These Violent Delights Read online

  I’m laughing too loudly and people are starting to stare, but I can’t stop. This is so fucking stupid, so unfathomably, jaw-droppingly dumb that you have to laugh, because it’s the only thing keeping you from screaming.

  “Oh my God,” I manage to say, catching my breath. “You idiot. You absolute fucking moron.”

  “Tom, please…”

  No, I can’t do it. I can’t even look him in the face any more, not without giving way to full blown hysterics. “Bye, Simon,” I say, and I reel away cackling and whooping like Jack Nicholson’s Joker.

  *

  There’s no booze in the house, and maybe that’s just as well. Simon was always kind of Puritan like that; he always thought that having hard liquor in the house was tantamount to an admission of alcoholism. Now that he’s gone there’s nothing preventing me from stocking up, and I imagine buying not only gin and vodka but the kind of things my aunt buys at Christmas – Drambuie, Crème de Menthe, Parfait d’Amour. With a clearer head I might have been able to enjoy this liberating thought, but I’m so angry I can hardly see straight.

  These four walls. He’s all over them. He picked out that pepper grinder and the flatware draining next to the sink. Even the floor isn’t immune; right in front of my toe is the stain I could never get out of the grouting, despite scrubbing away like Lady Macbeth.

  Before I know it my hand is on the nearest plate. Smash. The stoneware practically explodes when it hits the kitchen floor, but it doesn’t satisfy me. Not nearly as therapeutic as I’d hoped it would be, and that’s bad, because I know where this goes next. It goes to bite marks and bruised knuckles and hair pulled out at the roots, tiny, pathetic expressions of rage turned so far inwards that all I can do is tear at myself like an enraged parrot pulling out its feathers.

  That’s why I bought an electric razor. And why I threw out all the old blades.

  I have nothing to take the edge off. I let my caregiver’s license expire when Simon was officially in remission, and I laughed about it because I was so happy to be giving up a document that let me buy legal weed. My younger self, I said, would never forgive me.

  There’s Nicky and Otter, but I seem to remember that this weekend they’re going to a wedding all the way out in Colorado, and it’s Friday night. They’re either packing or they’ve already left, and besides, there’s something scummy about going to see your friends in the hope that they can sell you drugs. It reeks of those shameful, baby-stoner days spent hanging out with boring dealers, because you were too shy and too polite to get in there, get what you wanted and get the hell out.

  Only now I’m over thirty and I have no idea how to hook it up. At some point in this whole cancer business I became irreversibly adult. I became the teacher whose nose twitches when he smells something dank entering his classroom.

  Wait.

  I remember.

  I go back out to the car and get in. No sooner had I thought about sniffing at my students, she came back to me. Tori, her name is, a sleepy aspiring hobo who could have crawled out of a Ke$ha video. Every time she comes into the class looking like she’s snatched a few hours sleep in some near stranger’s bathtub, reapplied her mascara over the crust of yesterday’s and peeled at least two sticky and unsavory things off a buttock. One day she passed me in a hallway, trailing behind her a powerful waft of Red Bull and weed; breakfast of champions, I remember thinking.

  So it was no surprise when one day she bent over and a baggie fell out of her thong. I pounced on it because I had to, then read her the riot act about drugs on campus.

  The baggie is still in my desk.

  When I get to the English department most of the lights are off. Can I even get in? God, I hope so. I don’t know if I could take another disappointment today; I think I might throw myself to the floor and tantrum like a three year old, because nothing in life feels fucking fair. I never, ever - even at my worst - deserved to be treated this way.

  And that woman, whoever she is. She’d have to be some special kind of monster to even begin to deserve marriage to an incorrigible pig bottom like Simon.

  The door is still open. The halls are empty and cold and smell of floor cleaner and that curious educational bouquet that not even the prevalence of electronics can erase. It’s paper and chalk and the bored sighs of a million detentions. It’s gum hardening on the underside of desks and the unshowered armpits of late adolescence. I don’t hate it. If anything it reminds me that there’s one place left on earth where I am - at least up to a point - still in control of things.

