by A Zukowski
She purses her lips, hesitant to dwell on her past.
“Annette was drunk and high one day, and she told
me she went to the abortion clinic. This boyfriend—
not my biological father, I might add—turned up
and vowed to take care of her. They got married. He
was her first husband. The cunt left after three
months. By that time she couldn’t get rid of me.”
Alex’s mouth drops open.
Chris forces a smile. “It’s nice to know you’re
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wanted, isn’t it?”
Alex kisses her gently. “Hey, you are wanted.”
Chris snorts. “Apparently, I was a really cute
baby. I suspect she had an idea about how I might
help pay the bills. Otherwise, she’d have given me
up for adoption.” Her jaw clenches.
“Chris…thank you for telling me. I can’t begin to
imagine how that made you feel.”
She flashes a false smile and changes the subject.
“Twenty-seven. What am I going to do when I’m too
old and wrinkled?”
Alex opens and shuts his mouth, and opens again.
“You and Annette could sell cosmetics together?”
“Bastard! I’m sick of selling my appearance. I
have thought about quitting sex work.”
“What would you do instead?” Alex’s dark gaze
focuses on Chris.
She takes a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking…
Don’t you fucking laugh, all right? I want to look
after kids, like working in a nursery or something
like that.”
Alex tries hard not to laugh, making his face
scrunch up till it turns a rosy colour.
“Don’t laugh! Don’t fucking do that.” Chris
punches him, forgetting her strength and leaving a
small dent in his arm. It doesn’t stop Alex letting
out the giggles, though.
“I’m trying hard not to.” Still grinning, Alex
teases, “Are you ready for nappy changing and shit?
Literally.”
“You think I’m scared of a bunch of crying babies?
I’ve made grown men and women cry many times. I
can handle a few helpless kids.”
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Alex stops laughing and looks at her intently.
“Hey. You’ll be good at that.”
“Really?” Chris’s eyes widen in disbelief.
“Really. I hate to say it, but you’re more caring
than you like other people to know. Your hard-as-
nails routine is a front, isn’t it?”
“This is the second time in as many days
someone’s told me I’m kind. I’m becoming one of
those kind-hearted losers. ” Chris snorts, but it’s
bullshit, and Alex knows it too. He hugs her firmly
and kisses the side of her head.
“Now that you have a pipe dream, what are you
going to do about it?”
“No idea. I’ve been thinking about this for a
while. I did badly at school, but I’ll give it a go if the
college will have me.”
They are on their second drinks. Alex insists on
buying Chris a glass of champagne for her birthday
since he didn’t know he needed to buy a present.
“Oy, I can’t believe you’re out and about. Aren’t
you the boxer who killed innocent people? You’re
disgusting.” The words are like an entire quiver of
arrows flying across the bar from a tweed-jacketed
woman in her fifties.
Alex quiets and puts his head down, his body
tensing. He’s breathing so hard he looks as though
he’s going to hyperventilate.
Chris faces the intruder with her usual
unflappable calm. “We’re having a quiet drink. You
should mind your own business.”
But instead of leaving, the woman points at Chris
and addresses Alex. “Have you forgotten all about
your wife? Moving on now, are you?”
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Chris glances around the bar to see where the
woman came from as a young, well-dressed guy and
an older man approach them. The anxious pair
appear to be the woman’s son and partner.
“Viv, what are you doing?” the older man asks.
Her eyes are red with anger. “You know that
boxer who was done for drink-driving and killed his
wife and the other driver?”
“Viv, please! You can’t do this.” He puts his hands
on her shoulders to try to move her away from Chris
and Alex’s table.
Alex is keeping his head down, so Chris can’t see
his expression. Under the table, she places her hand
on Alex’s thigh.
The woman’s son also pleads, “Mum. Come back
to our table. We’re leaving in a minute.”
The older man manages to drag her away while
she mumbles, “It’s not fair. Lord have mercy…”
The son watches his parents’ backs as they return
to their seats. “Ah, I’m sorry. She lost…her dad…my
granddad. He was killed in a car accident.”
Chris offers, “I’m very sorry.”
“No. I apologise if we disturbed your evening.”
Chris nods. “We’ll be fine. I’m sorry for your loss.”
After the man leaves, Chris puts her hand on
Alex’s shoulder. “You okay?”
Alex is pale and sweating. Chris hugs him and
whispers, “Close your eyes and take normal breaths.
I’ll break out that massive tub of ice cream for my
birthday treat when we get home. Do you want to
join me?”
