The Party of the First Part

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Part 21

Phobos

Thom Yorke is afraid of the dark.

He would never admit it to anyone, of course. He imagines monsters hiding in the shadows, narrowed eyes following nervous fingers as he fumbles for the light switch in his room, clawed hands waiting to swipe at unsuspecting ankles from the gloom below the bed. He sits in the middle of his mattress with his feet tucked beneath him and never allows them to dangle over the side; they’ll catch him if he does, pull him down and eat his screams and work tendrils of horror into every dream he has. He’s glad for the streetlamp outside the window, leaving the curtains open and bathing the walls in its sodium glow. It keeps them at bay.

But he is nineteen now, and growing too old for such flights of fancy. Part of him, deep down, knows that there is nothing to fear; it’s dark, that’s all it is, and if it’s good enough for cats and owls he thinks it should be good enough for him. But another part of him is still compelled to check under the bed with a mirror before he gets up in the morning, and that part of him always breathes a shaky sigh of relief when it sees nothing more than the usual teenage rubbish of smelly socks and abandoned drinks cans and dirty magazines shoved out of sight of prying parents.

Jonny doesn’t have this problem, he thinks resentfully, when he yanks open the door of the wardrobe to stun the lurking demons into submission. Jonny loves the dark. But then, Jonny has problems of his own.

-----

Jonathan Greenwood is afraid of the light.

It reveals too much. Barely sixteen and painfully aware of the body he’s only starting to grow into, he sometimes wishes he could shut himself away from the harshness of the world by day. Light reveals the dirt in the fractures of this reality which is hidden by the night. It throws sharp relief on the death at the roadside and the filth in the gutters, all the ugliness and misery that turns gilt-edged in the dark. And light brings with it insecurity and guilt at who he is becoming. He keeps his mouth closed when he smiles and turns his eyes to the floor in the changing rooms because of the mirrors and the halogen strips overhead and the surrounding wealth of pale schoolboy limbs that do strange things to his insides. Light brings unwanted attention, he has found. Girls treat him with interested curiosity but his peers are wary at best and at worst outright hostile; in the viciously heterosexual world of English public schooling, someone like him is a threat, to be taunted from a safe distance and pushed to the boundaries of their self-contained community.

It was different for his brother, as he remembers. Colin, with his sunny disposition and quick wit, shrugged off the acidic barbs of his classmates and after a while they just accepted him as he was. Jonny is tarred with the same brush, yet he has no confidence or easy laughter to fall back on; however, he is a fast learner, and he knows now why they act as they do. It’s because they’re scared of him. And this knowledge brings him a special kind of power that they can never have.

This is another story – but Thom is scared of Jonny, too.

-----

The pair of them, the odd couple afraid of night and day, find an uneasy truce in the limbo of twilight. This time it’s Thom’s bed they’re sprawled across under the guise of a sleepover, but the house is empty and the door is locked and slim bare legs tangle together as semen soaks into the sheets and their heartbeats subside in slow tandem.

Thom raises his head from between Jonny’s shoulderblades, its habitual resting place. Jonny is on his stomach, arms folded beneath his chin while his gaze bores holes in the headboard. He hasn’t spoken since he came running up the stairs an hour ago with his shirt already half-off, dragged them both down on the mattress before rolling over onto his front in an open invitation for Thom to do to him what he always does. Thom can see a little of his profile, painted silver by the rising moon and the last gasp of January sun; his lips are pressed together in a thin line, a flush is creeping across his high cheekbones, and his eyes are full of winter tears. Thom doesn’t need to ask. He tucks a little of Jonny’s hair behind his ear, whispers against his jaw while their fingers clench simultaneously in the soiled sheets and they do it all over again. The teardrops on the pillow will dry out with time, and they don’t matter to Thom; what matters is that there is someone to love Jonny, because Jonny needs to be loved.

