Best of 2017

by Alexa Riley

  Matthew nods his head with a smile, blissfully oblivious of any potential tension.

  Thomas not so much.

  His eyes leave mine and stare at the table top, burger discarded.

  “Well, Thomas? Is it true? Do you want to change schools?”

  He shrugs.

  It isn’t like him to avoid a direct question, and since he is avoiding the question this really isn’t the right place to push it, not amongst the screaming toddlers and the families out for a cheap bite to eat.

  I change the topic of conversation, focusing instead on Portsmouth’s goal-scoring record this season, and that works well to lighten the mood.

  “I’m going to play for Portsmouth,” Thomas tells me. “Terry says I’m really good.”

  “He does, does he?” My boy nods, and even though Terry’s fucking name makes my insides grimace, I’m undeniably proud. “That’s good,” I say. “Well done.”

  It’s Matthew who drops the next shitty bombshell. The poor kid has no idea.

  “We’re going training!” he gushes. “Terry’s going to put us in kids’ club!”

  “Excellent,” I lie. “And what does kids’ club involve?”

  Thomas tells him to shut his stupid little mouth, and I’m taken aback by the venom in his tone.

  “Enough of that,” I snap. “Let your brother speak.”

  But Matthew doesn’t want to speak. Not now. His lip trembles as he holds back tears, and he looks so young sitting there. I’d forgotten how young he is.

  Thomas folds his arms. “It’s on a Sunday. You won’t let us go anyway.”

  “Won’t let you go?”

  He shakes his head. “Mum said there’s no point even asking. She said you’ll never say yes.”

  My throat dries. “Never say yes to you training on a Sunday afternoon?”

  They both nod, and it smacks me right in the gut. I could retch my fucking French fries all over the fucking table.

  “That’s what you want, is it? You want to go training?”

  Thomas shrugs, but Matthew is still too young to understand etiquette. He nods so innocently, and I really do think I’m going to vomit up my fucking dinner.

  “We won’t go,” Thomas says. “We see you on a Sunday afternoon.”

  But they want to. I can see it all over them.

  I wrap up my burger and clear my throat. “If you want to go training with Terry on a Sunday afternoon, you should go.”

  Their eyes widen.

  “But that’s your day…” Thomas tells me, like I’m not perfectly fucking aware of that.

  Forcing a smile is so fucking hard. “We’ll make other time,” I say, even though I know it’s probably a fucking lie. “Maybe Saturdays, or holidays. Maybe even weeknights when the evenings get longer again.”

  Matthew punches the air. He hollers out a YES that gets the family to our right turning their heads, and I know it’s signed and sealed already.

  “What about you?” Thomas asks, and I have to pretend I’m choking on a gherkin.

  “I’ll be around,” I say. “I’m your dad, right?”

  They nod.

  That’s right, I’m their fucking dad. Even if they have a new one now. Even if Terry steals my Sundays, and takes them out of the school I chose for them, and gives them another cool sibling to add to their dinner table.

  Even if it doesn’t fucking feel like I’m their dad.

  Even if it never feels like it again.

  I still am.

  I still am their fucking dad.

  “Drink up,” I say. “We’ll take Brutus for a walk.”

  They drink up.

  My fingers are shaking as I pick up my uneaten burger for the dog. My throat is scratchy as I dump the empty wrappers in the bin on the way out.

  I park up at the meadow a couple of streets down from Claire’s, and Brutus piles out happily, wagging his tail as Thomas clips on his leash.

  We walk in silence, lapping that meadow three times before I can bring myself to speak.

  “Tell me about school,” I say. “What do you want to do?”

  Thomas looks up at me, and I keep my expression as neutral as I can.

  “You can tell me,” I say.

  So he does.

  My boy tells me how he hates the school I picked for him. How he hates the other kids, and thinks the teachers are stuck up and boring.

  He tells me how he feels sick to his stomach every time he has to go there.

