Recognition is an Open Door
It’s difficult to explain the things you do, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know why the hell I do the things I do a
lot of the time. Does anyone? I’m nothing special. The only thing you’d notice about me in a crowd is my
height, possibly my haunted eyes. But since I tend to keep my head down and my shoulders stooped
out of long-held habit, you might not even register that. I’ve spent most of my life looking at my feet —
safer that way. Safer than people looking me in the eye and giving me the dubious pleasure of their
disappointment or pity or, worse, amusement. No, better to keep looking at those feet, walking step-by-
step-slowly on to oblivion. Just keep on keeping on. Soon be over, eh? Soon I’ll be back home in
oblivion where everything is timeless, and everyone is free.
I’ve lived in a fantasy world for years, but I’m not alone in that. I know I’m not. We’ve all been children,
seeing things that adults couldn’t or wouldn’t see. We’ve all been drunk or drugged up with our mates,
believing that there’s no tomorrow until it smacks us firmly 'round the head with an unexpectedly harshly
drawn curtain and a sickeningly loud dawn chorus. We all, deep down inside, want to be special, immortal,
timeless. We all want to be the one that people point to and say, “That’s who I’d like to be.” We all have
our secret dreams, our little worlds built for our own amusement and appeasement. And why not? When
the world you actually live in is so full of despair and loneliness, death and duplicity, of course you build
escape routes. How else to keep those feet of yours trudging, one foot in front of the other, onward to
the oblivion we all crave? Oblivion is freedom, right? That’s why I started doing drugs in the first place.
On the outside, mind, I’m just a drone. I work in an identikit office with the migraine-inducing strip
lighting and the grey fucking wall dividers and the stupid corporate calendars along with all the other
drones. I keep my head down. I keep my head down so no one can see the loneliness and the craziness
in my haunted eyes. I keep my head down ’cos I don’t want to see the craziness in their eyes, either. My
craziness is all I can cope with at the moment. On the odd occasion I find myself drawn shyly into stilted
conversation, cramped in the communal kitchen or loitering aimlessly by the water cooler, I flinch inwardly
at the anger and boredom and sheer frustration I see in other people’s eyes. And they, I suppose, see
my fear and aversion, and they look away, aware that they just showed too much, and it’s not welcome.
First drug I ever tried, apart from the socially acceptable ones like alcohol and nicotine, was weed. Didn’t
like it much, to be honest. Always made me feel sick to my stomach. But, I persevered, ’cos you do, don’
t you? You want to be special, not shy. You want to be an outlaw, not an outsider. You want, more than
anything, to be someone who breaks the rules. Someone who gives two fingers to a society that says,
"Be safe. Don’t cross the line; stay in your box. Be good."
After that, it was speed, then acid, then coke, then E, then the rest. After a while, you think you’re an
expert. You think you know it all. You think you’ve got a handle on it and can do anything. You’re
invincible. At last.
But then, drugs will do that to you, won’t they? They’ll make you think like that. That’s why you do them
in the first place. You do them ’cos you know you’re flawed and unlovable and weak, and it hurts to
know that. You just want to just forget it for a moment. And in the act of forgetting, you don’t notice
your world growing smaller, hour by hour, day by day. Till one morning you wake up and realise all your
friends and your family have gone. But, by then, it’s too late.
My parents brought me up to believe I was invincible, ironically enough. They made a point of it.
Weakness wasn’t an option. Moral superiority and intelligence and hard work were the rods they
fashioned for my back. I carried them for years, those crucifying rods. My parents’ hopeless hopes, their
dashed dreams. Personally, I couldn’t wait to come down from that cross. The minute I got free of my
parents’ expectations, I dropped the lot. I made it my new mission in life to be as morally reprehensible
and stupid and indolent, in their eyes, as I could manage. They’d never bothered to see the real me, so I
made a point of showing them everything they’d never wanted to see in return. It wasn’t easy at first. It
didn’t come naturally, not at all. But, like I said about the weed, I persevered. I got there. Eventually.
I knew I was on a mission to destroy my past, but I didn’t realise how much of me it would destroy along
the way. I sometimes wonder if I had known, would I still have done it? I think I would. I think I had to. I
don’t think I had a choice in any of it. The old me had to be destroyed, if I was going to live. I’d been
suffocating slowly. Buried in a man-slide of my own, and others, creation. False fronts, false opinions,
false feelings. No, that Frankenstein had to die. My mistake was thinking that once you get past the first
hurdle, it’s over — game won. It’s not like that. Every time you clear a hurdle, there’s another in front of
you. That’s the way life is. You just keep jumping until you run out of steam or run out of legs. Only
then, do you finally run out of hurdles…
I was beginning to think I’d run out of steam, and I was certainly an expert in getting legless. The new
world I’d tried to create for myself had become a prison. The drugs were starting to win, and I wasn’t in
control as much as I wanted to think. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever clear another hurdle. Then,
something happened.
One night, I was feeling low. Lower than I’d been for a while. My loneliness was starting to get to me.
Everything seemed worthless, pointless, meaningless. That’s a place I know really well. It’s like staring out
over a precipice into a void — your toes are clinging to the jagged edge, your whole body swaying forward
with the urge to jump — but something in the recess of your mind pulls you back. I don’t know what that
something is, but I do know it’s there. Maybe it’s self-preservation. Maybe it’s cowardice. Maybe it’s
something we don’t know or understand. But, it holds you. It fights the urge to jump. It wraps its arms
around your chest, around your heart and keeps you swaying on that precipice. So, you don’t jump — at
least, not yet...