When it is over, with Jonny’s damp cheek nestled in the crook of Thom’s arm and sweaty-tacky skin clinging where they are joined, Thom admits to himself that Jonny frightens him. He is a paradox: quiet and unquiet, sure and unsure, innocent and guilty, so young but at the same time so old, older than Thom thinks he will ever be. And beautiful. Thom sees in Jonny what other boys don’t; that if you stare hard enough into his eyes they aren’t brown at all, that in the dying sun there are a million nameless colours in the blackness of his hair, that his lower lip pulled under a nervous overbite is one of the most precious things in the world. It frightens Thom that Jonny can’t – won’t – realise this for himself, and that his fragile spirit is crushed thoughtlessly by the whims of those who don’t stop to look a moment longer. Jonny, pressed against Thom’s side, thinks similar things of his older friend, but breathes in the smell of sex and smiles gently as he settles into Thom’s embrace. Thom is too predictable. Jonny will never be scared of him.

And, wrapped in each other, they’ll learn to leave their fears behind.

Oily Water

You're seeing someone else, and I know it. I see the bruises on your hips when you pull up your jeans, the scratches on your back when you step into the shower, and you take no pains to hide them. It's a slap in the face, an outright declaration of infidelity, a dare to me to say something. I know you think that I won't. Because in acknowledging it, I have to admit to myself that I can no longer hold on to you, and you are my world - the sun, the moon, the stars, are you - which is something I can't afford to lose.

We make love regular as clockwork in hotel beds, your mouth open under mine but silent, features painted in red and white and black like a tin soldier. I want to scream at you and shake you because you frighten me, so cold and empty, and I wonder if you indulge my desperation out of a sense of duty to the one who had you first. Sometimes when we used to go out I would see others looking at you in the way that I do now, and I always wanted to cling to you and scream mine mine mine because I needed the world to know that a bloke like you could fall for a bloke like me and it could be beautiful.

Now I'm not so sure.

You say ugly things, when no one else is there to hear them. Ask me to hit you, call you names, put it here, there, go faster, rougher, and I never can. Your mouth isn't made for those words. Your body isn't made for the tender abuse you crave. And when I can't give you what you ask for, I know you get it somewhere else, from someone who's not seen you open up like a summer flower under the gentle caress of years, someone who never knew you as a wide-eyed silly child.

When you were thirteen we danced in your garden, a New Order song playing on the kitchen radio. You were smaller than me, the last time I remember you being so, and giggling because you were so bad. I told you to kick off your shoes, and you stood on my feet, our hands and hips pressed together, as we moved in slow circles around the lawn. Your mum laughed at us, and when she turned her back, you kissed me. When you asked me if it was all right, if I liked it, I told you I did because I couldn't lie to you even then - you always saw straight through me - and we kissed again, lips brushing chastely against the other's until the song ended and your mum called us in for tea. We didn't speak of it for months, until you came to me in tears, just after your brother passed his university entrance exams. You asked if I remembered when we kissed, and I said yes, and we did it again. I pushed you back on my bed where I had lain and touched myself and thought of your lips, and we spread out like starfish, my limbs now too short to cover yours. I mouthed salt from your cheeks and pushed myself against you, past the point of thinking that you were too young and scared for this, so that when you shuddered and jerked beneath me you surprised me more than yourself.

You told me you loved me. I believed you, and I whispered the same words in your ear some weeks later, when you asked me to go inside you for the first time. I was reluctant - I didn't want to hurt you - but I did it, and you winced and bit your lip a little, fingers curled against the pillow, and your eyes were damp but you wouldn't let the tears fall as you tried to hide your pain from me. I love you, I love you, I murmured, stroking your sides. You smiled and asked if I would go harder, and I did, until a little broken cry was worked from your throat with each thrust. I stopped then because I knew that wasn't right, and I saw your smile falter until I told you I loved you again, and everything was better, if only for a while.

Looking back, I wonder whether our seeds of doubt were already sown.

Now you say that if I loved you I would do it, and I argue that if you loved me then you wouldn't ask me to. It's a vicious circle of shifting blame. I start to watch you when I know you can't see me looking. I know the way you press the bruises laid upon your body by foreign hands when you lie in the bed beside mine at night, and I know the satisfaction on your face when you do it. I know the way you tear your skin when I won't tear it for you. I know the glass bottles in your washbag and I know what the things they hold can do to you. I know the quaver in your voice and in your gaze when you have to see how sad I am for you. I still tell you I love you, but now I never hear it back.

