Page 27 of Torn
As much as I did adore the way British men were always calling everything lovely, I tried to gloss over his compliment by asking where we were going to dinner that night. It was Teddy’s birthday, and he wanted a proper celebration.
“Shoes of the Fisherman,” Philip said, eyes shooting daggers toward me. “Good seafood. No chips.” He grinned as though he knew this would disappoint the lowly Yank his husband was obviously lusting for.
We’d had a lovely dinner, with Teddy insisting that I have a pudding at the end. That’s when I discovered that even an apple tart was “pudding” in British vernacular.
When we got home, Boutros and Philip went outside to smoke, and it was then Teddy proposed a quickie.
“Just let me suck you off.”
I never thought I’d refuse a blow job, but I pushed him away because he was standing too close. I could smell the garlic from his shrimp scampi on his breath. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“Philip won’t mind.” He chuckled. “We have an understanding.” He reached for my zipper.
“Maybe Philip won’t mind, but I would. I’m kind of seeing that guy I went off with.”
“Oh, please. Be a mate. It’s my birthday.”
“Then you should have my cock,” I said, a little bitterly.
It was then Boutros and Philip had returned. Teddy and I quickly retreated to different corners of the room, him guilty and me not so much.
NOW, ONthe train, I looked back at the memory and my restraint with some fondness. I didn’t know I had it in me.
Other memories of the trip rose to the surface of my consciousness.
I’d never forget meeting Boutros’s mother and father. They lived on what he called a “council estate” on a hill overlooking Bath. The location was quite bucolic and an ode to the color green. Miles of it, in all its different variations.
Boutros’s parents, who called him Bertie, were polar opposites. His father was a big, affable man with a walrus mustache and a thick head of snow-white hair. He made me feel immediately at home, taking me off with him to give me a tour of the small stone house and its tiny cramped rooms. “We only had Bertie,” he said. “Just the one. After the likes of him, Mum and me couldn’t handle the idea of any more.” He guffawed, and I joined him, complicit in understanding. I could imagine Boutros presented his fair share of challenges growing up.
We went outside so Dad could show me his vegetable garden. I feigned interest in the patches of herbs, tomatoes, and courgettes but could hear Boutros and his mother bickering shrilly inside the whole time.
His mother had all but ignored me when we came in the door. She had fangs and claws, sharpened and bared for her little boy.
The visit was uncomfortable, something out of an Edward Albee play.
I never did find out what the mother-son sniping was about, so I took this quiet opportunity on the train now to find out.
“Oh, I told her there was only one thing of mine I wanted from my boyhood in the house, and she wouldn’t let me have it.”
I imagined it was something valuable, or something the couple currently weren’t using.
Boutros said, “It was my stuffed monkey. I called him Charlie, and I slept with him every night.”
I wanted to burst into laughter, but when I saw the hurt expression on Boutros’s face, the longing, despair, and pain, I quickly sucked my mirth back inside.
“She said I could have anything I wanted in the house, anything but Charlie.” Boutros caught my gaze, and I don’t think I’d ever seen him look so stricken. I wanted to take him in my arms, but we were not the type of friends who hugged. “She knew that monkey was the only thing I wanted. That’s why she wouldn’t let me have it.”
I understood. Withholding something Boutros held dear gave her power over him, even though he was a grown man who no longer even lived in her country.
“When we bury her, it’s going to be facedown.”
“Why?”
“So when she tries to claw her way out of the grave, which she will inevitably do, she’ll be digging down instead of up.”
I was suddenly grateful for my own mother back in Ohio, who made me and my sisters the focus of her life and love.
I had to mentally shift gears, so I reminded Boutros of the couple we’d seen walking near Bath Abbey, the gorgeous Anglican church overlooking the Avon.
