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"Look, all I'm saying is, your lesbian section is shite."
Stella settles in against his desk as if she belongs here, and takes a sip from his tea, unasked. Gethin wonders, not for the first time, why no one warned him that the bookshop would come with all sorts of people that for some reason keep confusing the shop with their flat, and apparently have decided to adopt him - or the other way around, it's not quite clear. He does know that he never gets to have his lunch break to himself anymore.
"I ordered all the books on the list you gave me," he says, exasperated. "I freed up half the travel guide shelf. What more do you want?"
"I know, I know," Stella says placatingly, "and that's great. I do appreciate you stocking up on canonical feminist literature. But what about the new stuff? The comics? You still haven't got Tits & Clits, and I told you about that ages ago."
"Do you have any idea how difficult it is to import these things?" he asks. "I'm scared enough as it is that Customs and Excise1 is going to do a raid on the shop one day, and those comics were under investigation even in the US. Also, as glad as I am that you enjoy browsing my stocks, I kind of need to make money too."
"Well, I'm already recommending you to all my gay friends," Stella protests, "and some of my lesbian friends, too. Only if you want to win over the serious feminists, you'll need to offer them something more than Simone de Beauvoir."
Gethin drags a hand through his hair and groans. He desperately wishes for a cup of coffee, and curses himself for trying to give up on caffeine. The bell over the door makes him go weak with relief. He loves Stella to bits, and he knows deep down she is probably right. She is just also very good at making him feel inadequate, and after the months he's had, his self-esteem is low enough as it is. The relief at the reprieve is short-lived, however, when he hears the voice floating in from the front room.
"Hello? Is anyone here? You know, if you are closing for lunch, you might want to try actually locking up!"
The door falls shut with a bang, and Gethin winces. Bollocks. He knows that voice.
"Over here, Jonathan!" Stella yells, completely unfazed, and then leans in close. "See?" she hisses. "I'm bringing you customers."
Of course she and – so it's Jonathan, apparently – would know each other. Gethin wonders why he ever bothered leaving home at all: Sometimes Gay London seems far too much like a Welsh village, only with higher rents. It doesn't matter, he tells himself. Jonathan probably won't even remember him.
A head of blond curls peaks into the room, followed by a scarf so bright that Gethin worries he's going to be blinded by an overdose of green.
"Stella, the fierce and fearless!" The greeting is delivered with so much flourish, the man might be rehearsing for a Shakespeare play. "How do you … oh."
He pauses mid-sentence. "I didn't know you were working here," he says, his voice far less theatrical and much more sombre.
So much for not remembering him. Gethin swallows thickly and cannot think of a single thing to say.
"He is not just working here, love," Stella says, patting Gethin's arm as proudly as if she was his mother. If only. "He is the owner." Then she raises her brows curiously. "You know each other?"
"Not really," Gethin forces out, just as Jonathan says: "Yes." Gethin is certain they must be able to hear his heart beating in the following heavy silence.
"Ooooh," Stella makes, grinning knowingly. "Unexpected reunion with the once-off lover? Happens to me all the time. The important thing is to skip the awkwardness and go straight to being friends."
"We weren't –" Gethin protests. "We aren't -"
If he wasn't so completely shell-shocked, he might feel flattered by Stella's expression of disbelief.
"It breaks my heart," Jonathan says, and already he sounds like the bloody arrogant (gorgeous) bastard Gethin remembers from the club, "but he is telling the truth. It seems that Welsh, Dark and Handsome here is immune to my irresistible charms."
He manages to sound so chagrined and flippant at once that Gethin feels anger burn white-hot in his chest.
"Actually." He starts moving books from one side of the desk to the other, just so he does not have to look at either of them. "You'll find that it was the other way round."
"Aaaaall right," Stella says slowly, looking back and forth between them. "I think I'm going to go and explore this shop's excellent feminist literature section, and chase off potential shoplifters, while you two are having your heart-to-heart." She pushes away from the table, and Gethin briefly considers begging her to stay.
When she passes Jonathan on her way out, she puts a hand on his arm.
"Don't scare him off," she says quietly, but not quietly enough for Gethin not to hear. "He's a bit shy, that one."
She is thoughtful enough to close the connecting door behind her, and silence settles over the room. Gethin doesn't look up, just keeps moving books back and forth without reason or method, until he hears the other man clearing his throat.
"Are you still angry with me, love?"
His head whips up at the casual endearment. Sometimes he hates his reflexes. Jonathan is staring at him, brown eyes intense and overly bright. His scarf brings out the color, Gethin notices absent-mindedly. And he is still beautiful.
"I feel like I need to apologize," Jonathan says at last, when it becomes clear that Gethin is not going to answer. "I really didn't mean to make you upset that night. I'm not usually that bad at flirting. You must have made me nervous."
Gethin stares at him in disbelief. "Now you are just taking the piss."
