Shameless Read online

  Graham hadn’t noticed a thing. Or if he had, he certainly hadn’t commented. So this morning, while he was shaving, she had casually mentioned that perhaps it might be more convenient if he started leaving a few of his things over at her place. And since he spent so much time there anyway, maybe it was time they talked about something a little more permanent. The look on his face should have been enough to warn her off. She had closed enough deals in her time to know when things weren’t going her way. But something about his reaction provoked her. For a brief moment, she found herself resenting him for all the things he hadn’t noticed, all the things he hadn’t said. She felt she deserved some kind of explanation, and so she pushed.

  “I’m not asking you to marry me for Christ’s sake! I just thought it was time we started thinking about where this relationship is going, that’s all. But if that’s your attitude, fine!”

  She had definitely misjudged the situation, she knew that now. Her father had willed himself into an early grave to escape his wife’s constant nagging. The death certificate said lung cancer, but even at fifteen Caroline knew what drove him to smoke so heavily. At thirty-three, she hated detecting echoes of her mother in her own voice. What made matters worse was that Graham had left without saying a thing, so her own words were still hanging in the air long after the door had closed.

  She had driven into work in a foul mood, more angry with herself for making such a mess of things than she was with him for storming out like that. Graham flew off the handle quite easily, especially if he was feeling pressurized. It was just his way. The important thing was that he tended to cool down just as quickly and was usually the first to apologize. She fully expected him to phone as soon as she arrived at the office, if only to say that they could talk about it tomorrow night when they met. But he didn’t. Then her boss had called her into a management meeting that lasted the entire morning. When she checked her messages at lunchtime, there was still no word from Graham. Martin had called, probably just to see what she was doing over the weekend, but that was all. The afternoon had been an endless succession of meetings with clients. She had been obliged to keep her cell switched off, which only added to the anticipation. When she checked her messages again at five-thirty, there was another message from Martin but still nothing from Graham.

  Now it was after six, and some of the girls from the office were making their way to the local wine bar for their regular Friday-night drinkfest. She decided to join them, for an hour at least. As she left the office, she reached into her handbag and switched her cell phone on, just in case.

  “Have you thought about going for an HIV test?” John asked. It was later that evening and he and Martin were hovering next to the bar at Kudos, waiting to be served. “I mean, I don’t want to worry you, but this Marco guy he’s run off with . . . Well, he is a rent boy after all. You can’t be too careful.”

  “Keep your voice down, John,” Martin hissed. “I don’t want the whole world knowing my business. Anyway, I don’t need to go for an HIV test. We were safe, always.” Actually, this wasn’t strictly true. Christopher could be very persuasive, and it was true that sex without condoms always felt more intimate somehow. Still, the last time they’d had unsafe sex had been over a year ago, and they had both tested negative shortly after that. There was no point worrying about it now.

  “He could still have given you crabs, though,” John said in a stage whisper. “I think I’ve got a bottle of Nix somewhere. Let me know if you need it.” Then, raising his voice until he was practically shouting: “Christ, the service here is useless! I wonder who she sucked off to get a job behind the bar. Nice arse, though. I couldn’t help but notice, seeing as she’s had her back to me for the past ten minutes!”

  John had a tendency toward outbursts like this. He was the kind of scene queen who liked to cause a scene, and despite his rather lofty claims that he was making a solitary stand against the poor levels of service that were the scourge of every gay man in London, the truth was that he simply enjoyed the attention. When John walked into a gay bar, he liked to think that his reputation preceded him. In reality, the only thing that preceded him was his voice, which had the haughty tone and high volume of someone blessed with a complete lack of self-awareness.

  The barman wasn’t impressed. Unaccustomed to finding himself the target of such a torrent of abuse, least of all from someone visibly older and less attractive than himself, he turned and scowled. Embarrassed, Martin retreated from the bar and waited at a safe distance while John ordered two Budweisers and made a point of pocketing his change and giving the barman one of his looks. John had a vast arsenal of looks, and he wasn’t shy with any of them.

  “Quick, there’s a table over there,” John said, handing Martin a chilled can. “Let’s take the weight off our legs. I’m sure I pulled a muscle in my thigh yesterday. It’s like I was telling this queen at the gym earlier. You don’t need to spend hours on the StairMaster to keep your legs in shape. Just try pushing a trolley up and down a 747 for ten hours.”

  Martin nodded and took a swig of beer. “I’ll have to change the message on my answering machine,” he said as they sat down. “I really don’t want to hear Christopher’s voice every time I phone home to pick up my messages.”

  “If you ask me, you’re better off without him,” John said, lighting a cigarette. “I never thought he was right for you. Americans are far too full of themselves. And they talk too much during sex. All that, ‘Yeah, suck that big cock,’ like they’re starring in a porn film or something. And half the time they’ve only got four inches! I remember the first time I went to New York. I got laid twice in one weekend, and they only had six inches between them!”

  “You never said anything to me about not liking Christopher.”

  “I’m not saying I don’t like him. I’m just saying he wasn’t right for you.”

