Less Than Three

by Jess Whitecroft

“Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink,” he said, handing me a bottle.

  “Isn’t it bad luck to quote that poem on a boat?”

  Rob gestured to the sofa. His wrists were sunburned, the hairs bleached almost white. “Probably,” he said. “I lose track of all the superstitions.”

  I sat down, and he took a seat opposite, on a small ottoman affair built into the wall. “Did Simon send you?” he said.

  “No.”

  His eyebrows arched. “Really?”

  “Yes, really. Why would you ask me that?”

  “Because your brother has a tendency to delegate,” said Rob. “At least when it comes to me.”

  “He didn’t,” I said, and for the first time it occurred to me that Simon might have told him. Figured the bridge was already on fire, so why not dynamite it for good measure? “This was all my idea. He doesn’t even know that I’m here.”

  Rob shook his head. “It’s over, Nathan,” he said, with a wistfulness that said Simon hadn’t told him a thing. “I’ve made my decision.”

  “Okay. That’s fine, but I…I don’t want you to feel too bad.” Because the whole thing was really fucked up from the beginning and half of that fuckedupness was my fault. “I suppose I just wanted to tell you that Simon is…well, he’s Simon. And whatever he said to you, I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt you. That’s not who he is. He literally took an oath that says ‘Do no harm.’”

  “I know.” Rob traced the ridges on the neck of his water bottle with his thumb. I couldn’t stop staring at the blond hairs on the back of his wrist. My fingertips itched.

  “I know he upset you,” I said. “About your novel.”

  He gave a little snort. “Oh. Yes. My non-existent novel. The one I haven’t written.”

  “He’s not really an arts person.”

  “Tell me about it. Take him to an art gallery and he attempts to diagnose the paintings.” Oh God, what an absolute mess. “And it wasn’t just the one thing, Nathan. It was a lot of things. Like, I can find incompetence hilarious sometimes, but Simon only finds it infuriating. And I don’t know…as things progressed I got the feeling that he was trying to push me away for some reason.”

  “No, I don’t think so,” I said, although it made sense. Simon would rather self-sabotage than get into any kind of emotional heavy lifting, and telling your boyfriend that he’d once attempted to tongue-kiss your brother definitely fell into the category of things that would cause some kind of psychological hernia.

  Rob sighed and gave me a long, serious look. The light from the tiny skylight streamed down over his cheek, lighting up the threads of bright copper in his beard. “Can I be really honest with you?” he said.

  “Of course.” A small, mean voice sing-songed in the back of my head. You’re a terrible per-son.

  “I have this…tendency,” said Rob. “If someone likes me, I always end up freaking out on them. The moment anyone shows me any interest I get this desire to be as…as extra as I can possibly be. I always want to be the most devoted boyfriend, the best in bed, the most exciting love affair of their lives. I get needy and desperate, and it’s stupid.” His eyes glittered and I got up and joined him on the ottoman.

  “And I know it’s stupid,” he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “That’s the worst part. It’s like I can see myself behaving in this ridiculous way, but I don’t seem to be able to stop myself.”

  “It’s okay,” I said, my hand on his back. He was shaking.

  “No, it’s not, Nathan. It’s fucked. And it always leads to the same stupid, vicious circle: they find me clingy, they start to push me away, and I cling even tighter, because just once I want someone to stay. But they don’t, and I can’t blame them, because relationships turn me into a tryhard monster.”

  “You’re not a tryhard monster. You’re one of the most easy, natural, fun people I’ve ever been around.”

  “Yeah, because you’re straight,” said Rob, getting a grip of himself. “And because it’s never going to happen between us. If you were gay I’d probably have already served you champagne breakfast in bed. Between blowjobs.”

  I frowned. “That’s the form your clinginess takes? You’re not exactly making it sound unappealing.”

  “Champagne and blowjobs are great,” he said. “But do you want them every day?”

  “Yes.”