"I'm serious, I swear," Jonathan says earnestly, and if Gethin didn't know better, he might actually be moved. Instead, he takes a step back and raises his hands.
"Fine," he says. "You are Stella's mate, that's lovely. Everything is fine." He laughs shakily. "Skip the awkward part, go straight to being friends, right?" He holds out his hand. "I'm Gethin, it's a pleasure to meet you."
Jonathan is slow to react, but eventually he raises his hand for a shake. His fingers are solid and dry around Gethin's. "My pleasure," he mumbles. He wears an odd expression, something like disappointment or regret, but he doesn't say anything else as he lets go of Gethin's hand.
"Well," Gethin says, looking away. "Shall we make sure that Stella is not ruining my business in the meantime?"
Jonathan smiles half-heartedly and waves a hand toward the door. "After you," he says, and follows Gethin back to the salesroom.
"Fancy seeing you here."
Gethin raises his brows and is proud at himself for his restrained reaction. They haven't talked since that unfortunate second encounter, and honestly, he hadn't expected to ever see Jonathan again. At least not in this shop, on the other side of the counter, wearing a smile that is blinding and somewhat timid at once.
"I work here," he finally says, inanely.
"I may have remembered something along those lines," Jonathan nods. "That's why I am here."
"Really," Gethin asks skeptically.
"Well, that, and the poetry," the other man smiles, pushing a small paperback over the table.
"Howl? Bit cliché, isn't it?" Gethin's hands betray his words as his fingers come to rest reverently on the cover.
Jonathan laughs, throwing his head back as he does, and Gethin stares at the long expanse of his throat.
"I don't know. You are the one selling it. Besides. It inspires me."
His laughter fades into a smile, small and private, and he reaches out to pull the book out from underneath Gethin's hand, their fingers brushing slightly. He flips through the book until he has found what he's looking for, then he clears his throat and starts to read.
"who let themselves be fucked in the ass by saintly motorcyclists,
and screamed with joy,
who blew and were blown by those human seraphim, the sailors,
caresses of Atlantic and Caribbean love,
who balled in the morning in the evenings in rosegardens and
the grass of public parks and cemeteries scattering their
semen freely to whomever come who may,
who hiccuped endlessly trying to giggle but wound up with a sob
behind a partition in a Turkish Bath when the blond & naked
angel came to pierce them with a sword …"
It's obvious that he knows the words by heart, because he isn't looking at the pages anymore. Instead, he has trapped Gethin with a gaze from half-lidded eyes that makes something hot uncoil in his stomach.
They both flinch at the sound of slow clapping, and Gethin realizes that Mark and Mike must have walked in while Jonathan was reciting, and he didn't even hear the bell. Jonathan turns around and gives them a sweeping bow, and Mike shakes his head laughing when Mark whistles.
Mike and Mark are two of the strays that seem to have made Gay's The Word their second home. Gethin doesn't have the heart to turn them away, even if they rarely buy – with Mark working as barman and Mike being a doctoral student, they are not exactly minted. They always come in together, and Gethin has seen the way Mike looks at Mark: it's a look he's more than familiar with, that helpless mix of fondness and exasperation. Mark, on the other hand, is too busy being a social butterfly to notice. Sometimes Gethin wants to tell him to be careful – the papers print horror stories every day, and it frightens him – but somehow he doesn't think his advice would be well received.
"Are you going to ring me up?" Jonathan asks finally, turning back to the counter, and Gethin stares at him in confusion, then feels himself blush.
"Yes, yes, right – that's two pounds, please," he stammers, and Jonathan smiles at him as he pushes the money in his direction.
"Thank you, Gethin," he says. "I'll see you soon."
He leaves with a little wave at Mark and Mike, who turn toward Gethin the moment the door falls shut.
"Who was that?" Mike asks. "A friend of yours?"
Gethin snorts. "Mate of Stella's, more like."
"What does he do?" Mark asks, with the eager curiosity of the youth.
"He's an actor, I think," Gethin shrugs. There is no point in mentioning that he remembers this from a throw-away comment Stella once made, or in behaving like it means anything to him. "Come help me unpack the boxes in the back if you're just going to sit around here again all afternoon."
He refuses to feel bad for putting them to work – he pays them in tea and biscuits, and they love going through the new deliveries anyway.
"Yes!" Mark claps his hands with the enthusiasm he brings to anything he puts his hands on. "Did they send the next Tales of the City book?"
Gethin chuckles. "It should be in one of those boxes. And if you help me actually shelf all these, I might even be convinced to give it to you for half-price."
"So, what happened between you and Jonathan?" Stella asks, blowing on her tea to make it cool faster. Her new girlfriend, Zoe, is buzzing about the kitchen in a flowery nightgown, working on a vegan stew for their dinner. She looks very young in her pigtails and big glasses, but Stella assures him she's legal. Not that he actually cares – the legal age of consent for homosexuals is a fucking joke, anyway.