I feel like I'm drowning. I would, if I thought it would make you want me again.

One day I screw up all my courage and tell you that I know I'm not good enough for you any more. I see you cry for the first time in years, because you understand that this means it's over. I expect harsh words, I expect your voice dripping venom, but I haven't prepared myself for tears. You hug me. I card my fingers through your hair as my shoulder grows wet with your sobs, and realise that the child in me who wanted to hold you tightly and shriek mine mine mine is just you, tucked into a corner of my skull. I murmur to you again that I still love you, and again you don't return my words.

The little bottles in the washbag are empty, now. You smile a brittle fractured smile and throw them in the bin.

Favours for Favours

Lately, when Jonny speaks, Thom hears other people's words coming out of his mouth.

They're in some godforsaken hotel room in the dark back streets of London, which is Jonny's idea. Just one night, to pretend that they aren't famous, that they aren't rockstars, that they aren't millionaires - that they're just Thom and Jonny like, once upon a time, they were. The curtains are stained with nicotine and the windows are dark with grime. The bed is barely wide enough for one person and Thom has already offered to take the floor, which is just as well because Jonny is folded like an oversized paper crane on the mattress with its yellow-grey sheets, his blue shirt darkened at the collar with hot sweat, and there's not much room for anyone else. Thom sits on the window ledge, looking out at the neon lights and sodium haze of the city, arms folded across his chest. Jonny has an ashtray balanced on one knee, the fingers of his left hand curled around an empty shot glass while the right is occupied with the cigarette Thom has passed to him.

"Would you fuck me, if I asked you to?"

Thom looks up. Jonny's watching him through sad eyes, pupils blown wide with the dim light and unseen things creeping through his bloodstream. Of all the people in the world who could have gone off the rails, Jonny is the last he would have thought of, but there you go. Jonny's as much a mystery as he ever was, and more.

"I don't know," he says honestly. And then: "Besides, you haven't asked."

Jonny's lips quirk into an artificial grin, and he holds out the shot glass. "More," he murmurs, like a child demanding sweets. Thom sighs, but he lifts the bottle of cheap vodka from the bedside table and pours it out. Some of it overspills and dribbles down Jonny's fingers, and his tongue darts out to lap at them as he drains the glass. Thom pretends he doesn't see the little coloured pills slipping from Jonny's palm to his mouth, because Jonny is twenty-five years old, enough to take care of himself, and Thom isn't his mother. The younger man puts the glass down beside the bottle, stubs out the cigarette in the ashtray and places it on the edge of the window ledge by Thom's bare foot.

"Come here?" he asks plaintively, patting the sheets. His hands are long and slim like empty gloves, and though he wants to resist, Thom clambers down from his perch and arranges himself awkwardly in the few square inches of available space. Their shoulders and knees brush together and he laughs nervously, but Jonny just gives that disarming grin again and ducks his head immediately to hide it. His hair is damp where it tickles Thom's bare arm, and Thom flicks at it.

"Y'need to get this cut," he says idly. "You look like a girl."

Jonny peers out from behind his fringe. His eyes are more green than brown in this light, though nearly eclipsed by inky blackness; he pouts a little, lips catching on crooked teeth, and his tongue pokes out to moisten them. "You don't mean that."

Thom looks at him, and frowns. "Yeah, I do. That's why - that's why you ask -"

"I haven't, though," Jonny says, eyelids fluttering dreamily. He bends towards Thom, and Thom can smell the alcohol on his breath, and other things, but what he feels is the warm hand that lands on his groin and squeezes gently, and what he hears is the low chuckle that escapes Jonny's throat at discovering he's hard. "But, maybe..." and his head drops to Thom's lap as clever fingers fumble with buttons and zips. His skin burns Thom through the thick denim.

"Jon, what are you doing?" Thom says. He should be stopping this, he knows, but his hands stay uselessly at his sides. He's a spectator in his own body.

Jonny's face is earnest and serious as he looks up at Thom. "This is me, asking," he says, plucking at Thom's waistband. His fingers hook inside and draw it down and something screams loud and red inside Thom's head - stop it, get off, tell him you can't - but his trousers are round his knees by the time he slaps Jonny's questing hands away.

"Don't. Please."