But, I knew I had to do something. I had to move. I couldn’t keep sitting on my couch in isolation like I
had for days, calling in sick, doing too much coke and weed and fighting the urge to jump. So, I grabbed
my coat and keys and headed out. Didn’t know where I was headed. Didn’t much care, to be honest. I
just knew I’d keep walking on through the night till I found myself home again, alone on the sofa, back to
the drugs and the precipice. One foot in front of the other, head down, keep walking, was as much as I
was thinking. And that was when I ran into him. Literally.
“Fucksake, watch where you’re going, man!”
Even as my unexpected assailant struck out at me in anger and surprise, there was something in the
collision of our bodies, something in the clash of bone against bone and flesh against flesh that made me
reach out to him. My fingers grasped at his thin wrists to steady myself, but also — it seems to me, in
retrospect — to hang onto him now that he was finally, finally here in front of me.
“God, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking. You ok?”
I think I probably gasped when I looked into his eyes. I can’t see any reason why I wouldn’t have. Why
wouldn’t you exhale when faced with eyes as haunted as your own? Over-large and dark and fathomless,
full of craziness and hunger. Black-hole pools of some strange sensitivity and darkness you couldn’t
define but recognised. Eyes that had seen the precipice too and knew what it was like to stand there,
teetering on the brink. It was like gazing through a soul window and seeing my long, lost twin — the one I’
d always yearned for — looking back at me. And I know he felt it too. His irises widening even further to
take me in, nightshade black eating into marbled brown. His mouth opening in shock that I, too, was
finally, finally there before him. I guess what I’m saying is, we recognised each other. Even though we
were strangers. I don’t know how else to put it.
He managed to conquer his shock first.
“You should try walkin’ with your head up, then you’ll see things comin’.”
I had to smile at that. I smiled because I sensed deep inside that he hadn’t seen me coming either. I
smiled because he was as tall as me and therefore had probably also lived his life stooping to fit in. I
smiled because in a wind-chilled, wintry London, his unexpectedly American voice was warm and lazy, and
it wrapped around me and pulled me back from any precipice I’d been thinking of leaping from. It melted
my shock enough to finally speak again,
“Like I said, I’m sorry, ok? Did I hurt you?”
His eyes locked with mine for a second then travelled to his wrists where my hands were still clinging,
limpet-like, with no thought of release.
“No, but you could lessen the grip a little. I don’t think we’re gonna fall over now, do you?”
We laughed then, embarrassed at the foolishness of the situation. Locked in a strange and awkward
embrace on a dirty city back street. Our only company, speeding cars on a through-route to somewhere,
anywhere else. The only sound, the wind in the sickly urban trees fighting hand-to-hand combat with the
roar of combustion engines struggling to overcome speed bumps.
“No, I think we’re safe now. I’m Tom, by the way.”
I cringed immediately with embarrassment. Couldn’t think of one good reason why I’d just given up my
name like that unsolicited, my hands slipping from the bony angles of his pulsing wrists in apology. He
simply smiled.
“I’m Danny. Daniel Monserrato Harrington the third, if you check my birth certificate… but hey, we all shed
skins along the way.”
There was something in his choice of words that I recognised too. Snakes are symbols of transformation.
I read that once, in some book or other. So many people are afraid of snakes, see them as monstrous
serpents, biblical Satanic beasts cast out of Eden. But, for some reason, I never have. Perhaps it’s
because I was bitten by a snake when I was young. I had my worst fear realised and survived. That
particular day, I’d wandered onto a beach near our home. I was lost in my head, as usual, pretending I
was Christopher Columbus on a voyage of discovery, hell-bound for a new land. All around me, I could
see my foot soldiers, standing in ordered ranks, awaiting my command. I felt invincible, all-knowing,
beneficent. Strolling up that beach through the ghostly throngs of my shipmates, I smiled easily with the
knowledge that I knew what was best for my men and would guide them. Then, it happened. A wind out
of nowhere rose up to a howl, making me shiver as the sun’s heat died behind cloud. I ran to a rock
where I’d left my sweater, hoping for warmth, but when I lifted it, a grass snake sprang at me and bit me.
It was such a shock, I remember running as fast as I could up that long stretch of beach until I was
forced to stop, winded, breathless as the waves crashing onto the shore. I remember clearly thinking that
the reward for assuming you know it all is to get bitten by the unknown. But, strangely, I was never
afraid of snakes after that. Something in me shifted. It’s hard to be scared of the things you confront
face-to-face. Recognition eventually brings power.
I guess that’s what happened, really. With Danny and I.
I guess, as I was walking up that road toward him, one foot in front of the other, entirely certain of how
my night would unfold, the unknown reared its head and bit me — and a transformation began.
“Hey, look, forget it… I wasn’t looking where I was goin’ either. S’okay…”
I knew as he said this, it was our cue to move apart, go our separate ways, but for some unfathomable
reason, we didn’t. Instead, I stared, transfixed by his intense gaze and hoped he couldn’t see that I was
trembling. My hope was futile.
“You seem kinda shaky. Look… I live just here. You wanna come up and help me finish a bottle of Jackie D
I’ve been hangin’ onto way too long? Get over the shock?”
I know I stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. You know that camera trick they pull in films
where the person in frame stays still but the background moves away? Yeah. It was like that. ’Cos I’m not
stupid. I knew he was suggesting more than just a friendly drink. I could see it clearly in his gaze. This
total stranger was offering to open up his home to me with his implicit words. But the explicit look in his
eyes said more. So much more. His penetrating stare said he was willing to open up his body for me, too.
