These Violent Delights Read online

  Copyright 2017 © by Jess Whitecroft

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

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  These Violent Delights

  by

  Jess Whitecroft

  Chapters

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Prologue

  I look like shit.

  I ran ten miles today and my face is still red in places. Then I brushed up against what felt like nettles, and the shower I took after my run has done nothing to calm the burning. The side of my mouth is bumpy and I know from bitter experience that the lump under the skin is one of those sweat-induced zits that swell to insane proportions before they even think about developing a head.

  Right now I should feel like the most beautiful person in the world, but all I feel is tired and blotchy.

  And the room is filling up.

  Standard greetings. Some polite - Hi BB, How r u doing - and some not so polite - wanna watch u whack it, show me ur twink ass. When r u gonna suck a dick?

  That one makes me laugh, and the picture in the camera looks a whole lot prettier for it. “I’m not,” I say, and lean back on the bed so he can see how I fill out my shorts. I squeeze the bulge; nothing happening down there yet, but I have a vivid imagination. “You want to suck on this, be my guest, but I don’t sway that way.”

  It’s weird, but you can find an appreciative audience for just about anything, and these guys seem to get off looking at what they can’t have. I watch the chat window for a moment and then look back to the camera. I think what they really like is that I can’t quite keep that curious look out of my eyes. Because it’s weird. It never gets less weird, taking your clothes off for strange men in your own bedroom. I love being looked at that way, but the weirdness of them being men maybe adds an extra thrill - I don’t know.

  Or maybe they’re not all men. It’s the internet, after all. Some shy girl who likes live porn could have snuck in to watch me do my thing, and sometimes it’s her I think of. I picture her bookish, auburn, leaning so close to her screen that her breath fogs it. I’ve constructed the fantasy so many times that I know the freckles on the backs of her hands, the unpainted pink of her fingernails and the texture of the tapered tips of her fingers as they snake down under the waistband of her panties.

  I peel off my shirt and the chat window goes wild. U work out?

  “I dance,” I say, and that’s all I need to say. This body speaks for itself - the lean muscle, the visible sinew, the wrecked feet. I’ve poured pain and pleasure into every muscle and joint, and I feel as though I’ve earned the right to vanity. I worked for this beauty, and I guess there’s no shame getting a little stiff at the sight of it. I may not be gay, but I love myself well enough; who doesn’t?

  I slide my fingers into my shorts, feeling the rasp of stubble despite having shaved in the shower beforehand. You always miss a bit, but I know it won’t matter. They’re not here to admire my manscaping, not even her.

  “You want this?” I push the shorts down over my hips and pull them out at the front, teasing, so that the head of my cock just peeks up over the elastic. I lean back and spread my legs, showing off the shape of my balls through the fabric. I glance at the chat window briefly, but the things written there make me squeamish. I know I’m supposed to be more engaged with their fantasies, but I have a script for this show, and it’s never let me down before.

  I take off my shorts. In my head she’s watching, sitting on a bed somewhere, surrounded by the books that I can’t be bothered to read. She does my homework as a trade off; it’s fucked up that even my sexual fantasies come with a quid pro quo. I shift my hips to show her the full size, and when I stroke a hand up and down the shaft I feel little shivers dance between my legs and through my balls. My dick is beautiful; I know that, and there’s no point pretending it’s not. It’s long and thick and straight - very straight - with a well-proportioned pink head.

  “You like?” I say, as I stroke it to fullness. Time to roll out the script. Time to forget the fantasy. The reality is that I’m performing for gay men, and I’m never totally sure if that turns me off or turns me on. “You like my body? You like my cock?” I smile. “Too bad. You can’t have it. I only do this for money. I let you watch me because I like money.”

  I ache, swell. The first time I did this it shocked me how hard and fast I came; I guess I’m an exhibitionist by nature.

  “I’m one hundred per cent straight,” I say. “When I was a kid I never even played you show me yours and I’ll show you mine. At least, not with the other boys.” Oh yeah. Right there. I think I needed this. All the money worries, all the anxieties I’ve been trying to burn off running - sometimes the only way to deal with the stress is to bust a nut on camera in front of a bunch of horny strangers.

  I bite my lip to smother my smile, because this is getting serious now. This is what they’ve come for. “You can look,” I say. “But you can’t touch. I’ve never had a man’s hands on me. Never taken a dick.”

  Oh, yes. I stroke, shudder. “That’s right, guys. I’m a virgin.”

  1

  Tom

  I remember the first time I read this play.

  Even now I still remember that teenage thrill of recognizing the sentiments on the page and knowing that I wasn’t part of some phase, some symptom of modernity, as the Rule Britannia ravings of the Daily Mail would like to have it. We were as much part of the history of Britain as the Tower of London, Caernarfon Castle or Hadrian’s Wall, and the evidence was right there in the words of Shakespeare or – in this case – Christopher Marlowe. We were here, we were queer, and we’d been here forever.

  Of course, the first time I read Edward II I didn’t consider the possibility that some fifteen years later I’d be attempting to poke it down the throats of a pack of bored American students.