He hopes he imagines the tears in Jonny's voice. "Why?"

"Because - because you aren't you. You're someone else."

Jonny glances down at his hands, now lying passively in his lap, and shakes his head as though trying to clear it. There's a fine sheen of perspiration on his forehead which Thom tries not to worry about, because the room is cold and Thom's own hands are almost numb with it. "I'm me," he whispers.

"Do you even know who that is?" Thom knows he's being hard with him, but he can't help it. "Is that what all of this was about? Trying to find us again?"

Jonny doesn't look up, and it's an answer in itself.

Thom leans across and kisses him, and tastes chemicals on his lips. Jonny smiles a funeral smile as he falls back on the blankets, long lashes dusting his cheekbones, and Thom has an inexplicable urge to slap the expression right off his face. He doesn't. What he does is to roll Jonny over and tug down his jeans, dig one sharp elbow in the small of his back and pin him to the bed. Jonny mumbles quietly, words too slurred to make sense. His long limbs are limp and heavy when Thom pushes his thighs apart; he's too far gone now to struggle. Thom licks a line up his spine, salt and sweat and something that isn't Jonny at all; and then he spreads Jonny open and lets his tongue drag lower, with a sick thrill of satisfaction when the body beneath his shudders in protest.

"Thmmm -" Jonny begins. Thom raises his head and sees the familiar achingly beautiful face turned against the pillow, lips parted on a moan; Jonny's eyes are wide open but unseeing, fixed on middle-distance as his brow creases in confusion. He licks again, turning the moan into a high whine, and slips in his fingers where his mouth was before.

"Thom," Jonny hisses. "Hnnnnnhh... nnnnno..."

There's a small, vicious place deep inside Thom, and that's where he retreats now. "Shut up. You wanted this. Be fair -" and he kneels up, hands finding purchase on Jonny's wrists, and pushes into him in one long, slow stroke.

Jonny doesn't scream or cry like he would have done in Thom's head. He lies there, patient, while Thom settles against his back, and murmurs a soft 'oh' when Thom brushes that secret spot inside him. Thom lays his head between the other boy's shoulderblades, their racing heartbeats pounding in his ears, and feels unnaturally warm skin and the trembling of overwraught muscles beneath his cheek. Jonny's breath hitches with the tiniest of dry, broken sobs. It isn't love; it isn't sex; it's not even fucking like Jonny asked for; it's the sound of two people falling apart together.

Later - seconds, minutes, hours - Thom comes. Jonny doesn't. Thom helps the younger man to the cramped bathroom, sits him up beside the toilet, makes sure Jonny doesn't choke to death when he vomits, tilts a plastic cup of cold water to flushed lips, and realises this is enough for him. Just to watch as the other man puts one foot in front of the other, just to hold his hand through bad times, just to pick up the pieces when he breaks. He smiles when Jonny tells him he loves him, because he knows they're not Jonny's words.

They can go on pretending, just for a while.

Radioshoulder

A LAMEASS NON-CAKEY BIRTHDAY CAKE FOR KORA (WARNING: DOES NOT CONTAIN RH MEMBERS)(BUT IS LAME)

Once upon a time there was a boysband called Radioshoulder, who had massive hits with their happy up-tempo Eurodance music. They’d been best friends for ages, but for the first time ever there was a certain tension in the air. Their new album, Cancel PC, had just come out, but the music press didn’t appear too interested in them. Poor Thod was on the verge of a breakdown when the others decided to gather for a serious meeting. The future of Radioshoulder was in their hands.

On a sunny Monday morning, eight o’clock sharp, all four members filed into the studio. Well, five, since Rodney had decided to come along. But Rodney wasn’t –really- part of the band. He only made sculptures for the stage design. They just didn’t have the heart to tell him.
Jimmy was the first to speak.

“Alright guyth, we need Thod to feel better, ‘cauthe I can’t take it anymore. I have needth too! He won’t even let me blow him anymore,” Jimmy sulked. At this, Rodney automatically clasped his hands around his ears and started murmuring to himself, a cloud of dust surrounding him when he moved his arms. Rodney’s clothes were always dusty from sculpting. Colan, who was sitting next to him, broke out in a coughing fit.