Willing to let me past the barrier of cloth and cuff that protects us all. My hesitation wasn’t a lack of
desire. My hesitation was because I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. The loner. The stooper. The
step-by-step foot-faller. I couldn’t believe I’d just stumbled across someone who was willing to give me
so much. No one ever looked at me twice. No one ever looked at me the way he was staring at me now —
with instant warmth and desire and recognition. My hand slipped inside my pocket and clutched reflexively
onto the wrap of coke I always kept there out of habit, my last-ditch confidence boost if all else failed. I
was all at sea like Christopher Columbus. I had no experience to draw on. This was uncharted territory. All
my life, the people around me had been closed doors that I was too afraid to open, and they rarely came
knocking on mine. I’d never had someone so easily open his door for me to step through, no conditions,
no questions asked. But, now he was finally here, I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. In shock, I
whispered, “Yeah, sure. Why not, eh?”
I let him lead the way to his front door, watched him fumble in his pockets for his keys, followed him up to
the first floor flat where he lived —and all the while, I was thinking, This can’t be happening to me. This
never happens to me. People don’t invite me in. When they see the look in my eyes, they turn away.
Why the fuck hadn’t Danny turned away? Why, instead, had he smiled and invited me closer? I could still
feel the warm pulse of his wrists vibrating on my fingertips, could still recall the light of recognition in the
dark mirror of his eyes although his back was turned to me. It was that light of recognition I yearned for
even as I was thinking, You’re mistaken, a dreamer, a fantasist. You’re about to get bitten yet again,
badly, by reality.
And then he kissed me. His method of closing the flat door behind us as we stepped into his kitchen was
to turn back and push me off balance into the cold wood and press his lips against mine, as the click-
slam-thunk of the door behind my back tremored up my spine. His easy knowledge that he had seen me
and wanted me, that this was really what it was all about, took my breath away, gasping helpless at his
lips. His hard, tensed, muscular body pressing into mine, leaving an indelible imprint forever. His sharp
hipbones delving into the soft flesh at my thigh. His erection pressing needfully against my own.
Yeah, I was aroused, alright. I’d been aroused since I first gripped his wrists and felt how snappable they
were. I had seen and wanted him, too, but don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some kind of sadistic trip. No, I’
ve always been attracted to strong women and snappable men. It’s an androgyny thing. It’s about
thinking outside of the boxes society puts you in. It’s about being a rebel, right? Society says, in its
infinite, cretinous wisdom that men are strong and women are weak. Physically, maybe — but is that the
totality of a person? When you add up the physical to the emotional and, hey, even the spiritual, isn’t it
true that anyone, male or female, can be strong or weak? And isn’t the real attraction when you get
someone who somehow embodies both ends of the spectrum? The snappable man. The strong-willed
woman. I dunno. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s just what I need to reflect my own confusion since I’m
a man who’s so eminently snappable. As fragile in feeling as Danny’s ribs felt under my fingertips as I
fought to map every uncharted bone in his body like it would save my life.
His own long, sensitive fingers wound into my hair, tilting my head so he could murmur at the tender skin
beneath my ear.
“Maybe we’ll save that drink for later, huh?”
It stunned me how well we fit together, moved together. It had never occurred to me that I would find
someone who did. Someone who didn’t make me feel plain awkward in my uncommon height and long-
limbed lankiness. With him, the awkwardness was gone. He made me feel just right for once — a
sensation so intoxicating it made me want to kiss him harder, deeper. Made me want to fight against him
because I knew he could contain me. I think he felt it too, pulling suddenly out of the kiss, clutching me
forcibly to him, only to slam me back against the door again. His right leg forcing its way between my
thighs, his torturing hipbone sweet-sharp now against my aching cock, making me cry out in want. A cry
of pure, long-held, unfettered need.
Then he was gone. Stumbling backwards, his coal-bright eyes glittering in the darkness, a lip-bitten smile
upon his lips. I wondered if my eyes looked the same to him as I slumped against the doorframe, legs
suddenly weak from the loss of him, trying desperately to snatch back the breath he’d stolen from me. I
watched as he peeled off his coat and T-shirt, kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. Had to
smile at his lack of socks or underwear, because I never wear them either. Another moment of
recognition. Another little secret rebellion among many. Another two fingers to convention. Petty, maybe,
but important to me — and possibly to him.
There was something savage in his gifted nakedness that made me want to cry. All jutting bones and
leanness. Nothing wasted, nothing spare. So snappable and yet, I knew if I tried to, he’d break me. And I
wanted him to break me. I wanted it so badly, for a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My breath
coming in short, rapid rasps. But it was he who voluntarily snapped first and broke the silence.
“So, d’ya wanna fuck, or what?”
It was said light-heartedly and with a smile, but it was the challenge at the bottom of it that propelled me
forward, throwing off my own barrier of cloth and cuff as I went, desperate to match his gift with my own.
His hands twirl-twisted deep into my hair to pull me closer to him, his warm breath murmuring ragged at
my ear.
“Brace yourself on the kitchen table and keep your head turned to the side. I wanna be able to see your
eyes.”
It didn’t feel like an order. It doesn’t feel like an order when someone tells you to do something you’ve
wanted so badly for so bloody long. It feels like a release. It feels like a blessing. So, I laid myself face-
down on the table before him, obeyed him willingly, my hammering chest knocking on wood. My arms
stretched out this time in willing crucifixion waiting for the rod of his body on my back, the thump of my
heart echoing, magnified and intensified in my hot-pressed ear. Then he was gone again for a second. The
click-slam sound of a cupboard door being opened and shut, then a slow, tickling ribbon of coldness
snaking a path down my spine, making my breath hitch in stuttered shock.