Gethin drops his head back against the sofa cushion and frowns. "Nothing really," he mumbles. "Nothing worth telling."
"Don't be daft," Stella admonishes him. "Jonathan was staring at you as if he'd seen a ghost. And honestly, I believe you when you say that you've never fucked, but Christ, Gethin, something must have happened."
Gethin shrugs. "Honestly? I wish I knew. It was … I don't know, two weeks ago, I was at the club with Paul and William, and of course, they took off together after twenty minutes or so –"
"I knew it!" Stella exclaims. "Was only a matter of time!"
"Yes, you saw it coming, I know, you told me so," Gethin nods impatiently. "So, he started to chat me up. He was – it was clear he was on the pull, only he was so plastered he was being a bit obnoxious, and I wasn't even in the mood, but. He was so persistent and – Christ, you've seen him, he's bloody gorgeous. So I – say I'm up for it, and we go out the back, and we kiss, and then he just stops. Says he's changed his mind, just leaves me there in the cold. And I stand there like a bloody idiot for ten minutes, thinking he's going to come back, and when he doesn't, I go back inside, and there he is, getting it on with someone in the hallway, right next to the back exit."
He swallows, looks away. He hadn't meant to say this much. "So, you see. Nothing happened."
"That's odd," Stella agrees thoughtfully. "Doesn't seem like the Jonathan I know."
Gethin shrugs, feeling bitter and at the same time embarrassed at himself for it. "He must have just decided it wasn't worth it. Not exactly Adonis, am I."
"Please. He wouldn't have worked on you all night if he wasn't interested, would he? And you are lovely, he'd be blind not to see that."
Gethin just looks at her.
"What?" she gestures with her mug. "Just because I'm a fanny connoisseur does not mean I don't know a handsome bloke when I see him."
He waves it off. "I doesn't matter," he says. "I think I'm done anyway."
"Done?" Zoe asks, and he realizes that she must have been standing in the kitchen door for a while. "Done with what?"
"Men?" Stella asks scandalized. "Don't tell me you are running over to the breeders?"
"Christ, no," he groans, then looks gloomily down at his hands. "No. Just. Sex. I don't know. Just all seems a bit morbid these days, what with …" He gestures helplessly, and Stella and Zoe nod, their expressions grim.
"Sometimes I wonder if there isn't something to what people say, you know," he admits quietly. "You know … a punishment."
"No." He doesn't think he's ever heard Zoe speak so forcefully. "No, sweetheart, that's the catholic in you speaking, and you know it. They think it's a virus, right? I read they are sure now that it's transmitted by blood. So it must have been just – a horrible coincidence that a gay man had it first, and that's why it's spreading this way. Eventually, other cases are going to show up, and people will see."
"And then they are going to blame us for giving them our disease?" Gethin asks bitterly, and Stella shrugs.
"Or maybe they'll realize that they could have prevented it from spreading, if they'd cared more about the 'gay plague.' If they'd made more of an effort to help."
"Well," Zoe says quietly, when the silence drags on for too long. "I can't offer a solution, but the stew is about ready, if you're hungry."
"God, I love you, sweetheart," Stella says. Zoe's answering brilliant smile, and the spicy stew she hands out in mismatched bowls, make Gethin feel bitter-sweet and melancholic, but the whisky that comes with dinner soothes the ache of loneliness, at least a little bit.
"You are back," Gethin says blankly, and Jonathan sends a wide smile and a cloud of cigarette smoke his way.
"I told you I'd see you soon."
"You did at that," Gethin agrees. "I was about to close up, but I'll be at least half an hour. So feel free to look around, if you want."
"Cheers," Jonathan says and heads toward the poetry section.
It's quiet in the shop, and Gethin works quickly to settle up the day's sales and lock the money away. It only takes him fifteen minutes, but he finds that he is reluctant to disturb Jonathan, who sits curled up on a chair with a copy of Genet's Our Lady of the Flowers. Gethin can't read the title from behind the counter, but he'd recognize that cover anywhere. He realizes that he's never seen Jonathan so relaxed: most of the time he's tense, wired, as if there's something that's pushing, driving him. He thinks he likes him like this.
He doesn't realize he's been staring until Jonathan suddenly looks up and smiles, easy and slow.
"Do you want to get some dinner?" he asks, and Gethin stares at him in confusion until Jonathan raises his brows.
"You know, food? To eat? There is the Indian place down the street …"
"I – that sounds nice," he says and only as he says it realizes that it's true. "But I was going to do the books tonight."
Jonathan shrugs. "I could pick something up and bring it back here. Keep you company. If you want." He says it lightly, but there is something to his tone that makes Gethin hesitant to refuse. He thinks of the meagre contents of his fridge and his empty flat upstairs.
"If you don't mind?" he says. "I like their curries."
