Chapter Text
Sexual intercourse began
In nineteen sixty-three
(which was rather late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
Up to then there'd only been
A sort of bargaining,
A wrangle for the ring,
A shame that started at sixteen
And spread to everything.
Then all at once the quarrel sank:
Everyone felt the same,
And every life became
A brilliant breaking of the bank,
A quite unlosable game.
So life was never better than
In nineteen sixty-three
(Though just too late for me) -
Between the end of the "Chatterley" ban
And the Beatles' first LP.
—Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”
BOOK ONE: 1993-2008
John, 1993
Looked at upside down, Toby’s Clockwork Orange poster is even more disturbing than right side up: a giant V with a fist punching through it, bisected by a razor-pointed dagger. Three staring eyes—Alex’s fake-eyelashed leer and one more, disembodied and perfectly round, echoing the O in Orange. Even upside down on the bed, John can read the caption on the poster. Being the adventures of a young man whose principle interests are rape, ultra-violence and Beethoven.
“Fucking morbid,” John mutters, and inhales deeply. He passes the spliff to Toby.
Even stoned silly on some excellent Chronic, Toby can read John’s mind. It’s not any particular compliment to their friendship, Toby does it with everybody. More to John than to anybody, but only because he spends more time with John than with the others.
“Fucking brilliant,” Toby says, exhaling smoke. “The triangle and the eye? Illuminati symbols. But Alex is slashing through them. Bloody well sticks it to the man every chance he gets, doesn’t he? Mind you, I’m not advocating ultraviolence, but Kubrick has a point. All his movies are full of references to conspiracy theories, webs of power that go straight up to the tippy-top. I’ll show you Dr. Strangelove some time, and 2001. It’s why old Stanley had to leave America and come here. He was getting death threats. The Powers That Be don’t like it when you call them out on their shit. Of course, Britain’s not any better. Why do you think Alex and his droogs wear bowler hats, like all the proper English gentlemen? The whole fucking system is corrupt.”
“Anarchy is our only option,” John says. “Safety pins through the nose, rioting in the streets. Right now—let’s go.”
Toby stretches his long arms. “Can’t, mate. Too fucking baked.” He turns his head, looking at John. His grey eyes are bigger and wider than the disembodied one on the poster. Rather redder.
“Part of the conspiracy,” John says. “Flood the youth of the UK with weed. Keep us docile.”
“Clever,” Toby says. “Diabolically clever. One has to admire the ruthlessness.”
“And the weed,” John says. “This is seriously good shit.”
“Thank you,” Toby says. He tilts his head back, looking at a skull poster hung next to smirking Alex DeLarge. The skull grins back.
“Respice post te. Hominem te esse memento. Memento mori,” he whispers.
“What the bloody fuck?”
“It’s Latin. Look behind you. Remember that you are but a man. Remember that you will die. When a Roman general won a major victory over the barbarian hordes, they gave him a big party and a parade. He was essentially elected a god for the day. During the parade a servant would whisper those sentences in his ear, I suppose to make sure he didn’t get too far above himself. The senators hated it when one of their own got too powerful. It’s why they offed Julius Caesar. Conspiracies again: I suppose all empires have them.”
Toby takes another hit, then stubs out the joint. “People used to think about death all the time. That poster is a memento mori: See the flower and the hourglass on either side of the skull? They’re remembrances that things don’t last. Time fades every flower. ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may’ is not just a pretty verse. Pick some posies, fuck your lover, because you’ll both be wormfood soon enough. Sooner than that, if the Powers That Be have their way.”
Toby will go on like this for hours if you let him. Skipping from point to point, reference to obscure reference, like some manic mad librarian. He never does it at school, of course: His survival instincts are too keen. He is very good at reading people, especially those likely to beat him to a pulp for showing off. At school it’s footie and pop music, jokes and pints and belching contests. Toby reads everyone; he talks this way only to John. A kind of secret between them.
It’s not the only one.
Toby turns onto his side. His naked flesh is paler than the white sheets puddled around them. He is so very pale, porcelain skin and silvery eyes and silky flaxen hair. He’s a bit taller than John but much more slender, as slender as a girl. Pretty as one, John sometimes thinks.
But Toby is all boy, for all that he looks so fragile. A mean little fucker on the football field, sneaky and ruthless. Before you know it he’s tripped you up, got you flat on your back, staring at him sweaty and dazed. John knows to watch out for him now. He wasn’t so careful three months ago. Not the first time Toby got him on his back, but the first time John enjoyed it.
Toby reaches out, touching John’s face. His fingers are like the rest of him, long and slender and white. They trace John’s profile, pausing to tickle him under his chin. He smiles when he sees John smile, and when he does you can see the striking man he’s going to be. Not just pretty but really handsome, once he fills out a bit. John won’t be like that, even at 18 he knows it. He’ll have to settle for smart, perhaps, or interesting. Toby seems to find him so, anyway.
Toby’s clever fingers wend their way down John’s torso. The touch is as light as a feather, a little cool, as Toby’s touch almost always is. Cool and white as marble, but there is heat beneath it. Or maybe the heat is John’s, that heavy warmth pooling in his belly, as Toby’s hand makes the muscles of John’s abdomen twitch in a really interesting way.