“Wh-what’s that?”
His voice was warm with latent laughter.
“Olive oil. I’m half-Italian on my mother’s side. Most Italian boys learn early on that olive oil is good for
more than cooking, y’know?”
Both his hands were on my back now, massaging the oil deeply into every muscle, cataloguing every bone
in my spine, anointing me with his hunger and desire, forcing a murmured prayer from my lips. “Aw, God…
that feels so good.”
His chuckled response was as warm as the fingertips slipping lower down my back.
“S’gonna feel even better in a minute.”
I was trembling again, but, this time, I didn’t want to hide it. I was happy to let him see me shake. I
opened my eyes and let him see what he was doing to me. Let him see my desperation and my hunger
and my craziness because I felt that he could take it and wouldn’t shy away. And I was right, because his
smile above me said everything. His smile said, thank you.
“Fuck, man… you’re beautiful.”
His whispered words stopped the breath in my throat. No one had ever seen the beauty in my craziness,
at least, no one had ever cared enough to tell me. I’ve never thought myself handsome. I have none of
the hard edges needed for handsome. Too full-lipped, too round-cheeked. My hair too soft and my lashes
too long for frank, blunt masculinity. But if the look in his eyes was to be trusted, then maybe he was
right. If the beauty I saw reflected in his eyes was for real, then I had things all wrong in my head. Maybe
the only reason no one had looked twice at me before was because I spent so much of my life looking at
my feet. Maybe I was beautiful as I lay prone beneath him, lost in submission, playing to my strengths.
Straight men don’t know what they’re missing. There’s no greater high in the world than feeling another
man’s body inside yours, a high so deep and dark and dirty, every nerve end in your body vibrates. It’s
better than drugs, to be honest, ’cos it’s a rush you don’t experience alone in your head. It’s a shared
rush, passed from his body to yours and back again — it’s a rush that pushes you both on to a shared
oblivion.
As he finally settled into a rhythm, I couldn’t stop crying out and moaning his name. I didn’t want to stop,
’cos I knew it was turning him on just as much as it was me, to hear it. I knew by the way he kept
mumbling the word “beautiful” against the tender, bitten flesh of my back. I knew by the way he kept
fucking me harder and deeper and faster. It felt so good to lose my mind in my body and to lose myself in
the movement of his body inside mine. Oblivion’s a beautiful place when you share it with someone.
We were approaching the edge of the precipice, together this time, and I knew that together, we’d jump.
No need to be afraid when you’ve got someone with you. When he felt my body tensing, he slipped the
fingers of his free hand between my lips, somehow knowing that it would anchor me. Knowing that I
needed the extra invasion to push me over the edge, my cries of release muffled around his fingertips.
And it felt so good to have him holding me and pinning me as I fell. I embraced oblivion invaded and
surrounded by his embrace.
And when I fell, something in the softening of my body pinned beneath him set off a fire in him that I
understood. His thrusts intensifying, slamming me hard now against the table. His own cries increasingly
desperate as he braced himself up off my back for better purchase. Gazing back at him in wonder, I
willingly surrendered to his fury and let myself be used because he’d already given me so much by simply
seeing who I really was and inviting me in. He came, finally, shuddering into my trembling flesh, his head
thrown back to embrace the void, and I couldn’t help smiling at the thought that I had pushed him there.
That because of me, he had known such deep and dark delights.
When he eventually collapsed on top of me, it felt as if his weight would press me forever into the
tabletop. It was a sensation I was entirely happy with. I can’t honestly say that I wanted that moment to
end. The two of us, bodies still connected, pressed together as one, no longer isolated and alone but
bound up in each others heartbeat. But, it did end — like all moments do. The surprise this time, I
suppose, is that it led to other moments I equally wanted to treasure. The soft-mumbled “thank you” he
murmured in my ear. The gentle caresses his fingertips placed upon my back and my brow. The healing
kisses he traced along my aching back and thighs as he withdrew. There’s something really special about
a person who remembers to be tender when the moment of oblivion has passed.
And I knew as he helped me from the table and gathered me into his arms that this wasn’t just a one-off.
I knew in my heart that something major had shifted in my life. I snaked my fingers into the soft curl of
his hair and kissed him, this time, on my own terms. Having submitted to him, I knew that I had the right.
I kissed him with a gentle passion that was all my own, but I’d never had the courage to express before.
Had never believed would be welcome until he recognised me and opened that particular door. It was
something secret in me that no one else had seen but I knew he could be trusted with it because he’d
seen the beauty and the craziness in me and hadn’t turned away. And as I kissed him, once again he let
me in. His wire-tense, savage body softened yieldingly in my arms, just like I’d hoped it would. And I knew
deep down, that my days of sitting lonely on the sofa were well and truly over. I knew I’d never seek
oblivion on my own again without Danny by my side...
I asked him where his bathroom was, and when I got there, my snatched coat held in my trembling hand,
I took the cocaine wrap from my pocket and flushed it away, knowing in my soul that I would never need
false confidence again. For once in my life, I knew exactly what I was doing and why. And for a glorious,
heart-stop moment, because of him, I felt special, immortal, timeless…
It’s difficult to explain the things you do, isn’t it? I mean, I don’t know why the hell I do the things I do a
lot of the time. Does anyone? I’m nothing special. The only thing you’d notice about me in a crowd is my
height, possibly my haunted eyes. But since I tend to keep my head down and my shoulders stooped
out of long-held habit, you might not even register that. I’ve spent most of my life looking at my feet —
safer that way. Safer than people looking me in the eye and giving me the dubious pleasure of their
disappointment or pity or, worse, amusement. No, better to keep looking at those feet, walking step-by-
step-slowly on to oblivion. Just keep on keeping on. Soon be over, eh? Soon I’ll be back home in
oblivion where everything is timeless, and everyone is free.