“I could take him to play cricket with me? Playing cricket always makes my day,” Ted offered, “I have a set in the storage room here.” At these words, Jimmy turned beet red and looked down at his hands.

“What?” said Ed. Jimmy coughed.

“Er, Ted, you er… might want to buy a new paddle for that,” he mumbled, not looking up.

“That’s not a paddle, that’s a cricket bat!” Ted shouted. Ted was rather defensive when it came to cricket.

“That’th not what we uthed it for,” Jimmy said smugly, before turning an even darker shade of red. Colan started coughing again as a cloud of dust floated his way. Ted was about to open his mouth when Colan interrupted him.

“RODNEY! Stop moving!” he yelled at Rodney. “Anyway, I have a better idea. I read a maaaaaaaarvellous book on pre-Columbian civilisation in Latin America and there’s this ancient village called Nasca where the people used to make drawings in the sand-“

“Drawings in the sand? Colan, are you serious? Thod’s having a breakdown and you suggest drawing stuff in sand? What’s wrong with playing cricket? It’s a scientific fact that sports release endorphines-” Ted began, before he was cut off by Bill.
Bill hadn’t said a word since they came in. However, that’s just how Bill was. Always the quiet one. When Bill took the effort to speak up, you listened. So as Bill opened his mouth, the others fell silent immediately.

“What if-“ Bill coughed a bit, his voice wasn’t used to speaking a lot, “what if we shave his head?”

The other members of Radioshoulder gaped at him. No one dared suggest that it might be a silly idea. Not to Bill. After all, his nickname wasn’t Mad Cow for nothing. After a long moment of gaping, Colan was brave enough to ask him how he thought Thod would benefit from it.

“It’s pure logic. I’ve never had a breakdown. And what do I have that Thod doesn’t? It’s easy, he just needs to get rid of that horrid mullet."

At hearing this, the others gasped. Mullets were totally in fashion and they were all convinced that they were the secret behind Radioshoulder’s success. Apart from Bill, everyone had a mullet. Except Rodney. But Rodney wasn’t –really- part of the band. He only made sculptures for the stage design. They just didn’t have the heart to tell him. Jimmy started sobbing, saying he couldn’t live without Thod’s mullet.

“I need thomething to hold onto when he blowth me,” he sniffed. Colan was quick this time and kept Rodney’s hands pinned to the table.

“Well, I guess we’ll just have to go on tour and see how he takes it,” Ted sighed. Colan’s face lightened up.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed, and started jumping up and down, flapping his arms. “Ted, you have the most maaaaaaarvellous ideas,” he swooned and stroked Ted’s manly chest through his pink stripey tank top.

“I don’t underthtand,” said Jimmy whilst blowing his nose in Ted’s scarf.

“Thod loves touring! We just have to go on a long crazy world tour and everything’ll be fine! We can fly straight to Japan! We’ll travel to the future, it’ll be maaaaaaarvellous!” Colan couldn’t stop jumping, so Ted had to pull him onto his lap to keep him still. They shot each other shifty glances whilst Bill spoke up again.

"We can't go on a world tour if people aren't interested in us, boys. We need publicity."

The others nodded knowingly.

"I know!" Colan yelled. "We'll just leak the pictures of Thod paddling Jimmy! A sex scandal always does the trick," he added knowingly.

"What??" said Ted and Jimmy simultaneously. "There are pictures?" Jimmy asked.

"You knew about my cricket bat?" Ted asked. He looked a little hurt.

"Great idea, Colan," said Bill. "Let's go to the Sun editors right now!"

"But-" said Jimmy, and Colan cut him off.

"Indeed, Jimmy, and not just anyone's butt, YOUR butt! It'll be famous! The entire world will want to see it for themselves, we'll have millions of fans!" Colin tried to jump up and down again but Ted had him in a firm grasp, which resulted in Colan grinding against Ted's crotch. Ted's eyes rolled back and he quickly stood up, dragging Colan after him, and all four Radioshoulder members (five, if you included Rodney. But Rodney wasn’t –really- part of the band. He only made sculptures for the stage design. They just didn’t have the heart to tell him.) went straight to the Sun office.

