Queermance Anthology, Volume 2 Read online

  QUEERMANCE VOLUME 2

  edited by

  LINDY CAMERON

  SEXY, EROTIC, ROMANTIC, QUEER

  AUSTRALIAN WRITING

  Queermance Anthology Volume 2

  Queermance Volume 2 - which coincides with the celebration of Melbourne’s second Queermance Literary Festival - is an anthology of erotically-charged romances from well-known, emerging and aspiring writers.

  Volume 2 features fabulous tales of love and lust by NM Harris, Matthew Lang, Beck Mitchell, JJ Carroll, Lou Kohler, JRF Coates, Renae Kaye, Isabelle Rowan, May Wilson, Marion Adams, Scott Thornby, Nicole Field, EE Montgomery, Dominica Malcolm and Victoria Brown.

  FIRST KISS

  J.J. Carroll

  1.

  It was the dying time.

  Col didn’t want to shiver, didn’t even like the way that stupid thought had wormed its way into his thoughts. Around three in the morning, and everything strangely quiet - not really dark, because it was never completely dark on the ward. Never completely quiet either, but just for that moment there was a stillness, somehow a silence, where there was so rarely a silence. Almost a gap in time. Sebby looked at Col with those big eyes, and the pair of them so still and scared in that moment, both of them weirdly unreal in the faint, green light from the monitors.

  ‘I feel like a fish in a tank. Just swimming around and not knowing I’m in a tank and going nowhere. Maybe it’s better to be a fish and then you never know you’re going nowhere; and it won’t hurt anymore.’

  Sebby had said that not long ago, on an early morning such as this, when it was too quiet. And maybe there was something aquarium-strange about the light that had triggered that thought, and maybe it was just the simple helplessness of a kid trapped and scared and dying. It wasn’t like Sebby, though. Sebby was one of the real fighters, one of the stoics; he just kept going, taking anything and everything without complaint, because Sebby just never gave up. He wouldn’t. He’d claw his way through pain and fear every day, and do it because he would not give up a single day of his life without a fight. But now, maybe Sebby had just got to the point where the fight was going out of him, to a place where there was acceptance that he couldn’t fight any longer. Not a happy acceptance, but knowing he’d almost reached the end.

  People always asked Col how he could bear nursing children with cancer. Or else they thought Col was some kind of saint for doing it. What could he say? There was such… bravery about these kids. They dealt with pain, agony, fear, and the possibility of death and they were just so damn brave, and accepting. And so many of them seemed like old souls. A strange thought for a man who wasn’t sure he believed in God, but somehow still believed in souls.

  ‘I want you to kiss me.’

  Col had ignored the words, pretended he didn’t hear them. Sebby was just a kid, a baby, a patient, and Col was his nurse, his caregiver. Kissing most certainly did not come into it, not in any shape or form.

  Sebby kept talking, quietly, slowly. ‘I’m not going to grow up. I’m never going to own a car, or even drive one, legally. I’m not going to get smashed and dance like a maniac at my eighteenth birthday party. I’m never going to have a boyfriend. I’ll probably never tell my parents I’m gay. This is it, Col. And I want you to kiss me.’

  Col looked anywhere but at Sebby. Instead, Col found himself drawn to one of the photos on the bedside table. There was a Sebby, with a wild fall of untidy blond hair, and the sweetest grin in the world. His arm was looped around a dark-haired boy, who turned shyly from the camera, looking almost as if he was going to bury his head against Sebby’s shoulder. On the other side, Sebby’s little sister had her head thrown back, laughing. In the background was the Marwillbah Pub, with a dishevelled Santa leaning against the doorway, his beard pulled down, his red coat loosened, and raising a beer to the camera in a toast.

  Happier times. Col could almost feel the suffocating heat of that Christmas Day, smell the beer and breathe the dust, even if he’d never been to Marwillbah, or would be hard-pressed to find it on a map.

  Sebby was still talking, in that quiet, strained tone. His eyes shadowed and haunted. ‘I won’t even get beaten up by the guys at high school, or thrown off the football team by people who are supposed to be my mates. This is it, all I’m going to get, and I want my first kiss, because I’ll never get another one. And I want you to be the one to kiss me. Please.’

  Such an old soul, Sebby, at fifteen, but he was still just a baby. Col did do the one thing he could - he touched Sebby’s head, just cupped it for a moment. That sad, almost bald old head on such frail, tired, young shoulders.

  ‘A first kiss. Please.’ Those big eyes boring into Col, pleading.

  There were organisations that granted sick and dying children their last wishes. Col could not think of a single one that would be able to grant this particular wish. He certainly couldn’t grant it.

  ‘I can’t. You will definitely get your first kiss, but it won’t be from an old man like me.’ At twenty six Col felt ancient looking at Sebby. And Col shouldn’t say stuff like this, couldn’t say stuff like this, he could not promise a dying child he was going to live. Yet, it was weird. It felt the same as when Col’s grandmother said odd things, such as “don’t take the car today, take the train”, and you heard later on the news about that massive pile-up you would have been caught up in. Except Gran didn’t always get it right, and this was a dying boy in an oncology ward, and Col was his nurse. Yet the words kept spilling out, as if Col could not contain them.