  “Well, I wish I felt the same. I was sure he was the one. I really thought I’d found Mr. Right.”

  John flicked his ash. “There is no Mr. Right,” he said, relishing the drama of it all. “There is only Mr. Right Now. The sooner you realize that, the happier you’ll be.”

  But Martin wasn’t listening. “I wonder what Marco’s answering-machine message sounds like?” he said, clutching his beer and staring intently at the table. “Very butch, I bet, with a thick Italian accent. That’s what people want to hear when they ring a whore. I bet he’s not nearly as butch in real life, though.”

  “He’s probably not even Italian.” John sniffed. “Although I did happen to come across his ad in QX, and I must say he certainly looks the part. I think I’ve still got it at home if you’re interested. . . .”

  Martin shot him a warning look.

  “No, of course not,” John said hurriedly. “Sorry. Anyway, nobody uses Italian rent boys anymore. That is just so ’90s! I read an article about it somewhere. It’s all Brazilians now. Brazilians are the new Italians.”

  Martin groaned and went back to his beer. John was always quoting from an article he’d read somewhere, usually in some stupid fashion magazine if his turns of phrase were anything to go by, although this latest pearl of wisdom did sound more like something he’d read in one of the gay bar rags. Most people only picked up those papers to look at the pictures—John based his entire worldview on them. He never read newspapers, never watched the television news, and wasn’t remotely embarrassed to say that he had no interest in current affairs, other than who was currently fucking whom and whether or not they were likely to be found out. There were times when John’s behavior led Martin to suspect that he hadn’t been raised in the real world at all, but grown in a gay test tube. He viewed the world through a gay glass, sometimes darkly, sometimes with rainbow colors, but always with his eye firmly focused on the next opportunity he could exploit for either profit or pleasure. According to John, there were three ingredients necessary for achieving happiness as a gay man—plenty of money, a well-toned body and a boyfriend (or preferably more than one if t
here was enough of you to go around and you could get away with it). Right now, Martin scored a resounding nil on all three counts. The more he thought about it, agreeing to meet John for drinks this evening probably wasn’t the smartest decision he had ever made.

  To make matters worse, Kudos had never been one of Martin’s favorite gay bars. Some years before, it had been the setting for one of the biggest rows he had ever had with Christopher. It started when Christopher kept going on about how attractive all the bar staff were. Martin had responded by asking if he thought the management might consider giving him a job behind the bar—not that he wanted one, but since Christopher clearly found the bar staff here so desirable, he wanted to know where he rated in the scheme of things. Christopher had laughed and said that Martin was a little too old and a little too overweight for that kind of opportunity to ever come his way. John had heard this story several times, but that hadn’t stopped him from insisting that Kudos would be the ideal place to meet.

  “I think rent boys should be forced to pay back some of their earnings to the gay community,” John went on. “I mean, they don’t pay any income tax, so they should pay some sort of community tax. God knows, they make enough money out of other gay men. It wouldn’t hurt them to give something back. And the pressure they put on the rest of us is so unfair. I mean, it’s easy to have a perfect body when you don’t have a proper job and can spend every waking hour at the gym. And the attitude of some of them! You’d swear they were pop stars or something, the way they swan around the place. There was this one holding up the queue for the loos in the Departure Lounge at Heaven the other week. We got into a right slanging match. She told me, ‘Prostitution is the oldest profession.’ I said, ‘Yes, dear, and you’ve obviously been in it since the beginning.’”

  “I thought you had to be some sort of VIP to get into the Departure Lounge,” Martin said. “Isn’t it supposed to be members only?”

  “Oh, they’ll let anyone in these days,” John replied airily, oblivious to the fact that he didn’t exactly qualify as a VIP himself. “Someone told me they saw the Pet Shop Boys in there once, but I’ve never seen anyone remotely famous. Just a few dried-up club promoters, a couple of ‘scene celebrities’ and a load of old whores reeking of Kouros.” He paused to inspect his stomach, which was virtually nonexistent beneath a white ribbed T-shirt. “Do you think I need to lose a bit of weight?”

  “You look fine,” Martin said, wondering when the conversation was going to get back to him and his painfully new single status.

  John smiled. “Yeah, I suppose so. It’s probably just the lager. It really bloats me up. I’ll tell you what I need—a weekend of serious drug abuse and plenty of sex. That should soon sort me out.” He stopped and looked disapprovingly at Martin’s paunch. “Actually, it wouldn’t do you any harm, either. Remember, you’re single again now. And you know what they say—no pecs, no sex. By the way, what’s with the baseball cap?”

  “Bad haircut,” Martin said, gritting his teeth. He really wasn’t in the mood for fashion advice.

  “Give us a look, then,” John said, whipping off the cap before Martin could stop him. “Oh yes, very butch. Actually, it quite suits you short. It makes your eyes look bigger.”

  Martin smiled halfheartedly and glanced around the bar. The early-evening office crowd was beginning to thin out, the young fruits in suits making their way back to their designer flats and designer boyfriends, the older, shabbier types sneaking off to Charing Cross station for a train back to suburbia and the wife. Soon the bar would start filling up with bright young things in combat trousers and tight T-shirts, gearing up for a night of clubbing and endless sexual possibilities. God, it was unbearable!