  How the other boys call him a common little freak because he likes football now and not rugby.

  He tells me how they call him a little gay boy because he doesn’t scrum like he used to.

  I’m sure there’s no blood left in my face as I land a hand on his shoulder and ask him why the hell he didn’t tell me this before.

  And now it’s Thomas who has the trembling lip, wiping tears away on the back of his sleeve before they have chance to spill.

  “Because… because I didn’t want…”

  “Didn’t want what?”

  It breaks my heart when his face crumples, and in some deep part of me I’m relieved to find I still have one.

  “I didn’t want you to be ashamed of me.”

  And now Matthew is crying too. My two boys stand and cry in front of me and I feel nothing but a cunt.

  It’s so easy to pull them into my arms, so easy to breathe into their hair so they don’t see I’m right on the fucking edge myself.

  “I’ll never be ashamed of you,” I tell them. “Not ever. No matter what. Do you understand me?”

  I have to pull away long enough to check their faces.

  “Boys, do you understand me?”

  They nod.

  I can’t believe I’m saying this. I can’t believe I have to say this.

  Most of all I can’t believe Claire is going to get her fucking way, but that doesn’t matter now.

  Only the boys matter.

  “I’ll let the school know in the morning,” I say. “You can switch over next term.”

  I HAVE to pull over into a layby off the A3 to vomit on the way home.

  MELISSA

  DEAN and I have finished up half a bottle of wine before I’m brave enough to broach the subject.

  He shifts in his seat as I turn to face him, knowing full well I’m about to rope him into something shady.

  “No,” he says, just like that. “Whatever it is, no.”

  “You don’t even…”

  He shakes his head. “It involves Henley, right? Some crazy plan? Another crazy plan?”

  “Well, maybe… but it’s not…”

  “Forget it, Lissa.”

  We sit in silence. He tops up our wine and takes a forkful of noodles from his takeout tub.

  “You want him, right?” I ask, and he stops chewing. “You said you’d do him for free. I’m saying you don’t need to. I’m saying fifty-fifty, maybe just once if you want… but just think about it…”

  “Are you fucking nuts?”

  I shake my head. “I’m serious, Dean. He wants men. He told me.”

  “He fucking told you?”

  “Yes.”

  He swallows. “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, Lissa. This shit is way too fucking much.”

  “He wants men. And if I give it to him… if I like it too…”

  “If you give it to him then what?” he snaps. “Have you even listened to yourself? Crystals and music, whatever, but this is…”

  “Crazy, right?” I finish. “Maybe it’s crazy, yeah. But maybe it’ll be the ace in my deck, maybe it’ll be the thing that makes him really fall in love with me.”

  He looks at me as though I’ve suddenly grown an extra head. “Jesus wept, Lissa. Have you heard yourself?”

  My stomach is in knots as I look at him.

  “I don’t want it to be some random,” I tell him. “I don’t want to hook up with some random guy who doesn’t know what he’ll be… getting into…”

 
“Being choked half to death you mean? Sure, it might be a tough fucking sell, Lissa. No shit.”

  I sip my wine. “Forget it, then.”

  “I already have,” he says, but he’s lying. His eyes are wide and angry, but he shifts in his seat and crosses his legs, and I know. I just know.

  “You want him. I know you do.”

  “Not like that, I don’t.”

  “But you do, don’t you? You can’t stop thinking about him either.”

  “That’s bullshit!” he snaps, but it’s not.

  I remember his face when I told him all the gory details. The way he swallowed when I told him how Alexander chokes me to the brink. How it made me feel. How Alexander makes me feel…

  “The guy’s fucked up,” he says.

  “But you want him.”

  “I want a lot of things…”

  “Fifty-fifty,” I say. “One night. You get to have him.”

  “And what the fuck will you be doing?” His jaw is so tight.

  “Watching,” I say. “Just watching, Dean. It’s not like we… I won’t be…”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t even talk about it. I’m gay, Lissa, I just can’t even.”

