Wild with all regrets, p.5
Wild with All Regrets, page 5
“So, Tom’s fucked him, then?” Lucas wanted to get her to blush, but it wasn’t easy.
“I doubt he has the energy. I wear him out perfectly well, thank you,” she said, without missing a beat. “Please, just meet him. If he’s horrible, you don’t have to see him again.”
“No.” He finished his beer and made a move to leave the bar.
“Damn it, Lucas!” She grabbed his wrist. “I never bloody ask you for anything! And this isn’t even really for me, this is for you! What’s the harm in just talking to the guy? You don’t have to blooming marry him, you can throw your drink in his face, for all I care. Come to my home for dinner, please.”
Lucas knew he was getting to be on thin ice with Angela, and without her, he really didn’t have anybody left in Dublin who cared about him. Jessie and Becky had their own lives, they had no time to be stuck in the past with him. And they had poor Mattie to deal with as well, bless them. There was only so much of Lucas’s nonsense Angie would tolerate, really, and she was just trying to do something nice for him. As much as he hated everything on principle, he was willing to make some allowances for Angela every now and again. She meant well, especially with the anniversary coming up. He shut his eyes and sighed. “I don’t have to be pleasant, do I?”
“Nah, I’m not expecting a miracle. But be warned, I did talk you up a little bit. Handsome silver-eyed war hero, great in bed, loves his country, that sort of thing.” She smiled. “You’re a prince, Lucas. Now go home and put on something nice, I want you there for seven.” She kissed him on the cheek, and he actually smiled for real. Angela was good like that, good at making him get over himself and his preferences to be miserable and alone. Daft bitch made it hard for him to enjoy his misanthropy like he wanted to.
For all that she drove him mad, he did really love her with all his heart. She was a nutter, and he was glad she was happy with Tom. For a moment, just a moment, he allowed himself to believe that such an end was possible for him as well. But as he was walking home, a man who looked like Jamie threw him for a loop once again. His optimism crashed to the earth as the image of Jamie’s lifeless corpse came unbidden back to his mind.
Lucas!
He shut his eyes. It wasn’t Jamie, it was never Jamie. Jamie was dead and he had been for years. The beautiful lookalike vanished in the crowd, and Lucas realized that people on the street were avoiding him. He was acting erratic again, he needed to pull his shit together. This stupid Ryan guy wasn’t going to be able to cope with nonsense like this, no one would. It was hard enough trying to imagine dating as it was: excluding women as well as a good percentage of the remainder for preferring women. Plus, it certainly didn’t help his dating chances by being fucked in the head.
He went home and pulled on his nicest pair of trousers, a somewhat expensive pair of black slacks that made him feel important. He only had one decent jacket, an old, oversized thing that he kept at the back of his closet. He’d never get rid of it, though. God, when was it? It must’ve been about fourteen years ago, the war was just getting started, Jamie was thinking about dropping out of school and enlisting in the army . . . nothing serious, just an idea.
Jamie had always been an excellent student, apparently. But there was just something about university that didn’t seem to agree with him. He was still in the top five percent of his year, but Lucas could see the tension in his shoulders and how much he was disconnected from the work. Lucas did his best to be supportive, and made time for Jamie at the end of the day to sit with him while he studied.
One night, the two of them made their way to the library, and Lucas quizzed Jamie on some of the simpler topics, terribly impressed by the complexity of the material and how good a handle Jamie seemed to have on it.
“All right.” Lucas shifted through Jamie’s notes. “Explain what um . . . ” He squinted. “Cor . . . corpus delicious means, and why it’s important?”
“Corpus delicti, literally the body of the crime. It’s an interesting premise. That a crime must be proved to have occurred in order to obtain a conviction.”
“Yeah, that’s right! Um, Jamie is this helping at all? I feel so . . . ” Stupid next to you.
Jamie reached over and squeezed his hand. “You have no idea how helpful it is. Honestly Lucas, thank you. I know this must be boring as hell.”
“Nah. I like the way you explain things. It’s all really clear when you say it.”
Jamie made a frustrated noise, and across the room a librarian shushed him. “Lucas I know this sounds so foolish but . . . I’m not sure I want to study law anymore,” he whispered.
