Out of Bounds

by Mike Seabrook

  “You’re just too… what do I mean? I’ve got it”, he said, rolling over and kissing Stephen briefly but with affection on the mouth. “You’re too powerful, Steve. You’re too demanding—in the special way I’ve been saying. You’re too forceful. Haven’t you noticed, when we two are together, it’s always what you want that we end up doing? Even in the sex — how often is it me who says ‘I want to fuck you’, or me who just goes down on you and sucks you cross-eyed? Never. Not even ‘not often’. It’s never. You control the relationship. And you have done right from the start. Remember when we first started? On that cross-country run together? I did everything short of dropping my shorts and begging you to take me there and then. Did you? Of course you didn’t. You weren’t ready. I practically offered you myself that day because I’d fancied you so hard for so long that I was getting desperate. I’d broken three pairs of pyjama bottoms thinking about you at night and getting nowhere. But it was you who came up, next day, and said, let’s go. In your own time. You like to be — you’ve got to be in control.

  “Don’t take all this as criticism. Please don’t take it the wrong way. I’m not complaining, not in the very least. It suits me down to the ground to have it this way. I’m lazy, easy-going to a fault, I’m as decisive as blancmange and as tough as a ball of wool. I was born to be precisely what I am: a pretty, fluffy, nice-natured, generous little tart, who does it for love. No, don’t interrupt. Just this once let me talk myself right out. It’s quite possibly the only time I’ll ever feel energetic enough to be bothered.

  “So, it suits me to leave all the decisions — even microscopic things like do I fuck you or you fuck me first require decisions to be made, and you make em. Good. Great. It saves me the awful task of thinking long enough to make them.

  “Now you’re very fond of me. I know that. And I’m glad. I like giving pleasure, especially to someone I like very much, and admire, which at this time means yourself. Also, you needed someone like me, because you were as horny as a herd of goats and as frustrated as a necrophile in a crematorium. But if we were living together, say, as a married couple, I’d give myself about six months before you got tired of me, and when that happened, you’d drop me like a used french letter. Not that you’d do it cruelly, or callously. Because you’re made as you are, you’d make yourself and me miserable, because you’d have a terrible conscience about hurting me, even though you’d know you were going to let me go. Then, when it became unbearable, which would be when you realized how unhappy you were making me, you’d drop me, and we’d go back to being casual friends who said ‘Hi’ when we passed each other in the quad or in the street; but all this” — he stroked Stephen again — “would be as if it had never been, as if it had never happened.

  “That would happen anyway. I know that, and I can live with it. I think it would happen with ninety-nine men out of any hundred who went with me. Don’t look boiled, Stevie. I’ll find the hundredth, and he’ll look after me. Don’t think because I know my weaknesses and my shortcomings that I don’t know my good points equally well. I know what I’ve got to give the right one, and I’ll know him when I find him, and keep him, at that. But you? Not a chance. You need stronger meat than me, Steve. I’m too milk-and-water by seven-eighths for you, love. And when this Mr someone else comes back, whoever he is and wherever he’s gone, make no mistake, my life expectancy will be as long as it takes you to get from wherever you are to wherever he is, calling you.

  “I know, you see. I haven’t got a clue who he is, but I know that whoever he is, he’s quite incredibly strong. He’d have to be, to handle you, and to secure his fifty per cent of the relationship. But he is, there’s no doubt about that. And one day, soon, if I’m not mistaken, he’ll be back, saying, ‘Steve, I’m back, and this time, I’m here for keeps, if you want me.’ He’s the sort who’ll say that, Stevie, because he’s the very essence of fairness. He wouldn’t do for you if he wasn’t. Believe me, Steve, I’ve got a seeing eye for this sort of thing, and I know. You can prove it to yourself, if you want to.”