It's almost an hour by the time Jonathan gets back, and Gethin is done with most of the urgent work. The rest can wait till tomorrow, he decides, and helps Jonathan clear a space on the table in the backroom. From a pile of moderately clean dishes, he extracts two forks, then two mugs for the white wine he finds in one of the take-out bags, and they settle down to eat in companionable silence.
"God, thank you," he groans, around a mouthful of massaman curry. "I needed that."
"Anytime." Jonathan puts down his fork and takes a sip of his wine. It's too sweet, and not cold enough, but it goes down nicely with the food, they've discovered. They are halfway through the bottle already.
"So how do you like running the only gay bookshop in London?"
Gethin chuckles quietly. "To be honest, it's what I'd always wanted."
"Seriously?" Jonathan looks surprised.
"Well," he concedes. "Not necessarily a gay bookshop. But. I grew up in Northern Wales, in this tiny village – not even in the village, mind, but kilometres outside of town, and the only books in the house were the bible and a cookbook. And I'd imagine having a bookshop in Cardiff, and dreamed about how I'd just sit in a corner all day, every day, and read, all by myself."
He pauses and looks down at his food, suddenly embarrassed. He's never told anyone about this before.
"I can't decide whether that's wonderfully poetic, or terribly sad," Jonathan says, propping his chin into his hand as he's watching Gethin carefully.
Gethin snorts and shakes his head. "Well, back then that seemed like paradise. And sometimes it is. But I could do with a little less homophobic graffiti and loneliness."
"Loneliness," Jonathan repeats, incredulously. "You can't be serious. Every gay organization in London is having their meetings in your backroom."
Gethin pulls up his shoulders. He suddenly feels like he's said too much. "You can be lonely in a room full of people," he says defensively.
Jonathan looks at him for a long moment, then he nods. "Of course you can," he simply says, and pours them more wine.
"Do you – do you have The Joy of Gay Sex?"
The pretty lad is talking in hushed voice, leaning over the counter so he doesn't need to speak up, and he's batting his eyes at Gethin in a way he'd usually take as a come-on, but Gethin gets the impression that this is just the way he looks at the world.
"We do," he murmurs back. "Why are you whispering? You know this is a gay shop? People buy much more outrageous things in here."
The boy giggles. "It's not that," he rolls his eyes. "It's, you know …" He moves his head in a subtle motion toward the back of the shop, where his boyfriend is looking at the new releases. "I've decided that what he needs is a bit of inspiration."
"Oh, I see," Gethin says, smiling against his will. The boy's cheerfulness is contagious. "You want me to get it for you?"
"Jeff," the boyfriend suddenly shouts, far too loudly for such a cramped store. The boy – and several other customers – wince. "Are you done? I told you we need to be at Carl's by four."
The boy grimaces. "Bossy," he whispers, "could you hold on to it for me? I'm going to come and pick it up later."
"Jeff," the boyfriend admonishes. He comes up right behind the young man, giving Gethin an unfriendly look as he takes a hold of the boy's elbow not too gently. "Come on. And for Christ's sake, stop flirting with the staff."
"Robert," the boy protests, shaking his head at Gethin apologetically.
Gethin grits his teeth. "We were having a conversation about books, Robert. Which are being sold here, in case you didn't notice."
"Right," the boyfriend says, voice heavy with sarcasm. "Come on, for fuck's sake," he says, giving the boy's arm a sharp tug.
"Ey," Gethin says. He knows he should just shut up, but Jesus if that bloke doesn't get on his nerves. "If I wanted to see displays of blatant chauvinism, I'd run a bookshop for straight men. Now kindly fuck off, before I have to throw you out of my shop."
The boyfriend huffs angrily, but he drops Jeff's arm and takes a step back. It always surprises Gethin how well putting on the Welsh accent works in these situations.
"Ta," the pretty boy smiles, and winks at Gethin, before he pulls his boyfriend away and onto the street. In the doorway, they bump into Jonathan, and Gethin sees the boyfriend say something unquestionably rude, before they disappear down Marchmont Street.
"Trouble?" Jonathan asks, eyebrows raised, coming up to Gethin at the counter.
Gethin exhales slowly and rubs his face. "Nah," he says. "Nothing I can't handle. But Christ do I hate bullies."
Jonathan laughs quietly. "Yeah, he seemed like a bit of an arse."
Gethin shakes his head. "I mean, look at that kid. He could have anyone he wanted. That guy's is lucky he's giving him the time of day."
Jonathan looks at him speculatively. "You fancy him?"
"God, no!" Gethin protests. "He looks like he's barely fifteen. But he's going to break hearts left and right without even trying. And I hope he's going to start his record off with that tosser."
Jonathan chuckles, and Gethin sniffs. "What?" he says indignantly.
"Nothing," Jonathan shakes his head. "Just didn't think you had it in you." He says it like it's a compliment, and Gethin feels himself blush.
"Just don't like mean people," he mumbles, looking away.
"I know," Jonathan says. "You're a good person, Gethin," he says seriously, and then saunters off to study the cookbooks, as if that was the most common thing to say.
