Page 102 of Unstitch

‘So it went okay, then?’ I demand, brushing my lips against his and wasting no time in tugging off my tie. I’m merely making myself comfortable on a horribly muggy day, but his eyes widen at my audacity. His French doors are open, the oppressive humidity so palpable in the room that surely it must break soon. I walk past him and chuck my tie on his sofa, noting the open laptop. He’s been working since he got home. Tut tut. This boy needs to learn how to have fun.

‘It was absolutely fine,’ he says, which is precisely what he told me via text message earlier.

‘Glad to hear it.’ I help myself to one of the two open beer bottles on the island, their brown glass sweating temptingly. ‘So Thum didn’t threaten to stone you to death and bury you next to Oscar Wilde?’

His mouth drops open. ‘You can’t say things like that.’

‘I just did.’ I shrug and take my first sip of beer, the cold bubbles hitting the back of my throat like the most perfectly pitched song.

‘If you think that’s funny, it’s not. It’s incredibly distasteful.’

‘I agree. I’ve been an openly queer man for two-and-a-half decades now. You think I don’t rail every fucking day against the fact that people who’ve had the shitty luck of being born under the wrong regime face not only prejudice but persecution and the fucking death penalty?’

He’s staring at me as though I’m such a loose cannon that he has no clue which way I’ll go.

‘I don’t know,’ is what he says, crossing to the island and grabbing the other beer. ‘You always make it seem like you’ve had this charmed experience where you’ve glided through life, full of self-certainty and self-confidence and unwavering support, and everyone’s just waved their rainbow flags and cheered you on as you forge a path as probably the most successful queer person in British industry.’

That gives me pause. I can see why he might feel blindsided by my apparently sudden giving of fucks.

The first truth is that, in my interactions with him, I’ve deliberately downplayed the abiding web of prejudice I’ve endured in all its vast array of forms, be they insidious or unthinking or fear-driven or verbal or physical or career-threatening or downright dangerous.

The second truth is that none of these moments or these people or these risks could ever, ever have scared me away from living a life where I’m true to myself and my desires or my feelings. On the contrary, succumbing to them would have felt like the worst, most hateful crime of all.

Which is why I’ve gone gung-ho with Dex. Painted a strictly rosy picture. Steamrolled him, even. Because fuck knows, the guy doesn’t need a single additional datapoint for why he should subjugate his true self another day.

I set down my bottle and turn to face him. ‘The self-certainty stuff is true,’ I tell him, forcing my voice to sound more measured, less impassioned, than I feel, ‘and I have my family to thank for that. I know you don’t, and I know you haven’t had sexual autonomy modelled for you, and I’m truly sorry for that.

‘But none of the rest is true. I’ve had my fair share of support, but like most other queer people of my generation, I could write a book on all the fucking indignities and hatred and bullying and shitty, shitty stuff I’ve faced. And I’ve reacted to it as best I could, but I have never, ever let it stop me from living my life.’

I raise an eyebrow to underline that last message, and sure, it’s harsher than it needs to be, but for fuck’s sake. I’m far angrier on Dex’s behalf that he’s denied his reality and denied his needs for so long, and I want to provoke him. I want him to be pissed off at someone, even if that someone is me, because his being pissed off is far better than him taking it on the fucking chin and finding the world benign and blameless, like the good pseudo-Catholic boy he is.

‘Wow,’ he says. ‘That was a lot of judgement from someone I thought was on my side.’

‘I am on your side,’ I say, and I take a step towards him, gripping the back of his neck so I can pierce him with the honesty in my eyes. I hope he can see it; I hope he can hear the sincerity ringing in my words. ‘Honestly, sometimes it feels like Darcy and I are the only ones who are. But my form of being on your side isn’t sitting with you and braiding your hair while you list all the ways you could get hurt by taking these steps. It’s showing you that taking them, and allowing yourself to be with me, will be worth it. I promise it’ll be worth it.’

He blinks. I know he wants reassurances and praise and back-slapping today, but he’s come to the wrong person. That’s not how I roll. What he’ll realise in a few minutes is that the way I roll will feel so fucking otherworldly that it’ll light a fire under that scared, tremulous, and sometimes pretty fucking hard to find backbone of his.

It will gird his loins far more effectively than any silly, patronising words of praise ever could.

71

DEX

Max’s refusal to acknowledge how far I’ve come today stings, and quite honestly I resent it. God, I wish I had a fraction of his self-assurance.

‘I took a big step today,’ I argue. ‘It might not seem like that to you, but for someone who’s only just allowed himself to admit his queerness, let alone act on it, it’s a big deal.’

‘I’d argue you did that backwards,’ he says with a little smirk. ‘You acted on it before you admitted it, even to yourself.’

‘Touché,’ I mumble, because he’s not wrong there.

‘Look.’ He strokes the back of my neck. ‘I know you took a big step, and if you want me to say I’m proud of you, then I will. But I hope you did it for yourself. You should be proud of yourself. The point I’m trying to make, perhaps not as elegantly as I intended, is that I’m curious what you really thought could go wrong in there today with Thum.

‘Worst case, he’s a homophobe and you felt judged by him on a personal level. It’s not a nice feeling, I know. But if you’d felt in the slightest bit shunned, I would have made you march straight into HR and tell them as well as Compliance. There’s no way we’d let him get away with discriminating against an employee who’s as senior and as high profile as you without it being escalated. Right? But it sounds like, in this case, he’s given you his blessing?’

‘Yeah,’ I admit, deflating. There’s nothing worse than patting yourself on the back, only to be told you didn’t actually do anything impressive. ‘He was lovely. I definitely took him by surprise, but once he’d recovered, he was super sweet and very supportive.’ I give Max a wry smile, remembering how complimentary Thum was of him. ‘I suspect he thought I’d done quite well for myself.’

‘As you have,’ he quips, and then pauses, his thumb stroking the skin of my neck. ‘Can I tell you what I think is going on here?’

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