  There’s a light on in Dr. Rayner’s office, and as I round the corner I hear the janitor’s cart, with that squeaky wheel that sounds like mice being tortured. I see him cross the hallway and hang back; I don’t think I could take anyone speaking to me right now. Since I walked out on Simon the limit of my spoken communication has been saying ‘thank you’ to the cashier at the grocery store, and even those two words left me close to tears because of how concerned she looked. How kind.

  Forget Madame Bovary. Blanche du Bois, c’est moi.

  I reach the classroom and open the door with my key. It’s inky dark inside and I close the door behind me, feeling safer for it. Nobody can see me vibrating like a raw nerve in the dark, and it’s with reluctance that I turn on my phone light and head for the desk. I hear the squeak of the janitor’s trolley and freeze, suddenly aware of just how criminal I must look right now, rummaging in a locked drawer by phone light.

  The squeaking recedes. I keep looking. Where the hell is it? It’s in here - I can smell it. Good old Tori. Any other student I’d suspect they got stiffed with a bag of oregano from one of those dealers who see kids coming a mile off, but not our Lady of Glitterpunk. You can tell without even sniffing her that this young lady knows her controlled substances.

  There. I can feel it, lurking behind the stress ball (fat lot of good that was) and wedged at the back of a pile of old Arden Shakespeares. No sooner do I have my fingers on it I hear footsteps, hurrying down the hall towards the classroom.

  Shit. I kill the light, but the footsteps stop right outside the door, and like a nightmare I hear the handle creak. A very English nightmare, this one, where it’s not a man-eating monster behind the door but instead someone who’s caught you doing something very difficult to explain.

  The door opens and I hear someone say “Thank fuck,” in a short, breathless voice. And then I realize.

  It’s Milos.

  He clocks me and nearly jumps out of his skin. I turn on the phone light and raise a hand. “Hi.”

  Milos blinks at the light. “Holy shit,” he says, hand on his heart. “What are you doing here?”

  “Me? What are you doing here?”

  “I asked first.”

  Oh, that’s a long story, and not one I’m about to get into with a student. When I don’t answer he waves the paper he’s holding.

  “Here,” he says, and slaps it down on the desk. “Edward II.” He glances at the clock. “Before midnight, and technically on time.”

  “Very nice. Well done.”

  Milos could leave right now, but he doesn’t. Instead he shifts his weight on his feet as he looks at me. He’s very expressive. Where someone else would just tilt their head in curiosity, he does a sort of full-body quizzical that couldn’t have been clearer unless he actually contorted himself into a question mark. I don’t know why, but it hurts, like the look in the cashier’s eye, like those tiny flickers of concern that can break you completely if they catch you at the wrong moment.

  “So?” he says. “Are you gonna tell me why you’re hanging around here in the dark? Can you not get enough of this place or something?”

  “I didn’t want to be at home.” I’m appalled by how good it feels to admit this to someone. The sudden lightness I feel almost takes me out at the knees, and I have to swallow hard to keep my eyes from spilling over. I’m a mess. I’ve been on the verge of tears all day, but I can’t. Not now. Not in front of a student, for God’s sake. />
  I reach for the essay. “All right,” I say, trying to sound teacherish. “Let’s have a look at this thing, shall we? See if you’ve done a Romeo and Juliet job on this one…”

  My voice cracks.

  “Professor Moore…” says Milos, and I can hardly stand it. He’s looking at me like the smashed, broken thing that I am and the compassion in his golden-brown eyes is ten thousand times more painful than any shade or species of contempt. Good God, he’s pretty. He looks like he’s come fresh from a shower somewhere and his hair has dried in tight black curls. And those eyes with their long, curling black lashes…

  Like Simon’s.

  That’s it. That’s the one. That’s the thought that finishes me. I fumble and the paper falls to the floor, along with Tori’s baggie. My eyes and nose are stinging as I bend to retrieve them, my heart as raw as the edges of Simon’s eyes when all his eyelashes fell out. And look at him now, healed and healthy and no longer mine.

  Milos goes to kneel but I wave him away. Last thing I need right now is a student knowing I have weed in my desk. “It’s all right – please. I’ve got it. I’ve got it.”