Two days later Radioshoulder had a full world tour schedule which was sold out in minutes. Thod was pleased with the sudden attention from press and fans and the coming two years of touring were a great success. Thod never shaved his head, for which Jimmy was glad. Bill was just glad he could tour. Ted and Colan, well... they hooked up, and since Rodney from then on had to deal with two gay couples in front of him, he was permanently surrounded by a cloud of dust.

THE (LAME) END

Nox est perpetua una dormienda

There was a ray of sunlight cutting through one of the high gymnasium windows, falling directly onto his exam paper. He squinted at it while he finished his final line of writing with a flourish, a small inner part of him leaping in joy as he glanced at the big clock in the front of the exam hall, where the hands were ticking down the last three minutes until half past four and blessed freedom.

The boy at the desk in front of him had red-blond hair that caught the sunshine like spun gold. He was tapping a rhythm against the table leg with the side of his shoe, and Jonny surreptitiously underlaid it with the syncopated beat of his biro on the edge of his pencil case. A bee was buzzing lazily around one of the light fittings; some students who had completed their papers were following its languorous path with dulled eyes and slack mouths, their blazers abandoned over the backs of chairs and their ties loosened in a futile attempt to cool down. The almost intolerable heat of the room was barely alleviated by the open door onto the playing field.

“Please stop writing now,” came the voice of the invigilator from the front desk, and like a ripple spreading on the surface of a stagnant pond, a shuffle and murmur echoed around the hall as a hundred pens were set down and a hundred answer booklets were closed. Jonny sat back, stretching out with legs extended and arms folded behind his head, until papers were collected and they were dismissed; and then he unfolded himself from his chair, Latin anthology clutched under one arm, gathering his schoolbag from the back of the hall and discarding blazer and tie even before he'd escaped through the door and was haring off across the field towards the wall, and the road, and summer.

A small group of older boys waited for him in the shade of one of the trees that lined the avenue in front of the school. They looked like the kind of group that boys of his age were warned about: a Bad Influence, the Scourge of Society, lackadaisical layabouts who would Come To a Bad End. Jonny, of course, knew better; those boys had been his only real friends for the past four years. There was his brother, heading the little welcome committee, and his insides gave an uneasy jolt at the duality of emotions that seeing Colin always stirred in him. Colin's hair had already grown long enough during his first year at university that their mother had threatened to take a pair of shears to it when they'd greeted him off the train in Oxford, and he was wearing a stripy boatneck top that he'd pilfered out of their sister's wardrobe. Jonny, at two and a half years younger, already had to bend down into the brief hug that they exchanged, relishing the comforting sensation of the slim hard body pressed up against his, the familiar scent that both calmed him and quickened his pulse in a way that made his stomach churn.

“Ahhhhh, little Jon-Jon, all grown up,” Thom snickered, hovering at Colin's elbow and shattering the moment. He was the only one of the group who'd watched Jonny's gradual metamorphosis in the past nine months from awkward, gangly teenager into something more self-assured, having taken a year out from school; his hair was the same red-gold as that of the boy who'd sat in front of Jonny, and it caught the sun in the same way. Philip, on the other hand, the oldest of their group, appeared to have lost even more up top, and was hiding the fact under an ill-advised Indian-style hat. Ed, someone that Jonny had always regarded with something approaching awe, was slightly fuzzy in a vague cloud of pot smoke, but less coolly aloof than he'd ever seemed before. This was the first time they'd all been together since Christmas, and Jonny could already sense the changes happening, giving him a pleasant tingle in his stomach.

“Leave the poor boy alone, Thom.” That was Ed, he and his awful bowl-cut looming large over the heads of the others; he leaned over and plucked the Latin anthology from Jonny's hands, snorting as he did so. “Just think about it, Jon – no more Latin, ever!”

As they began to drift towards the town centre, Ed flipped through the book, with Thom adding snide interjections whenever they came across something that amused them.

“I like Latin,” Jonny protested faintly, aware of Colin's presence bristling at Ed and Thom's attitude.

“Yeah, but, it's dead, isn't it?” Thom reasoned. He had a cigarette out now, pinned between short nailbitten fingers, dragging on it furiously as they walked. “You seriously aren't taking it next year, are you?”

