Best of 2017

He shakes his head. “Don’t even talk about it. I’m gay, Lissa, I just can’t even.”

It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. His words hang in the air as I take a breath.

“You already knew.” He shrugs. “It’s not news.”

“No,” I say. “It’s not news.” I swirl the wine in my glass. “I mean it. I wouldn’t be… involved. It’s about Alexander, and you.”

“There is no Alexander and me,” he snaps. “I’ve never even met the guy.”

“But you could…”

He gets to his feet. I know he’s considering it when he begins pacing. He doesn’t want to admit it, but he is.

I give him space.

I’m finding that works pretty well lately.

“How would you even swing it? What you gonna say? Hey, Mr Henley, this is Dean, my best fucking friend. He looks after my brother for me while I’m out playing hooker.”

His words cut, but I don’t say a thing.

“Hey, Mr Henley, this is Dean. He’s a sad little virgin guy who jerks off to your picture every fucking night and thinks about taking it in the ass. Is that what you’re gonna fucking say, Lissa?”

I can’t keep my silence. “You’re a virgin?!”

He groans. “Don’t act so surprised. You were a fucking virgin a few weeks ago.”

I feel my shot. It’s a whisper on the wind. A glimmer of a chance.

“I was a virgin until him. And he was the best experience of my life. He was everything.” I’m being honest. My smile is all real as I remember how he took me, how he made it feel so good. “Fine, if you don’t want to do it for me, do it for yourself.”

“For me?!”

“Yeah,” I say. “For you. Do it because you want him. Do it because he’s everything. Do it because he’ll be the most amazing experience you’ll ever have.”

“With you there cheerleading from the sidelines?”

“You’ll forget I’m even there, I promise.”

“You promise?!” His laugh sounds as crazy as I feel.

I finish up my wine. “I need to go to bed. I have work tomorrow.”

“I’m not doing it,” he says.

His voice sounds a lot more certain than he looks, but I’ve said my piece. I’ve said it all.

“I’ll find someone else,” I tell him. “Don’t worry about it. If you don’t want him, I’ll find someone who does.”

“Some fucking random?!”

“I guess so.”

He shakes his head. “Just quit your job. Tell him you got off on the wrong foot, he may never know, not if you give him your real name and pretend it was a false alias.”

“He knows Amy is a real person. He looked her up.”

I hate the way his eyes bore into me. “He looked her up?!”

“Yeah. I had no idea he would.”

He rubs his temples. “She knows me. She knows you. What the hell if he turns up at her door? What the fuck do we do then?”

It’s nothing I haven’t thought about myself. Nothing that hasn’t niggled me at night before I fall asleep.

“I’ll tell him,” I say. “I’ll quit cleaning and I’ll tell him my real name, just as soon as he’s fucked another man. I’ll tell him the very next week.”

He laughs a cynical laugh.

“I will!” I insist. “I’ll tell him. I just need this final piece of the puzzle! This one last thing!”

“Gay sex?!”

I nod. “So he knows I’m all in. With everything.”

“Fucking hell,” he hisses. “This is so fucking fucked up!”

I don’t argue with him.

I squeeze his arm as I head for bed. My fingers link his and tug before I reach the door.

“Forget I said anything,” I tell him. “It’s cool.”

He doesn’t say a word as I close the door behind me.

I hear him pace around the place as I climb into bed. I hear him clear up the wine glasses a few minutes later.

And then nothing.

Silence.

I’M HALF ASLEEP when the tap on my door comes.

The clock says half three a.m.

He eases the door open, and I feel the weight of him on the bottom of my bed.

I’m reaching for my nightlight when he tells me to stop.

“What is it?” I ask. “Are you okay?”

I can’t see him nod. I can only hear him breathe.

“You’ll just be watching? No like… touching or…”

“Of course no touching. This is just… him… with a guy…”

“Fifty-fifty?”

“You can have the whole three grand if you want it.”

I’m not tired at all as I wait in the darkness.

Sleep has well and truly given up the ghost as I wait for Dean to spit out whatever he’s thinking.

“I’ll do it,” he whispers. “Just once. So you don’t need to… find someone.”

I lunge for him, but he holds me back before I can hug him.

“Wait!” he snaps. “There are conditions!”

My heart pounds as I wait for them.

“If I let him fuck me, you quit cleaning afterwards. No fucking about, Lissa. If the guy fucks my ass to make your crazy fucking plan work out for you, you quit and you tell him your real name. You make this real, or you walk away.”

My mouth is so dry. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

I nod, even though he can’t see me. “Yeah, that’s a deal. He fucks you, I quit my cleaning job.”

“And you tell him your real name?”

I pause for just a heartbeat. “Yeah.”

He sighs. “I can’t believe I’m fucking doing this.”

And neither can I.

He gets to his feet, and heads for the door, and I still can’t believe it. I still have to hear the words.

“You’re saying you’ll let him fuck you? You’re saying you’ll do it? For me?”

“No,” he says before he closes the door. “I’m saying I’ll do it for me.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

ALEXANDER

I CONFIRM first thing Monday morning that the boys will be changing schools. Brenda draws up the letters I dictate to her, and I sign them off with a shaky hand before she faxes them through to their headmaster.

I send Claire an email telling her it’s done, and also telling her the boys are free to attend Terry’s shitty kids’ club on a Sunday afternoon.

My whole world is spinning on its fucking axis.

My mouth is parched no matter how many Americanos Brenda brings me from the coffee shop next door.

I’m listless in my client meetings and I’m clumsy with the board report amendments that need my bastard input.

I hate how out of control I feel. I hate the wriggling worm of vulnerability in my gut.

I hate how painful it feels to find my heart still beating.

/> I’m staring into the abyss today, but whereas I normally rely on Brutus to be my sobering factor, I now have another anchor in the storm.

The insanity with Amy is the only thing keeping me actually sane.

The Puppet Master title the industry slapped on my head over a decade ago suits me well, but not as well as it did, and not anywhere near as well as it suits my slimy fucking father.

His grubby fingers are in everything, twisting everything.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise when he blasts his way into my office before lunch. It shouldn’t come as a surprise when he slaps a copy of the paperwork Brenda faxed across to the school onto my desk.

“What the fucking hell is this, boy? Have you lost your fucking mind?!”

It takes all of my restraint not to reply in the affirmative.

“The boys are changing schools,” I say. “I’ve discussed it with Claire, I’ve discussed it with them.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?!” His eyes are angry and wired. Just as they were all those years ago in the public toilets.

Just as they’ve been so many times since, when I haven’t played into his filthy fucking hands at every opportunity.

“It’s none of your cunting business, old man,” I tell him.

“Oh, but it fucking is,” he hisses. “Those boys are next in line to the family business. My fucking business.”

I laugh in his face.

And there, amongst the laughter, is the simple truth I’ve been avoiding my whole fucking life.

The truth of the peace I’ve granted my boys, even though they don’t realise it yet.

I want out.

“You’ll have to find another puppet to train in my stead. Thomas wants to be a footballer, and Matthew… well, Matthew doesn’t have the disposition for this shit. I see him as an artist maybe, or a celebrity chef. Maybe even a flower arranger.”

“Don’t test my fucking patience, boy.” My father’s disgust is actually etched into his features. A lifetime of scowling carved into stone under spiteful eyes. “You’ll withdraw your instruction with immediate effect. I’ll handle Claire and her lunatic educational preferences.”

“I won’t,” I say, “And you certainly won’t be doing fucking anything about Claire.”

The thump of his fist on wood makes my pens rattle. “Be careful, boy. Be very fucking careful.”

I don’t even blink. “We’re done here.”