself to unshackle my indignance pony and ride through her and Tony’s arguments, then paused, thought about what they’d said, how I’d behaved, and whether this sitting about watching The Waltons and going out in the middle of the week was really what I wanted when I gave up the job. Instead, I nodded slowly, said sorry and I’d be having a bath, and then was going to rehearse some new songs I’d bought in town, and could she help me with some new fabric I’d bought.

  “’Course, love. Plenty of hot water.” She kissed my head. “Good to have you back in one piece. That’s more like it.”

  Chapter Ten

  THE NEXT WEEK I knew I couldn’t carry on lolling about at home. Now performing was my proper job, I had to have something a bit more concrete than only the Plan, which had done me well for the time being, but now I needed something more, only I didn’t quite know what it would be.

  Bruce greeted me at the door of his office in the quiet back street in Salisbury where he ran all the background stuff to make Out! and other youth group nights happen. As he made me tea, he said, “I’ve meant to say something to you before. I don’t turn people away, it’s not how I work, but officially, the funding for Out! is for up to nineteen, but once you’re twenty, it…” He handed me a mug, smiling.

  “You’re chucking me out, is that what this is turning into?” I smiled and turned away as I walked to his office.

  “You know it’s not like that. There’s another group I run for twenty to twenty-fives. But I’m not going to stop you coming to Out! It’s just I have to record who comes, and their ages, for funding stuff. It’s very tedious. I can knock a year or so off your age. They don’t need names, only gender and age. For funding stuff.”

  “Sounds boring.” I paused, thinking about what he’d said.

  “What can I do you for today? How’s your love life or best not to ask?”

  I shook my head, shuddering slightly at the memory of gay Hell’s Angel man and his tickly beard, then remembered my little accident in the back of the van, made a mental note to tell Bruce that later, after the main reason for coming. “You know I chucked in the job at TK Maxx? I’m a bit lost what to do with the performing side of things. I’ve been a bit lax really. Sitting about, watching TV, and laying in late. Mum’s not impressed, and when I think about it, neither am I. But I don’t really know what to do.” I shrugged my shoulders.

  “There’s no boss telling you what to do, so you think you can kick back, take it easy?”

  “Pretty much.”

  “But this is for you. You’re not doing this to make money for Mr. TK and Mr. Max, or whoever it is. This is for you. So, the only person you’re kicking back from is yourself. Understand?”

  “I think so.”

  “It is a job. Treat it like one. Work at it. Fill your days with stuff that gets you better,
gets you more bookings. Put stuff in your diary. Make lists of what you’re doing each day, each week. All things for the performances. And do them. No one’s going to make you a success, but you. It’s all down to you.”

  I looked at my hands, black nail varnish chipped from where I’d not bothered to touch it up for a while. I hid the nails from view. “That’s what I was worried about.”

  “Come on. It’s what you wanted. You know you can do it. It’s in your hands.”

  Yes, my poorly manicured, chipped nail-varnished hands. “I think I know what I’m doing, but I’m not sure. I feel like I’m fannying about, not knowing if it’s the right thing to do, how other people make a living out of it. I dunno.”

  “I’ve got a friend, she’s known as Daisy Trollied, she’s been on the drag circuit for forty-odd years, since before I was born. She’s in her sixties now. An old campaigner. What she doesn’t know isn’t worth worrying about.” He wrote a name and number on the back of his business card and handed it to me. “Tell her I sent you and tell her she owes me dinner.”

  I thanked him as he walked me to the door, his business card in my bag. As I stepped onto the pavement, the door closing behind me, I felt a sense of another new beginning, the second one in a few weeks, the opening up of possibilities in front of me. I strode back to my car, with a sense of purpose, direction and all those other things people who care about their jobs always go on about.

  As I got to my car, I remembered the other thing I meant to ask Bruce about, the accident, and a test. I should have walked back. He wouldn’t have minded me coming back. I should have walked back, told him about the accident, and the narrow miss with beardy man, but I was so embarrassed about my stupidity of both things, and I knew I was OK after the accident, as I’d feel something different if the man in the van had given me anything, wouldn’t I? I’d feel different, a bit sicky, like I had flu or something, and I felt fine, absolutely fine. So, no need to bother Bruce with it, I would mention it next time I saw him, maybe at the over-twenties group he’d told me about.

  Chapter Eleven

  THE NEXT DAY, with a renewed sense of purpose and knowing what I’d always really known I was only skiving from myself now, I worked my way through my list of things to do, top of which was calling venues I’d been to before and asking if they had any nights free when they wanted me back.

  Pleased with my progress that morning, I’d added in four bookings over the next month or so, and had finished a new outfit after some guidance, pinning, and help with the angle of the darts. Mum and I sat back and enjoyed the sense of achievement, the sense of achievement for myself, and the silence in the house as I’d been working so hard.

  My phone rang to shatter the silence. Tony was babbling down the phone, trying to get his words out amid sobs. “He said I could trust him. I did. And now he’s done this.” More crying, gasping for breath, followed by more crying.

  “Calm down. Tell me what’s happened.”

  After getting his breath, Tony slowly told me what had happened. It was about his boyfriend he’d been with for the last four months. The one who Tony had described as “My prince charming, after kissing all those frogs,” and I’d been so happy for him at the time, joking why couldn’t both of us have boyfriends at the same time, but being pleased for him all the same. And Tony had said he finally understood why people had relationships and not just sex. This boyfriend had cheated on him, so rightly so, because Tony wasn’t someone to be walked over, whether this boyfriend was his prince charming or not, Tony had told him to fuck right off in a desperate attempt to retain some of his dignity. So far, so normal. Then Tony said, “He said he didn’t like using, you know…”

  “Rubbers? Condoms? French letters?”