That was news to Lucas. “Are you sure? You’re so good at this shit, and you’ve worked so hard.”
“I know it’s just . . . ” Jamie ran a hand through his hair. “It’s difficult to explain. I’m just starting to see how meaningless this is in the real world. What the hell good is knowing all this pedantic nonsense going to—”
Lucas met his eyes. “You can do a whole lot with a law degree, Jamie. Get through your exams and you can evaluate your life plan afterward, yeah? I’m behind you all the way.”
Jamie smiled. “Yeah. You’re right, Lucas. I’m just gonna review the cases in this section for a bit. You can head back to the flat if you want.”
Lucas smiled and shook his head. “I’ll wait. We can go home together.” Perhaps Lucas had underestimated how long Jamie could possibly study this material. It seemed like a thousand years, and it wasn’t long before Lucas’s eyelids became heavy in the stuffy room as rain pelted the windows outside.
He must have fallen asleep. He woke up with Jamie’s jacket draped around his shoulders, the garment’s owner still studying away across the table from him. Lucas had blinked, snuggled into the fabric, and fallen asleep once again. He was still wearing the jacket the next morning when he and Jamie went out for breakfast. Lucas wondered if maybe he’d imagined the soft, pleased smile that had crossed Jamie’s features when he saw it still hugging Lucas’s thin frame. He’d tried to give it back, but Jamie wouldn’t hear of it. And so, the jacket took up permanent residence in his closet, and he’d been wearing it to formal occasions ever since. He slid Jamie’s button into the pocket and fingered it absentmindedly as he approached Angie’s house.
Angela rolled her eyes, presumably not impressed by his predictable fashion choice, but welcomed him in anyway. “Lucas! It’s been ages!” she said dramatically. “You remember Tom, don’t you? My lovely fiancé?”
“Lucas!” He offered a firm handshake and smiled. “How’ve you been? You’re looking alright, you know? Angie won’t shut up about you!”
Lucas politely nodded as he shook Tom’s hand, giving him a shy smile. He was a good chap; Lucas liked him. “Glad you’ll be taking her off my hands, mate,” he said pleasantly, and Tom laughed.
“Careful now, I may return her to you if she decides she can’t put up with me. You may be stuck with her, boyo.” Tom clapped him on the shoulder, and Lucas smiled.
This wasn’t going as badly as Lucas thought. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to imagine a happy future. Dinners with Angie, maybe her kids would be there one day, Lucas being normal with a nice man at his side. All he had to do was not be a miserable git for the rest of his life. Good fucking luck, Connolly.
“And this is Tom’s friend from work, Ryan O’Hare.”
Ryan was indeed blond, and handsome; he had bright green eyes, broad shoulders, and a cocky asshole smile that somewhat ruined the resemblance to Jamie . . . but the rest of his features were close enough that it made Lucas’s heart leap. Suddenly, he found it terribly difficult to speak, and he extended his hand for Ryan to shake.
“Lucas Connolly,” he muttered, feeling like an idiot.
“A pleasure. Tom’s told me about you, and Angela’s talked you up enough to get my curiosity going.”
He certainly was getting something going on Lucas’s end as well. Their handshake lingered a little longer than it normally would, and Ryan was doing the subtle flicker of his eyelashes to demonstrate interest. Angela was right, this guy probably was a bit of a fairy himself.
Lucas licked his lips and stumbled through some awkward small talk, mostly content to let Ryan speak about himself. He was charming, he was funny, and he was beautiful. Time had seriously diminished Lucas’s memory of what Jamie had looked like, what he’d sounded like, but Ryan was similar enough that Lucas was starting to forget how sad he preferred to be. He didn’t register what Angela made for dinner, he didn’t react when she started teasing him for how smitten he was acting, but he did smile when Ryan started blushing.
“Christ, if I’d known all I needed to do to get you to shut up was bring a handsome lad in the room I woulda done it ages ago! No offense, Tom.”
Angela laughed, squeezing Lucas’s shoulder.
“Hello! Lucas!” She waved a hand in front of his face.
