The White Room

by Martyn Waites

  ‘Thanks again for a lovely evening.’

  ‘Again, the pleasure was all mine. I’m glad I met you.’

  She kissed him on the cheek, then got quickly into the car.

  She smiled and waved until the car disappeared up Percy Street, Ben returning the waves and smiles.

  Once she was out of vision, he gave a sigh of satisfaction and headed back to the Go Go. Coat pulled around him, fighting the cold, he elbowed his way past the scooters parked before the narrow double doors, made his way into the club.

  The band were propping the bar up, deciding which groupies to favour with their attention. Martin Fleming gave Ben a small smile as he entered, made his way to the bar, ordered a drink, waited.

  To see if there were any punters who needed helping on their way.

  He laughed to himself.

  It had been a good night’s work.

  *

  Four bulbs, three blown. The remaining one cast a dim light, accentuating rather than illuminating the darkness. Cold water drip-dripped on stained porcelain, bounced a frigid echo off the grubby white-tiled walls. The urinals stood tall and heavy, the wooden, paint-chipped cubicle doors hung half-open, the shadows within almost tangible, sending out threads and tendrils to ensnare the unsure, entice the wavering. The shadows made promises. The air was cold and still: morgue air.

  Johnny stood before the heavy porcelain urinal, the wet of the dirty concrete floor soaking through his shoes, expelling breath as warm steam, trousers unzipped and erect cock in hand.

  He pulled his foreskin back and forth, slowly, fingers smoothing up and down his shaft, taking pleasure from his own touch. He was waiting. Anticipating greater pleasure.

  He always came here after a fire. Here, or somewhere like it. He had a mental map of amenable amenities, a lust-charged undergrid of the city. He wanted instant gratification, secret sex. Illicit, forbidden thrills. And he got all that here. Here, or somewhere like it.

  It was quiet tonight. He had dismissed two offers, one for being too old and out of shape. The man had smelled of cheap booze, cheap aftershave. He had been too desperate, too demanding. Johnny had turned away, pointed his cock in the opposite direction. The man had implored, pleaded almost, but Johnny hadn’t budged. The man had soon taken the hint. The other had been too arrogant, too cocksure. Demanding in a different sort of way. Well built, good-looking, but his eyes held promises of cruelty and pain. That had both turned Johnny on and repelled him in equal measures. Johnny had been tempted but scared. Eventually he had said no. The man had left. So he stroked himself and teased himself. Waited.

  But not for long.

  A man, no more than twenty Johnny reckoned, his eyes wide, his step hesitant. Johnny could almost hear the man’s heart thumping like a runaway train. Well dressed. Probably a girlfriend somewhere, a wife even. Not an obvious homo, thought Johnny.

  Just right.

  Johnny let the man approach. He always let them make the first move; that way he knew they weren’t coppers. Or at least not on-duty coppers.

  The man came and stood next to Johnny, looked down at his cock. Johnny looked at the man, saw fear in his eyes, anticipation. An attempt to smile. Johnny looked back at his cock. The man did too. Slowly, the man slid out a shaking, nervous hand towards it. Touched it.

  Johnny let out a small sigh, allowed the man to grasp it, move his hand slowly up and down on it.

  That was good. That was what he wanted.

  Nearly what he wanted.

  He placed his hand over the other man’s, stopping his action. The man looked at him, startled, suddenly fearful that Johnny might be a copper. Johnny nodded his head in the direction of the cubicles, made to move. The man turned and, relieved and eager, followed him.

  Johnny let the man enter first, closed the door behind him. The shadows enveloped them. Wind whistled through an airbrick in the tiled wall, whispered softly, like the erotic promises made by new lovers.

  It was cramped in there for the two of them. Their bodies were pushed up close together. The man made to kiss Johnny. Johnny turned his head away.

  ‘Suck it,’ he said. His voice was a snarling, desperate, whispered rasp.

  The man kneeled down, found it easier to sit on the toilet seat, and put his mouth over Johnny’s cock.

  Johnny put his head back, sighed. This was it. This was what he wanted. Women could never do this right. Not even when he paid them.

  The man was young. Inexperienced, but eager to please. Just the way Johnny liked them.