  He fell silent at last, with his face still cupped in his hand, looking down at Stephen’s amazed expression. There was still the same mildly amused expression in his eyes, but also a still, serious affection, and something else, which Stephen, try as he might, could not identify. There was something yearning in it, some poignant sense of loss. Stephen gave it up. “How do you know all this, or think you know it?” he said, unaware that his voice had fallen to a whisper. “And how can I prove anything you say?”

  Richard laughed, a soft, sexy gurgle of a laugh. “Prove it? Easy-peasy. Just ask yourself how close I’ve been so far.” He watched as Stephen, despite a quickly-formed determination not to get enticed into any guessing game with him, thought about it. He laughed again as he saw the results in Stephen’s eyes.

  “Well”, muttered Stephen as he focussed on Richard’s face once more, “I don’t know how you do it, but, well, yes, you’re pretty close in a lot of what you say. You certainly described G…”

  “Not his name, please, Steve. I don’t want to know. I may be all the things I said, but I do bleed. I am capable of being hurt.” Stephen stared at him, and the last piece of the puzzle dropped silently into place. He knew what the final, enigmatic ingredient in Richard’s expression had been, and his mind sheered away in protest, not wanting to acknowledge what he had seen, or what he had done. Richard saw that he knew, and smiled, blowing his fringe out of his eyes and looking heart-breakingly appealing. “He’ll be back, Stevie”, he said gently. “How…how do you know?”

  “Because he’ll need you. People like you don’t grow on trees, and he won’t find another like you; and he knows he won’t. And he’ll know you need him — similar reasons — and he’s as determined to shoulder his responsibilities as you are. He wouldn’t have got to love you otherwise — you wouldn’t’ve let him, and he wouldn’t’ve needed you to stop him anyway. Oh yes, he’ll be back. Sooner or later, most likely sooner, given that he must be at least as intelligent as you are, he’ll accept that if he passes up the chance of having you he’ll be throwing away what’s almost certainly the only chance he’s ever going to get of happiness. Like I said, people like you don’t happen often. The chances of two of you meeting are about as remote as the last two blue whales in the entire Pacific happening to bump into each other to mate. So, for the seventh time, I say to you, he’ll be back. And when that happens, well, your pretty little piece of blond icecream will shiver briefly and fade into nothingness before your eyes. If he walked into this room now, you wouldn’t even be able to see me. I would be, quite literally, invisible.

  “I don’t resent that, Stevie. I might as well resent the winds that blow. I’m very happy to take you on your terms, for a little while, and be grateful for the time I have. When I become invisible, I shall accept it with my customary good grace. All I ask is, if you can spare a moment to remember me every now and then, when you’re happy with him, just remember, we were the folks that told you first.”

  “I can’t imagine ever forgetting this”, said Stephen, meaning it. “I’ve never been psycho-analyzed before.”

  “I’m not psycho-analyzing you, my dear”, said Richard gently. “It’s nothing specially clever. Just street wisdom, you know. Or common sense, if you like.”

  “But how have you got it? How do you know all this? You’re eighteen years old. Nobody can be that wise at our age. Nobody ought to be that wise at our age. How did you learn all this?”

  Richard smiled, a strangely old smile. “My Dad, my dear chap, is a very wise man. He and I get on very well. We understand one another. My mother, who’s got about as much brain as the silicon chip in a programmable washing-machine, still indulges in fond daydreams of what she’ll wear at my wedding. I’m still waiting for the right moment to tell her. I’ll know when I can do it most gently. So, you see, I get my wisdom, such as it is, from him. From my mother I get my easy-going nature and my air-head attitude; and most of all, my cha
rm. Remember I said I knew my selling points as well as my faults? That’s my biggest: I’m charming.

