Page 33 of Torn
That much was true. Earlier that afternoon, we’d been to Kensington Gardens for a picnic and to see the famous Peter Pan statue there.
We’d ended up in a men’s toilet, with Walt fucking me from behind in a stall while parkgoers came in and out, having a pee and washing their hands.
My orgasm had been the most silent and intense I think I’d ever had. Having to keep myself quiet simply made it more powerful.
We emerged from our stall looking like two Cheshire cats, I’m sure.
Would there be buggery in Kew Gardens if we dared to sneak in? I doubted it—I was still sore from a few hours ago. Even my well-used asshole deserved a rest now and then, like an overworked maid.
Shaking my head, I told Walt he was incorrigible.
Rightly taking that as a yes, he grabbed my hand, and we wandered around until we found a place where we could slip in. Entrance was surprisingly easy. No alarms went off.
We spent an hour or so amid the lush gardens, feeling like we were the only two people on earth. There was something luxurious in an almost metaphysical way about having the acres of trees, grasses, and flowerbeds all to ourselves. It made me feel more at one with them—it was truly heavenly.
Yet all too soon, darkness began to stain the upper sky, and the sun began its descent to the west. The train journey back to Westminster would be a long one. Reluctantly, we slid out the way we’d come in and headed for the station.
The ride back was quiet, almost as silent as we’d been in the stall at Kensington Gardens, but a lot less delightful. A kind of pensive tension hung in the air between us. I stared out the window, unable to help feeling a sense of loss. I told myself I was only spoiling the last little dribble of time we had together, wasting it by being morose.
It didn’t matter. My head got the logic of my argument, but my heart didn’t.
When we parted after our adventures that day, my cynicism got up from its seat in the wings and took center stage. I was pretty certain this would be the last time I would see Walt. Holiday flings are just that. This had been a special one, but it was only what it was. The fact that he lived in Boston and me in Chicago, with close to a thousand miles separating us, didn’t bode well for our future.
I admit it—I was feeling grim, hopeless. Perhaps I was just tired.
We’d tried to make the most of the day, starting off in the morning at Harrods’ food court, then our picnic with Peter Pan, our lust in the loo, our train ride out to Kew Gardens—it had been a very full day. A wonderful day, one of the best of this vacation.
And yet my fatigue—deeper and more pronounced than I thought it had a right to be. It was getting near the end of my time abroad, and all the excitement and newness of my experiences were, perhaps, having a cumulative effect. Part of me was mourning the eventual loss of someone I thought I could love, and the other part wanted to get into bed—alone—and pull the covers over my head.
Maybe some of my malaise was simply due to the fact that I was furious at the universe for denying me romantic love for so long and then delivering it under near-impossible circumstances. Out of the many, many men I met in Chicago, why couldn’t one ofthemhave stirred the same feelings as Walt had in such a short time?
Sure, I could go all Pollyanna and imagine that Walt and I would defy the odds, that ours would be one of those long-distance relationships that didn’t wither on the vine as life and new people intervened. Ours could be the one-in-a-million coupling that actually bloomed and flourished, fed by distance instead of destroyed by it.
We arrived at last at St. James’s station. There was a cruel, face-saving part of me that simply wanted to hurry off the train without a goodbye or even a backward glance at Walt. A clean cut. It was a silly thought, born from the belief that I could somehow spare myself the “sweet sorrow” of parting.
Walt and I ascended to the busy street, dodging commuters as they hurried into and out of the subway station. He pointed to a little restaurant across the street—a grimy diner—and suggested a cup of tea before we headed off our separate ways. “I don’t want to say goodbye yet.” Walt’s smile was sweet and innocent.
Again I wanted to say no. “Oh, all right.” I looked down at the sidewalk, where someone had tossed a piece of blue bubblegum.
Walt eyed me. “Wow. Such enthusiasm.”
“I’m sorry, Walt.” And I really was. “My energy is starting to flag, I think. It’s not you.”
Silently, we waited for a break in the traffic and crossed the street. As usual, I looked the wrong way, right instead of left, and nearly got a hit by a passing scooter.
Inside the diner, the lights were uncomfortably bright. The linoleum floors and tiled walls looked dingy, besmirched by years of grease. A tinny sound system played Oasis’s “Some Might Say.” The song was a big hit in the UK that spring and summer.
We both ordered tea, and Walt added a couple of scones to the order. I had absolutely no appetite.
When the tea came, Typhoo in bags with two cups of hot water, Walt laid a hand gently over mine. “Honey, please. You need to tell me what’s wrong. It seemed like we were so happy when we left the gardens. Your mood took a nosedive on the way here.”
I busied myself dunking my tea bag in and out of the hot water, putting one of the pair of scones on my plate, and staring at it for a moment. It had the same appeal as if I had laid a slug on the plate. I looked around for sugar and saw none on the table. I would have to signal our waitress and ask for it. Fuck it. I didn’t care. I wasn’t planning on drinking much of the tea anyway.
“That’s just it, Walt. Iwashappy. But all too soon I realized you and me—we’re a summer fling. Why kid ourselves that this is anything more than that? You’re a beautiful man, you’re great in bed, you’re funny, you’re spiritual, you’re adventurous, you’re kind. But we both know how this story ends. Sure, we’ll get home, promise to write and call, maybe even make plans to visit the other, but then life will intrude. You’ll meet someone else, or I will. Pressures will mount with work. Seasons will change. Those letters, emails, calls will become fewer and further between. There’ll be an awkward final visit.
“This, what we have now, will eventually become a painful memory.” I looked up from my darkening cup of tea. I realized how horrible I was being and tried to soften my words with a smile. “If we’re lucky, with time, that memory will morph from painful to wonderful.” I slid my hand out from under his and lifted the tea to my lips. It was too hot, too bitter. I set the cup back down with a clatter, and some of the reddish liquid sloshed over into the saucer. A drop flew up and scalded my thumb.
Walt stared at me for a very long time. He ate one of the scones, sipped his tea. “You’re probably right, Ricky. And you’re absolutely right if you believe that’s what’ll happen. I believe wholeheartedly in the notion that our thoughts shape our reality.” He took another sip of tea. “So if you think we’ll end up as you just described, we will.” He nodded. “Life has a funny way of giving us exactly what we expect from it.