  “Okay,” I say, chalking the words on the board. “What do we know about Edward II? Anyone?”

  It’s a catch-up class, this one. Salvaging the last cling-ons who somehow managed not to get kicked out during their sophomore slump. Several of them are blatantly texting or dicking around on their phones, and when a hand goes up it does so accompanied with a smirk that says I’m not going to like the answer very much.

  “Yes?”

  “He came between Edward I and Edward III?”

  “Yes. He did.” May as well get into this. “This particular Edward was the son of Edward I, the lanky warmonger known as Malleus Scotorum, or the Hammer of the Scots…”

  “Longshanks?” a girl says. “Like in Braveheart?”

  “Well, not exactly like Mel Gibson would have it, but yeah – that guy.”

  “And he threw his son’s boyfriend out of a window. I remember that part.”

  “Yes, I don’t think he actually did that. Again, please don’t take history lessons from Mel Gibson. Or any kind of lessons, come to think of it. Anger management, racial sensitivity training, marriage counseling…just give Mel Gibson a wide berth on any of those, okay?” I turn back to the board and write DISAPPOINTMENT. “Although it’s interesting that you mentioned the defenestrated boyfriend, because if Edward II had been gay it would be just another reason for his father’s disappointment. Edward I was a hard, scary act to fo
llow, which is why Edward II is such a suitably angsty subject for a late Elizabethan drama. It was a very popular theme, the theme of a prince hopelessly unready for the role in which he was born into. Can anyone tell me where we’ve seen it before?”

  There’s a yawning silence, then “Uh, Hamlet?”

  “Good. This is a particular favorite theme of Elizabethan dramatists, and Edward II was an ideal candidate. His reign was marked by war, famine, court intrigues and the never-ending machinations of his wife, but perhaps it was the role of court favorite Piers Gaveston that drew Christopher Marlowe to the subject matter.”

  I turn back to the board and write MARLOWE.

  “Marlowe is perhaps one of the most interesting playwrights of the late sixteenth century…” I turn back to catch a great, jaw-cracking yawn at the back of the class. “No, he is. Stop yawning. He died in a tavern brawl in Deptford at the age of only twenty-nine, but he crammed a lot into his short time on earth, leaving behind him speculation about his possible role in the writing of Shakespeare’s plays, rumors of spying and…” Another yawn. It’s that Milos boy, the one I always remember because he corrected the first time I said his name out loud – “It’s pronounced Milosh, actually,” – and because he always looks like he’s barely dragged himself out of bed to be here. “…questions about his sexuality. I’m sorry, Milos – are we boring you?”

  “No-o-oo,” he says, around a long, shuddering yawn. His teeth are sharp and white, like a cat’s.

  “So you were paying attention? What did I just say?”

  Milos puffs out a small breath, making him pout. He has one of those wide-boned, faunish faces whose eyes and lips always look about to give way to laughter. He fancies himself as the class clown. “You said Marlowe was gay,” he says.

  “No. I said there were questions about his sexuality.”

  “So he batted for both teams,” says Milos. “Does it matter?”

  “It might in the context of this play. Although, no, strictly speaking it doesn’t. And shouldn’t.”

  “Right on,” says Milos. “I don’t give a shit. Stick it in whatever hole you like, man.”

  There’s a ripple of laughter. Great. “Thank you, Milos,” I say. “Perhaps you’d like to read Gaveston for us?”

  He gives me a long, wide-eyed look. His hair is almost black, but those eyes are always a shade or lighter than you expect them to be, lending him a changeling quality. He knows he’s pretty, which is just as well for him, because so far he’s demonstrated the kind of searing intellect that’s lauded in terms of bags of hammers and boxes of hair. “No,” he said. “I wouldn’t.”

  “Oh dear. Not your day, is it? Open the book. Act one, scene one. You three at the back – take the roles of the three poor men – one, two, three. Okay?”

  Milos opens the book with a dramatic, windy sigh. “Really?” he says.

  “Read.”

  Milos mumbles the first couple of lines, then catches my eye and speaks up properly.

  “What greater bliss can hap to Gaveston, Than live and be the favorite of a king!

  Sweet Prince, I come!…” He trails off, because everyone is giggling like fools now. “Are you kidding me?” he says.

  “I thought you didn’t mind gay?”

  “Uh, yeah. But this is turbogay. He’s talking about coming all over his sweet prince already.”

  “Which is a perfectly wholesome expression of love between consenting adults. Is there a problem, Milos?”

  He shakes his head. “No, I’m just saying. There were seriously questions about this guy’s sexuality? Because they’re looking kind of answered from where I’m sitting.”

  “Read.”