I’ve lived in a fantasy world for years, but I’m not alone in that. I know I’m not. We’ve all been children,
seeing things that adults couldn’t or wouldn’t see. We’ve all been drunk or drugged up with our mates,
believing that there’s no tomorrow until it smacks us firmly 'round the head with an unexpectedly harshly
drawn curtain and a sickeningly loud dawn chorus. We all, deep down inside, want to be special, immortal,
timeless. We all want to be the one that people point to and say, “That’s who I’d like to be.” We all have
our secret dreams, our little worlds built for our own amusement and appeasement. And why not? When
the world you actually live in is so full of despair and loneliness, death and duplicity, of course you build
escape routes. How else to keep those feet of yours trudging, one foot in front of the other, onward to
the oblivion we all crave? Oblivion is freedom, right? That’s why I started doing drugs in the first place.
On the outside, mind, I’m just a drone. I work in an identikit office with the migraine-inducing strip
lighting and the grey fucking wall dividers and the stupid corporate calendars along with all the other
drones. I keep my head down. I keep my head down so no one can see the loneliness and the craziness
in my haunted eyes. I keep my head down ’cos I don’t want to see the craziness in their eyes, either. My
craziness is all I can cope with at the moment. On the odd occasion I find myself drawn shyly into stilted
conversation, cramped in the communal kitchen or loitering aimlessly by the water cooler, I flinch inwardly
at the anger and boredom and sheer frustration I see in other people’s eyes. And they, I suppose, see
my fear and aversion, and they look away, aware that they just showed too much, and it’s not welcome.
First drug I ever tried, apart from the socially acceptable ones like alcohol and nicotine, was weed. Didn’t
like it much, to be honest. Always made me feel sick to my stomach. But, I persevered, ’cos you do, don’
t you? You want to be special, not shy. You want to be an outlaw, not an outsider. You want, more than
anything, to be someone who breaks the rules. Someone who gives two fingers to a society that says,
"Be safe. Don’t cross the line; stay in your box. Be good."
After that, it was speed, then acid, then coke, then E, then the rest. After a while, you think you’re an
expert. You think you know it all. You think you’ve got a handle on it and can do anything. You’re
invincible. At last.
But then, drugs will do that to you, won’t they? They’ll make you think like that. That’s why you do them
in the first place. You do them ’cos you know you’re flawed and unlovable and weak, and it hurts to
know that. You just want to just forget it for a moment. And in the act of forgetting, you don’t notice
your world growing smaller, hour by hour, day by day. Till one morning you wake up and realise all your
friends and your family have gone. But, by then, it’s too late.
My parents brought me up to believe I was invincible, ironically enough. They made a point of it.
Weakness wasn’t an option. Moral superiority and intelligence and hard work were the rods they
fashioned for my back. I carried them for years, those crucifying rods. My parents’ hopeless hopes, their
dashed dreams. Personally, I couldn’t wait to come down from that cross. The minute I got free of my
parents’ expectations, I dropped the lot. I made it my new mission in life to be as morally reprehensible
and stupid and indolent, in their eyes, as I could manage. They’d never bothered to see the real me, so I
made a point of showing them everything they’d never wanted to see in return. It wasn’t easy at first. It
didn’t come naturally, not at all. But, like I said about the weed, I persevered. I got there. Eventually.
I knew I was on a mission to destroy my past, but I didn’t realise how much of me it would destroy along
the way. I sometimes wonder if I had known, would I still have done it? I think I would. I think I had to. I
don’t think I had a choice in any of it. The old me had to be destroyed, if I was going to live. I’d been
suffocating slowly. Buried in a man-slide of my own, and others, creation. False fronts, false opinions,
false feelings. No, that Frankenstein had to die. My mistake was thinking that once you get past the first
hurdle, it’s over — game won. It’s not like that. Every time you clear a hurdle, there’s another in front of
you. That’s the way life is. You just keep jumping until you run out of steam or run out of legs. Only
then, do you finally run out of hurdles…
I was beginning to think I’d run out of steam, and I was certainly an expert in getting legless. The new
world I’d tried to create for myself had become a prison. The drugs were starting to win, and I wasn’t in
control as much as I wanted to think. I was beginning to wonder if I’d ever clear another hurdle. Then,
something happened.
One night, I was feeling low. Lower than I’d been for a while. My loneliness was starting to get to me.
Everything seemed worthless, pointless, meaningless. That’s a place I know really well. It’s like staring out
over a precipice into a void — your toes are clinging to the jagged edge, your whole body swaying forward
with the urge to jump — but something in the recess of your mind pulls you back. I don’t know what that
something is, but I do know it’s there. Maybe it’s self-preservation. Maybe it’s cowardice. Maybe it’s
something we don’t know or understand. But, it holds you. It fights the urge to jump. It wraps its arms
around your chest, around your heart and keeps you swaying on that precipice. So, you don’t jump — at
least, not yet...
But, I knew I had to do something. I had to move. I couldn’t keep sitting on my couch in isolation like I
had for days, calling in sick, doing too much coke and weed and fighting the urge to jump. So, I grabbed
my coat and keys and headed out. Didn’t know where I was headed. Didn’t much care, to be honest. I
just knew I’d keep walking on through the night till I found myself home again, alone on the sofa, back to
the drugs and the precipice. One foot in front of the other, head down, keep walking, was as much as I
was thinking. And that was when I ran into him. Literally.