  “Even when you have a headache and you would much rather go to sleep? Or just cuddle? Or when you’re becoming increasingly nervous about the stink of desperation that’s floating around your boyfriend like flies around that one kid from Peanuts?” He sighed. “You know the one – the smelly one. Can’t think of his name.”

  “Pigpen.”

  “Right. Pigpen. This Pigpen miasma hanging around at all times. That’s what scares men off, but you know how it is. If you stink you’re always the last one to know about it, but eventually you reach a level of stench where you offend yourself. And that’s where I was heading with Simon. I was sliding into that panic phase with him. I could feel him slipping away and I was like ‘Right, gotta fuck him four times a night so that he knows he’s never going to find anyone better.’ Do you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I might have heard something about that.”

  Rob turned scarlet under his sunburn. “Oh God. Did you…?”

  “Hear? Yep. You’re quite noisy.”

  He cringed. “I am so sorry,” he said. “But do you see what I mean? What the hell is wrong with me?”

  “Well, I’m not a doctor, but you should probably get your prostate checked. I timed seventeen minutes and forty-seven seconds between your first ‘I’m coming,’ and actual orgasm.”

  He’d gone beyond cringing now. He looked like he was actively trying to implode. “Okay,” he said. “I’m embarrassed enough already. You don’t need to rub it in.”

  “Oh, but it’s fun.”

  We sat with our thighs touching, both of us giggling like schoolboys. He was all pink and gold and shame and I wanted to touch him again, put my arm back around him and this time run my hand over his tangled blond curls. They looked so soft.

  “What about us?” I said, as though we were a thing.

  “Us?”

  “Yeah. Are we going to keep on seeing each other?”

  He sobered and sucked on his bottom lip. “Be a bit awkward, don’t you think?” he said, and my heart sank.

  “Is that your way of saying you don’t want to see me again?” I said, wondering if it was the heat that was making me so emotional lately.

  “No, I’m just thinking of Simon,” said Rob.

  “We don’t have to tell him. Besides, this no longer has anything to do with him. If I want to be friends with his ex, I will be.”

  He nodded.

  “Come on,” I said. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And we have fun together.”

  “We do,” said Rob, and exhaled. Friends. That was all. Simple. Uncomplicated. “Hey, did I tell you there’s a new Breen film coming out?”

  “He’s made another one of those things?”

  “Oh yeah. It’s called…” He paused for dramatic effect, and made a banner of the name in the air with his hand. “Twisted Pair.”

  “O-kay. Once again, I’m not a doctor, but I’m pretty sure there’s a medical name for that.”

  “There is. It’s called testicular torsion. I looked it up.”

  “Do you think he knows his film sounds like a ball condition?”

  “I think he does,” said Rob. “I think the balls are a leitmotif, actually. A callback to Double Down and the infamous scrote float.”

  “The man’s a genius.”

  “I know, right? And – get this – he’s playing identical twins this time.”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Do you think he has the range?”

  “Absofuckinglutely,” I said. “It’s going to be Jeremy Irons in Dead Ringers all over again. One ac
tor, two performances, both so exquisitely realised that you will always know which twin is on screen at any given time.”

  Rob grinned. “And if you’re not sure, there’s always the beard to tell them apart.”

  “Breen grows a beard? But he’s so…hairless. And I hate that I’ve seen enough of him to be able to say that, but he is.”

  Rob honked his terrible walrus laugh. “It’s a stick on beard. And yes, it’s about as good as all his other make-up effects. Looks like a dead vole squatting on his chin.” He got up and headed for the laptop in the wheelhouse. “Here. Let me show you the trailer.”

  *

  Hanging out with Rob was a joy. One day he let slip that he’d never been to the Science Museum, and I was so appalled that I dragged him there at the next opportunity, and we spent a happy afternoon gazing at Model T’s and lunar modules, and ended up doubled over in horrified laughter at something called a euthanasia machine. It had been legal for a hot minute in one or two Australian territories, before someone – far too late, it had to be said – had seen the depth of the legal black hole and yanked the thing. It was a nineties looking computer, and basically you answered questions about your state of mind until it agreed to give you a lethal injection. Press space bar to not live anymore – that sort of thing.