“Well, no, but -”

“Ha, see?” Thom interrupted triumphantly. “Dead.”

“It's not dead, Thom,” Colin said, reaching for the book, which Ed held out of reach until the smaller boy gave up. “You two are such philistines. And since when aren't you taking it next year, Jon?” he added in an aside to his brother. “You ought to study one foreign language at least, and I know it's not going to be French...”

Jonny blushed. He was notoriously awful at French, something which had been a constant source of irritation to Colin, and was dreading exam results day and Colin's inevitable disappointment at his French marks. “It was Latin or psychology, Cozzie,” he said pleadingly. “And, well, I thought psychology would be more useful in the long run...” He trailed off under Colin's searching gaze, holding his breath until Colin nodded and gave him a fond smile.

“I'm glad you're thinking of your future, Jon,” he said, reaching over and ruffling Jonny's hair affectionately until the younger boy ducked up from under his arm and hid behind Phil.

“Psychology?” Thom said curiously, pulling a strand of green licorice from somewhere about his person and chewing thoughtfully on the end of it in between puffs from his cigarette. “Does that mean you're going to start psychoanalysing all of us?”

“No one needs to psychoanalyse you, we already know you're a nutter,” Ed put in without looking up from the Latin book. “Hey Jon, is there any sex in all this rubbish? I've forgotten most of my Latin.”

Thom stubbed the cigarette out on the wall of the next house they passed, looking over Ed's arm at the book and rolling his eyes. “There's never any sex, Ed. They don't put that stuff in the O-level books.”

“It's GCSEs now,” Jonny pointed out quietly, and Thom grinned.

“It's all the same thing. Anyway, yeah, they don't put sex in books for sixteen-year-olds, you're not supposed to know that stuff yet. I bet Jon-Jon doesn't, he's still pure as the driven snow, aren't you? You should see him, it's hysterical, every time a girl talks to him he practically falls through the floor in mortification...”

Colin punched him on the arm hard enough that Thom yelped in indignation. “That's my little brother you're talking about, watch it.” But his eyes had turned to Jonny, questioning. “What's this about girls, Jon? What girls?”

Jonny could have sworn that time slowed down in the few yards that they walked between Colin's question and his own answer. He looked down at his hands, clutching his blazer and tie and the strap of his bag, feeling the familiar sensation of colour rising in his cheeks. “It's nothing. Just some townies.”

Thom was half-howling with laughter. “They think it's funny to ask him out and see his reaction,” he explained, the string of partially chewed licorice hanging disgustingly out of the corner of his mouth. “They're a bunch of ugly slags, anyway. Nowhere near good enough for our Jon-Jon. Anyway, maybe you'll meet some girls who are worth it at Ed's party tonight, he knows all the laydeez.” He nudged Jonny's side with the point of one sharp elbow and Jonny squirmed away, knowing that Colin was still watching him.

They had reached the pond where they'd frequently hung out the previous summer, sheltered from the worst of the afternoon sun by tall, broad-leafed trees whose branches waved languidly in the gentlest of gentle breezes. In the shadows, the occasional silver flash of a timid fish could be seen; Thom and Jonny had been in the habit of feeding them bits of bread back in the spring, when boredom gave them nothing else to do.

“Why don't you chuck the bloody book away?” Ed suggested, holding it out with one long arm over the still surface of the water. “It's not like you need it any more, is it?”

“We could burn it,” Thom said encouragingly, sucking the end of the licorice through his lips like a strand of spaghetti and licking his sticky fingers.

“I don't believe you lot,” Colin said huffily, as Jonny jettisoned his schoolbag and blazer and sank to the ground at the foot of the wall around the pond and Ed continued to leaf through the Latin anthology. “Just because he's finished his course doesn't mean he should chuck away all his material. If you're going to discard things as soon as you've learned them you might as well not bother in the first place.”

Jonny silently considered jumping into the argument to point out that although he liked Latin he didn't exactly plan on committing everything he'd learned to memory, but since Colin always acted so hurt if Jonny backed up any of the others instead of him, he decided that it wasn't worth the trouble, especially since Colin was already so worked up over the stupid book. He picked up a stick and sketched a flower in the dirt at his feet, pretending that he wasn't listening to the others.

