Page 9 of The Dramatic Life of Jonah Penrose
Six
“When he holds me, I beg the Gods to let me keep him. Paris, my love, my soul is his, I’ll die by his side, our journey then to the underworld, where Hades will greet us and we will drink to our demise.”
—“Helen,”The Wooden Horse, Act One
Tottenham Court Road tube station swelled as bodies funneled into it from above. Jonah adjusted his headphones and kept his head down as people jostled into him from all sides. Tourists stopped mid-walk with their phones out, faces creased in confusion as they peered at the maps on the walls, disorientated from leaving the theatres on Shaftesbury Avenue and having to face the grueling reality of the London Underground. Jonah knew the feeling; he had been one of those bewildered people stuck standing in complete confusion as he tried to find out how to get from one place to another back when he first moved to London. Now he just weaved between them. An oiled cog in the grand machine of the capital.
Cornwall seemed so sleepy in comparison.
He allowed the mass of bodies to heave him through the barriers, his phone beeping against the fare readers, the little gates opening to grant him access to the even busier platforms where crowds surged even at the late hour of the evening. London never slept, and neither did the scorching hot tracks of the Underground. Sometimes Edward used to meet him after a show at the entrance to the Tottenham Court station, opposite Soho Place and the little coffee shop that sold the cinnamon buns Jonah liked. He worked late, always holed up in his office on Hanway Street asthe theatres surrounding him told tales of sweeping romances and tragic deaths.
Jonah loved the nights when his body felt exhausted yet sated from performing and he saw Edward waiting for him at the station. Their hands would meet, palms pressed against each other, and they faced the crowds together while Edward pointed out the posters featuring Jonah’s face battle ready or prepared to press his lips against Bastien’s, lining various spots on their journey.
“Doesn’t it make you jealous?” Jonah asked him once, their bodies pressed together in bed, breaths lost in each other’s lungs. “That I have to kiss another man multiple times each night?”
“The only time I will get jealous is the day you kiss him the same way you kiss me.” The answer seemed so simple, without animosity or conditions, sogrown-up. Rhys, who he dated before Edward, got his pants in a twist when he went to watch Jonah inCabaretwhen he was playing Cliff and he kissed the actress playing Sally because it was in the bloody script for him to do so. It didn’t matter that Sally and Cliff were doomed, their romance somewhat a farce, or totally a farce depending on the production and interpretation of the characters. And it certainly didn’t matter that Jonah was gay and had been sucking Rhys’s cock that very morning. Their relationship crumbled due to an onstage kiss, and, if Jonah were to be truthful, a rather unconvincing one at that. Rhys, who at the time just turned thirty, stamped his feet like a child and left.
When Edward came into his life things changed. Edward didn’t act like a sullen teenager just out of high school. He wore suits and polished his shoes every morning after shaving and doused himself with cologne. He didn’t check his bank account before buying stuff and never went overdrawn. And he always kissed Jonah with a lingering, simmering passion that made Jonah feel completely weightless. Floating. Desired.
Jonah sniffed as he meandered through the Underground, hating himself for thinking of Edwardagainbut being mentally incapable of putting him back in his kitchen drawer. He missed him. He missed Edward’s hands on his body, the way he knew exactly how to run his fingertips along the inside of Jonah’s thigh to make his breath hitch in this throat.He missed the feel of Edward’s lips against his and his stubble pricking Jonah’s skin as he worked his kisses down his chest. Or maybe, just maybe, Jonah didn’t miss him at all. Perhaps he just needed to get laid.
He could go on a date. Or, maybe not even a date. It didn’t need to be that deep. Sherrie put FullStack on his phone, “The best queer dating app, babe,” and stood over him as he made a profile despite his groaning protests. He’d looked at the app twice since downloading it and opened eight messages, five of which were dick pics. And they weren’t even very good, not enough to entice him out of his house to go investigate, at least. Pride in one’s photography seemed like a lost cause on FullStack. The weirder the camera angle the better, and, despite thinking he should just have meaningless sex to dull the empty void inside of him, he wanted to at least do it with someone who could take anicepicture of their dick.