He blinked and sipped his tea, trying to play it cool. His plate was still full; he’d been pushing around the same bit of potato for five minutes as he watched Ryan talk.
“Hello, Angela. Sorry.” He couldn’t think of an excuse that didn’t make him feel even more embarrassed. What the hell was wrong with him? He’d never been like this with Jamie . . . and it wasn’t like he was completely celibate, either. Maybe it was the distance that time had put between them, how somehow this felt like a second chance. It wasn’t gonna just be some fuck in the toilet, he was actually feeling something besides grief for the first time in as long as he could remember.
Ryan offered a quiet smile. “It’s all right. My head is always a little in the clouds.” He fiddled with his napkin. “Want to join me for some fresh air? I need to clear my head a little.”
Lucas nodded dumbly. His mouth was still dry.
“Angela, that was a lovely meal, thank you. And I’ll see you at work, Tom,” Ryan said pleasantly and put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder, gently leading him out into the cool autumn air.
Fuck. This felt right, it felt comfortable and good. He liked this guy, he really did. And shit, he hadn’t been enamored to the point of idiotic nausea since Jamie had died.
“Let’s go to my place,” Lucas said quickly, his heart thrumming away in his chest.
Ryan smiled. “Lead the way, Connolly.”
Their fingers brushed against each other as they walked, and Lucas allowed himself to feel something like hope.
1909
“Oi!” Some asshole in his class called out in the miserable communal washroom the boys used to change after sports. “Connolly’s got a fuckin’ stiffy!”
Lucas’s hands moved immediately to cover himself, and he hissed as the sensitive skin of his back came in contact with the icy white tiles.
“He’s a fuckin’ fairy, so he is! I knew it! You’re a cocksuckin’ shit whore, you are, Connolly!”
Lucas glowered at his classmates, ready to fight to the death if he had to. Damn it, he hadn’t asked to be like this, he didn’t want to be like this! What the hell was he supposed to do when he was surrounded by goddamn naked—Jesus Christ.
He staggered home that night, spitting blood and thanking his lucky stars that they hadn’t broken any of his teeth. He was a tough son of a bitch, he could hold his own in a fight, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do against his entire bloody class.
It had been this sort of encounter that had motivated him to seek out help from Father Doyle in the first place. How wicked it was that he dreamed of other boys, of kissing boys. How much a brush of a hand on his shoulder excited him. How much he wanted to get pushed up against a wall and kissed until he couldn’t breathe.
Lucas had had a rather young introduction to sex, really. His parents fucked loudly and often, their house was small, and his father seemed to take no small amount of pride in letting his children know he’d sown his disgusting seed most nights. Beyond that, Lucas lived in what would not be described as an enviable neighborhood. Step outside his drafty flat and it wasn’t hard to find a woman or three peddling her wares to anyone who had the coin.
When he was younger, he’d wondered what the fuss was about hugging girls like that. About hiked up skirts and breathy moans, about what the hell a woman had that was worth spending food money on. Father Doyle had shown him, he supposed. Taken Lucas by force, convinced him that he’d been willing, that it was Lucas’s fault for being sick in the damn head. He’d hated it. But he’d kept coming back for more, and it made him nauseous.
Lucas lay awake at night sometimes, staring at the ceiling as he relived those moments. How Father Doyle had touched him, how the priest had made him cum.
“You like that, don’t you Lucas? You sick child. You poor, sweet, sick child. Look at you. Look at the way you respond to me.” Lips on his neck, teeth followed, Lucas’s cries of pain and pleasure stifled by the clergyman’s hand.
Lucas must have enjoyed it, then. He must have wanted it, deserved it. He was precocious and perverted, and he got stiffies in the shower, and dreamed of boys who hated him sticking their cocks in his ass. You deserve every awful thing that happens to you.
He kept to himself as much as he could from then on, staying away from sports class and situations where the other boys might suddenly take it upon themselves to beat him. It wasn’t long before his schoolmates’ attention shifted to a new boy in their class— a sweet, gentle thing from the country named Danny Byrne. As far as thirteen-year-old boys went, Danny was absolutely stunning. A bright clear smile, big hazel eyes, silky copper hair, tall, nice shoulders, angelic face. He made Lucas feel like he was about to die of delight whenever they were close, and as such, Lucas avoided him like his father avoided police officers.