  “Yes. And I said we had to. So anyway, long story short, we went to the family planning clinic together and had the test, and we were both negative. So, we stopped with the…”

  “Rubbers, condoms, French letters…”

  “Yeah. And it was all fine, until he…”

  “Cheated on you, the bastard. Did he? With the other guy?”

  “That’s it, it’s not just one guy, it’s more than one, and he said the same to them all, and some simply went along with the whole ‘I don’t like using…’”

  “Rubbers, condoms, French letters. Love, you can say the word you know. It’s not rude. It is me. I’ve heard far worse, from you actually. Your stories when we first met as a horny sixteen-year-old used to make my hair curl.” I tried to inject some badly needed humour into the situation.

  “I can’t say it, because I can’t believe I let him talk me into not using them…the…”

  “Rubbers, condoms, French letters.”

  “Yes, and he’s fucking gone and lied to me, and not only that, he’s fucking gone and cheated on me too. The cheating is one thing. But without those things…” He took a deep breath, then started sobbing.

  “Rubbers, condoms, French letters.” I gave him time to compose himself, wishing I could be with him, next to him, hugging him tight, like he would have done if it were me in bits.

  “The things I’d normally put my trust in, it makes it a whole fucking shit storm worse than the original cheating shit storm. All because of a little bit of rubber.” He continued to cry.

  I realised trying to inject humour into this situation was pretty stupid. I had, massively underestimated how bad the situation would be. This was a cheating, lying boyfriend and I’ll raise you a possible sexually transmitted disease that could kill you. “I’m going to kill him.”

  “Who?”

  “Your boyfriend, whatsisname.”

  Tony sobbed down the phone, then got his breath and said, “Did you actually ever meet him?”

  I hadn’t. Something I wasn’t proud of before, but now I felt like shit about it. “Sorry, we kept missing each other, always saying we’d look at diaries and do it. You told me everything about him. I felt like I knew him. Sorry.”

  “No need for you to apologise. We’ve both been busy. Your mum, my new job, college, work. We’ve not seen as much of each other as before, without adding in a boyfriend too. Fair enough. It was only four months. Four months and you hadn’t met him, and I agreed to fucking without…” He cried again. “Maybe I should have talked to you about it first, eh, how about that for an idea?”

  “Did we talk about it?” I couldn’t remember and thought I would if we’d had the conversation. That wouldn’t have been a midweek phone chat, that would have been a Kev and Tony in our bedroom for a couple of hours chat.

  “No. Mistake number one, which led to mistake number two.”

  “Come on, no point beating yourself up about it. Besides I’m going to kill him, with my bare hands. Remember?”

  He laughed, a short, quiet chuckle. “No point you killing him, cos then you’ll be in prison and I’ll be stuck out here, no friend, sick, and no boyfriend. Fucking great that would be. Mistake number three.”

  I let him cry for a while down the phone. Then in a pause as he got his breath, I said, “Are you at home? Do you want me to come round? I’m not doing anything.”

  “I’m at work. I’ve gotta go back and arrange crystal glass tumblers and mirrored table mats for the world to see and buy. Work that one out for ironic, or something.”

  “Call in sick. Tell them it’s your mum, go home, I’ll meet you, we can get some cookie dough ice cream, and eat it till we’re sick, put the world to rights, who needs men?”

  He sniffed. “Tempting as it sounds, love, but it’s not like when we were younger, I don’t want to add losing my job to the things he’s fucked up in my life. And we both know we’re both as needing of men as the next poof.”

  I couldn’t argue with that so didn’t try. “No point stewing, worrying what might be. You wanna get yourself down the clinic and find out once and for all what’s happening, then you can make the right decision about what to do next.” I bit my cheek, searching for something else to add in support of my poor crumpled
and battered friend. “I’ll come with you. We’ll both get them done—testing twins or something.” I attempted a laugh.

  Tony didn’t laugh back. There was silence as he thought about what I’d said.

  “You still there?”

  “I’m thinking. I can’t face calling up and talking to people about it. I’ve got to get back to work—those mirrored table mats won’t arrange themselves in an artistic pattern in the window.”

  “Leave it with me. I’ll text you the time of our appointments. At the clinic in Salisbury—easiest if you want to go home after. Tell work it’s a doctor’s appointment. None of their business either way.”

  “Will do. I’d better go,” Tony said.

  “Oi, you old queer.”

  “Those crystal tumblers are calling my name…”

  “I know, but listen a minute.” I wanted to get this out, to make up for not meeting the boyfriend, for not being there as much as I’d have liked since our lives had become so hectic. “It’s gonna be all right. Whatever happens, it’s gonna be all right. And I mean that.” I paused. “No matter what the result, I’m not going anywhere. You’re like a brother to me. You know that.”

  “Sister more like.” He laughed quietly.

  “Whatever. We are family. I’m not going anywhere. Understand?”

  “That means a lot to me, Kev.” He took a deep breath. “Text me, yeah.”

  I put the phone down and staring at the bits of my performing career on the floor around me, the list of venues, the bits of material left over from the outfit, the list of things to do, I suddenly felt like it was all pretty pointless, pretty futile if my friend was facing one of the most life-changing pieces of information in his life. I turned over Bruce’s business card from the side where he’d written Daisy’s details and scanned the numbers. Bruce’s mobile, his office number, even an email address for him too, and at the bottom the address and phone number of the family planning clinic in the middle of Salisbury. There teenaged girls would find out they were going to be mums, and teenaged boys would find out they had a life-changing condition, both from not using a rubber just the one time.