  I haven’t. I’ve never been less together in my life. The tears pour out of me like a damburst and I’m done. I can’t play the teacher tonight. I’m too hurt, too human. My head falls forward and onto his thigh, and Milos just stands there baffled. Poor kid was just trying to sneak his schoolwork in on time and ends up with his teacher sobbing all over his shoes for no reason.

  His hand comes down. I can feel the heat of it above my scalp as it hovers there like a hesitant benediction, then his hand is on my head. “Shh,” he says. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay.” He has no idea why he’s soothing me, but he does it anyway, and once again it’s the kindness that kills me.

  On my desk, the phone light blinks out. I instinctively wrap my arms around his thighs, and they’re unexpectedly hard as marble under the denim. And then my hand settles on the back of one thigh and something beneath us shifts, something seismic and almost imperceptible. But it’s there. It’s there in the catch of his breath and the shift of his feet, and the way his fingertips sink into my hair. My sobs slow and my pulse speeds, thrumming against the inside seam of my jeans.

  “There,” says Milos. “There. That’s better. You’re okay.”

  No, I’m not okay. I’m on my knees in front of a student with a door hanging half open behind me and a squeaky-wheeled janitor prowling somewhere about the place. I don’t think I’ve ever been in such a compromising position, but I can’t seem to stop myself. I bury my face in Milos’s thighs, almost catching him off balance, so that he laces his fingers deeper into my hair. His breath hitches as he thrusts, like he can’t help himself, and then I feel him – against my cheek – hard behind his fly.

  “Oh my God,” he whispers, in a voice like he can’t believe it, and I know just how he feels. This is crazy. This is wrong. And I’ve never wanted anything so much in my life. I run my hand up the back of his thigh, caressing all the way up to his hard, round arse. I already know without looking that his body is going to be so, so beautiful. I kiss the straining denim and he lets out another one of those sexy, hitchy little gasps. My cock feels like a stone in my jeans.

  Milos takes his hand from my head and pulls up the hem of his t-shirt. My eyes have adjusted enough to the dark to make out the white of his skin over the waistband of his jeans. A faint line of black hair. The back of one hand is black in the dark, the one with the rose ink. “You want this?” he says, fumbling with his fly. “You want me to take it out for you?”

  “Yes. God, yes.”

  He reaches down into his jeans and I smell him before I see him, a heady mix of clean skin and the salt musk of lust. It appears before my eyes like a miracle, pale in the dark, highlighting the tidy black hair at the root. I lick the tip, tasting the salt smell still thrilling my nose, and he shudders, making his jeans slide off his lovely white hip. He tastes divine, like the best kind of madness – young and clean and eager.

  The sound of my mouth – wet, soft, hopelessly grateful – echoes in my ears as I take him deep. He’s so very, very hard and although I feel his hand trembling on my head, there’s no mistaking that he wants this almost as much as I do. When I work a hand into his jeans he stifles a moan; his balls feel tight already, and my own desire spikes in sympathy.

  How old is he anyway? Nineteen? Twenty? Oh God, this is wrong, but he’s so beautiful. Such an unexpected luxury, like a gift I don’t dare believe I deserve.

  His fingers relax on my scalp. My lips and tongue make obscene noises, a counterpoint to his low, ragged sighs. I feel his touch sweep down over my head, down behind my ear. “Oh my God,” he whispers. “You’re so good. Holy shit.”

  If this is what he sounds like now then what is he going to sound like when he comes? He’s close. I can feel it. His thigh trembles under my hand, and I push the other deeper into his jeans, tightening my grip around the base of his balls. I rock my hips just enough to feel the pressure against the seam, but it’s not enough. Not yet.

  But it is for him. “Oh fuck,” he gasps, and bucks up into my mouth. He says it again but the word catches and stops midway, like he’s biting his lip hard to keep quiet, and then I taste him hot and slick, filling my mouth in long, sticky spurts. I swallow it down and it’s only when I go to wipe my lips that I realize my cheeks are also wet; I’m crying again and I don’t know whether it’s guilt or gratitude or both.

