Lust

by Geoff Ryman

  Michael had no direction, no reason to do anything else, so he went inside. It was bright like Christmas, full of colour.

  ‘I expect you’re surprised to see me here,’ said the Guard. ‘I suppose you could say I found my metier.’ He grinned cheekily. ‘Here, have a look at these.’

  He handed Michael video boxes covered with coloured computer printout. The images were of naked men.

  ‘I get these from round the world,’ he said. He dipped down behind the counter, and pulled out a folder. He opened it up, to show clear wallets full of more laser-printed images.

  Rancho Rauncho, one of them boasted. Starring Spike Harden and Mustapha Most.

  ‘American,’ he said proudly. ‘Uncensored. You won’t find this sort of stuff for sale anywhere else in the West End. Not at these prices. Beautiful stuff.’

  Michael noticed: he’s wearing a wedding ring.

  ‘Look at this. Now this is the guvnor … Max Schnarr. He goes all round the world: Russia, Eastern Europe, Quebec, all sorts of strange places. Picks up all the best-looking men himself, and they’re so besotted with him that they let him make a film. He’s in ’em himself. This one’s from Venezuela.’

  Michael stared, bored beyond description, bored into some netherworld where nothing you said made any difference.

  ‘Hold on.’ The Guard leaned forward. ‘I’ve got some really special stuff, if this kind of thing is too tame. Red, yellow, brown.’ He leaned back, and waited.

  ‘What do your mates next door think of this?’ Michael asked. Goodge Street station was three doors down.

  ‘That lot? I just tell ‘em what I’m making these days. It beats working for London Underground, I can tell you.’

  ‘You’re not gay,’ said Michael.

  ‘Doesn’t mean to say I don’t like pleasing men.’ The Guard gave a wobble of his eyebrows, and something queasy washed off him. It was attraction, but attraction as if it were music played backwards. It was revulsion so strong that it mimicked attraction.

  ‘Listen, you’re not in this line of work, I’ll tell you how I do it?’ His blanched skin and blue blank eyes shone. He wanted the Professor to understand that he was not some stupid oik. ‘You can buy this stuff with copyright off the Internet. You just pay a one-off fee. It’s expensive, but it comes with all rights, and you download it at three AM when the lines are clear. And it’s lovely quality, MPEG 2 compression. You can transfer it to DVD or video. The punters could do the same, but it would take them forty-five minutes to download, and they’re bound to lose the line halfway through. I got in a leased line, that costs, I can tell you, but I got a thriving mail-order business. In fact, I had that before I opened the shop. I want to become the main source for gay porn in the entire UK.’

  Michael started to look through the files.

  ‘I tell you some of this stuff is really strong. I mean, under-the-counter even in America. You’ve seen nothing like it, mate.’ The Underground Guard leaned forward. ‘Come on, tell me what you’re into.’ Michael could feel his breath on his cheek: he could smell it. Mint on mint; there was a Polo circling his mouth even now. It clicked every time he spoke. ‘I’ve got it for you, or I can get it. Come on, you can tell me.’

  Latin Manhattan. Ghost with the Most. A Lad In with His Wonderful Lamp.

  Michael remembered Phil in his porn phase. ‘They cost fifty thousand dollars to make and return two hundred and fifty. Do it six times and you’re a dollar millionaire.’

  The Guard was pleased. ‘You know how it works then. I mean, I’m looking for an Angel.’

  Michael looked up. ‘What?’

  ‘Angel. You know. Theatrical investor. To put up the money. I’m trying to make a video of my own. Because I mean you’re absolutely right, the money gets made in production. It’s not like that for any other part of the film industry. For regular films it’s distribution, but with this stuff it’s all under-the-counter, which is too expensive and slow, or on the Net, which frankly is too cheap. You’re giving the stuff away on the Net, which is why it’s available on one-off. I’d love to turn it around and sell distribution back to the States. Hey. The British are coming, eh?’

  ‘That could be the title,’ said Michael.

  The Underground Guard was getting excited. He chuckled. ‘You’re dead right.’

  ‘My project just closed down,’ said Michael. ‘I have no money to invest.’

