Page 18 of Torn
Bath certainly wasn’t lacking in either charm or history. I felt a little rush of warmth and affection for Boutros, who so rarely displayed a softer side. I still couldn’t help but expect he’d cut in with some cruel remark. He’d warned me on the train how crazy his family was, his mother in particular. “That bitch is psychic. Just a fun fact. She also delights in making my life miserable. You’ll see.”
“Did you mean psychotic?” I asked.
“That too.” He also mentioned his ex-wife, who still lived here with three children Boutros had fathered back in the day. “When I was drunk,” he explained. “You’ll find Beryl holding up the bar, hoping to cadge as many free drinks as she can. She was pretty once, but now? Face like a smacked ass.”
Ah, there he was—the Boutros I knew and loved!
“Are you hungry? Or would you rather just get to our hosts’?”
We would be staying with a young gay couple who lived off one of the many crescents in the city, up the hill from the station. Boutros said we wouldn’t require a cab. The couple, Philip and Teddy, had lived together for only a short time, but, Boutros warned me, Teddy, the product of what he called a “public school” education, had a wandering eye. “So, don’t go causing any trouble, you home-wrecker!”
“I only have eyes for Walt.” I winked. “Walt Whitman.”
“If you believe that’s his real name—” Boutros began.
I finished for him, “Then I must believe Boutros BinBin is yours.”
We headed up and up and up the narrow streets until we came, out of breath, to a relatively modern apartment building—white brick with black shutters and a black-and-white awning over the front door.
“Remember what I told you,” Boutros whispered as we approached. “Teddy is off-limits. They’re nice enough to let us stay with them. We don’t need you spreading your gonorrhea around to my friends.”
“Shut up.”
Boutros rang their buzzer.
“Besides,” I went on. “I got that cleared up before we came over.”
Boutros rolled his eyes. “I’m sure only to make room for yet another venereal disease, if I know you!”
“You are so mean.” I thought for a second. “Teddy is off-limits, or so you say, but what about Philip?”
“I thought you only had eyes for Mr. Whitman. Shame on you. Besides, Philip is, from what Teddy’s told me, unfailingly monogamous.”
“How bourgeois. How boring.”
A startling buzz interrupted, letting us know we could go inside.
The boys, as I soon began calling them, were charming. They’d laid out a proper tea for us, and I was impressed, although I did make the faux pas of referring to it as high tea.
Teddy corrected me. “It’s actually afternoon tea. High tea, despite sounding pinkie-in-the-air lofty, is actually a working-class convention.” Teddy smiled, and despite my fondness for Mr. Whitman, I was already charmed by his wavy chestnut hair and gray eyes. The way he stared so deeply intomyeyes told me he might have been more than a little charmed by me as well. I could see we’d be navigating some dangerous territory during this visit.
His boyfriend, Philip, broke our ocular connection by setting a cup and saucer before me. He started with me but then put out cups for everyone on their small walnut dining table.
Philip was what I suppose people refer to as “Black Irish.” He had dark curly hair, and where Teddy was lithe and taut-muscled, Philip was a beefy man with a bit of gut. His smile was warm as he held the matching teapot aloft and asked, “Shall I be mother?”
I giggled nervously. “I don’t know what that means,” I said. I’d heard the expression before, but had forgotten to ask what it meant. I expected him to disappear, perhaps, into the adjacent bedroom and reemerge as Norman Bates’s mom. Or the Queen Mum in a gray wig, sensible frock, and crown.
Boutros looked at me like the heathen I’m sure they all thought I was. “It just means he’ll pour.”
Teddy leaned close. “And give you a little sugar, if you’re good. And he’s always happy to give you some cream, if you’re so inclined.”
I stared at him for a moment, wondering if this was simply regularafternoontea talk or some serious double entendre.
Boutros spoke for me once the tea, a lovely Darjeeling, had been poured. “Give him lots of cream and sugar. Me too.”
Teddy eyed me. “Like your tea like you like your men, then?”
“How’s that?” I pushed my cup forward so Philip could add cream and a couple of sugar cubes.