  It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. His words hang in the air as I take a breath.

  “You already knew.” He shrugs. “It’s not news.”

  “No,” I say. “It’s not news.” I swirl the wine in my glass. “I mean it. I wouldn’t be… involved. It’s about Alexander, and you.”

  “There is no Alexander and me,” he snaps. “I’ve never even met the guy.”

  “But you could…”

  He gets to his feet. I know he’s considering it when he begins pacing. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he is.

  I give him space.

  I’m finding that works pretty well lately.

  “How would you even swing it? What you gonna say? Hey, Mr Henley, this is Dean, my best fucking friend. He looks after my brother for me while I’m out playing hooker.”

  His words cut, but I don’t say a thing.

  “Hey, Mr Henley, this is Dean. He’s a sad little virgin guy who jerks off to your picture every fucking night and thinks about taking it in the ass. Is that what you’re gonna fucking say, Lissa?”

  I can’t keep my silence. “You’re a virgin?!”

  He groans. “Don’t act so surprised. You were a fucking virgin a few weeks ago.”

  I feel my shot. It’s a whisper on the wind. A glimmer of a chance.

  “I was a virgin until him. And he was the best experience of my life. He was everything.” I’m being honest. My smile is all real as I remember how he took me, how he made it feel so good. “Fine, if you don’t want to do it for me, do it for yourself.”

  “For me?!”

  “Yeah,” I say. “For you. Do it because you want him. Do it because he’s everything. Do it because he’ll be the most amazing experience you’ll ever have.”

  “With you there cheerleading from the sidelines?”

  “You’ll forget I’m even there, I promise.”

  “You promise?!” His laugh sounds as crazy as I feel.

  I finish up my wine. “I need to go to bed. I have work tomorrow.”

  “I’m not doing it,” he says.

  His voice sounds a lot more certain than he looks, but I’ve said my piece. I’ve said it all.

  “I’ll find someone else,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about it. If you don’t want him, I’ll find someone who does.”

  “Some fucking random?!”

  “I guess so.”

  He shakes his head. “Just quit your job. Tell him you got off on the wrong foot, he may never know, not if you give him your real name and pretend it was a false alias.”

  “He knows Amy is a real person. He looked her up.”

  I hate the way his eyes bore into me. “He looked her up?!”

  “Yeah. I had no idea he would.”

  He rubs his temples. “She knows me. She knows you. What the hell if he turns up at her door? What the fuck do we do then?”

  It’s nothing I haven’t thought about myself. Nothing that hasn’t niggled me at night before I fall asleep.

  “I’ll tell him,” I say. “I’ll quit cleaning and I’ll tell him my real name, just as soon as he’s fucked another man. I’ll tell him the very next week.”

  He laughs a cynical laugh.

  “I will!” I insist. “I’ll tell him. I just need this final piece of the puzzle! This one last thing!”

  “Gay sex?!”

  I nod. “So he knows I’m all in. With everything.”

  “Fucking hell,” he hisses. “This is so fucking fucked up!”

  I don’t argue with him.

  I squeeze his arm as I head for bed. My fingers link his and tug before I reach the door.

  “Forget I said anything,” I tell him. “It’s cool.”

  He doesn’t say a word as I close the door behind me.

  I hear him pace around the place as I climb into bed. I hear him clear up the wine glasses a few minutes later.

  And then nothing.

  Silence.

  I’M HALF ASLEEP when the tap on my door comes.

  The clock says half three a.m.

  He eases the door open, and I feel the weight of him on the bottom of my bed.

  I’m reaching for my nightlight when he tells me to stop.

  “What is it?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

  I can’t see him nod. I can only hear him breathe.

  “You’ll just be watching? No like… touching or…”

  “Of course no touching. This is just… him… with a guy…”

  “Fifty-fifty?”

  “You can have the whole three grand if you want it.”

