Boyfriend in a Dress (30 page)
Read Boyfriend in a Dress Online
Authors: Louise Kean
Tags: #Chick-Lit, #Cross-Dressing, #Fiction, #Love Stories, #Relationships, #Romance, #Women's Fiction
I realize he is feeling open, uncomfortable, so I jump in. ‘Christ, so, Sir, what do you teach?’
‘P.E.’
‘Right, so not quite as worthy as it first sounded then,’ I say.
‘No, I generally tend to leave that bit out.’
‘All the girls will fancy you, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Only reason I’m doing it.’ And we both laugh slightly.
‘How about you? Have you gone back to work?’
‘No, actually. I’ve gone back to college. Got my first exams next week. Thought it was about time I tried something I really wanted to do.’ I am proud of myself, I can hear it in my own voice. I have moved on too. We haven’t wasted our year apart, Charlie and I.
‘Bloody hell! What’s the course?’ Charlie asks.
‘Social work.’
‘Jesus!’ Charlie looks amazed as well he should, social work is just so not me.
‘No, I’m just kidding. It’s philosophy.’
‘Right, not quite as admirable as it sounded then.’
‘No, that’s why I say social work,’ I say, and we both smile.
‘I’m really enjoying it, though.’ I run my hand through my hair, and feel myself sobering up slightly. But I am still pissed.
‘Are you seeing anybody?’ Charlie asks with his head down, his elbows resting on his knees, bottle in both hands. It seems like a mammoth question, and despite myself, and the way I thought I would feel answering this question, when Charlie eventually asked it, I am relieved to say,
‘No.’ We sit in silence for a second, as I wait for his reply, and only when it doesn’t come I realize I haven’t asked the question.
‘Oh. You?’
‘No. Haven’t met anybody. Well, not anybody that comes close to what we … had.’ Charlie turns his head to look at me sideways, and I meet his eyes.
‘I know what you mean.’ My nose scrunches up on its own, involuntarily. It’s true, I haven’t.
‘I was shocked, you know, that you went, and you didn’t even say goodbye or anything.’ Charlie cuts to the chase.
‘Oh God, I know. I feel bad about it. But it was a funny time. I just had to get away. And I told Jake to say goodbye to you for me.’
‘It’s not quite the same, is it?’ Charlie looks hurt suddenly, and we have both been doing so well to keep control.
‘I know, it’s not, you’re right. I’m sorry, Charlie.’
‘Was I really that bad? Actually, don’t answer that, I know I was.’
‘Charlie, it was me that was confused, you were sorting yourself out, but I was all over the place, and I didn’t know what I wanted … you weren’t that bad. By then.’
‘So do you know what you want now?’ Charlie looks at me again, and I realize he has just put his feelings on the bench between us, for me to crush if I want. He is being brave.
‘Yes,’ I venture quietly.
‘What do you want then?’
‘I want to be a philosopher.’
There is a second of shocked silence, and then he laughs loudly, at the relief of such a trivial answer to such a massive question.
‘Sorry, sorry, that was easy. Do I know what I want? I guess I do. It’s quite hard to admit it though.’ I understand what I’m saying now. The drink is still there, dissolving in my bloodstream, but my mind is clearing by the second. What is there to think about, really? When you fall in love, well, that’s it. It’s the thing I learnt. Everybody does bad things, you can’t expect them not to. I did a bad thing, so shoot me. I’m still allowed to be in love. It’s part of my equation.
Charlie is looking back down at his bottle again, and I get the feeling he is about to ask the last awkward question between us. Because when I answer, and we both know, we can relax again.
‘So …’ Charlie seems to be feeling the pressure. But I want him to ask it. It’s going to make me feel loved, and that’s what I need.
‘So?’ I ask.
‘So, I’ve moved on, I teach football now,’ he laughs slightly. ‘And you’ve moved on, you … wear black, sit and think in cafes or whatever.’
‘Oi!’ I shove his leg with mine, and it is the first time we’ve touched for over a year.
‘Well, you do whatever philosophy students do, and we both seem to know …’ he trails off again. He is finding this hard-going. And his insecurity makes me feel loved enough,
his complete inability to form the words. I don’t want to make him suffer.