  “Time for another, I think,” John chirped suddenly, rising from the table. “Another Budweiser? Or shall we move onto the vodka? Yes, I think a large vodka and Red Bull is what you need. It gives you wings, you know. Not that I don’t see enough of those at work. Back in a tick.”

  Martin watched John disappear in the direction of the bar and wondered whether it was worth making a quick escape. What time was it? Just about nine. If he left now, he could be back home in time for Frasier. This was assuming there were no delays on the Northern Line, of course. Still, maybe there’d be a film on later, some old horror movie or something. Or one of those really tacky telemovies with Barbara Eden playing a woman half her age. They were usually good for a laugh. Or maybe one of those “Ibiza Uncovered” type programs, with lots of sex-crazed straight people on holiday behaving the way most gay men behaved every week of the year.

  “Look who I bumped into!” Martin looked up to see John swinging off some guy in a T-shirt two sizes too small. He was cute, though, there was no denying that—quite beefy, with short dark hair that showed no sign of receding and solid black eyebrows over the bluest eyes. He looked a bit like Christopher, in fact. Other than that, Martin had absolutely no idea who this person was. Of course John wasted no time in introducing him. The guy’s name was Matthew, and he and John had met in a chat room on the Internet.

  “I didn’t know you came here,” John said. He was looking at Matthew, although his remark was clearly for Martin’s benefit. “Have a seat,” John went on, gesturing to Matthew to join them at the table. “You don’t mind, do you, Martin?”

  “No, of course not.” Martin smiled feebly. He was frequently amazed at how little time it took for John to get his claws into someone. One night of passion, and they were joined at the hip for the next three weeks—which was about as long as any of John’s relationships ever lasted. Trust him to throw himself into a new relationship just as Martin’s was ending, and with someone guaranteed to remind Martin of Christopher.

  Several vodka and Red Bulls later, Martin was starting to feel a lot better. Matthew was really quite nice—far nicer than the men John usually went for. He was obviously intelligent, which was always an unexpected bonus where John’s sexual conquests were concerned, and considering how attractive he was, he didn’t seem too full of himself. What’s more, Martin had a suspicion that Matthew liked him, too. He was very chatty, and even quite flirtatious at one point. John had gone to the bar and Martin was telling Matthew about Christopher and the way he had just upped and left, omitting the bit about the unfashionable Italian prostitute and the possibility that he may have given him crabs.

  “If you ask me, it’s his loss,” Matthew said. “You’re in pretty good shape. You seem like a decent guy. I’d say you were quite a catch.”

  He smiled at Martin as he said this, and for a split second their eyes locked. There was an awkward pause while Martin considered the possibility that Matthew was going to kiss him. Part of him secretly wished he would. Matthew was far too nice for John anyway, and it hardly seemed fair that John should be with him while Martin was faced with being alone. It was probably the drink, but he was about to blurt this out to Matthew when suddenly John arrived back from the bar, clutching a round of drinks. He stopped abruptly and gave an awkward smile, as though he were embarrassed at having interrupted the conversation. Martin had seen this routine before. John was the only person he knew who was capable of looking slightly bashful and extremely full of himself at the same time.

  “Been talking about me, then?” John said, looking first at Martin and then at Matthew.

  “Of course,” Matthew replied, sliding an arm around his waist and giving him a little squeeze. “Who else?”

  Martin smiled sheepishly and wondered what on earth someone with Matthew’s many attributes could possibly see in someone like John. Not that John wasn’t fairly attractive—in a bland, blond sort of way. He had pale blue eyes, which he sometimes darkened with the aid of colored contact lenses, and lashes that were tinted once a month to emphasize their length. He worked out regularly and never seemed to put on weight, no matter what he ate—unlike Martin, who only had to look at a Quarter Pounder and regular fries to start piling on the pounds. But John certainly wasn’t anything special. He didn’t have a particul
arly handsome face, and unlike Martin, nobody had ever mistaken John for being a decent guy. Take his behavior tonight, for instance. Martin doubted whether it had even crossed John’s mind that seeing him together with his latest catch might be the very last thing Martin needed right now.

  For the next hour, he watched with growing irritation as John draped himself around Matthew at every opportunity, laughing at everything he said and generally behaving like a love-struck teenager. He even nibbled his ear once, though Martin noticed with some satisfaction that Matthew didn’t seem too pleased. By the time they called last orders, Martin was left feeling like a complete goose and wishing that he had just kissed Matthew himself when he’d had the chance. He vowed that, should the opportunity ever arise again, he would grab it by both ears.

  As they left Kudos and began walking in the direction of Leicester Square, John announced that he and Matthew were heading on to a club.

  “We thought we might try G.A.Y.,” he said, looking back at Martin over his shoulder. “Come with us, if you like.” Martin could detect from the tone of his voice that John was simply being polite—for Matthew’s benefit more than his. He toyed with the idea of accepting John’s halfhearted invitation, just to annoy him, but decided against it.