"Do you need a hand with that?"
Gethin drops the brush in surprise and curses under his breath. "What are you doing here?"
Jonathan shrugs, his hands in the pockets of his coat. "I live in the neighbourhood."
Gethin smirks. "No you don't. You live in Soho, you told me so last week."
Jonathan smiles, looking embarrassed at being caught out. "All right, so I heard that some particularly inspired artists turned your window into a canvas last night. Thought I should make sure you are all right."
Gethin shrugs, resigned. "As far as insults go, this one isn't even so bad."
"P-O-O-F-F-S," Jonathan spells out, head tilted to the side. "Not very creative either, I'm afraid. Or orthographically correct."
Gethin laughs, despite himself. "Think I should just correct the spelling?"
Jonathan shakes his head. "Nah, let's get rid of it." He bends down to pick up one of the rags Gethin has left on the sidewalk.
"Thank you," Gethin says earnestly. He means it. The February morning is freezing and grey, and he could probably think of more uplifting things to do on his day off.
"Don't worry about it," Jonathan says with a quick smile, and wets his rag in the bucket of water before attacking the second "F."
The street is quiet on a Sunday, and they work in silence. It doesn't take them more than an hour, but by the time they are done, Gethin is freezing cold and starving.
"Won't you come up for breakfast?" he asks, on a whim. He sounds uncertain, even to himself.
Jonathan looks surprised. "You don't need to –"
"It's the least I can do," Gethin says, more firmly this time. "I don't have much, I'm afraid, but I can make you toast and eggs. And tea, if you'd like."
"That sounds lovely, actually." Jonathan takes off his gloves and rubs his hands together.
For a moment, they just look each other, their breath forming white clouds in the air between them. A pigeon scurries by, the only other sign of life in the street.
Gethin shivers. "All right," he says, starting to collect their utensils. "Let's head inside, and get you warmed up."
"Are you two –"
Steph, the young lesbian with the mohawk, gives him a curious look. She is tucked into a corner of the shop, drinking tea from his chipped purple mug while flipping through a copy of Against Sadomasochism: A Radical Feminist Analysis.
Jonathan has just rushed in and out, dropping two theatre tickets onto the counter without saying as much as hello. "I have a play coming up at the Drill Hall," he'd said quickly, almost as if embarrassed. "Premiere is on Friday. You should come, if you'd like. Bring a friend." He'd been out the door before Gethin got a chance to say thanks, and the bell on the door is still ringing quietly.
"Are we what?" Gethin asks, a bit distracted as he watches her, dreading the tea stains she's going to leave on the pages.
"You know, shagging."
He frowns. "No," he says, maybe a bit too forcefully, and then, as she narrows her eyes at him: "Not that it's any of your business."
She sniffs. "He's kind of been spending a lot of time in here lately, isn't he?"
Gethin snorts. "Well, you'd know," he says pointedly, but without much heat. It's not like he actually minds having her around, when she isn't asking inconvenient questions.
"Do you agree with this?" she asks, holding up the book. He is relieved to see that she has set down her mug at least.
"What, that sadomasochism is rooted in patriarchy?"
She shrugs, looking down at her knees. So maybe it's not a completely hypothetical question.
"I don't know," he admits. "But I don't think it's that simple. I mean, we are all fighting for the right to have our sexual desires accepted by a society that in the vast majority thinks we are perverts or sick. Do we really want to start throwing stones ourselves?" He hesitates, wondering how much he should share. "I've – experimented a bit, and it wasn't exactly my cup of tea, but I do see why – I feel most people in the community have a good idea of what they like and why, and that should be enough, right?" He shrugs. "You should really talk to my friend Stella about things like this, mind. You know, she's running the Lesbian Discussion Group that meets in the back every two weeks."
"Nah." Steph waves him off. "You're fine. That was good advice."
Gethin isn't so sure, but he isn't going to argue. "You are welcome."
"So are you going?" she asks, and he frowns at the non sequitur.
"Going where?"
"The play!" she says, looking at him as if she doubts his intelligence. "Are you going?"
"I don't know," he says. "Haven't thought about it."
"I think you should go," she says. She gets up and positions the empty mug on the counter. "That's my advice. And I'm not even going to charge you for it."
"Yeah?" he asks, and she nods, firmly.
"Yeah."
She leaves without buying the book, but he can't bring himself to be mad.
"I saw your play," Gethin says.
For once, they haven't meet at the shop. It's the party of a friend of a friend of Mark's, and since this is apparently his life now, said friend seems to know Jonathan as well. Jonathan is there with a couple of people, theatre people from the looks of them, and Gethin could have simply walked past them and kept looking for his own crowd, but his mouth doesn't seem to agree with him.
Jonathan looks a bit surprised to see him, but pleased as well, and the tension in Gethin's neck loosens a little.
"I'm glad," Jonathan says, honestly. "Did you like it?"