‘I think I know, Charlie, I mean, as much as I can.’ I reach out, feeling the nerves in my arm as I try to hold his hand, and he lets me, and studies our hands together for a second. And looking at my hand, he says,
‘God, I really, really fucking missed you.’ He says it in bewilderment, as if he never knew he could.
‘Thanks. I missed you too.’ I pull his hand slightly, and he sits up.
‘Jesus Christ, I can’t believe I’m going to do this. I feel like one of your class. I feel like I’m bloody fifteen again.’ I gulp, and hope I’m not too flushed by the drink, not clammy and cold and horrible-looking.
Charlie leans in, and I lean in, eyes open, and our lips touch each other’s while my heart seems to bang about in my chest. I can’t believe how amazingly, overwhelmingly happy I feel to be kissing him again. Gradually, softly, I feel his tongue and I put my hands on the sides of his face, feeling the cultivated sideburns. I feel his hand in my back. It is a slow kiss, and we pull apart slightly. We are sitting face to face.
I breathe out my nerves with a sigh, and flex my neck slightly, shrugging my shoulders free of the tension.
‘Limbering up?’ he asks quietly, and I laugh in surprise.
‘So is this a clean slate then?’ I ask, suddenly scared that it might not be.
Charlie wipes a strand of hair off my face, and whispers,
‘Completely.’
Soho Street, 11.15, Wednesday night.
The queue for POP, a late night dancing bar.
Charlie, six of his mates, a boys’ night out.
‘Charlie, check it out.’
‘What, mate?’
‘Check it out, over the road, the blonde.’
‘Where?’ There’s a sense of urgency in Charlie’s voice.
‘Over the road, mate, by Starbucks. The blonde, mate, the blonde!’
Charlie spins around on one foot, and spots the blonde.
‘Nah, mate, look at the conk on her – druids worship that nose every solstice. And I’d like to check her cuffs – bet they don’t match the collar.’
The boys laugh. The blonde looks over self-consciously, and knows they are laughing at her. You can always tell who is laughing at who. The boys are taking no care to be discreet. She pulls her jacket a little closer around her neck, and puts her head down slightly, trying to shrink her nose into the shadows. It is always her nose. She’s going to get the surgery, she’s sick of this shit.
Charlie turns back to the queue, bored with laughing at the
blonde. Slapping his hands together, he dances on the spot to the music coming from the pit of the club, seeping out into the night. If only they could be down there. The anticipation of the queue. He knows he doesn’t need to be queuing, he could slip the bouncer a fifty, and they’d be in, but it’s a warm night. The women may be downstairs, shaking their tits and arse in bikini tops and tiny skirts, and the bar may be downstairs, with all the ingredients for his favourite cocktails. But for the moment Charlie is content to get this last breath of street air before descending into the heat of the club for the next four hours. And they’re in no rush, there are women on the street as well.
It has been an unnaturally hot May for London.
You can feel the heat not just in the air, but in the people. A restlessness presided over the city’s singles. The girls wore their clothes like smooth silky invitations for sex. Shirts clung to torsos, skirts stuck to thighs, faces shone and heels clicked through offices beating out a thrusting rhythm as they went. The mornings were filled with a clean promise, in a much needed early shower, who knew what these strange days would bring, after sweating out another night under the sheets, with whoever he had brought to his bed, familiar or unfamiliar, Nicola, or somebody else. More often than not, somebody else. Walking the streets to work, watching the air rise from the streets, and the day begin, everybody wearing relieved smiles, that the sun had decided to stick around for another day at least. And so what if you had to be in the office? There was always the weekend. And Bank Holiday season was underway.
Windows open at work, the phone rings non-stop, but a swift one at lunch, sunglasses on, still psyched for the afternoon, flirting, sunbathing, music spilling out from the radios of soft tops rolling past. Jamaican funk in London town. A strange time. And everybody up for it. The evenings, heat
holding into the night, into the bars, ties loosened, sipping something long and cool, sitting outside bars by the river, the heat willing you to stay out all night, swaying home eventually, a little something on the arm picked up in the bar, an unnatural blonde, loving the summer just as much and loving the vibe of middle of the week sex, and telling you about plans for the weekend. In the summer, everybody has plans for the weekend, and this year summer had definitely come early.