  I’m not tired at all as I wait in the darkness.

  Sleep has well and truly given up the ghost as I wait for Dean to spit out whatever he’s thinking.

  “I’ll do it,” he whispers. “Just once. So you don’t need to… find someone.”

  I lunge for him, but he holds me back before I can hug him.

  “Wait!” he snaps. “There are conditions!”

  My heart pounds as I wait for them.

  “If I let him fuck me, you quit cleaning afterwards. No fucking about, Lissa. If the guy fucks my ass to make your crazy fucking plan work out for you, you quit and you tell him your real name. You make this real, or you walk away.”

  My mouth is so dry. “Okay.”

  “Okay?”

  I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah, that’s a deal. He fucks you, I quit my cleaning job.”

  “And you tell him your real name?”

  I pause for just a heartbeat. “Yeah.”

  He sighs. “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.”

  And neither can I.

  He gets to his feet, and heads for the door, and I still can’t believe it. I still have to hear the words.

  “You’re saying you’ll let him fuck you? You’re saying you’ll do it? For me?”

  “No,” he says before he closes the door. “I’m saying I’ll do it for me.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  ALEXANDER

  I CONFIRM first thing Monday morning that the boys will be changing schools. Brenda draws up the letters I dictate to her, and I sign them off with a shaky hand before she faxes them through to their headmaster.

  I send Claire an email telling her it’s done, and also telling her the boys are free to attend Terry’s shitty kids’ club on a Sunday afternoon.

  My whole world is spinning on its fucking axis.

  My mouth is parched no matter how many Americanos Brenda brings me from the coffee shop next door.

  I’m listless in my client meetings and I’m clumsy with the board report amendments that need my bastard input.

  I hate how out of control I feel. I hate the wriggling worm of vulnerability in my gut.

  I hate how painful it feels to find my heart still beating.

/>   I’m staring into the abyss today, but whereas I normally rely on Brutus to be my sobering factor, I now have another anchor in the storm.

  The insanity with Amy is the only thing keeping me actually sane.

  The Puppet Master title the industry slapped on my head over a decade ago suits me well, but not as well as it did, and not anywhere near as well as it suits my slimy fucking father.

  His grubby fingers are in everything, twisting everything.

  It shouldn’t come as a surprise when he blasts his way into my office before lunch. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when he slaps a copy of the paperwork Brenda faxed across to the school onto my desk.

  “What the fucking hell is this, boy? Have you lost your fucking mind?!”

  It takes all of my restraint not to reply in the affirmative.

  “The boys are changing schools,” I say. “I’ve discussed it with Claire, I’ve discussed it with them.”

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?!” His eyes are angry and wired. Just as they were all those years ago in the public toilets.

  Just as they’ve been so many times since, when I haven’t played into his filthy fucking hands at every opportunity.

  “It’s none of your cunting business, old man,” I tell him.

  “Oh, but it fucking is,” he hisses. “Those boys are next in line to the family business. My fucking business.”

  I laugh in his face.

  And there, amongst the laughter, is the simple truth I’ve been avoiding my whole fucking life.

  The truth of the peace I’ve granted my boys, even though they don’t realise it yet.

  I want out.

  “You’ll have to find another puppet to train in my stead. Thomas wants to be a footballer, and Matthew… well, Matthew doesn’t have the disposition for this shit. I see him as an artist maybe, or a celebrity chef. Maybe even a flower arranger.”

  “Don’t test my fucking patience, boy.” My father’s disgust is actually etched into his features. A lifetime of scowling carved into stone under spiteful eyes. “You’ll withdraw your instruction with immediate effect. I’ll handle Claire and her lunatic educational preferences.”

  “I won’t,” I say, “And you certainly won’t be doing fucking anything about Claire.”

  The thump of his fist on wood makes my pens rattle. “Be careful, boy. Be very fucking careful.”

  I don’t even blink. “We’re done here.”