Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 17:27:03 -0500 From: redpatience@Safe-mail.net Subject: The lad on the train, Part V It seemed to Peter that Edinburgh was the most beautiful city he'd ever seen; it was a beehive of stone: all chasms and stairways and tunnels and closes and warrens, streets that twisted and turned and always, all beneath beautiful winter skies of pink, orange, and blue. Andrew lived in a giant building of limestone that was smooshed between two larger ones; from the street they could see the oxidized copper of his bay window and the half onion-dome that covered it. "Woww!" the boy exclaimed. "It's half of why I bought the place, really. You can sit up there with a book for hours and never read a page--there's too much to watch below. " Like the three other tenants in the building, Mr. Carmichael was a bachelor who enjoyed his independance and his privacy; thus, he had no servants. A maid came in once every other day to tidy the place, and he generally took his meals downstairs in a little Cafe that was owned by the same family who rented the townhouses. Otherwise, breakfast and tea were delivered on a regular schedule via the dumbwaiter. They entered through a heavy wooden door into the coat room, and through this into the study. Peter inhaled deeply the smell of the wood, the books that lined every wall, and the vague smoky musk of Andrew's own pheremones mixed with anise-scented pipe tobacco. "Ooh!" the boy cried in delight, "William Morris!" The wallpaper was a pattern of mustard greens and flowers on a field of red; the richly filligreed acanthus pattern in silver and green was quite common now, but examples of Morris' work like this were much rarer. Everything about the house delighted Peter. He swooned over paintings and made enthusiastic outbursts about several of the books on the shelves; but he went silent as soon as he reached the bay window. The spires of the churches and corniced clocktowers, the monuments and statues, the deep gorge that seperated the old town from the new town was all there displayed beneath the setting sun, burning red in a halo of rose colored clouds. "Come here, lad," Andrew said after a while, and took the boy by the hand. They passed into the dim corridor beyond the study doors. "Is this whole floor yours?" "Aye," Andrew said. Then he opened a door at the back. Within was a small bedroom much taller than it was wide, the crown-moulded ceiling reaching up at least fifteen feet. All the furniture was antique oak; there was a small bed and empty bookshelves, a roll-top desk and a narrow, high window that looked out on the alley behind. "There's a pub down there," Andrew said, "you'll be able to watch the drunks come and go as you do your studies." "You mean this is my room?" Peter said; his voice was full of disappointment. "What's wrong, lad?" "I thought...I supposed we would be sharing." Andrew laughed. He took the boy's hand, reeled him into his arms and squeezed him from behind. "You can sleep in my bed every night of the week," the man whispered in his ear. "Oh," Peter said, smiling, "good." "But you'll need to have your own space, too you know. Someplace to bring friends. A place to keep all of your art." "It's very good for that," Peter said. "The walls are bare!" "And you're going to start acquiring soon enough," the Scotsman said. When they reached his bedroom, which was directly next-door, the boy inhaled Andrew's smell; he sprawled out on the four-poster bed and looked up. "This house is a castle!" "And you are its Prince." St. Giles' School was only a brief walk from the townhouse; and within a few days Peter had already returned to his lessons. The Scottish accent, something he had only grown used to with Andrew, surrounded him and he found himself more than a little aroused sometimes when he heard his peers ask him questions in the same inflection as his gentleman lover. "Where'd ye live?" they'd ask, and "how'd ye come to know Dr. Carmichael?" "Dr. Carmichael?" Peter queried. He did never thought of Andrew as a doctor, nor known that he often came to this school and others to give guest lectures on History and Art. He told them as little as he could; essentially, that they had met in Geneva and Mr. Carmichael brought him back to study art. "Study art in Edinburgh?" they asked incredulously, "Doesn't Geneva have more art?" The boy merely blushed and shrugged his shoulders. He would return home (and home it was and would be, for the next happy decade of his life) around teatime after his tennis practise. Letting himself in and climbing the stairs, his heart would swell and flutter as he opened the door of that wonderful place. Often, especially on rainy days, he would go straight to the bay window, lie down on the cushioned bench of it and take a rest. A tea-tray would come up the dumbwaiter around four-forty-five, and he'd eat alone and read the newspaper. Mr. Carmichael insisted that he read The Times and be able to make comment on events at home and abroad; he especially expected Peter to be able to tell him about one book or play or exhibition of note from the day. In the winter, the sun would be long set before Mr. Carmichael's soft footfalls creaked on the staircase; he would find Peter freshly bathed, generally sitting at the big desk in the study reading or finishing exercises with a wet head, swiftly chewing his pencil to bits. Sometimes the boy would lay orange peels over the radiator, or put some cinnamon sticks in a pan over it to brighten the air. As soon as he walked in, the boy would slide out of his chair and come kiss Andrew long and slow. "Can I make us something?" he'd ask. Generally he made Andrew an apertif; campari and soda or something and they would lie down on the leather settee, put their feet up on one arm, and recount the events of the day as they cuddled. One particular Friday night, after Andrew had changed into black tie and helped Peter do the same, the two of them went to a night club, where they drank champagne and ate little baked clams and fancy amuse-bouches of steamed savory custard with olives on water crackers. They left and walked around the city, the air still cold and Peter wrapped tightly in their wool coats ands scarves. "How do you like it, lad?" Andrew asked. They stepped gingerly over a patch of ice and Peter got rather pensive. "Like