“Fucksake, watch where you’re going, man!”
Even as my unexpected assailant struck out at me in anger and surprise, there was something in the
collision of our bodies, something in the clash of bone against bone and flesh against flesh that made me
reach out to him. My fingers grasped at his thin wrists to steady myself, but also — it seems to me, in
retrospect — to hang onto him now that he was finally, finally here in front of me.
“God, I’m sorry. I wasn’t looking. You ok?”
I think I probably gasped when I looked into his eyes. I can’t see any reason why I wouldn’t have. Why
wouldn’t you exhale when faced with eyes as haunted as your own? Over-large and dark and fathomless,
full of craziness and hunger. Black-hole pools of some strange sensitivity and darkness you couldn’t
define but recognised. Eyes that had seen the precipice too and knew what it was like to stand there,
teetering on the brink. It was like gazing through a soul window and seeing my long, lost twin — the one I’
d always yearned for — looking back at me. And I know he felt it too. His irises widening even further to
take me in, nightshade black eating into marbled brown. His mouth opening in shock that I, too, was
finally, finally there before him. I guess what I’m saying is, we recognised each other. Even though we
were strangers. I don’t know how else to put it.
He managed to conquer his shock first.
“You should try walkin’ with your head up, then you’ll see things comin’.”
I had to smile at that. I smiled because I sensed deep inside that he hadn’t seen me coming either. I
smiled because he was as tall as me and therefore had probably also lived his life stooping to fit in. I
smiled because in a wind-chilled, wintry London, his unexpectedly American voice was warm and lazy, and
it wrapped around me and pulled me back from any precipice I’d been thinking of leaping from. It melted
my shock enough to finally speak again,
“Like I said, I’m sorry, ok? Did I hurt you?”
His eyes locked with mine for a second then travelled to his wrists where my hands were still clinging,
limpet-like, with no thought of release.
“No, but you could lessen the grip a little. I don’t think we’re gonna fall over now, do you?”
We laughed then, embarrassed at the foolishness of the situation. Locked in a strange and awkward
embrace on a dirty city back street. Our only company, speeding cars on a through-route to somewhere,
anywhere else. The only sound, the wind in the sickly urban trees fighting hand-to-hand combat with the
roar of combustion engines struggling to overcome speed bumps.
“No, I think we’re safe now. I’m Tom, by the way.”
I cringed immediately with embarrassment. Couldn’t think of one good reason why I’d just given up my
name like that unsolicited, my hands slipping from the bony angles of his pulsing wrists in apology. He
simply smiled.
“I’m Danny. Daniel Monserrato Harrington the third, if you check my birth certificate… but hey, we all shed
skins along the way.”
There was something in his choice of words that I recognised too. Snakes are symbols of transformation.
I read that once, in some book or other. So many people are afraid of snakes, see them as monstrous
serpents, biblical Satanic beasts cast out of Eden. But, for some reason, I never have. Perhaps it’s
because I was bitten by a snake when I was young. I had my worst fear realised and survived. That
particular day, I’d wandered onto a beach near our home. I was lost in my head, as usual, pretending I
was Christopher Columbus on a voyage of discovery, hell-bound for a new land. All around me, I could
see my foot soldiers, standing in ordered ranks, awaiting my command. I felt invincible, all-knowing,
beneficent. Strolling up that beach through the ghostly throngs of my shipmates, I smiled easily with the
knowledge that I knew what was best for my men and would guide them. Then, it happened. A wind out
of nowhere rose up to a howl, making me shiver as the sun’s heat died behind cloud. I ran to a rock
where I’d left my sweater, hoping for warmth, but when I lifted it, a grass snake sprang at me and bit me.
It was such a shock, I remember running as fast as I could up that long stretch of beach until I was
forced to stop, winded, breathless as the waves crashing onto the shore. I remember clearly thinking that
the reward for assuming you know it all is to get bitten by the unknown. But, strangely, I was never
afraid of snakes after that. Something in me shifted. It’s hard to be scared of the things you confront
face-to-face. Recognition eventually brings power.
I guess that’s what happened, really. With Danny and I.
I guess, as I was walking up that road toward him, one foot in front of the other, entirely certain of how
my night would unfold, the unknown reared its head and bit me — and a transformation began.
“Hey, look, forget it… I wasn’t looking where I was goin’ either. S’okay…”
I knew as he said this, it was our cue to move apart, go our separate ways, but for some unfathomable
reason, we didn’t. Instead, I stared, transfixed by his intense gaze and hoped he couldn’t see that I was
trembling. My hope was futile.
“You seem kinda shaky. Look… I live just here. You wanna come up and help me finish a bottle of Jackie D
I’ve been hangin’ onto way too long? Get over the shock?”
I know I stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. You know that camera trick they pull in films
where the person in frame stays still but the background moves away? Yeah. It was like that. ’Cos I’m not
stupid. I knew he was suggesting more than just a friendly drink. I could see it clearly in his gaze. This
total stranger was offering to open up his home to me with his implicit words. But the explicit look in his
eyes said more. So much more. His penetrating stare said he was willing to open up his body for me, too.
