Page 42 of Fe
“No thank you.”
“Let him take you home, Fen.”
“No. I can make my own way back.”
Ripley stood up. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Fen sucked in his cheeks. “Maybe not, but you did.”
11
Fen’s eyes filled up as he made his way out of the building. Ripley’s words were replaying in his head. He’d not even had the chance to tell Ripley his good news about the drug trial. Or give him the penguin book he had in his pocket.
He ended up on the wrong bloody bus and didn’t realise for several minutes. Fen kept looking for something he’d missed in the conversation, something to explain why Ripley had said all that. He couldn’t come up with anything that didn’t fit under the umbrella ofnot good. Nor any reason why Ripley wanted things to be this way. There was no answer to make Fen feel any better.
That should have been enough for him to sayno, keep your fucking money,yet it wasn’t, which made him disappointed in himself.But that is a lot of fucking money!
But…
But…
But…
Emotions battered him. It would have been an easynoif the request had been…what? One night for…a thousand pounds? Except would it really have been an easyno? Even a thousand was a lot of money to him.Noto five hundred pounds? Also a lot of money. Probablyno, but… Whether he liked it or not, he had a price. Didn’t every person? Maybe not, but in the end almost everyone could be won over with the right carrot or stick.
However, Fen was weighed down by bitter disappointment. He’d dared to hope and now hope had gone. He was only wanted for six months. Ripley wasn’t looking for a future and a future was what Fen longed for, at least as much of a future as he could have.
Ripley telling him he wasn’t into commitment didn’t make Fen feel any less hurt. His life had been marred by rejection. His father not wanting him had set the pattern for what followed. He was seen as odd because he didn’t like what other boys liked. Kids at school hadn’t asked him to play. He was the only boy in the modern dance club. The only boy who liked ballet. Being called names was part of his life.
Then none of what had gone on before had mattered, because the one time he’d sort of expected rejection, he’d been accepted. The one major success of his life, the best day ever, better even than getting top scores in his GCSEs and A Levels, was when he’d won a place at the Royal Ballet School with a performance he knew had been the best he’d ever given. Not just that but he’d been offered a scholarship. It made up for everything he’d gone through. All the long hours practising, the injuries… He’d thought the future was his. All he had to do was work hard to be the best he could. He loved ballet. It was his life. It was everything. Then it wasn’t.
He turned in on himself. His mum kept pushing him to go out in the evenings, to make new friends. Seth and Morgan were gay like him but they were a pair when he’d met them, and Fen always felt a third wheel. If he’d had someone of his own… It had taken a lot for him to pluck up the courage to ask someone out. The times when he’d been asked and said yes, he should have said no. It hadn’t been easy to pick himself up. Nor when job applications went nowhere.
Fen had understood he wasn’t much wanted for anything, wasn’t much use for anything, and he’d come to terms with it. Life wasn’t all bad. He had a mother who loved him, had eventually found a job he quite liked, a place to live and he was still friends with Seth and Morgan. Though he had no ballet friends. He’d let them go because it hurt too much to see them doing what he’d thought he’d be doing too.
Now Ripley had come into his world, saying all those nice things and one awful thing. It was like being caressed by a gentle hand and being stabbed in the heart by another. Ripley might want him, but not for the right reasons. Not because he was infatuated with Fen, or because he couldn’t live without Fen’s kisses, or because even thinking about Fen made his stomach churn and his heart leap.
Well, maybe those were all true, but wanting to pay him, to set a time limit on their relationship, to keep it transactional, make it a contract, that changed everything, cheapened everything, spoiled everything. How could Fen believe he was wanted if he had a sell-by date on which he’d be discarded?
He changed buses on autopilot, relieved when he managed to get on the right one this time. He pulled on his gloves. He was feeling really cold. But even feeling cold didn’t distract him from going over Ripley’s words.
Why was that the way Ripley wanted to do things? Apart fromdo I have a price?—whywas the question dominating Fen’s thoughts. Why had he offered so much money? Fen would have been his…whatever he wanted to call it…sort of boyfriend, lover, without being paid. But now the offer had been made, it couldn’t be ignored. The words, eighty thousand pounds, were still ringing in his head.What could he do with that amount of money? That was the other side of all this.
If he’d asked himself that question before he’d been to the doctor, he might have had a different answer to the one he had now. Without knowing about his starting-to-fail heart, if he’d suddenly won that amount of money, he’d have resigned and set up as a self-employed restorer. He’d have rented a bigger place to live with a workshop attached, or just rented a workshop if he couldn’t find somewhere suitable. He’d have gone to car boot sales, and auctions, picked what he wanted to work on. Built up relationships with local dealers and offered to repair stuff for them.
Or maybe he’d have gone to Japan. Found a job teaching English and experienced Japanese culture, studied ceramics… Come back, gone to university here. Ended up teaching… Ended up living longer than he’d expected because doctors would have discovered a way to halt the cardiomyopathy. He’d have found someone who loved him. They’d have set up home together. Happiness would have been real. Now those one-day-my-prince-will-come dreams had been blighted because the prince wasn’t who Fen had expected. He might have been, but he wasn’t.
In any case, Fen probably didn’t have enough of a future to do any of the things he’d thought about. Though eighty thousand pounds would take him to Japan, would let him travel to other places, andwouldmake a big difference to his life. So would forty thousand. Would Ripley agree to three months? Did that make any difference?Oh God. So Idohave a price?But it was such a lot of money. Had Ripley deliberately settled on an amount that was hard to turn down?
He almost missed getting off at the right stop. Even though he was distracted, he checked the group of guys weren’t around before he unlocked his door. He didn’t want to admit he was scared, but the incident had unsettled him. Once he was in his room, he turned up the heating and sat on his bed in his coat. The money wouldn’t only help him. He thought about his mother, what he could give her after she’d sacrificed so much to help him with ballet, but she’d want to know where the cash had come from and Fen never lied. Well, only for the right reasons. While he was still alive, he knew she wouldn’t take money from him, and if she found out what he’d done, she’d be so disappointed in him.
Why couldn’t Ripley have wanted him because Fen made his heart beat fast, because kissing him made his toes curl, because he desperately wanted to wake up and see Fen lying next to him?
How do you know he doesn’t?
That was true.
It was of some comfort.