  ‘Ah well, one day my ship will come in,’ said the Guard. ‘In the meantime, think about what you’re into and let me know. Like I say, if I don’t have it, I know where to find it.’

  ‘Don’t…’ Michael stopped at the door. ‘Don’t the police bother you?’

  ‘Naw. They’d rather people got into this stuff than pick up some disease. But only because the drugs are so expensive on the National Health. Sooner or later, I’ll end up in jail. Goes with the territory.’

  His blunt pale face established beyond doubt; he’d do well in prison.

  Michael thanked the Guard and left.

  The logical part of Michael’s brain got him home, regretfully, coldly.

  Michael sat in his flat in the dark, listening to traffic and the shouts of kids from the clubs.

  Michael tasted emptiness. There were times when he wanted Luis back. But that would prove Luis’s point in a way. He would even take Philip back. He would take anything, Michael. It is getting hard to see any progress in all this.

  He thought of the Guard’s stubby pale body, its little potbelly, the undoubtedly uncircumcised cock, and the thought produced a weary sort of sexual response.

  OK. Come on then.

  The air wavered and parted its lips, and the Guard stepped into Michael’s sitting room.

  Why does God suffer the Devil?

  ‘Nice place,’ the Guard said, casing it.

  Then he said, ‘Shit.’ Then he had to sit down. He’d understood faster than most what he was.

  ‘You’re not real,’ Michael said, still bored, still exhausted. ‘You’re a copy. I make copies of people I think I want to have sex with. It’s a miracle. If you can figure it out, tell me.’

  ‘Do you mind if I smoke?’ the Angel asked.

  Michael waved, go ahead. It makes no difference. Once you go, my lungs will clean up again.

  The movements of the Angel’s pale, pudgy hand were jagged, as if pins were prodding him. With one hand, he flipped out a fag and then a match. His left hand tapped out a nervous rhythm on his thigh. The Guard had broken out in a sweat, and his eyes grew narrower and brighter as he looked about him. His eye fastened onto the wall covered with jumping Picassos. ‘Did one of us paint those?’ he asked, jabbing a finger at them. ‘One of us copies.’

  ‘You’re quick,’ said Michael.

  ‘Have to be. Everyone in my family’s a thief.’ The Angel tapped the end of the cigarette on the matchbox before finally lighting up. He drew in gratefully, then blew out. ‘You eaten anything?’ he asked.

  Michael had to think. ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘I meant to get a takeaway, but I forgot.’

  ‘It’s all right, I got plenty of dosh, I’ll go get it for you.’ The Angel bolted up from the sofa as if it were electrified.

  ‘That wouldn’t be honest,’ said Michael.

  ‘Why not, I bet I make more than you do.’

  ‘Once you go back to whatever it is you come from, the money you gave the man will disappear. It would be like stealing. I’ll give you my money.’ Michael heaved his wallet out of his trousers.

  ‘Disappear?’ The Angel did a little shuffle in place.

  ‘Mmm hmmm,’ said Michael, and held out a tenner.

  He took the money, then he said, ‘I’ll need the keys.’

  Laboriously Michael passed those and then he said, ‘You don’t come back with them, I’ll wipe you out of existence and they’ll be back here in my pocket.’

  ‘Not if I give them to the man. Then they’ll stay there, won’t they?’

  A long pause.

  ‘
You don’t really know what would happen with either the keys or the money.’ The Angel rocked back and forth slightly on his heels.

  That’s right, Michael didn’t. Another experiment he could make, if he had the heart for another experiment. If he hated killing chickens, why would he want to wipe out the Guard to discover if he got his keys back? And what would happen if his keys stayed lost?

  ‘Knock and I’ll open the door,’ said Michael. ‘Sorry, but you did say you were a thief.’

  ‘I never. I said my family was. I tried all my life not to be, and I’m not, see?’

  Michael nodded.

  ‘Though … it does kind of leave you crook inside. Bent, in all kinds of directions.’ The Angel smoothed down his hair, like drivers do after they’ve done something stupid like veer out of their lanes. Michael walked down the stairs with him, to let him out. The air felt like glue he had to fight his way through.

  The Guard stopped to breathe out smoke. ‘Funny, innit? I already know, nothing I say or do can make a difference to anything.’