Alex does as he’s told and breathes, shallowly at
first. He clenches and relaxes his fists. “Dance with
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my legs. Here. Now. The ring is like a battle of life.
Face the opponent,” he mutters.
“Like preparing for a boxing match?”
“Hmm.”
Chris plants small kisses on his cheeks, hairline
and neck. Alex keeps still, inhales and exhales. After
a while, he leans into Chris’s arm as he comes back
to planet Earth.
When Alex is finally calm, Chris takes out her
phone for a taxi. “Let’s go home, shall we?”
Alex lifts his head, his eyes full of unshed tears.
“Sorry I ruined your birthday.”
“Hey, you’ve done nothing. I’m good. I had a
great time.” Chris wipes the wet from Alex’s cheeks
and kisses him again. She takes his hand. “Since it’s
my birthday, I say we definitely break out the ice
cream, then I want to stay in your arms all night.”
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CHAPTER 11
PROMISES
THE KID CAN’T be more than twenty years old, but
with his hard, cold stare, short, cropped hair and a
stud in his ear, Chris wonders if he’s Dmitri’s latest
drug deal. He runs his wary eyes up and down
Chris, who’s wearing a T-shirt long enough to be a
nightdress and nothing else.
Thanks for the eye fuck, kid! Chris’s instinct is
one of distrust, and his first impression is rarely
wrong. He ignores the younger man and continues
to make his morning coffee.
“Hey, can I bum a cigarette off you?”
Chris turns aro
und in a theatrical arc. “Oh, excuse
me. And who are you?” His raised eyebrow
challenges the other.
“Paul. I’ve just moved in.” He indicates the last
room in the flat that has been vacant for a while.
“What’s your story?”
Chris has been in the flat longer than anyone else,
so the tone in the kid’s question piques him.
“I don’t have none. And get your own fucking
cigarette if you’re going to speak to me like that.” He
turns back to his coffee making. The hairs on the
back of his neck prickle, but he’s not going to be
intimidated by a teenager!
Behind Chris, Paul must have huffed and
returned to his room because within minutes, he re-
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emerges dressed in a dark tracksuit and is out of the
door without acknowledging Chris.
What the fuck! Chris makes yet another mental
note about moving. It’s becoming impossible to stay
in the shared apartment and remain civil when the
landlord keeps letting every little shit in London
move in. Ex-delinquents galore. Admittedly, Alex
was another ex-con acquisition, and Chris is glad
his desperate parole officer had to put him in this
particular accommodation. Chris wants to ask Alex
if he would be willing to move in with him. A one-
bedroom would be more than enough for the two of
them, and it’s all they can afford in this area of the
city.
Thinking about Alex is enough to make Chris
forget about the rude new flatmate. Alex has gone to
see his parents this morning, and Chris takes his
cup of coffee back to bed with a smile, though he
misses Alex’s larger-than-life shape next to him. In
lieu of the real man, Chris sniffs the pillow that
smells of his faint scents: musk, sweat, Old Spice.
He might have even blushed thinking about how
they’d kissed last night. He hadn’t known what he
was missing until he’d found out he could talk to
Alex and let the man touch him all night long,
drowning in Alex’s manna-like kisses. Last night,
Alex let Chris rut against his muscular thigh until he
came.
Chris closes his eyes and sighs with complete
contentment, remembering the sensations, then
shimmies out of his briefs and covers his erection
with his hand. Closing his eyes and imagining the
feel of solid flesh, he smears the pre-cum around
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until he can quicken his strokes without hurting
himself. Think of Alex. Wanting him, desiring him.
Touching, kissing, caressing. Flying high like a
jaybird. Chris shudders and shakes, letting the
waves sweep him along.
~~~
How Alex wishes he were at home, with Chris,
breakfast in bed or a simple brunch and cuddles
under the duvet. He must be smiling because when
he looks up, his mum is scowling at him. Sometimes
he wonders if his darkness has a deeper root than
the car accident because there had always been little
joy in this family.
Alex plants himself at the breakfast bar in his
parents’ kitchen and watches his mum prepare
Sunday lunch, surprised to see her movements
slowing down. Her joints are all a little red and
swollen, as if the alcohol she’s consumed over the
years is finally taking over her body bit by bit. She
seems to be doing something, then forgetting what
she’s doing, and starts another task. It’s painful to
see. After all, she’s only in her mid-fifties. His dad’s
a bit older, sixty-one if Alex remembers correctly.