  “How else do you think a man such as my father could spend twenty years with someone such as my mother, and be as bowled over by her, as blissfully happy and besottedly in love with her now as he was the day he married her? Or marry her in the first place? Answer: she’s nice. She’s the nicest person either of us has ever met. And she’s a joy to look at — if you happen to go in for people of that peculiar anatomical construction — and when she walks into a room it’s as if the sun’s just risen, right there in the room. She could walk into a room full of dead bodies, and within thirty seconds they’d all be not only alive again but smiling and calling her by her first name, and feeling as if they’d known her all their lives. You don’t need brains, or even much strength of character, if you were born with a nimbus of bright light shining round your head. That explains my father and my mother. It also explains you and me, for a little while. But my mother wouldn’t have done for you, supposing you’d been made that way. You wouldn’t have been happy with her for any length of time. And you won’t with me. You’ve got this one mystical ingredient in your character which my father hasn’t got — I’m very glad to say.

  As for me, I think if I’d had it I’d have gone screaming into a padded cell years ago. That or shot myself. But you’ve got it all right. That’s why Mr someone else is on his way back right now, or will be very soon.”

  “What is this mysterious ingredient?” cried Stephen in alarm.

  “Single-mindedness”, said Richard, and began to fondle him in earnest before he could reply, or think about it much.

  Stephen’s body told him plainly that he had little time to fill in the last small gaps. He struggled free, and put his hands over his crotch. “Just one more question, Richard”, he panted.

  “Of course”, said Richard obediently, ceasing to play with him. “Don’t make it too long.” He giggled suddenly and incongruously. “I’ll make it long enough in a minute.”

  “You still haven’t told me how you know all this. You went on about getting your wisdom from your father, but you haven’t actually told me a single thing you’ve seen or heard, or…or picked up by intuition, which is what it sounds most like to me, that’s told you all this.”

  “My wisdom is nothing very spectacular, Steve, my sweetheart”, said Richard, almost playfully. “It’s mostly a matter of conjuring tricks. Actually, that’s rather what you’re doing right now: asking the conjuror to show you how the trick works. You’ll be very disappointed when you see that it’s all done by a small and inexpensive gadgetry, or an accomplice in the audience, won’t you?”

  “I doubt it”, said Stephen. “Whatever you may think of f yourself, I’m pretty damn sure you’re not cheap.” Richard smiled. It was a grave, rather serious smile, a little sad, and very beautiful.

  “All right, then, Stevie, I’ll tell you a little of it. Not all. You must allow me to keep a little of my poor mystique. If I show you all the machinery and point out all my accomplices in the crowd you’ll realize that I’m nothing but machinery and stooges. I’ll be like a joke that’s been explained, or a frog that’s been dissected. You know how the frog works now, but you ain’t got no frog. I’d sooner have a live frog that hops and think it a miracle to marvel at than have it spread and pinned out on a desk in front of me and know precisely why it will never hop again. Agreed?”

  Stephen looked up at him, and nodded.

  “You have dark moments”, said Richard slowly. “They come at a rate of about two an hour, rising to peaks at certain times. I know when these moments are here. Do you know how I know?”

  “I haven’t got the slightest idea.”

  “In them, I become invisible”, he said, and suddenly he looked terrifyingly old to Stephen, and infinitely sad. “That’s how I know”, he resumed, and the hallucination vanished. “I might as well not exist. For you, in fact, I don’t. You go away, miles, miles and miles. It’s not just like when we all do that, you know, going into a trance for a moment, or when you look at your watch and then realize a few moments later you haven’t actually seen it, so you have to look again. In a way, you become invisible. You simply aren’t there. And nothing I can do can bring you back. You’re not just not here. You’re with him, and I can’t compete with him, Stephen. He’s out of my league.”

  “Wh-when does this happen?” asked Stephen. He shivered, and registered the fact that he had done so a moment before, when Richard had, for the first time ever, called him “Stephen”, instead of the easy, friendly, slightly flip “Steve” and “Stevie” that he liked to call him normally.