  Then I hear it.

  Squeak, squeak, squeak.

  The janitor’s trolley. It’s a distance away, but I think it’s coming closer, and Milos hears it too. “Shit,” he says. “Get up.”

  He pulls me to my feet. He’s surprisingly strong. “We have to go.”

  “But you haven’t…”

  “Yeah, I’d love to, but it’s not really…”

  Squeak, squeak. It’s moving closer, but Milos has the devil in his eyes. “Here,” he says, and pulls me behind the door, out of sight. He turns, his arse against the wall, and lifts his shirt all the way up to his nipples. His abs look like white marble; I don’t think there’s an inch of fat on him. “You wanna come on me?” he says.

  Stupid question. This is without a doubt the most reckless thing I have ever done in my life, but I can’t help myself. I need this. I barely have to touch myself to know it’s not going to take long, and it’s all I can do not to cry out as I free my cock from my jeans and point it at his hard, beautiful belly. The squeak gets louder, and the light in Milos’s eyes gets all the more infernal. I want to kiss him so badly, but you never know how these things are going to go, and I don’t think I could handle him pushing me away right now.

  Squeak, squeak.

  Somehow the risk just makes me hotter. The risk. The danger of discovery. I feel fluid spill from the tip of my cock and the next stroke is slick and so sweet that it’s almost enough.

  “That’s it,” says Milos. “Come on. Give it to me.”

  “Shh.” I cover his mouth, but his eyes are shining, and I can feel the shape of his grin against my hand. The trolley squeaks directly past the door, then it stops. I freeze and I feel Milos’s grin turning to a muffled giggle, then a hand reaches out and pulls the door closed, but I’m done. I don’t know if it was the fear that tipped me over or the heat of his laughter in my palm, but I come all over him, and the force of it almost takes me out at the knees.

  “I got you,” he says, as I slump, and we hang there for a moment, breathing hard, foreheads together. Wet globs of white bead his black pubic hair and glint off his remarkable muscles. He’s a work of art; I might as well have just jizzed on a Michelangelo. “Holy shit,” he says, still with the tremor of a laugh in his voice. “That was…”

  A thing that didn’t just happen. That’s all it can be. As I come down I start to realize exactly how thoroughly I’ve fucked up here. He’s at least ten years younger than me and I’m marking his papers. It’s not like it doesn’t happen all the time, bu
t that doesn’t make it okay.

  “We should…um…”

  “Yeah.”

  I hand him a tissue and he cleans himself up, tucks himself away. It’s the strangest thing; five minutes ago I would have sworn he’d never had a man’s mouth on his dick in his life, but he tidies himself like it’s all business, like he’s done this a thousand times before.

  “This is awkward…” I start to say, but he shakes his head.

  “Doesn’t have to be,” he says. “Forget about it if you want to. I won’t tell. I’m very discreet.”

  “Uh…okay. I think that would be…for the best.”

  “Okay then,” he says, with a smile. “See? No muss, no fuss.” He has the most disarming smile. In repose his face can look surly, but when he smiles his whole cheeks get involved, squishing his eyes to dark slits and making him look like he should be capering along behind some stone Bacchus.

  “It was fun,” he says, into the sudden, stiff quiet, and then he leans forward and kisses me. Not a real kiss, just a garden party peck on the cheek that’s all the more affecting for its formality. “Thank you,” he says, and vanishes into the dark.

  4

  Milos

  “Parry, parry, parry – good. Wide circle now…”

  You know what’s harder than ballet? Ballet with swords. Romeo gets to sit this shit out first time round, so it’s yours truly versus Mercutio, then I have to come back, get the full force of a pissed off Romeo, look like I’m putting up a fight worthy of my reputation and die dramatically on stage. Only then do I get to put my feet up.

  And Ed is not making this easy. He’s going at it like he’s trying to take my head off, which I guess is kind of the point, but I’m drenched, panting and my left hamstring is doing that bitchy thing that says it’s going to throw an almighty – and potentially career wrecking – tantrum if I don’t give it a day off like now.