  Another sigh. “…these, thy amorous lines,” He glance up, and there’s a look in his eyes that could be sarcasm or smolder or both. Whatever it is, I can’t afford to entertain it. Even if I weren’t his teacher he’s got to be at least ten years my junior. “Might have enforc’d me to have swum from France, and, like Leander, gasp’d upon the sand, that thou wouldst smile and take me in thine arms…”

  We finish out the scene, and move on to Queen Isabella’s machinations, a scene that takes place behind Gaveston’s back. My little court favorite has gone quiet now, although I see he’s peeping up from under his tangled dark curls at the kind of girl I wouldn’t have imagined he’d look twice at. Emma, I think her name is. She’s fleshy, clever and quiet, here because of some anxiety problem that tanked her progress last year. She was mortified to be here with all the screw-ups, which is how I know that ‘who, me?’ expression on her face as she meets Milos’s eye. That’s the look of a woman who is frankly baffled by her current situation. And that’s the look of a young man who thinks if he bats his long, black eyelashes and pouts prettily enough, that baffled woman over there might just agree to do his homework.

  He looks too long. He thinks I don’t see, but I’ve already mastered that teacher’s trick of watching the class unobserved. You drop your lids just low enough, or make sure that the tops of your glasses obscure your eyes, then bend your head at an angle so that they can’t help but think you’re reading or lost in red pen scribbles. It’s pleasing to know that even Milos isn’t immune to my deception.

  I watch him scribble something on the corner of a page, and his smile turns wolfish as he tears it away. Poor Emma just looks incredulous. He’s passing notes. How sweet, and how quaint.

  “Milos?” I say.

  Ah, it’s worth it. It always is. That startle and what-the-fuck when they don’t realize I was watching all along.

  “That looks interesting,” I say. “Bring it up here, please.”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Uh, yes.”

  He drags his feet to the front of the class and hands over the paper. The entire back of his hand is covered with a tattoo – a black rose. “Dick,” he mouths.

  “Tom, actually, but nice try. And no, I’m not sending you out of the class; you’re in the next scene. And the next.”

  He gives me an angelic smile, raises a middle finger and returns to his seat. I’m not sure what he’s even doing here; something sporty, I’m guessing, going by that narrow waist and muscled arms. One of those beautiful, half-bright kids whose only shot at an education beyond high school is to strap on a helmet and pads and spend half their youth trying to wedge their heads as firmly as possible between some other man’s bulging thighs. Nice work if you can get it.

  I unfold the paper. It looks like a URL. Maybe his Snapchat or Periscope or whatever it is he uses to broadcast his beloved self to a world he has yet to learn doesn’t really give a shit about him.

  On his way out I grab him. “Milos, a moment please.”

  He sighs. If his biceps didn’t scream sports I’d suspect he was a theater kid; that face is absurdly expressive. And not just his face. When he sighs his entire body sighs. The shoulders droop, the spine softens, and the knee takes an insolent tilt. “What?” he says.

  “Look,” I say. “I know you don’t want to be here, but you need to be. You need the class credit–”

  “–or I get kicked out. Yeah. I know.”

  Those eyes really are remarkable. Like a golden striped tiger’s eye I bought once from a mineral shop on the beach at Lyme Regis.

  “You don’t seem too worried about that,” I say.

  Milos shrugs. “I got other plans. I’m here because I have to be.”

  “How nice to have the privilege. Do you know how many people in this country would kill to be where you are right now?”

  Another shrug. “Yeah, I know. I’m a brat. Believe me, it’s been said.”

  “Oh, I believe you.”

  He shifts his weight on his tilted knee, his whole ankle turning in toddlerish impatience. “Is there anything else, Professor?”

  I hold out the paper. “What’s this?”

  He shrugs once more, and I don’t have the patience. “Fine,” I say. “Just…fuck off and do your reading, okay?”

  Milos winces
at the obscenity. I’m a teacher, and an English teacher at that, but I don’t have the energy to keep up the persona all the time. Sometimes I need to be human.

  *

  There are so many things in this world that grind a person down. It’s not always the big catastrophes, the deaths, divorces and disease. Often it’s the little things that attend such disasters; you survive the actual bomb blast only to get taken out by a piece of flying shrapnel.

  Today that piece of shrapnel is an alternating pressure mattress. It’s not quite as sad as those never worn baby shoes for sale in the world’s shortest story, but to me it comes close enough.

  “Didn’t get much use outta that, huh?” says the buyer, an understandably tired-looking woman named Joan.

  “No. Didn’t need it for long.”

  I want to run screaming from the look in her eyes. It’s not just pity, but some other, unspeakable thing that I’ve never seen before but understand perfectly, and I’m afraid that my understanding makes me almost as much of a monster as she must feel right now. Envy. She envies me, because she thinks that for me the ordeal is over. Flowers and a coffin sliding behind a curtain. Closure – that most modern of farewells.

  “Take it for fifty,” I say. “Please. And I’ll throw in the shower stool.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yes. Very.” I just want these things gone. “I’m only sorry I can’t afford to give them away.”

  “No,” she says. “I get it. The bills sting worse than the other, don’t they? What do you do?”

  “I teach. Up at the college. Not much of a salary, I’m afraid. And likely to get smaller with the way they’re stripping down arts funding these days.”

  “Ayuh,” she says, a sound that startled me – when I first came to New England – in its similarity to the Yorkshire ay-up. “Sure are filling their pockets while pleading poverty.” She goes to lift the end of the mattress.