Gethin thinks about it for a moment. "I liked your performance," he finally says. That much, at least, is true.
Jonathan laughs. "Yes. I agree that it wasn’t the most interesting thing I've been in." His face darkens. "But since they shut down the Gay Sweatshop2 after the funding was suspended, finding work has been a bit hard."
"I'm sorry," Gethin says, and means it. After seeing Jonathan on stage, it's hard to imagine him doing anything else.
"Don't be," Jonathan shakes his head. "Gives me more time to do other things."
Gethin raises his brows. "Like distracting me from work at the shop?"
"Precisely," Jonathan laughs. He puts an arm around Gethin's shoulders and leans in. From close up, Gethin can see that he's pretty pissed. "Best way to spend the day."
Gethin feels himself getting hot. He's well on his way to being drunk himself, and Jonathan's body feels strong and warm against his own in a way that makes him want – that makes him want, full stop. He smiles up at Jonathan, somewhat helplessly, and Jonathan smiles back softly.
"Oi, Johnny!" One of Jonathan's actor friends shouts. "Are we moving on or not? You wanted to stop by Rita's, didn't you?"
"Jesus Christ, these people!" Jonathan mutters, but the spell is broken, and he steps away. "Seems like we are out of here. Take care of yourself now, will you, love?"
Gethin nods numbly, and watches Jonathan blow him a kiss as he disappears in the crowd.
"Was that Jonathan?" Mark asks, coming up behind him.
"Yes," Gethin nods, without turning around. "Guess he couldn't stay."
"His loss," Mark laughs, fisting a hand in the fabric of his shirt. "Come on, they finally cleared up a space to dance. That's why we came, isn't it?"
"Do you want to talk about it?" Gethin asks, pushing a beer in Jonathan's direction.
"Not particularly," Jonathan says, cracking open the can and bending over to slurp up the foam that threatens to spill over.
"All right," Gethin says, and takes a sip from his own beer. "I'm not going to ask what happened. Are you going to look for a new flatmate, though? I can put a note up on the board downstairs."
Jonathan shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe I'm simply not cut out for cohabitation. But I also can't really afford the rent on that place by myself either."
"I'm sorry," Gethin says. He looks down. "You are welcome to my sofa for a night or two, if you ever need it."
"Thank you," Jonathan exhales. "Although for tonight, I think I'll just take another beer."
"Help yourself. There's more in the fridge," Gethin says, fighting down the urge to tell him to slow down.
"Cheers," Jonathan says, taking a deep pull from his spliff. "Sorry, I probably shouldn't have come here," he says. "Not very good company, I'm afraid."
"Don't worry about it," Gethin says. "You're always welcome." He tries to remember the moment when that started being the truth, and realizes it's probably been longer than he wants to admit.
Jonathan laughs. "The famous Welsh hospitality, huh?"
Gethin shrugs. "I don't know about that. Wales hasn't been very hospitable to me."
"You've never been back?" Jonathan asks carefully, depositing the joint on an empty plate, and Gethin shakes his head.
"Haven't spoken to my mum in almost fifteen years," he says. He never talks about this, but somehow it feels good to say it out loud.
"You in touch with your family?" he asks, and regrets it immediately when he sees the expression on Jonathan's face, raw pain and fear and something else altogether.
"No," Jonathan finally says, toying with his beer. "No, I –" he breaks off, lowering his head, and Gethin sees that he's shaking. "Fuck."
"Shit, I'm sorry," Gethin says, and after a moment of hesitation, crosses the kitchen to put a gentle hand on Jonathan's neck. Jonathan exhales, a long, shuddering sigh, and stays very still. Gethin starts running his fingers through his hair soothingly, and feels Jonathan arch into the touch.
"I'm sorry," he says again, helplessly, lowering into a squat so he can get a look at Jonathan's face. Jonathan turns his head toward him. His eyes are damp.
"Don't be," he says. "Gethin, you have no idea –" He raises a hand, as if to touch Gethin's face, but then aborts the gesture halfway through, biting his lips in frustration.
They are so close. In a moment, the focus of Gethin's world narrows down to the wide curve of Jonathan's mouth. His heart is drumming a violent beat.
He leans in, slowly, so slowly, holding his breath in anticipation. Jonathan stares at him with dark, wide eyes, mouth parted slightly, but just before their lips meet, he turns away, and Gethin's mouth connects awkwardly with his cheek.
Gethin freezes, closes his eyes. He feels ashamed to the core, and so, so tired.
"All right," he says, straightening, and fights against the tears threatening to spill over. Fucking Welsh sentimentality. "I'm sorry. I understand. I'm just going to –"
"No," Jonathan says softly, and wraps his fingers around the sleeve of Gethin's shirt to stop him. "No, you don't. You don't understand. I'm sorry."
"So tell me what it is I don't understand," Gethin says, staring straight ahead. "Is this a joke to you? Or is it just me? What do you want from me?"
"I'm positive."