Willing to let me past the barrier of cloth and cuff that protects us all. My hesitation wasn’t a lack of
desire. My hesitation was because I couldn’t believe it was happening to me. The loner. The stooper. The
step-by-step foot-faller. I couldn’t believe I’d just stumbled across someone who was willing to give me
so much. No one ever looked at me twice. No one ever looked at me the way he was staring at me now —
with instant warmth and desire and recognition. My hand slipped inside my pocket and clutched reflexively
onto the wrap of coke I always kept there out of habit, my last-ditch confidence boost if all else failed. I
was all at sea like Christopher Columbus. I had no experience to draw on. This was uncharted territory. All
my life, the people around me had been closed doors that I was too afraid to open, and they rarely came
knocking on mine. I’d never had someone so easily open his door for me to step through, no conditions,
no questions asked. But, now he was finally here, I knew I couldn’t let the opportunity pass. In shock, I
whispered, “Yeah, sure. Why not, eh?”
I let him lead the way to his front door, watched him fumble in his pockets for his keys, followed him up to
the first floor flat where he lived —and all the while, I was thinking, This can’t be happening to me. This
never happens to me. People don’t invite me in. When they see the look in my eyes, they turn away.
Why the fuck hadn’t Danny turned away? Why, instead, had he smiled and invited me closer? I could still
feel the warm pulse of his wrists vibrating on my fingertips, could still recall the light of recognition in the
dark mirror of his eyes although his back was turned to me. It was that light of recognition I yearned for
even as I was thinking, You’re mistaken, a dreamer, a fantasist. You’re about to get bitten yet again,
badly, by reality.
And then he kissed me. His method of closing the flat door behind us as we stepped into his kitchen was
to turn back and push me off balance into the cold wood and press his lips against mine, as the click-
slam-thunk of the door behind my back tremored up my spine. His easy knowledge that he had seen me
and wanted me, that this was really what it was all about, took my breath away, gasping helpless at his
lips. His hard, tensed, muscular body pressing into mine, leaving an indelible imprint forever. His sharp
hipbones delving into the soft flesh at my thigh. His erection pressing needfully against my own.
Yeah, I was aroused, alright. I’d been aroused since I first gripped his wrists and felt how snappable they
were. I had seen and wanted him, too, but don’t get me wrong. This isn’t some kind of sadistic trip. No, I’
ve always been attracted to strong women and snappable men. It’s an androgyny thing. It’s about
thinking outside of the boxes society puts you in. It’s about being a rebel, right? Society says, in its
infinite, cretinous wisdom that men are strong and women are weak. Physically, maybe — but is that the
totality of a person? When you add up the physical to the emotional and, hey, even the spiritual, isn’t it
true that anyone, male or female, can be strong or weak? And isn’t the real attraction when you get
someone who somehow embodies both ends of the spectrum? The snappable man. The strong-willed
woman. I dunno. Maybe that’s just me. Maybe it’s just what I need to reflect my own confusion since I’m
a man who’s so eminently snappable. As fragile in feeling as Danny’s ribs felt under my fingertips as I
fought to map every uncharted bone in his body like it would save my life.
His own long, sensitive fingers wound into my hair, tilting my head so he could murmur at the tender skin
beneath my ear.
“Maybe we’ll save that drink for later, huh?”
It stunned me how well we fit together, moved together. It had never occurred to me that I would find
someone who did. Someone who didn’t make me feel plain awkward in my uncommon height and long-
limbed lankiness. With him, the awkwardness was gone. He made me feel just right for once — a
sensation so intoxicating it made me want to kiss him harder, deeper. Made me want to fight against him
because I knew he could contain me. I think he felt it too, pulling suddenly out of the kiss, clutching me
forcibly to him, only to slam me back against the door again. His right leg forcing its way between my
thighs, his torturing hipbone sweet-sharp now against my aching cock, making me cry out in want. A cry
of pure, long-held, unfettered need.
Then he was gone. Stumbling backwards, his coal-bright eyes glittering in the darkness, a lip-bitten smile
upon his lips. I wondered if my eyes looked the same to him as I slumped against the doorframe, legs
suddenly weak from the loss of him, trying desperately to snatch back the breath he’d stolen from me. I
watched as he peeled off his coat and T-shirt, kicked off his shoes and stepped out of his jeans. Had to
smile at his lack of socks or underwear, because I never wear them either. Another moment of
recognition. Another little secret rebellion among many. Another two fingers to convention. Petty, maybe,
but important to me — and possibly to him.
There was something savage in his gifted nakedness that made me want to cry. All jutting bones and
leanness. Nothing wasted, nothing spare. So snappable and yet, I knew if I tried to, he’d break me. And I
wanted him to break me. I wanted it so badly, for a moment I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My breath
coming in short, rapid rasps. But it was he who voluntarily snapped first and broke the silence.
“So, d’ya wanna fuck, or what?”
It was said light-heartedly and with a smile, but it was the challenge at the bottom of it that propelled me
forward, throwing off my own barrier of cloth and cuff as I went, desperate to match his gift with my own.
His hands twirl-twisted deep into my hair to pull me closer to him, his warm breath murmuring ragged at
my ear.
“Brace yourself on the kitchen table and keep your head turned to the side. I wanna be able to see your
eyes.”
It didn’t feel like an order. It doesn’t feel like an order when someone tells you to do something you’ve
wanted so badly for so bloody long. It feels like a release. It feels like a blessing. So, I laid myself face-
down on the table before him, obeyed him willingly, my hammering chest knocking on wood. My arms
stretched out this time in willing crucifixion waiting for the rod of his body on my back, the thump of my
heart echoing, magnified and intensified in my hot-pressed ear. Then he was gone again for a second. The
click-slam sound of a cupboard door being opened and shut, then a slow, tickling ribbon of coldness
snaking a path down my spine, making my breath hitch in stuttered shock.