Gary is eighteen months older than Alex, who was
the result of a contraceptive failure. He supposes his
folks were happy to have him when he proved to be
the more sensible and successful of the two sons
until his dramatic fall. If there was love in this
family, Alex could never tell from the way they
treated each other. ‘Family’ exists like a habit in the
Whale household.
“They told your dad it’s the rain and the wind.
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We’ve got excessive erosion or something like that.
We can’t understand it. The house is pretty new.”
Alex tunes in again to what his mum’s saying.
She goes on, “We had to evacuate last spring
when we had that freak storm.”
Well, you wanted to live by the sea.
“What are you saying, Ma?” It’s obvious this chat
is leading somewhere that will consume money. A
lot of money, usually.
She sighs, tossing her head back, as if to
emphasise the point. “We had the first lot of repairs
covered, but it’s so expensive. The social don’t pay
for things like that, y’know, even with your dad’s
disability. Gary’s using our money instead of
helping us out. The roof needs doing, and Dad’s
talking about renewing the damp course…”
Alex tunes out again after that. The house has
been a money pit from day one, but his parents
wanted it because it sat on the water’s edge. Alex
had known there would be problems: structural
issues, weathering, flooding. It might have been an
architectural wonder but it was always going to be
expensive to maintain. He hoped that as a retired
builder, his dad would be better at keeping things
going, but he was wrong.
“…so Dad’s wondering if you’d help with the
rendering. His mate could do it quite cheap but,
still… We’ve no savings left.”
Alex knew this was coming. He doesn’t want to
dig into his account. Now he’s more settled, he
needs to think about his future, to move to his own
place, so the savings will be useful. He doesn’t have
the means to support his mum and dad and Gary
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anymore. It’s high time he took care of himself first,
but Alex has always been a good son, which means
he can’t ignore his mum’s ageing face and her
needs.
“Ma, I don’t have much either. Let me think about
what I can do, okay?” And just like that, his parents’
problem sits in his stomach like lead.
The whole Sunday lunch remains as painful as it
always is. Gary arrives as his mum is about to dish
up. Gary is almost as tall as Alex, but he abuses his
body with an unhealthy lifestyle—downing twelve
pints every Friday and Saturday night, consuming
copious amounts of fatty foods and no exercise.
The brothers hug. “What’ya up to, bro?” Gary’s
jovialness is not helping. He’s such a typical
untrustworthy geezer.
“Nothing much. You?” Alex sits in one of the
armchairs in the lounge.
Gary plants himself on the couch, next to their
dad, and lights a cigarette. “Yeah, the business is
good, man. The garage is raking it in.”
Alex is sceptical of any of Gary’s claims to success,
but he doesn’t call him out. His brot
her’s latest
venture is the garage he runs with a mate. Gary’s a
pretty good mechanic if he puts his mind to it, but
he exercises little effort in any of his ventures. Alex
has lost count of the number of businesses Gary has
run. Of course, they have all failed. Gary has
managed to scrape through his entire adult life
achieving as little as possible but he always has his
next idea for a new project. Alex used to subsidise
him, but for obvious reasons, he has not been able
to. Instead, his brother has been draining his
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parents’ savings. The whole family is financially
fucked, and there is not a damn thing anyone can do
about it.
“You should come down and look at the bikes.
Some of them are absolute beauties.” Gary flashes a
toothy smile. Alex can’t drive or ride a motorbike.
He would not, even if they could give him his
driving licence back.
Football, rugby or whatever programmes Gary
and their dad are watching play on the massive
wall-mounted television. Alex used to be on the
sports channel. The thought of it makes him
shudder now. Excusing himself, he goes to his old
room, where his mum has kept his belongings as if
preserving a shrine to the living legend—the boxer
known as Blue. He is long gone. Alex gazes at the
sea-misted window. Essex used to feel like home
when he was training in London because of Sam.
Between training and fights, he looked forward to
coming back to something familiar. Now, his family
is nothing but a chain around his neck. How he
longs to be back in the city with Chris.
He turns away from the view to consider the
room. On the shelves are his trophies and medals.
He kept everything from the first one he won when
he was only thirteen and touches his teenage prize
now: a small gold-coloured medal. He remembers it
well. Coach wanted to encourage him to take up
boxing professionally, and the way to do that was to
give him a taste of winning. It sure opened his mind
to all the possibilities that boxing might bring. The
competition was only a local youth contest with
some other London boxing clubs. The fact that he
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beat a bigger boy, older by two years, was a real
confidence booster. He could see where boxing
might take him, how doing something he loved
would bring respect and an escape from his family
of origin.
To be free until one fatal error.
