I carried on. “I remember saying how pretty I thought he looked when he came on the telly, and my mum scoffing and telling me, “It’s a fella in a dress, you bloody retard,” and me saying, “Yes, I know.”
“Did she really call you that?” Alex squawked, his middle-class self-righteousness rising to my defence. I cursed myself. Very cute, but in a post-ejaculation, relaxed mood, I’d fucked up, and nearly given the whole game away.
“God, no, I’m exaggerating. I can’t recall her exact words, of course.” I quickly regrouped. “It will have been something along the lines of ‘don’t be silly, darling, that’s a man.’”
Much more acceptable. Alex nodded against my chest, satisfied.
“What happened then?” He lifted his head and his eyes met mine.
I couldn’t remember exactly. Individual episodes of my mum and dad’s unique parenting style tended to merge with one another. Some I’d blanked forever, for my own good. It was easier that way, and there had been so many similar episodes since. I’d possibly been ridiculed then cuffed around the head, a phrase which always conjured up images of a benevolent momma bear playing with a mischievous baby bear. The reality couldn’t have been more different.
“Oh, nothing,” I lied, pressing my lips to the top of his innocent head. “I expect they all just laughed at me. I think though, at that moment, I decided I’d probably better keep my heinous thoughts to myself.”
Being a grubby sort of oik, I’d have happily stewed in my crusty boxers all evening. Alex, on the other hand, wouldn’t countenance it, and lent me a towel, the bathroom, and a crisp, spanking white pair of his own. After that, like the utterly wild hedonists we were, we raided the kitchen for crisps and sparkling water, then settled back on the sofa in front of a film. Alex put his arm around me, as if we were a pair of American teens at a drive-in movie, and it wasn’t the most adorable thing at all. Almost absentmindedly, he fed me cheese and onion crisps and tolerated my oniony kisses every time he did. Those stupid girls who’d made fun of him didn’t know what they were missing.
The most wonderful evening of my life took on a slight tarnish when he began prattling on about uni and how great studying in towns so close to each other would be, and yes, the train route was good, but he’d probably have the car anyway, so he could pop across to Sheffield and see me whenever we wanted.
My malevolent self-conscience warned me to tell him the truth, for both our sakes in the long run. My inner masochist however, lapped up his version of our future—one that hopefully would involve a lot of sex. About which I remained a little light on practical detail, but a whole lot more informed than my snowy-white virgin of a new boyfriend. My clever-kid-going-to-study-history-at-uni persona was well-crafted by now and so I slipped into the role as easily as I’d slipped on his fresh boxers an hour earlier. Not long afterwards, we were plotting which gig we’d be buying tickets for first.
FOOL’S GOLD
(STONE ROSES)
I must have been the only student in the history of studenthood wishing exam season would last forever. For six halcyon weeks, the top floor of the multistorey carpark became our secret playground, and the cramped front seats of the Polo our makeshift bed.
In between revision, lessons, and exams, my disappearance from the social scene barely registered with anyone. At long last, Phil had breached the final frontier with Alison, thus, overnight, the rest of us ceased to exist. Brenner had started work on the production line at MB, and having dreaded no longer having him by my side, his absence had made sneaking away simpler. Denise’s beady eye remained trained on me, but given that she had an emergent delicate situation of her own to conceal—Rachel had picked her up from the café after our last shift—the risk of her stirring up trouble was remote.
It took two weeks of snogging and accidental ‘oh sorry, did my arm just brush across your penis?’ moments before I got my hands on the goods. Heavy petting and a fuck load of rubbing up against each other, one afternoon on the top floor of the abandoned multistorey, led to me boldly unzipping his school trousers and pulling him out. He followed suit and then it was just a matter of who crossed the line first. All I can say is that the girls who took the piss out of Alex’s clammy fumbling should have had more patience. The guy had big solid hands and very quickly learned how to use them. I now also understood why the borrowed boxer shorts leaned towards the large size.
Alex still fancied girls, even though we didn’t talk about it. Like I was going to plant even more of those ideas inside his head. Pleasuring me imbued him with confidence; from time to time I caught him gently flirting with Binita and her friends. Shiny, clean girls from his shiny former school. After the first time it happened, I got down on my knees and sucked his cock, high up in the open air of the carpark.Eyes on me, I urged silently.Eyes on me.