"What?"
Gethin whirls around, and Jonathan lets go of his arm as if he got burnt.
"I tested HIV positive, Gethin," Jonathan says, more serious than he's ever seen him. "The virus, Gethin. I have it."
Gethin can hear his blood rushing in his ears. No, he thinks numbly, not that.
Jonathan drags a hand over his face. "I found out this winter. I've – God, I just didn't care anymore. The doctors told me to do the trial, but I've seen those miserable buggers die like dogs. That experimental drug? It's not working. I told myself, if I'm going to die, at least I can do it my way, right? Go out with a bang. And then – that night in the club, you were so beautiful, all scruffy, with your dark eyes and your leather jacket, and – I know I wasn't very nice to you that night, but. I wanted to talk to you, and at the same time I was so angry. Because for the first time since I got my results, I desperately wanted to live."
Gethin puts a hand over his mouth.
"And I shouldn't even have kissed you like that," Jonathan continues, "but God did I want to. And then I realized what I was doing, that I was selfish enough to think about fucking you without – telling you, and I just – I couldn't even look at you anymore. And I went inside, and ran into a friend who got his diagnose last month, and we made each other forget."
"Stop, for Christ's sake, please," Gethin pleads.
"No," Jonathan says. There are tears in his eyes. "No, you need to hear this. Because I wasn't – I might have been cruel, but I wasn't – I never rejected you. Only you were sweet and gorgeous, and I wanted you to have a life. And now – now I'm falling in love with you, and I just can't seem to stay away."
"Christ," Gethin says. "Jonathan."
"So that's it," Jonathan shrugs. "That's all. Now you know, and you can move on, and find someone who actually deserves you. Or at least someone who's still going to be around this time next year."
He rises slowly, picks up his coat from the back of his chair. At the door, he puts his fingers against his own lips and throws him a kiss, quietly. Then he drops his hand.
"Good night, Gethin," he says, and turns to leave. "Take care of yourself."
The next day, Gethin doesn't open the shop. He doesn't get out of bed – there doesn't seem to be a point in getting dressed. He drags himself to the door only when Mike knocks downstairs with a pot of soup around ten at night.
He does go back to work after one day, but it's as if it's happening to someone else, as if he isn't quite there. He lets Zoe make him dinner. He lets Jeff, still pretty and newly single, take over the organization committee for the monthly readings. He lets Mark put up posters for his new socialist group on the noticeboard in the back of the shop. He lets a love-sick Mike convince him to lend a comforting ear and arm for a night, although the next morning, when Mike is brewing coffee for him in his own kitchen, he isn't sure anymore who's been comforting whom. He lets a group of people drag him along to the hospital, where he engages in a desperate performance of hopefulness for someone he used to know from his time in the Gay Liberation Front3, and who now looks like a shadow of his former self.
"He doesn't have anyone," a girl he's maybe seen at a protest once says, when they leave. "His family doesn't talk to him, he and his boyfriend split last year, and since GLF has pretty much disbanded …"
"Fuck," the tall black bloke in the white leather jacket says. Gethin remembers now that he used to see them together sometimes at protests, this one and the man in the hospital. "This is shit. Shit. Shit." He kicks a trash can in passing, and it clatters angrily with a metallic noise.
It's that sound that wakes him up. He spends a night in the backroom of the shop, going through the stacks of information materials that have been piling up between the shelves, that so many people have been steering clear of, as if looking at the brochures alone might make them ill.
He rings Stella the moment he closes the shop for the day. It's Zoe who picks up, and to her credit, she gives him Jonathan's address without asking questions. In a spur-of-the-moment decision, he stops by the grocery store to buy a selection of herbal teas, fruit and whole-wheat biscuits, shaking his head at himself as he pays for the food. He takes the tube to Picadilly Circus and walks the rest of the way to Beak Street, finding the old brick building with the store front, and finally pauses for a moment to clamp down on the panic that's beginning to rise in his guts.
He takes the stairs slowly, and hears David Bowie long before he reaches the third floor, the music getting louder with every step. "And I'm floating in a most peculiar way, and the stars look very different today." He echoes the lyrics quietly to himself as he is standing on the rainbow-striped doormat, fighting with himself over whether to knock. He has just almost convinced himself that this has been a terrible idea, when the door swings open on its own accord, and he comes face to face with a stranger.
There is that dreadful sinking feeling when he is hit by the thought, just for a moment, that this must be Jonathan's lover, that he must have just been shagging him to the rhythm of David fucking Bowie, followed by a shred, a spark of hope that all this has just been an awful joke. Then the man shrugs on his coat and grimaces as he passes him on the way to the stairs.
"You try talking some sense into him," he says, annoyed. Gethin thinks he recognizes him as one of the theatre people from the party. "Good luck."
Inside the flat, Spacy Oddity gives way to Heroes. Gethin stares at the open door with trepidation.