Just to be clear: John is not gay. But he’s not handsome, either, and the ladies aren’t exactly breaking down his door. Before Toby tackled him, sometimes John thought he would go mad with it, the need to touch, grasp hold; to be touched and grasped in return. John likes how girls feel, their soft curves and secret wet places. He can remember Jenny so vividly, the last girl who let him touch her. He can feel her breast in his hand, the sweet giving weight of it, warmer and realer than any memory should be. He can still get hard from it. But memory is just memory in the end. And here is Toby, right here and now. Toby, who loves to touch and grasp and suck and fuck, as much as he likes spouting cryptic bullshit.
As if reading John’s mind again, Toby pushes the sheet down. He takes John’s cock in his hand. Toby is as practiced at this as he is at so many things—(“Thirteen, John, since you’re wondering. Don’t be so shocked. You know I was always precocious.”) Toby grasps hold and John hardens at the touch, the warmth in his belly seems to radiate outwards, slide deliciously over all his skin, a thick sticky flood that you could drown in. It surprised him the first time Toby did this. Not just that Toby had the stones to do it, but that he, John, liked it so much. (Toby had known, of course: “You’ve been gagging for it for weeks now, mate. If I don’t take one for the team, you’ll be humping old Henderson on the rugby field. Can’t have that, can we?”)
Toby kisses him. Gently at first, as gently as his fingers are teasing John’s cock. Then his tongue plunders John’s mouth, he tastes like weed and something darker, he’s all boy and this isn’t like kissing Jenny or Michelle or any of the other girls that John has kissed. It’s rough and it’s exciting, desperate and breathless, like tackling a mate during a really close match. It’s like kissing yourself, maybe, feeling beard burn and smelling the brassy aroma of young randy male. Having Toby touch you is like touching yourself, but it’s so much better. There’s something so immediate about this. Something so familiar, so right about it. Like it’s something he’s been doing all his life. He could do it forever.
Maybe that’s what’s so fucking scary about it.
John pulls back a little, breaking the kiss. “I like girls.” A stupid thing to say at such a moment, but he has to say it. He hopes that Toby, so clever and observant, will understand.
One corner of Toby’s mouth turns up. He pushes fine blond hair out of his eyes, which are sparkling with lust and amusement. “I like girls too,” he says. “I just don’t like fucking them.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“Been doing this since I was 13, remember? Anyway, I did shag a girl once. I’d rather watch Dr. Strangelove. I’ve always known, John. I’m as gay as a maypole. But don’t tell Henderson. I’d like to keep my balls right where they are, thanks.”
“I don’t know,” John says. “I mean, I do. I’m not gay. What we’re doing, it’s just—” He stops. He doesn’t know what to say about it. He likes it, but he can’t like it too much. This is just fun. Just mates together: It doesn’t mean anything. Toby can be gay if he likes, he has the looks and brains to carry it off. John isn’t ugly or stupid, but he’s not Toby.
“I’m not like you,” he says finally. “I—I don’t want to be.”
Toby looks at him a moment. “But you don’t want to stop, do you?” There’s an edge in his voice, one as sharp and silvery as his eyes. It could cut you, and it would hurt. John has seen Toby hurt people more than once. It’s not just his sense of humor and brutality on the football field that earns respect. Toby can be mean as hell: Even Henderson mostly leaves him alone.
John isn’t scared of Toby. Toby has never used his sharp edges to cut John, though none of their other mates get spared. Toby tackled him ruthlessly, but he’s never hurt John. Not once.
“I don’t want to stop,” John whispers. “I don’t know what that makes me.”
Toby takes John’s face in his hands. His touch is very gentle. What it means—Toby’s gentleness with John, the specialness of this—it’s even scarier than Toby’s sarcasm would be. Toby leans so close that John can feel his breath upon his face. Maybe it’s the weed or just the nearness of him, but John is suddenly dizzy, tumbling over and over, on his back in the wet grass staring up at the vault of a pale grey sky, the endless horizon of Toby’s gaze. Something so sad in it, as sad as the music on Toby’s stereo. Joy Division of course, no slick New Order electronica for him.
People like you find it easy,
Naked to see,
Walking on air.
Hunting by the rivers,
Through the streets, every corner
Abandoned too soon,
Set down with due care.
Don't walk away in silence,
Don't walk away . . .
“It makes you John,” Toby says. “That’s enough for now. Nothing lasts forever, love. Six months from now you’ll be in Birmingham and I’ll be in Manchester. Separate unis, separate lives. Don’t torture yourself! Carpe diem and all that shit.” His tone is light, he gives John a smile. He gives permission. Not to think about this, not to be brave if he can’t be. If Toby is hurt by John’s cowardice, he doesn’t show it. He doesn’t make John pay for it, though he could.
“You are amazing,” John says. “I do know that.”
“My cock is amazing,” Toby says, raising an eyebrow. A fluid move and he’s on top of John, pressing him into the mattress. He slides against him, and John moans at the lovely friction of it. “Memento Mori, fuck! Memento Toby. Birmingham ladies are going to have a lot to live up to.”
As it turns out, they absolutely do.