Exams aside, they should have been the happiest days of my life. Young, in love, a daily hand job, and my whole future ahead. Except I didn’t have a future, not one to look forward to, anyhow. With mounting excitement, Alex and his mum prepared for uni and I dumbly played along; smiling at his chatter and planting naughty stolen kisses on his mouth with his mum in the next room, and laughing as his eyes grew wide. I joined the expedition to Ikea to choose new bedding, threw in my tuppence-worth during a lengthy debate about the most robust type of bike lock. We discussed the purchase of fat medical textbooks with incomprehensible titles, had endless conversations littered with unfamiliar words, like halls of residence, campuses, modules, semesters, faculties. As Alex slipped effortlessly into the comfortable language of the privileged classes, my hold on him slipped away.
Results day dawned. Scheduled for a sunny Monday in June. An annual sadistic and humiliating rite of passage, or a triumphant public glorification. Duplicate boards with student names listed in alphabetical order and exam grades beside them were placed at precisely two p.m. in the school yard. Up and down the country, anxious eighteen-year-old kids crowded around similar lists, desperately searching for their name and the letters from A to E next to it, which would decide their fate.
Unless you were me, of course, with your fate already decided.
Alex met me in town beforehand, and we played it cool by rocking up a couple of minutes past the hour. Phil was already there with Alison, doing the decent boyfriend thing. From the hysterical wailing and hopeless manner in which she sagged into Phil’s manly chest, I concluded she’d spent too much time shagging and not enough revising. Behind her back, Phil rolled his eyes then gave me the thumbs up and mouthed his own grades at me. The jammy bastard. Not only had he bedded most of the female student population of St George’s over the last couple of years, but he was also now set for a career as an estate agent too. I flicked him the middle finger.
“Come on, Matt, my mother will kill me if I don’t contact them before half-past. Her and my dad will be sitting by the phone, waiting.”
I’d hung back, letting the rush die down, fascinated by the alternating tears or cheers going on around me. Lounging on a low brick wall, I gestured to him to go ahead. I even managed to conjure up a trademark Matt Leeson cheeky dimpled grin.
“You go, I’ll wait here and admire your arse from behind.”
He strode off, head held high, facing whatever the board revealed with characteristic bravura. On tiptoes, he craned his head, scanning the lists for his name. A couple of girls squeezed out from their position in front of him, one with tears running down her cheeks, the other just fucking bewildered. Alex tracked his finger along the names in the bottom right of the board, towards the end of the alphabet. With his hand poised next to his name, he stood frozen for a few seconds before stepping back and turning his attention to the middle of the board and the middle of the alphabet, where ordinary, unmemorable surnames like mine resided. Again, his finger paused, then he tapped twice against my grades before slowly turning around.
He tried hard, he tried so damned hard to keep a straight face as he thrust his hands into his pockets and strolled back to me. A graceful athletic roll of his hips, a hint of sway. Like a model on a catwalk; I could watch it for the rest of my fucking life.
I never foresaw what happened next. I’d never forget it either. Cool as you like, Alex Valentine, the star of the school rugby team, all-round nice guy, and Mr Masculinity, bent down, wrapped his arms under my arse and picked me up. He fuckingpicked me upthen swung me around. In public. “Yes!!!” he roared swinging me around again, just in case everybody didn’t clock it the first time.
I squealed, a mix of shock, panic, and delight, clinging on to him so that I wouldn’t fall back and crack my head on the tarmac. Big fat tears of joy rolled down his cheeks. “What are you doing, you crazy loon?” I wriggled in his grasp. “Put me down! Let me go!”
“Never,” he replied, grinning wildly. “Never, ever, ever.” Burying his face into the crease of my neck, he added in a whisper, “I fucking love you, Matt.”
I’d have made a fortune if I could have bottled and sold the wonderfully giddy smile plastered across his handsome face. Every fucking perfect white tooth on display. If I’d owned a camera, I’d have photographed it, carried the snapshot around in my wallet, as a constant reminder of how perfect life could be, if only I’d been born someone else.
Eventually, he placed me back on the ground, my head swimming with relief, with joy, with love, with bitterness, with anger. In summary, a maelstrom of fucked-up teenage boy.