"Shut the bloody door or turn down that horrible music!" A female voice screams from upstairs, startling him enough to hurry into the flat and close the door behind him. He leans his back against the wood and takes a deep breath.
"Go away, Sean!" he hears someone shout over the sound of the song, and Gethin follows his voice and the smell of grass down a narrow hallway.
"You are not Sean," Jonathan states when he sees him, looking up at him from hooded eyes.
Gethin shakes his head, numbly, and tightens his grip on the canvas bag.
Jonathan is stretched out on a massive yellow sofa, among Indian-style patterned cushions. A mostly empty wine bottle on the coffee table is surrounded by record albums and various ashtrays. On the record player, Heroes is slowly winding down.
"Oh Gethin," Jonathan smiles at him: a wide, dreamy smile. "Sweet, lovely Gethin." Then he suddenly frowns and stares at the spliff he's holding with suspicion. "Huh," he says. "This stuff must be stronger than I thought if I'm already hallucinating."
Gethin closes his eyes and counts to five, then he turns around and sets off in search of the kitchen. It's smaller than his own tiny kitchen, which he didn't think was possible, and covered in dirty dishes, tobacco crumbles and books. He does manage to unearth a kettle and two mugs, however, and once the tea is ready, he carries it back to the living room, where Jonathan is sitting up straight on the sofa, looking at him in apprehension.
"You are actually here, aren't you." He sounds completely sober.
"Scoot over," Gethin says simply, and places the mugs on the table, between an elephant-shaped pipe and a Duran Duran LP. He reaches over to take the joint from Jonathan's unresisting fingers, drops it into the wine and positions the bottle on the floor, as far away from the sofa as he can reach.
"Did you just – what in God's name are you doing?" Jonathan sounds scandalized and lost, and Gethin wonders what he must be thinking. He studies his face more closely. Jonathan doesn't look like he has slept very well, and his hair is dishevelled and wild, but he looks alive, and healthy, and incredibly beautiful.
"You said I made you want to live," Gethin says. "Fine. So act like it."
"What?" Jonathan asks. His hands, resting on his knees, are shaking, Gethin sees that now.
"If you want me to believe you, I need you to actually try and survive," he says. "Please. For me. Stop drinking so much, stop smoking all the time. Eat regular meals. Get enough sleep. Do yoga, and have some fucking tea, for God's sake."
"Do you really think it's that simple?" Jonathan asks bitterly. "I know we British think that tea can cure anything, but I think the doctors would have told me if that worked in this case."
"I know," Gethin says urgently. "I know it's not that easy. But they will have to find a cure eventually, one that actually works, right? And - and I want you to still be alive when that happens." He pauses, swallows. He's not allowing himself to cry. "Whatever happens to you. I'll be there for you, I promise. But you need to – you need to show me that you actually want to live. For me." He takes a deep breath. "For us."
"What are you saying?" Jonathan asks. His fingers are clenching his thighs so hard the knuckles are turning white.
Gethin reaches out silently, covers Jonathan's nervous hand with his own. After a long moment, he feels the shaking fingers still under his touch. Then he leans in, slowly, carefully, and kisses the corner of Jonathan's mouth. It's a brief kiss, and chaste, and he pulls back at once. But it undoes something in Jonathan; his arms come up around Gethin, pulling him close, and then they are clinging to each other, wrapped around each other so tightly Gethin forgets where he ends and Jonathan begins. He feels a heart beating and idly wonders whose it is.
When they finally come apart, Jonathan's eyes are wet, but he's smiling.
"The tea is probably cold," he says regretfully, and Gethin laughs, under tears.
"There's more," he says, and then, "there's no rush." He exhales. "There is no rush."
"Do you know that Jonathan is sitting on your doorstep in a pink robe, drinking tea?"
Mark is carrying a stack of leaflets for the Switchboard4, Mike and Steph are trailing behind him like two ducklings, a common sight these days.
Gethin rubs his eyes with the back of his hand. It's too early on a Monday for this kind of conversation.
"Yeah, I've noticed," he says, taking the leaflets from Mark quickly when the boy starts losing his grip on the stack. "Do you want to put these up on the noticeboard?" he asks, heading toward the backroom, but he turns around when he realizes that only utter silence is following him.
They all stare at him, wide-eyed.
"What? Is there a problem?" he says, and deigns to give them a tiny smile. "Besides, it's technically his doorstep too. He moved in last week."
He leaves the kids to their crisis of faith and their leaflets, and steps outside the shop into the pale April sun. Jonathan makes room for him on the stoop, and they sit next to each other, watching the people hurry by on their way to work.
"I think you broke them," he grins.
Jonathan laughs. "I wouldn't worry. It's all part of their education."
Gethin leans his head against his shoulder and feels warmth spread through him when Jonathan links their fingers together.
"Besides," Jonathan says, sounding sleepy and content. "I like where I am."
"Good," Gethin responds, with a smile that feels like happiness. "Because I think you are going to be here for a while."