  His head was bobbing up and down. Mouth enthusiastically slurping.

  The pleasure was building within Johnny. Images were forming, transporting him. Erotically charged images:

  Bodies: hard naked male hairless cruel powerful

  Dominant

  Fire: blazing licking burning dancing leaping uncontrollable

  Beautiful

  Punishing burning perfect flames hard powerful

  Nearly there nearly

  Cruel naked flames

  Then a new image:

  Blades: shining powerful beautiful

  Perfect. Nearly—

  He pushed the man’s head back, mouth away from his cock.

  The man looked up in surprise. He opened his mouth to speak. Johnny beat him to it.

  ‘Turn round,’ he said, his voice low and guttural. ‘Bend over.’

  The man smiled, did as he was bid. As he bent over he began loosening his belt, undoing his trousers. Johnny took over, ripping at them, desperate to get the man’s flesh exposed.

  The man bent forward, straddled the toilet bowl, arse in the air.

  Johnny, near to exploding, thrust his cock inside the man’s anus.

  The man screamed. It hurt.

  Johnny pumped away, grimacing.

  Burning entering

  The man gasping.

  Johnny pumping. Blood lubricating his cock. Dominant cruel blades perfect naked flames

  Burning. Nearly—

  There.

  He came.

  Bucking and thrusting, pushing in pain.

  The man gasped, took it.

  Johnny didn’t let him move away, controlled him, shouting, riding out the wave of his huge orgasm.

  Hitting the peak, too intense, seeing stars behind his eyes. Gasping down air. Slowly coming down, gliding. The slope subsiding away, tailing off.

  Johnny opened his eyes, loosened his grip. He saw the shadows, tangible, moving, saw the warm clouds of his breath, heard the frigid echo of the cold water drip-dripping. Heard the whisper of promises unkept. He was back.

  The man stood up. He looked exhausted but happy. In pain but turned on.

  ‘Did you enjoy that?’ the man said, smiling. ‘I did.’

  He put an arm around Johnny, his other on Johnny’s cock. He swallowed hard again.

  ‘You going to do something for me now?’

  Johnny looked down at his cock. Glistening, engorged. Covered in shit and blood, like abattoir offal.

  Johnny looked at the man, felt panic rising, tried to back away. His body hit the cubicle door, banging it firmly shut against the doorframe. Keeping him in.

  It was always the same. Every time. The anticipation, the exultation, the repulsion. Johnny hated how he got his pleasure, the needs he had that built inside him until they screamed for attention, for release. And he would give in willingly, wallowing in it, loving it, every time. And afterwards: self-loathing, guilt and revulsion would fall on him like a sudden, heavy rain shower.

  Putting out the fire.

  And the higher the mountain, the deeper the valley.

  He hated it. Hated himself. What he’d become.

  The man was still looking at him, thrown by Johnny’s abrupt lack of enthusiasm but still smiling hopefully.

  ‘Can I do that to you? What we’ve just done?’ Hesitancy began to creep into the man’s voice. ‘I mean, if you don’t want to, that’s fine. We could do something else.’

  Johnny’s pulse
was quickening. He had to get out of the cubicle. He felt trapped. Sweat prickled his forehead and body. He pushed his cock back inside his trousers. It was difficult: his erection was still too prominent. Betrayed by his body, he shoved it painfully inside his underpants, turned to the door again. He tried to open the cubicle but couldn’t: his own body was blocking his only exit. The harder he pushed, the less it budged.

  Trapped.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Johnny said, his voice high and desperate. ‘Don’t touch me. You homo. You queer.’

  The man stopped moving, looked at Johnny. Confused, quizzical.

  The man laughed a little. ‘What does that make what we’ve just done? What does that make you?’

  ‘Get back.’

  Johnny was shaking, sweating hard now.

  ‘Look,’ the man said, holding his trousers up with one hand, ‘I’ve got a girlfriend. She doesn’t know about this. I like it. It’s fun. Gives me something I want I can’t get from her. There’s no problem. You’re probably the same as me.’

  ‘Shut up! I mean it. Now get back and let me go. Or you’ll be sorry.’