  ‘It’s a shortcut to a lot of things, being an Angel,’ said Michael.

  The Guard said, ‘Angel, huh. That’s what you call us.’

  ‘What would you call yourself?’

  ‘Oh, a right little devil. What do you want to eat?’

  ‘There’s a little takeaway place, it looks like a minicab office. It does steak sandwiches. Turn left and left again. You’ll find it, just follow the smell. Get something for yourself, too, if you want.’

  ‘Right. I’ll be back then.’ There was an awkward smile and Michael rocked himself wearily to his feet. They thumped down the hollow wooden steps together, each of them sounding as real as the other.

  Michael let the Guard out, and gave him a wave as he walked across the street. Michael discovered he had no energy to climb the stairs. He sat down on them instead, and waited. He thought of the Guard, the pale glow of his sweatiness, his pudginess, the crispness of the gelled hair, the rounded jelly of his arse in the tight trousers. It was as if repugnance were a sock that could be turned inside out. Michael thought of the wedding ring on the Angel’s finger. He thought about that business of being bent in all directions. We’ll do it if he wants to, Michael thought. That was the extent of the attraction.

  Michael wished again that he were in love. If he were in love with someone, it would be sit-down meals and not takeaways. He would have someone he could talk to about the grant and the project and how he was to live through it. There was wisdom in love. Without love, wisdom stayed unformulated simply because there was no one who cared enough to talk.

  There was a thumping on the door. Michael groaned to his feet, fumbled with the lock, and the Guard burst into the stairwell wafting a kind of freshness, interwoven with a delicious smell of steak.

  ‘Brrrrrr, it’s parky out there,’ the Guard said, and bounded up the stairs. He strode ahead of Michael into the kitchen area. Cold vapour steamed off him. ‘I should have borrowed one of your jackets. Right. I’ll just put this away to keep warm.’ He peered at the cooker and deciphered its ancient markings. ‘Where are the plates?’

  ‘Top shelf over the cooker.’

  ‘Might as well warm the plates as well.’ The Angel cast him a sideways glance. ‘So. Can I spend the night here?’

  ‘Yes, if you’d like.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said the Angel. ‘Where are the place mats?’

  ‘Um.’ Michael couldn’t remember. He had to remember where the place mats were and when he went to get them, he walked as if he had lead boots on.

  ‘Knives … forks … salt.’

  A lovely little setting for two was laid out on the table. Michael was aware of something like a mismatch between the man and his behaviour.

  The Guard sniffed. ‘You got anyone to clean this place?’

  ‘No,’ admitted Michael. ‘I probably should. My last boyfriend wasn’t exactly tidy.’

  ‘Not exactly, no,’ said the Angel. ‘The whole place is covered in china clay. Did he do all those paintings then?’

  ‘Yup,’ sighed Michael. ‘He’s only been gone a couple of days.’

  The Angel’s back went very still. ‘Where’d he go to?’

  ‘His agent found him a place. He has his first exhibition next week.’

  ‘Ah … so you do let some of us live, then?’ The Guard said it as he stood up with candles for the candlestick.

  Michael wasn’t sure why he didn’t like the Guard saying that, knowing that. He didn’t have time to work out why he didn’t like it.

  ‘There we go,’ said the Angel, holding out his hands to the professionally set table. He’s worked as a waiter, Michael realized. ‘You got any serviettes?’ the Angel asked.

  Later, Michael waited for him under the duvet of the bed. The Guard was one of those people who brush and spray. They try to wash their private parts without making a sound of water splashing, and they powder themselves. Michael knew the result well: the Guard would taste of alcohol base and smell like the ground floor of Selfridges.

  The Guard walked back upstairs from the john wearing Michael’s robe and holding in his tummy. He still had on his socks. He would have been handsome if he didn’t leer and his body language had been less jerky and angular.

  The Guard dumped himself next to Michael. He did indeed smell like a floral tribute. But the body was alabaster – smooth, plump and cool to the touch.

  The Guard asked, ‘What do you like doing?’

  ‘It’s more important to know what you like doing,’ said Michael. ‘You’re married.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I do other things too.’