As the train rolled in for the Northern Line, Jonah decided once and for all he needed to get Edward out of his head and buckle down on finding someone who could do more than send flaccid pictures of their penis. He’d settle for a nice butt shot. Or no nudity at all. Where were the guys cuddling puppies and eating ice cream or the ones who were nice to their mums? There had to be at least one man in London who was kind to animals and also good at sex. Jonah just needed to find him. He could be anywhere, behind him or standing farther down the platform. He scanned the bodies on the train when he finally stepped into the carriage, at first looking for someone hot before silently begging to see a vacant seat, but of course there were none. He shuffled to the corner of the carriage and held onto the metal bar beside the door to stop himself from falling as the train lurched forward. He fished his phone out of his pocket to check the time—seventeen minutes past eleven—then looked back up to see Edward standing by the next door along the carriage.
Jonah suddenly felt like he might vomit. Bile worked its way up his throat, burning and sickly sweet, and he swallowed it down; he couldn’t throw up on the bloody Northern Line. Edward busied himself by talking with a man slightly shorter than himself with striking blue eyes and jet-black hair. Although he would rather look at four hundred lumpy, misshapen dick pics, Jonah allowed himself to study the two of them, the easewith which they conversed with each other, and Edward’s subtle hand pressed against the other man’s lower back to support him as the train moved. He used to support Jonah in the same way. The man flung his head back in a laugh, dimples forming in his cheeks as Edward chuckled beside him. And there, where the collar of his shirt shifted with his movement, Jonah saw a hickey blemishing the man’s skin on his neck.
Jonah turned from them, his face flushed with something—anger, devastation, a mixture of the two—and came face to face with an even more sickening sight. DexterfuckingEllis. He looked at Jonah with momentary surprise before his expression turned into a scowl. His lips moved, words coming from them, but Jonah couldn’t hear, the music in his headphones drowning out his voice. He slipped them from his head and frowned as he looked at the taller man.
“What? I couldn’t hear you?”
“I said, what are you doing down here?” Dexter asked with an incredulous tone.
Jonah’s eyes fell across his body; he’d not seen him outside of the theatre except at yoga where he wore the too-tight joggers and T-shirt, but here, out in the wild, he didn’t dress how Jonah imagined. Dark navy chinos cut off above his ankles to reveal sockless feet in gray canvas deck shoes, not unlike the ones Jonah’s dad wore even at the height of winter. The collar of a white shirt peeked out from beneath a deep-emerald jumper, and there, on the left-hand side, right where a breast pocket might usually sit, was an embroidered teddy bear wearing a yellow bow tie. The entire ensemble screamed “rich kid sails Daddy’s yacht.” and Jonah couldn’t help but feel slightly grubby in comparison.
“Sorry, do you own the Northern Line?” Jonah asked, the teddy bear looking at him with the same aloof expression as its owner.
Dexter opened his mouth to say something as the train ground itself to a stop. Only darkness lay outside the windows; they had not pulled in at the next station, but stopped in the middle of one of the tunnels. Without his headphones on, Jonah could hear Edward’s all-too-familiar voice, the man painfully close, and he wondered if Edward could sense his presence or if he’d wiped everything about Jonah from his mind.
Dexter leaned against the wall at the end of the carriage, angling himself away from Jonah. The tendons in his neck were tense; they jutted out from beneath his skin and made his jaw appear rigid. Several minutes passed without the train moving again, and Jonah waited to hear a voice over the speakers announcing some kind of delay, but none came. He reminded himself this wasn’t the Elizabeth Line with all its shiny new bells and whistles and delicious air conditioning in the summer. No, the Northern Line was a drunk aunt, always stumbling about, often late, and with nothing useful to say, but he held a fondness for it, regardless.
“I hate the Underground,” Dexter said, though he still didn’t look at Jonah. “I should’ve got the bus.”
“Buses are the worst,” Jonah said. “Never on time, always full, and they smell like piss.”
“No different to the tube, then.”
Jonah didn’t reply, and instead snuck a look over his shoulder at Edward, who still spoke happily with the man Jonah refused to believe might be the one he left him for. Until then, he hadn’t given the mystery person who took his place in Edward’s life much thought. He’d shown some kindness to himself and not let any images of imaginary men resembling underwear models work their way into the narrative of his breakup. But now... now he could see Edward’s life and how he’d been since the split. He didn’t seem sad, no sense of regret or longing for the person whose heart he broke. Jonah saw only happiness written over his face.
“You were a beat behind most of the dance numbers tonight.”
Jonah turned his attention back to Dexter, who was looking at him again.
“You should probably work on that,” Dexter continued.
“You were watching the show?”
Dexter nodded. “I’ve been trying to go as much as possible. It’s all very well practicing in a studio, but seeing it is different. And you fumbled your lines toward the end of act one.”