  ‘Look—’

  The man moved forward.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’

  Johnny pushed the man backwards. His legs hit the toilet bowl. He stumbled, sat down. Johnny advanced towards him.

  ‘Homo. Queer. Think I’m the same as you, eh? Think I’m one of you?’

  He kicked the man in the legs, hard. Viciously. The man, hurting, couldn’t understand what was happening. How he had reached this point. How things had led to this.

  ‘I’m not a homo … I’m not …’ Kick. ‘Think this is a bit of fun, eh?’ Kick. ‘I’m not … homo …’

  ‘Wait … please …’

  ‘No wait. No please. You make me sick, you lot. All of you.’

  Johnny reached inside his pocket, produced his blade. One of his precious slaughterhouse blades. He wasn’t supposed to be carrying it, but he loved having it near him. A boner and a skinner. It made the shadows jump with clean steel light.

  ‘This is what I think of you lot. Homos … Queers …’

  He slashed the man across the chest. The blade penetrated his thick winter wool coat, the layers of clothing beneath, drawing forth a slowly seeping, dark blood.

  ‘Homo.’

  Another slash. The man put his arms up to protect his face.

  ‘Queer.’

  Another slash. Johnny’s blade tore through sleeve fabric.

  ‘Fuckin’ pervert, hate you …’

  Slash. Slash. Slash.

  Johnny, worn out, gasping for breath, found the door of the cubicle, pulled it open.

  He stood in the centre of the toilet, breathing hard, the blade hanging bloodily loose in his limp hand. He was spent, exhausted. He looked down. His coat was splattered with blood. His hands red.

  He put the knife back in his pocket, wiped his hands down the front of his coat. It was dark, heavy, woollen. Once the blood had stopped glistening and began to sink into the fabric, it would hardly show.

  He looked back into the cubicle. The man was moving, groaning. Good. A relief. At least he wasn’t dead.

  Guilt began to creep over Johnny. Guilt and fear. He had to do something. Someone might enter the toilet. See him. He couldn’t have that. He didn’t want to go to prison. Didn’t want to be blamed.

  His mind flashed back to a night seven years earlier:

  The Ropemakers Arms. Brian Mooney. His brother Kenny.

  Kenny.

  And now:

  He felt he was about to vomit. To cry.

  He swallowed it down. Kept it in. He had to think.

  He needed a plan. Quickly. He thought hard. Ideas came to him. Not brilliant, but the best he could come up with, thinking like this.

  He left the toilet. He would find a public telephone and make a 999 call. Tell them he’d found someone bleeding in a public toilet in Byker, on his way home from the pub. That he’d seen a man running away from the scene, looked like an Indian. Tell them where in Byker it was, what to expect. Tell them he wouldn’t hang around in case they tried to pull him in for questioning, called him a queer.

  Then run. Home. And get rid of his coat.

  He did so.

  And left cold water drip-dripping on porcelain, bouncing a frigid echo of grubby white-tiled walls. Left the air cold and still: morgue air.

  Left a warm, deep, red pool, draining slowly away across the dirty concrete floor.

  Left whispered promises unkept.

  Sharon pushed the key into the lock. It slid in with a grating rasp. Her stomach flipped over. The noise seemed huge. She was sure it was loud enough to wake Jack.

  And she didn’t want to speak to Jack tonight. There was too much going on in her head.

  She opened the front door. It swung silently back. She entered, shoes in hand, stockinged feet softly pad-padding on the carpeted hallway. She closed the door. The merest of clicks. She moved stealthily down the hall.

  There was light coming from under the living room door.

  Oh, God, she thought, he’s waited up for me.

  Her stomach lurched.

  She moved towards it, resigned to talking, but not wanting to. Drawn: a moth to a flame that could burn her wings.

  She pushed the living room door open. Jack was sitting on the sofa, head back, asleep. Next to him Isaac, body curled into his father’s, head resting on his father’s lap. The TV a black screen. Crisps and juice on the coffee table before them. Paperback open on the sofa arm.

  Sharon felt an involuntary smile creep on to her face. Jack and Isaac had been getting along much better lately. Jack had taken steps, tentative at first, to admit his love for his son. Once he had surmounted that hurdle, things had been a little more relaxed.

