Chapter Text
You’re 17 and the most beautiful boy you’ve ever met is living at your house for the next three months. You’ve never felt quite this way about another bloke, though little things from the past you’ve long repressed begin to creep up, things like the Beckham GQ cover that made you a bit too excited for the Tesco checkout queue when you were twelve or Mark Donovan indicting you of changing room voyeurism during P.E. in year nine. You weren’t even looking at Donovan, you were looking at that jockish prick Alex Betteridge. Carli was dating him at the time and your jealousy had transformed into something else entirely when he tackled you in rugby, sweaty and strapping with ragged breaths.
Everyone, including you and your mates, takes the piss out of gays. You call people benders and never heed the irony because you know you’re not gay, not really, so why give it any thought? You’ve never felt like you weren’t being your true self, because you do like girls. You never lied. A teenage boy, especially one who actually likes girls, shouldn’t have to examine every whim that crosses his hormone-addled mind. Thought crimes don’t count, so you’ve never been arsed to face up to it, and you want to maintain your anodyne presence in the Rudge Park social ecosystem. To everyone there, you’re just Simon Cooper, an ordinary bloke they’ve known since primary school who drives a shit Fiat but takes good notes in sociology. That or the sad div who’s obsessed with Carli D’Amato, but you don’t mind that narrative anymore. It’s true, and it helps your case.
Everything Patrice does starts to feel pornographic to you. You have to avert your eyes when he has yoghurt in the morning or the sight of it will live in your head all day at school. You insist you’re just so desperately horny you’re malfunctioning. You insist it’s his feminine features you’re into when you find yourself staring, high cheekbones and full lips and a willowy frame, but when all is said and done it’s the boyish things that do you in. It’s the stripe of black hair below his navel and the veins in his arms and his woody cologne. You get lost in it, hungry and urgent, but he seems so present, so expert. That intimidates you, but the wine is making everything a bit fuzzy and it all feels so good and fuck, he’s really, really fit. You’ve never been kissed like this, and it occurs to you that this is on track to being your first successful sexual experience. The handjob you were receiving from Hannah Fields was cut short when you were pummeled by that aggro year eight. It was perhaps the most mortifying moment of your life, and you didn’t even get to finish. Had to get a proper one sometime, you reckon, but you’re hyperaware that you’re touching him too. Before you know it you’re coming and he’s coming and you’re mortified by how much spunk you produced because it’s evidence of how much you enjoyed it. He cleans you both up with tissues from your bedside table, then kisses you again as if to punctuate the sweetness of the gesture. You want to kill him and then turn the gun on yourself.
You plod through the hallways like a zombie the next morning. You sigh exasperatedly when you walk into the common room and see Will, Jay, and Neil engaged in a spirited argument. Per usual, Will’s probably right, but too haughty in his delivery to garner your sympathy. Today, you’re not having any of it. You check out of the conversation and shake off their inquiries about your hangdog demeanor, chalking it up to having slept badly. Jay quips that you were up all night wanking and you can’t muster up the strength to deny it; it’s half-true anyway. You wished it was fully true, that you’d just controlled yourself and had another shameful wank over the idea of him. You’d hate yourself for it, but you hate yourself infinitely more when you and Will enter English to see Patrice, all mystery and perfect bone structure, engrossed in Sartre as girls look on, whispering and twirling their hair, and all you can think is that you know the face he makes when he comes. You shove down the excruciatingly fresh mental image as you walk past his desk on the way to your own.
“Bonjour, Simon.” He coyly mutters without looking up from his copy of Being and Nothingness.
“Prick.” You hiss back, momentarily fracturing his stoicism.
He smiles fondly from behind his book, then meets your gaze and winks. Your face feels like it’s on fire and you really need to sit down.
This is going to be the longest term of your life.