“Wh-what’s that?”
His voice was warm with latent laughter.
“Olive oil. I’m half-Italian on my mother’s side. Most Italian boys learn early on that olive oil is good for
more than cooking, y’know?”
Both his hands were on my back now, massaging the oil deeply into every muscle, cataloguing every bone
in my spine, anointing me with his hunger and desire, forcing a murmured prayer from my lips. “Aw, God…
that feels so good.”
His chuckled response was as warm as the fingertips slipping lower down my back.
“S’gonna feel even better in a minute.”
I was trembling again, but, this time, I didn’t want to hide it. I was happy to let him see me shake. I
opened my eyes and let him see what he was doing to me. Let him see my desperation and my hunger
and my craziness because I felt that he could take it and wouldn’t shy away. And I was right, because his
smile above me said everything. His smile said, thank you.
“Fuck, man… you’re beautiful.”
His whispered words stopped the breath in my throat. No one had ever seen the beauty in my craziness,
at least, no one had ever cared enough to tell me. I’ve never thought myself handsome. I have none of
the hard edges needed for handsome. Too full-lipped, too round-cheeked. My hair too soft and my lashes
too long for frank, blunt masculinity. But if the look in his eyes was to be trusted, then maybe he was
right. If the beauty I saw reflected in his eyes was for real, then I had things all wrong in my head. Maybe
the only reason no one had looked twice at me before was because I spent so much of my life looking at
my feet. Maybe I was beautiful as I lay prone beneath him, lost in submission, playing to my strengths.
Straight men don’t know what they’re missing. There’s no greater high in the world than feeling another
man’s body inside yours, a high so deep and dark and dirty, every nerve end in your body vibrates. It’s
better than drugs, to be honest, ’cos it’s a rush you don’t experience alone in your head. It’s a shared
rush, passed from his body to yours and back again — it’s a rush that pushes you both on to a shared
oblivion.
As he finally settled into a rhythm, I couldn’t stop crying out and moaning his name. I didn’t want to stop,
’cos I knew it was turning him on just as much as it was me, to hear it. I knew by the way he kept
mumbling the word “beautiful” against the tender, bitten flesh of my back. I knew by the way he kept
fucking me harder and deeper and faster. It felt so good to lose my mind in my body and to lose myself in
the movement of his body inside mine. Oblivion’s a beautiful place when you share it with someone.
We were approaching the edge of the precipice, together this time, and I knew that together, we’d jump.
No need to be afraid when you’ve got someone with you. When he felt my body tensing, he slipped the
fingers of his free hand between my lips, somehow knowing that it would anchor me. Knowing that I
needed the extra invasion to push me over the edge, my cries of release muffled around his fingertips.
And it felt so good to have him holding me and pinning me as I fell. I embraced oblivion invaded and
surrounded by his embrace.
And when I fell, something in the softening of my body pinned beneath him set off a fire in him that I
understood. His thrusts intensifying, slamming me hard now against the table. His own cries increasingly
desperate as he braced himself up off my back for better purchase. Gazing back at him in wonder, I
willingly surrendered to his fury and let myself be used because he’d already given me so much by simply
seeing who I really was and inviting me in. He came, finally, shuddering into my trembling flesh, his head
thrown back to embrace the void, and I couldn’t help smiling at the thought that I had pushed him there.
That because of me, he had known such deep and dark delights.
When he eventually collapsed on top of me, it felt as if his weight would press me forever into the
tabletop. It was a sensation I was entirely happy with. I can’t honestly say that I wanted that moment to
end. The two of us, bodies still connected, pressed together as one, no longer isolated and alone but
bound up in each others heartbeat. But, it did end — like all moments do. The surprise this time, I
suppose, is that it led to other moments I equally wanted to treasure. The soft-mumbled “thank you” he
murmured in my ear. The gentle caresses his fingertips placed upon my back and my brow. The healing
kisses he traced along my aching back and thighs as he withdrew. There’s something really special about
a person who remembers to be tender when the moment of oblivion has passed.
And I knew as he helped me from the table and gathered me into his arms that this wasn’t just a one-off.
I knew in my heart that something major had shifted in my life. I snaked my fingers into the soft curl of
his hair and kissed him, this time, on my own terms. Having submitted to him, I knew that I had the right.
I kissed him with a gentle passion that was all my own, but I’d never had the courage to express before.
Had never believed would be welcome until he recognised me and opened that particular door. It was
something secret in me that no one else had seen but I knew he could be trusted with it because he’d
seen the beauty and the craziness in me and hadn’t turned away. And as I kissed him, once again he let
me in. His wire-tense, savage body softened yieldingly in my arms, just like I’d hoped it would. And I knew
deep down, that my days of sitting lonely on the sofa were well and truly over. I knew I’d never seek
oblivion on my own again without Danny by my side...
I asked him where his bathroom was, and when I got there, my snatched coat held in my trembling hand,
I took the cocaine wrap from my pocket and flushed it away, knowing in my soul that I would never need
false confidence again. For once in my life, I knew exactly what I was doing and why. And for a glorious,
heart-stop moment, because of him, I felt special, immortal, timeless…
J.P. Devlin
J.P. Devlin is two thousand years old but still feels like a child. The only reason he
exists is his own imagination. It's ok. He's quite happy that way. He would fully
admit that he is a product of his postal address: Dirty Old Town, London, UK.
exists is his own imagination. It's ok. He's quite happy that way. He would fully
admit that he is a product of his postal address: Dirty Old Town, London, UK.