  She should have been happy, but she was still dissatisfied. Jack was doing more and more work for Ralph Bell with no increasing recognition. He was holding both the company and the man together and not getting his due reward. And Jack seemed fine about that. And that annoyed Sharon.

  The familiar litany:

  We should be further on than we are.

  You’re too nice to people.

  You should stand up for yourself.

  Said over and over again. Jack had stopped hearing it, she was sure.

  Sharon looked at Jack. Tried to see him dispassionately, as a stranger would. He was looking old, worn. Always thin, he was now stringy. His hair was not as well dyed as it used to be. The white shone through, like bleached bone beneath a skin or cloth covering.

  She wondered what she had once seen in him, then felt guilty for the thought. She was only thinking that because of Ben Marshall.

  Ben Marshall.

  She smiled at the name. At the memory of her night.

  He had been trying to impress her, she knew that. Sounding like a big shot. And it might have worked. It was years since a man had found her attractive enough to buy her champagne, take her to dinner. Listen to her when she talked. Men had always found her attractive, and she had often rebuffed those who wanted to have flings and affairs with her. But no one had gone to the trouble of making her feel special, unique. Not for a long time.

  She looked over at Jack and Isaac on the sofa again.

  Safe. Homely. Familiar.

  Overfamiliar?

  She put that thought out of her mind. She felt the happiest she had for a long time, and that had nothing to do with her husband or son. And everything to do with a man who bought her champagne and dinner. Who wanted to take her driving in the country.

  Who wanted to offer her a job.

  With prospects. That might lead to bigger things.

  She closed the door of the living room, leaving the side light on, not wanting to disturb them. She made her way slowly upstairs and undressed.

  Before getting into bed she opened her handbag and took out his card again. She looked at it, smiled. She ran her fingers slowly over the embossed lettering. Felt his name as it stood ou
t. She smiled again, replaced it in her bag.

  She crossed to the bed, pulled back the blankets and climbed in, snuggling herself down.

  She felt happy. Confused, but happy.

  She heard a small, feathery tapping on the window, gave a small start.

  She looked.

  It was a moth. Only a moth. Drawn to the bedside light.

  She turned off the light, settled down to sleep.

  Only a moth. Drawn by the bedside light.

  A moth to a flame that could burn its wings.

  August 1963:

  The Great Escape

  ‘There you go, pet.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  Ralph Bell took the cup of tea. His hands were still shaking.

  He was sitting on the edge of the bed in Monica’s back room. Her workroom.

  White walls. Deep shadows where the light couldn’t reach. Crucifixes. Christ in agony: nailed, bloodied, cut. Dying. The sinners watching.

  Ralph was perched uncomfortably on the edge of the bed. He couldn’t sit fully on; it still hurt too much from his session with Monica.

  But hurt him good. A purging, cleansing pain.

  He took a sip of his tea. Too hot. Scalded his lip. He placed it on the floor, straightened back up painfully.

  Monica sat down next to him, cup of tea in her own hand. She had covered her work clothes with a dressing gown of pink, frilled, faded nylon. What she usually wore between punters. Her blonde wig sat rat-tailed and askew on her head. She sipped her tea. Found it bearable.

  Ralph smiled at Monica. She automatically returned it.

  He enjoyed this part. Almost as much as the sex. Sometimes found himself racing through the session, he looked forward to it so much.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said.

  Monica smiled. She didn’t know whether he meant for the sex or the tea.

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said.

  She knew what she had to say next. Which role to play.

  ‘So how are things for you?’

  Ralph sighed.

  ‘The same, I suppose. Kenny’s … well, I think he’s making progress. The others, Jean and that, she tells me I shouldn’t … y’know. Have hope. But I do. I have to.’

  Monica nodded.

  ‘I mean, last week I was there and—’ he gestured with his hands, formed them into small, atomic cradles; held atoms within ‘—I’m sure he knew it was me. Sure of it. He smiled at me. Nodded.’ Ralph sighed. Opened his hands, split atoms asunder. ‘The staff say he does it all the time and that I shouldn’t read anything into it. I don’t know. He’s my son, y’know? I should know him.’