  “When we’re having sex”, said Richard, shivering slightly himself. “When we’re lying quietly after it. And every time certain things are mentioned. It doesn’t have to be by us. On the television, a word in a newspaper, my parents, a man in a pub, anyone. I’m not going to tell you all of them. I don’t think you’d like to know that I know all your signals. But I’ll tell you this. Cricket’s one of them. Not all cricket, or all cricketers. But certain things. I think there’s a certain kind of cricket bat, though I don’t know enough about cricket to be sure. And certain words. ‘Box’ is one. Cricket again, I suppose. Even I know what a cricketer’s box is. I take it he’s a cricketer, and — well, his box — you can work it out for yourself… There’s a great black spider sitting on your belly-button”, he said suddenly, loudly and distinctly.

  “L’amertume des vieux buis…” heard Stephen…

  “…You see, Stevie”, Richard was saying. “You did it just then. Did you hear what I said just now?”

  “I… er… I think so”, said Stephen, feeling very awkward and uncomfortable.

  “Did you hear what I said about the spider?”

  “No”, said Stephen dully.

  “I said ‘there’s a great black spider sitting on your belly-button’. You weren’t there, Steve. You were invisible.”

  “Do you know”, said Stephen, slowly. “I think, if I had this… gift that you’ve got, it would frighten me, a lot.”

  “I’m only a conjuror”, Richard laughed. “Just a fair power of observation, a heaven-sent lack of illusions, including, or especially, about myself; and the great blessing of an ability to put two and two together and always, always, make four of it, never three.”

  “Are you absolutely sure you’re not God?” asked Stephen, with the same shiver. “Or somebody sent from him?”

  For the first time Richard looked a little startled. It suddenly struck Stephen that he had never seen him lose his composure, even for the briefest moment.

  “If I believed in God”, said Richard, “I’m sure I’d say he was in all of us, wouldn’t I? That’s what all believers say. As it happens, I don’t. Therefore I’m not. I don’t think, therefore I’m not. Neat, eh? I’ll tell you what I do believe, if you like, though.”

  “Go on.”

  “I believe I’d like to stop pretending to be a serious human being. One other thing.”

  “Yes?”

  “Will you take your hands away from yourself, please? You look like a footballer in a defensive wall. And one other thing I believe. The last.”

  “Yes?”

  “I believe I’d very much like to be fucked. Be gentle with me, Stevie. And stay with me this time, please. Please don’t go away.”

  * * *

  “That you, Steve?”

  “Yes, speaking.”

  “It’s Bill.”

  “Bill?”

  “Bill McKechnie, from the cricket club. You know cricket? Game played by men with red leather balls. You start to play it, it rains. Casting a ball at three straight sticks and defending the same with a fourth. Breathless hush in the close tonight. You, me, and Hoody makes three. Don Parker makes four, and sundry other idiots make eleven, when I’ve rung em. We’ve just had the idea, and issued the challenge, which, you will be glad to hear, has been accepted in the spirit in which it was issued — namel
y Glenfiddich.”

  “What exactly do you mean, Bill — if you mean anything?”

  “We’re having a game, mate, and we want you to play in it.”

  “I suppose you’re on the piss somewhere?”

  “You must have been oiling your supposer, old chap. It’s working quite well. But can you play? Boxing Day. Next Tuesday, to be precise. Here. To wit, here. At the club. Elderton Park CC, of the town which you grace immeasurably with your residence, outskirts of. Probable pitch conditions: permafrost. Unlikely to take spin, but should assist the fast bowlers. Projected weather conditions, your guess is as good as the Met. Office’s. Real but unstated purpose of exercise, monumental piss-up afterwards, with bangers and mash in the club-house. That’s it, I think. Oh, yes: opposition, negligible — or, to be precise, the Town Club. Having despaired of getting a worthwhile game out of them in the conventional summer setting, we’ve just challenged them to a winter variety. So, can you play?”

  “Of course I will”, cried Stephen. “What time?”

  “Oh, didn’t I say? Game starts at eleven o’clock. Thirty overs a side, or until the fielders’ fingers start dropping off from frostbite, whichever shall be the shorter. Try to get there for nine o’clock, though: we’re laying on a champagne breakfast. You’ll enjoy it, if the Crimble cricket matches I’ve been to are anything to go by.”