Charlie was getting a lot of sex. The weather was his friend, and proving to be the most powerful aphrodisiac known to man. Charlie knows, if the sun is out, and you turn on the charm, the women don’t say no. No talking, no tomorrow, just sex.
One in, one out. The bouncer beckons them forward,
‘How many of you?’
‘Seven.’
‘Four now, three in a minute.’
‘Cool.’
Turning to the boys at the back, Charlie talks and walks backwards at the same time,
‘Boys, we’ll get the drinks in.’
The boys nod, as Charlie turns and is slapped in the face by the heat of the club as he jogs down the steps into the basement. The music is thudding out from behind the big swing doors, and the tune is muffled. Something about joy and pain, sunshine and rain.
‘Don’t leave now, ladies, the party’s just starting!’ Charlie turns on the charm for three average girls in high street sequins, his arms open wide, palms facing the ceiling, blocking their exit, their make-up running slightly down the sides of their faces, sweat trickling into their cleavage from the backs of their necks.
‘It’s too hot in there!’ offers one of the girls with a smile, as the other two ignore him and push past to get out.
Charlie carries on walking towards the big swing doors, and as somebody pushes them open from the inside, the heat and the music jump him at once. The boys are behind him, as he dips his head into the bar.
This is the night.
At the bar, Charlie does the drinks.
‘Boys, boys!’ The lads are already surveying the scene, the music, the women, the competition, the vibe, the atmosphere. Sizing their night up from these very first seconds.
‘Boys – what are we drinking?’ Charlie shouts over the music, as the boys turn back to face him at the bar, and Charlie gets his wallet out from the back of his jeans. He feels his mobile vibrate at the same time, but ignores it. People are already pressing him to get to the bar. The place is moving, the dancing has spilled out from the volcano of the dance floor, and girls are already standing on the sofas, a couple on tables, dancing at their girlfriends. Charlie has observed in the last couple of years a tendency in women to dance suggestively with each other, shaking up and down behind each other, holding eye contact with their mates, turning every man on within ten metres. And that’s exactly why they did it. They weren’t lesbians, they were just showing their slutty side, without putting other blokes off.
‘I’ll get a round of beers to start, it’s too fucking hot in here,’ Charlie tells the boys, and is distracted immediately by two girls in the corner running their hands up and down each other’s thighs, looking over at a group of blokes next to them.
Charlie, getting out a twenty, trying to attract the attention of the girls behind the bar, he holds it out in his hand and leans on the bar. The music is pumping through his head, as a hip hop beat kicks in and he nods his head in time. The air is thick with noise and drink. Charlie closes his eyes for a couple of seconds, and feels the pain in the back of his head ebb towards the front. He pushes it back, tries to ignore it.
It comes and goes, just a headache. A product of the heat, and the treadmill at the gym, and the deal he’s trying to cut with PWC. The pain throbs for a couple of seconds and then recedes again. Charlie opens his eyes again, and it is gone completely. A barmaid comes over, black bra under a white shirt, he doesn’t even notice her face, and leans forward for her ear.
‘Four Stellas.’
‘How many?’
Charlie holds up four fingers, and the barmaid turns around to the fridge, and Charlie turns around to see if the boys are still with him, which they are.
Josh is already chatting up some brunette, Josh likes the brunettes – kids himself they’re the ones with the brains. Charlie has explained to Josh a thousand times that if his intention is only for the night, which it is, then what is the point in going for a girl who can hold a conversation. Besides, conversation is overrated, unnecessary. She hasn’t got to meet the parents. But Josh just likes the brunettes. Charlie doesn’t care – blonde, brunette, redhead, whatever. He’s not looking for conversation, not on nights like these. From the corner of his eye he can see lights flickering over dancing bodies, and he wants to get over there, get into the action, stop hanging about for this fucking waitress. Charlie scoops up the beers, and turns awkwardly as the queue at the bar heaves towards the space he vacates, and he manages not to spill any beer, holding them over a short fat Chinese girl’s head to avoid bumping her.