  ‘What, are you bi?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of. I’m not a thief, but when I was younger … well I got sent down. My brothers needed some help on a job and I got caught. I wasn’t so big then, in fact as it happens I was a bit small for my age. Anyway, while I was in the nick I sort of found out that if you let the other guys do things, then they weren’t so … I don’t know, aggressive. They were still right little bastards…’ He managed a kind of sneering chuckle. ‘But they were placated.’ He propped his head on his elbows. ‘And you. What do you get up to, eh, with this little miracle of yours?’

  ‘Too much.’

  The Guard liked that. He settled down with a chuckle. ‘Ho I bet. Come on, tell me, what you been up to? Who have you had?’

  ‘Um. The New Zealand All Blacks. That high diver who’s a Brit but his family’s Italian. A very nice black musician … loads.’

  ‘What, and they just come and perform for you?’

  ‘Yeah. I think the real miracle isn’t that they’re here, it’s that they want to sleep with me.’

  ‘It’s not surprising. You’re a very good-looking man.’ The Guard gave him an encouraging nudge.

  The words sounded false. Michael suspected that he was being flattered. ‘So who would you ask for?’

  ‘Ooh. Someone like you.’ The Guard grinned. One tooth was outlined in silver.

  Michael knew he was being flattered. ‘What would you like to do?’ he asked, again, insisting.

  The Angel ventured, as if onto thin ice. ‘Well … would it be all right if we just … cuddled?’

  ‘Yeah sure fine,’ said Michael who was hardly up for it anyway.

  On the night after you discover that you have destroyed your job, it is reassuring to be held. It was pleasant, even necessary, for Michael to feel a warm, smooth, soft body enveloping him from behind, as if it were there to shield him, as if it were offering him love or stability or both. There was a simple, catlike sensuality about feeling the other body stir, of taking its hand, of hearing someone murmur sleepily, ‘You’ll let me stay, won’t you. Please?’

  Michael awoke in the morning to hear a sizzling sound. He thumped downstairs to find the Angel at the stove, frying bacon and eggs. ‘I couldn’t find the coffee,’ the Guard said.

  The kitchen looked brighter as if the sun were out. The floor, Michael saw, had been cleaned. The An
gel picked up his gaze as if it were a tip.

  ‘I washed the floor for you,’ he said. ‘This place is filthy. There’s shadows on your sheets. Probably skidmarks and all, only I didn’t want to look too close. I still can’t find the coffee as it happens.’

  The Guard gave Michael a full cooked breakfast. Michael offered to do the washing-up, but the Guard said, ‘Hadn’t you better be getting on? Look, why don’t you let me stay here and clean up a bit?’

  Michael couldn’t help but smile. ‘You really want to stay as long as you can, don’t you?’

  The Guard grinned inexpertly – smiling was not his strongest suit. ‘I like to make myself useful.’

  ‘OK, stay and clean up,’ said Michael. He found that the thought of going to work and facing the team all over again made the Angel seem a refuge of domesticity.

  ‘I should have asked your name,’ Michael said.

  ‘Nick. Just plain Nick. Nick Dodder.’ Then he said, ‘Here, your tie needs straightening.’

  At work that day, Michael tried to be committed. He started out well, planning expenditure until the end of the project. Then he had a bit of a blow. Emilio handed in his notice. ‘I had an offer already, you see, for when … uh, this project finished.’ He pronounced it finish-shed.

  ‘When will you go?’

  Emilio flinched and didn’t answer. He probably wanted to go as soon as possible. Emilio was the project’s IT man. Any real problems with the network, or any fresh programming to be done and they would miss him.

  Michael sighed. ‘OK. Well. Your contract holds us both to a minimum of a month’s notice, and I’m going to need you to work out your notice. Basically, we need to audit what we’ve got in terms of reports, generate any new report forms, and train up Hugh and Ebru to use them.’

  Emilio looked discomfited. ‘If … if I finish all that before the month is up, could I go? It is three years’ work, Michael, guaranteed.’

  ‘I’ll think about it,’ said Michael. He meant no. ‘Thanks for letting me know.’

  The day darkened, Michael slowed down. The truth was that he had destroyed his project. This truth did not go away like an unwelcome guest. The truth stayed, like a dysfunctional family, like your inescapable self. Michael hid his face.