what?" "Life with me." "It's too good," Peter said softly. "I know how you feel," Andrew said. "Call it the Protestant fear of happiness." "I'm afraid something will change," Peter added. The man put a hand on the back of Peter's neck. " Everything inevitably does change," Andrew admitted. "but what are you worried about in particular?" The boy looked sidelong at Andrew. "That this will become ordinary. To us. It already is, I think. It's as if our lives were always like this. I want it to be special, still." "You mean you don't want us to take it for granted?" "Ja. That's the phrase." "I'll do my best. Will you?" "I promise." "I'm afraid you'll stop loving me," Andrew confessed. "Afraid you'll fall in love with a boy your own age. Or a girl. I wouldn't blame you if you did. You ought to feel free to, in fact." Peter blushed; he didn't know how to respond. He himself was sometimes afraid of the same thing, but he couldn't admit that to Andrew; more upsetting was the fact that Andrew seemed to be encouraging him to leave. "It will happen eventually, you know," Andrew said. "It happens to every couple. Romance and love affairs are by nature a fleeting thing. If couples last for years and years its because they make sacrifices to stay together: to care for one another, even if they aren't mad about each other anymore." "Like marriage," Peter said. "Yes. Well. Yes." "If the world was different, would you marry me?" Peter asked. "Is that a hypothetical proposal?"Andrew asked, smiling. The boy giggled. "Sure." They passed under a street bridge and Andrew tossed a few coins into the hat of a man playing the fiddle. "The Irish have a thing called a trial marriage," Andrew said. "You ever heard of it? No. Well, two lovers, usually young people, decide to marry for a year. See what happens. After a year, if they still feel the same, they go on with a proper marriage. You know, till-death-do-they-part. I'd rather trial-marry you first, lad." Peter felt his heart sink. He murmured an "Oh." Even though he didn't want to think about anything binding him until-death yet, he felt rather rejected. Andrew explained, seeing the boy's expression. "I'd love to snatch you up forever, lad, but you're young still. You may decide in a couple of years that you want to move on with your life--and that should be fine. I shouldn't hold on to you forever. I'm more than twice your age." "I know," Peter said. "But I don't want anybody else. Or to move on. I want to stay with you." "C'mere," Andrew said, and took the boy by the hand. They passed into an alley where the streetlights failed to follow them; a cat's eyes glowed green and then disappeared, and they heard the noise of a crowded pub around the corner. Andrew grasped the boy by the lapels and pulled him close. Their noses touched. The man's breath smelled of anise. "I don't know what's best for you, lad." he whispered, "but I know you might think I do. And I know you think you'll love me forever, but you might not. Don't fool yourself into thinking that we're happily-ever-after. We're happy, but. There's always a but. Because everything in this world has a beginning, middle, and end." "I know," Peter said sadly. "I love you, lad. I don't want us to ever part. But you're very young, and if you don't remind yourself of how rare and fleeting this time between us still is--it'll make it all the harder when something has to change. Your career might demand it, your heart might change, your family might come between us. " "Well--to hell with all of that! I don't care about any of that," Peter said angrily, "I will stay with you no matter what. I'll just stay with you, somehow. I don't need a career. Or a family! Besides my Nan, my family might as well rot and it wouldn't hurt me. I'll just do whatever you say," the boy insisted, crying, shuddering, "Whatever I must!" "I don't want you to think you can surrender all your decisions to me. You're my prince and my protege, but never my ornament. Or my pet." "I don't know what you mean," Peter stammered; tears were rolling down his cheeks. "You have to have your own life, lad. Your own identity." "Are you s-saying I can't stay with you?" Peter wept. "No! Lad. I want you to stay with me as long as fucking possible. Years! But you have to have your own life. It can be paralell to mine, it can be joined with mine, it can grow up in the care of mine--but it can't be twisted together with mine. If I died when you were twenty, what would happen? I would want you to mourn me and miss me and love me and grieve--but I wouldn't want you to have no reason to live! To be nothing without me. You are complete, you are amazing, with and without me. Do you understand?" Peter nodded. "Tell me what you understand," the Scotsman demanded. "You don't want me to become dependent on you." "Sort of," Andrew said. He stroked the boy's cheek with the back of his knuckles. "You don't want me to get lost in you. You want me to have my own world, still." "You've got it," Andrew whispered, kissing Peter's forehead. The lad pressed his cheek to Andrew's breast and the scotsman rested his chin in Peter's hair. "I'm sorry I made you cry, sweet vix. It's been on my mind of late," Andrew explained. "How to make sure I teach you well. How to be your lover without...smothering you." "You think too much," Peter said bitterly. "If you really want me to be my own person, you shouldn't think that I'm not capable of it without your guidance." "You're right, lad," Andrew whispered, rocking back and forth. "I'm sorry." "I know what I want. I know who I am. And I know I'm going to love you for a long, long time." They kissed softly, trembling, starting to shiver from the cold. "Let's get home," Peter said. When they returned, they sat next to each other on the radiator. Peter rested his head on Andrew's shoulder, and the Scotsman puffed on his pipe. "Would you like to listen to a record?" "We don't have a phonograph," Peter answered. "I know. Would you like to if we had one?" "Well, of course." Peter said. "I'll buy you one if you promise only to listen to Jazz." ((THIS concludes the tale of Peter and Andrew. If it seems a bit abrupt, or strange, then--it is! I did put some thought into it, however, so I stand by my decision. As always, I would love to hear your thoughts and criticism. redpatience@safe-mail.net Happy Christmas!))