  “It’s an early suicide booth,” said Rob, whose sense of humour often approached shades that had been trademarked by Anish Kapoor. “All we need now is Professor Farnsworth to do a show and tell.”

  We saw As You Like It at the Globe, then wandered down the South Bank, where the street performers levitated and break-danced and blew gigantic bubbles within bubbles for the excited children watching. We sat around in his floating living room, watching the worst movies we could find – The Beast Of Yucca Flats, Caligula, Battlefield Earth – and laughing like twats.

  One afternoon we lay around sunbathing on the boat, watching the rich people fuck about on their yachts. The men looked like Tony Soprano – portly in polo shirts and gold chains. The women were fantastically beautiful, all brown and blond in tiny bikinis, their breasts so defiant of gravity that you found yourself looking twice, searching for scars. Rob lay on his belly beside me, his chin propped on his hands and his sunglasses sliding down his sweaty nose. We were half drunk and breaking all the rules about alcohol and sun exposure. It was way past the time we should have reapplied sunblock.

  “Wealth is a disease,” he said, as we watched a couple of rich people have an intense and lengthy argument about how to successfully operate an electric can opener. “According to the purest principles of Darwinism, none of these people should have survived to adulthood. Imagine them trying to find food in the wild.”

  “They don’t seem to be doing very well right now.”

  “That’s the future of the human race,” said Rob. “The poor are going to die in droves and we’re going to be stuck with them. The remaining gene pool of the human race is going to be people who barely know how to wipe their own bottoms, because they always had staff, darling.”

  “Dark,” I said.

  “Things generally are these days,” he said, and rolled over onto his back. There was a screech of brakes from the direction of the main road and he lifted his head to listen, before sinking back down and adjusting his sunglasses. “Oh my God. Someone’s going to die on that road.”

  “You’re incredibly gloomy today.”

  “I know.” He yawned and stretched his arms above his head. The hair beneath them was damp gold and glistened in the sun. “Alcohol’s a depressant, after all. I should probably stop drinking.”

  “We should both stop drinking,” I said, looking at the Art Deco cat on his arm. Poor Pixie. I wondered if it was the same road where she’d met her end. “And sunblock. How often are you supposed to apply it?”

  He picked up the bottle and peered at it. “Uhh…more often than we have,” he said. “Oh God. We’re all idiots, aren’t we? We’re no better than the rich.”

  “Here. Give me that.” I took the bottle and squeezed it onto his belly. He laughed and scrunched himself up, but I pounced and then…oh.

  My hands were on him. One palm open on his belly, the other just above his hip. He was fine and hot and suddenly we were both holding our breath. I hung there for what seemed like forever, then I moved one hand, just a little, stroking gently. He was burning. Delicate. A slight, wiry body, breathing hard under my touch. I had no idea what I was doing, and as if to check myself I made myself think about his cock, remind myself that this was a man. But that didn’t help. If anything it made my lust roar louder, and emboldened me to lean closer. His eyes were still hidden behind dark glasses, but I saw his throat work as he swallowed, then his tongue peeked out and wet his lips.

  I touched his nipple. It was warm and pink, and when I pinched gently his teeth came down on his lower lip. I lowered my head, but he took hold of my hair, his eyes still invisible. “No,” he said, with a soft decisiveness that turned me molten. “I think we should go inside.”

  I don’t know how he did it, but he made those six little words sound like the most erotic thing I’d ever heard in my life. He went down into the boat, and I hesitated, because even if my brain didn’t completely understand what was coming next, my cock understood. Sex. Kissing. Wide open mouths and wandering hands. Stark naked explorations. The sun had amplified the effects of the booze, and I was in the same hazy, sensual state that had characterised all my previous same-sex encounters: a little worse for wear and up for anything.

  I heard him moving around below. I pictured him stepping out of his shorts, pictured the fine white peach fuzz at the small of his back, and how the shorts would slide down over his sun-warmed, blond thighs. Rob. Naked. Stretched out on his bed, his legs open and his arms reaching out for me. Would he let me fuck him the way Simon had fucked him?

