Troubles

The troubles of our proud and angry dust
Are from eternity, and shall not fail.
Bear them we can, and if we can we must.
Shoulder the sky, my lad, and drink your ale.

 A E Housman, Last Poems (1922)

Majorca Flats -- 35

Their faces were only a few centimetres apart.

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Luigi asked, his face intent, his eyes never leaving Jason's.

“No.” Jason had wanted to add, “not now”, but that was dishonest. He'd had girlfriends, but he probably wouldn't have another, ever.

“Oh. Did you like your first time with a man?”

He meant this time, Jason realised. “No.” Before Luigi could reply, hurt or angry, thinking that Jason meant their sex, Jason kissed him on the mouth and said, “This wasn't my first time. It was at boarding school. One of the sixth-formers took a fancy to me.”

He remembered it perfectly: the scent of cut grass; the dust and mould in the cricket pavilion change room; the mild discomfort during sex; the way he'd felt afterwards, that he had crossed the frontier of some new exotic country where he was and always would be a stranger and an exile, but that it was the only place which would have him. Stewart had calmly got dressed after, and arranged a meeting for the next week. Jason had hero-worshipped him, and at the time he'd taken that for love. When Stewart had never contacted him again after he'd gone up to Oxford, Jason had been horribly hurt.

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