“It's paper, it's biodegradable, if that's what you're worried about,” Thom was saying, as he kicked off his battered trainers and clambered onto the wall so that he could throw stones and skim his bare toes in the water.

“I don't think any fish ever died from eating Latin,” Phil added helpfully

“Hey, this one's got lesbians in it,” Ed piped up, squinting at one dog-eared page, and Phil and Thom's attentions were diverted. “Catullus 5...” He put on a dramatic voice. “Vivamus mea Lesbia... my lesbians?”

Colin gave a loud, long-suffering sigh. “Edward, if you'd paid any attention in Latin at all, you'd know that was a singular and not a plural. Mea Lesbia... my Lesbia, Ed. It's a woman's name.”

Thom sniggered. “A dykey woman's name.”

“No, it's not,” Colin snapped, snatching the book from Ed's hands and clearing his throat. “Lesbia was the woman that Catullus was in love with, and a lot of people think she was actually a woman called Clodia, who was the wife of a Roman senator. In the poem he's urging her to disregard the rumours in the senate, saying that they should live only for each other, because they have so little time in the grand scheme of things. Here, listen...”

And as he began to read from the book, Jonny found himself pinned against the wall by the force of his brother's gaze, the passion in his voice matching the cold fire in his eyes as his lips and tongue formed the strange, foreign words.

“Vivamus mea Lesbia, atque amemus,
rumoresque senum severiorum
omnes unius aestimemus assis!
soles occidere et redire possunt:
nobis cum semel occidit brevis lux,
nox est perpetua una dormienda.
da mi basia mille, deinde centum,
dein mille altera, dein secunda centum,
deinde usque altera mille, deinde centum.
dein, cum milia multa fecerimus,
conturbabimus illa, ne sciamus,
aut ne quis malus inuidere possit,
cum tantum sciat esse basiorum.”

There was a brief silence after that; and then both Ed and Thom dissolved into helpless giggles.

“You're the gayest nerd that ever lived, Coz,” Thom informed Colin, jumping down off the wall, pulling on his trainers and grabbing hold of Jonny's arm to haul the younger boy to his feet. “Come on, up you get. Don't want to be late for the party, I know what you girls are like.” At which he and Ed started giggling again, and didn't stop until they had parted ways for their respective houses, leaving Colin and Jonny to complete the journey to their own home alone. Colin was cheerful enough, chatting away about things that went in one of Jonny's ears and out the other; but later, when they were home and Colin was fixing cold drinks and snacks for the pair of them, there was a calculated iciness to the hard glances he threw Jonny's way that left Jonny in no doubt of what that earlier display had been about. It was a warning; a warning to remember who he belonged to, to be certain that he wouldn't forget himself at the party. A reminder of where his loyalties lay.

Unfinished stories

“You ‘picked up writing’.” Thom blinks, then goes back to tracing patterns on Colin's bed sheets with his index finger. It's four a.m., and they're both more drunk than they think they are.

“Yes,” says Colin, sipping from an almost empty glass of wine. It’s his fourth.

“What kind of writing? I bet it’s all smart-arsed Cambridge-y columns you’ll end up getting published at forty-six,” Thom snorts, and lets his head fall back against the wall with a thud. He doesn't realise he's emphasising the name of the university in a snotty, childish way. It's how he says it in his head all the time.

“Actually, no. Stories.” Colin fills his glass for the fifth time and Thom’s for the sixth.
“People’s stories, you know. As in, the stories behind people.” Colin is slurring a bit. Thom just nods drunkenly and tries to keep his hand still when his glass is filled with more wine.

“What about our story?”

Colin appears to be thinking deeply.

“Ours is… unfinished. I’m waiting for it to finish.” He waves the hand that’s holding the wine glass, for drama.

“D’you want me to show you how it continues?” Thom asks, grinning, and spills his glass on the sheets as he leans over.

Colin already knows how it’ll finish. And he knows it isn’t pretty. He’s seen the first signs of a looming plot, dark and full of pain. But he decides that for now he’ll play along. And who knows, maybe he’ll succeed in stretching out this chapter a bit further. After all, he’s the writer.