  That took the wind out of my sails a bit. It was one thing to hang out with your brother’s ex, quite another to bang him. I quelled my half-erection with a couple of x-rated thoughts about Nigel Farage and slunk below, already rehearsing what I needed to say.

  It’s not that you’re not sexy, and it’s not that I’m not curious, but do you really want to risk feeling like moral garbage?

  He was sitting stiffly on the ottoman, knees together. He’d put on a t-shirt. My phone was on the coffee table, the screen flashing. New message. Simon. Rob looked at it, looked at me and looked guilty. I expect I did the same, although poor Rob had no idea about the other reason I had to feel guilty. And that was when it hit me that I hadn’t even thought about that until now. Less than two minutes ago I was hyperventilating at the thought of joining him in bed, and I hadn’t even thought to tell him that he’d kissed me before. Forget feeling like moral garbage. I was moral garbage.

  I picked up the phone. “Simon,” I said. “Wants to me to pick up some milk on my way home.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah.”

  Rob looked up at me, his bare toes curled in the rug, his blue eyes perfectly clear and candid, his pink oval knees tight together. There was something so wonderfully pure about him, with his pots of herbs and his sentimental cat tattoo and his loud, unselfconscious laugh. God, no wonder Simon had pushed him away rather than tell the truth. I had no idea how to do it, either.

  “I should…” I reached for my jeans.

  “Yeah. It’s getting on for rush hour.”

  And that was that. We didn’t talk about it. Probably for the best.

  *

  I’d managed to piss Rupa off again.

  First it was the beard, this time it was the sunburn. “Fantastic,” she said. “And the role of the Vicomte de Valmont will be played by an enormous fucking tomato named Nathan. What did you do to yourself this time?”

  “I got day drunk on a boat in Chelsea Harbour.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Well, ooh la la.”

  “It’s not as glam as it sounds,” I said, thinking of the shiny white motor yachts. “It was a small Dutch barge na
med Vera.”

  “Vera?”

  “Veerke. Dutch diminutive of Vera, I’m told.”

  Rupa shook her head. “Well, you look terrible,” she said. “What were you thinking? I need factor fifty in this bloody weather, and I’m not even white.”

  “I know,” I said, waving to Nadia, who had just come in. She looked delicate and beautiful and exactly my type. “I got carried away, but we were sort of people watching and it was fun.”

  “We?” said Nadia, setting down her bag beside the chair.

  “Friend of mine. He owns the barge. We mixed up a big pitcher of Tom Collins and lay around in our underwear, watching billionaires fail to operate a can opener. I highly recommend it.”

  “Yeah, no thanks,” said Rupa. “I can do without melanoma. Can you still act with that sunburn?”

  After rehearsals I made a bee line for Nadia and asked her out again.

  “Out?” she said. “As in going out? Like, a date?”

  “Yes.”

  She frowned. “Okay, I’m confused.”

  “Why? What’s confusing?”

  “Aren’t you…gay?”

  “No,” I said. At least not completely. I was still at least ninety per cent heterosexual.

  “Are you sure?”

  “What do you mean, am I sure?” I said. “Yes, I’m sure. It’s my penis, and I’m very aware of what it likes, thank you very much.” Nadia seemed repelled, but I felt like I’d made my point. “See? Heterosexual male. Forget the path of least resistance. We will always choose the most disgusting.”

  She shook her head incredulously. “But you’re so easy to talk to. And you told me you used to put on productions of The Wizard Of Oz in your living room.”

  “Yes, when I was a child. Show me a child who doesn’t love The Wizard Of Oz and I’ll show you a kid who’s doing childhood wrong. Just because I love musical theatre, it does not mean I’m gay.”

  “What about getting day drunk in your underwear with your boyfriend?” said Rupa, who had no concept of a private conversation.

  “He’s not my boyfriend. As a matter of fact he was my brother’s boyfriend, but they broke up.”