The other boys liked Danny at first; he was clever and good at sports. But whatever it was they saw in Lucas, they started seeing in Danny, too. Maybe his eyes lingered too long on one of them, maybe he, too, got erections in the shower. Lucas was heading home from school one afternoon when he spotted the other boys in a circle, taking turns kicking Danny while he lay curled up on the ground.
“Oi!” Lucas called, peeling out of his jacket. “You goddamn cowards back off!”
“Oh ho! Faggot police is here, yeah? You fairies look after each other, don’cha!”
Lucas narrowed his eyes. “You think you’re so brave—fucking ten of you beating one kid who’s down already.” He reached to the ground and grabbed an old bottle, smashing it and brandishing the shardy end. “Maybe we even the odds a bit?”
The other boys looked less certain, and Lucas took a step forward, licking his teeth. “Well? Come at me!”
The ringleader spat at Lucas’s feet and shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s crazy.” They concluded, shuffling off. “You’re a loony, Connolly!”
Lucas knelt down beside Danny, making no show of acknowledging the hiccupping wails emerging from the other boy. “You all right?”
“Yeah.” A sniffle, a cough, a sob.
“They’re pricks.” Lucas patted Danny on the back. “C’mere, lemme get a look at you.”
Danny accepted a hand up, and Lucas hid his displeasure at the sight of him. Busted lip, black eye, mud caked in his hair, and clothes all torn to hell. Jesus. “They just beat on you?” Lucas wanted to confirm. It wasn’t unheard of to teach fairies a lesson using sexual force.
“Yeah.” Danny wiped his eyes. “Sorry. Don’t mean to trouble you like this.”
“It’s no trouble.” Better you than me. “What happened?”
Danny shook his head.
Were they the same? Surely Lucas couldn’t be the only poofter in all of Ireland, right? Doyle had been one too, probably. Either that or he just liked kids, Christ. “They did the same to me, you know.” He licked his lips. How the hell were perverts supposed to find each other? It was so damned dangerous to be honest. “Cause I’m . . . like that.”
Danny narrowed his eyes. “Like what?”
“ . . . Don’t make me say it.”
He heard Danny swallow, and watched him stand up to meet Lucas’s eyes. His nose was bleeding and snotty, his face was swollen and red, but both of them were bloomin’ smiling.
“Let me walk you home.” Lucas said, staring at a pebble on the side of the road. “Make sure those boys don’t give you more trouble.”
Danny seemed delighted with the suggestion, and they walked in a comfortable silence toward a tenement building Lucas wasn’t familiar with. It wasn’t nice, but it was a hell of a lot more pleasant than Henrietta Street ever was. It was a bit quieter, for one, less crowded, not as much broken glass littering the street.
Lucas looked at Danny and felt his cheeks flush, uncertain what to do or say next. What did normal people do in this sort of situation, anyway? Hold hands or something, maybe find somewhere quiet to mess around. Was it so simple, then? Just finding someone like you and the rest sorts itself out?
“Well. Thank you, Lucas,” Danny said, the bruises blossoming prettily on his pale skin. “I . . . um, I hope I can see you around sometime?”
Lucas took that as a good sign and cocked a half smile. “Yeah. That wouldn’t be too bad, I think.”
Of course, they had to be careful at school, they both had targets on their backs as it was, and if they were suddenly seen together all the time it might make it all the easier to escalate the violence against them.
But Danny was clever, Lucas was eager, and it wasn’t hard for the two of them to find little dark corners to hide in, to breath each other in, to touch and kiss and feel away from the watchful eyes of God and their classmates.
An often-vacant supply closet became perfect cloistered haven. Remote, quiet, and stinking of bleach, a sticking door handle provided ample warning of an unwanted intrusion. Somewhere in the darkness they found hands to hold, hair to run fingers through. Father Doyle had never really kissed Lucas on the mouth, so it was probably the only aspect of sex he wasn’t especially skilled at. Teeth clacked together, tongues darted, Danny giggled, and Lucas did, too.