  ‘You’re an amazing person, Sebby Andersson. And you’re going to grow up, and you’re going to be even more amazing. And you’ll do amazing things. You’re going to have an amazing life, I know it. And you will have mad, crazy crushes, and you will have a first kiss. And maybe that first kiss will be fireworks, or maybe it’ll slobbery and kind of disgusting, but you’ll always remember it and it will still be great however it goes. It will be the best kiss and the one you always remember.’

  What the hell was Col saying? And how could he say these things to a dying child? Yet somehow the words were squeezing past reason and sense.

  ‘You’ll fall in love and out of it. You’ll break hearts, and you’ll get your heart broken. And yeah, you probably will get thrown off the football team if you tell them you’re gay, but it’s a pretty lame-arse football team, isn’t it? I mean the Marwillbah Wombats aren’t exactly great, are they? Not from what you’ve said. And that name is just shit. I mean - Wombats? But yes, that rejection by your mates will hurt, a lot, but you’ll get over it. And you’ll walk away from those idiots with dignity and with pride. And with strength, because you’re an incredibly strong person. I know that. And you know that.’ Col drew a ragged breath - just shut up, Col - and yet he couldn’t. No matter that he could almost taste death in that room.

  ‘And you won’t stay in Marwillbah. You won’t go to Agricultural College like your best mate. You won’t run a pub like your parents. You’ll move to a city and you’ll go to university and you’ll do something great in the world. I don’t know what. I can’t tell you that. But whatever it is, and even if it seems unimportant in the grander scheme of things, it will be something great. I know it.’

  It was even quieter for a few moments.

  ‘That’s just about the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever heard,’ Seb said finally, softly, in his gruff country-kid drawl, but there was a tiny edge of a smile now on his face. ‘I just wished you’d kissed me.’

  ‘It’s what I think your life will be.’ What I hope, what I desperately want for you, what I’d pray for if I could believe enough to pray. ‘And if you want me to
kiss you?’ Col picked up Sebby’s chart and scanned it for the one piece of information he wanted, date of birth. ‘Your birthday’s the third of November, right? Well, there’s a pub in Newtown, it’s called the Rose and Thorn. You turn up there, when you’re twenty one, on your twenty first birthday, and I’ll be waiting. You can buy an old man a drink, and who knows - maybe you’ll get a birthday kiss. Now, enough. Get some rest. I’ve got other miscreants and trouble makers apart from you to deal with on this ward.’ Col wanted to leave, had to leave - what the fuck was he doing?

  ‘Col, you’ll only be thirty two when I’m twenty one. That’s not an old man.’

  Ah, hell, he even knew how old Col was, the poor little kid. A bit of a crush there. That made it worse. So much worse. ‘Matey, when you’re twenty one, it’ll seem ancient. I’ll seem ancient. You’re going to think “who is that old geezer? Who’d want to kiss him?”’

  God, please help me here, because he’s not even going to see sixteen, he may not even see most of next week, and I’m being a fuckwit and telling him thirty two will seem ancient? And that he will have an amazing life? Oh, yeah, just fantastic, Colin O’Ryan, you’ve handled this one perfectly. Except what do you say to a dying fifteen year old boy (a baby), who tells you he’s gay and wants you to give him his first, and probably only, kiss? You babble a lot of rot and you hope you’re not going to burst into tears right then, because you’re supposed to be so much stronger than that, and it’s not about you. It’s about him, and you just want to hold him and keep every bad and ugly and dreadful and agonising and scary thing at bay, and you know you can’t. And that knowledge tears your heart to bloody confetti.

  ‘You could have made it my eighteenth birthday, old man. Okay. So, I’ll definitely see you in six years, Colin O’Ryan?’ Sebby’s dark, shadowed eyes were staring up at Col, almost boring into his soul. ‘It’s a date and don’t you dare forget to turn up. I’ll be there. Whatever happens, I’ll be there. You remember that, I’ll be there. I don’t want to be stood up for my first kiss.’

  Colin reached out and gently squeezed a hand that was hardly more than skin and bird bones, so very fragile. Looked into eyes that were shining with a strange hope and purpose. ‘I won’t forget. I’ll be there.’

  ‘And I’ll be there, Col. And bloody right I’m going to tell you all about my amazing life. I promise.’

  2.

  Third of November that year Colin had a quiet drink in memory of Sebby at the Rose and Thorn Pub in Newtown. He noted it was looking tired and shabby, or maybe he was just feeling older and sadder, and a lot of things were looking tired and shabby. It was still gay-friendly, in a laidback sort of way. No guys dancing or anything; the years when they used to have drag shows and there was a dance floor were long gone. But it was a quiet, civilised place still to have a drink, and maybe pick up company if you wanted to. And of course there was the star attraction, dark-haired, green-eyed Jason behind the bar. That was the night Colin got the nod from gorgeous, green-eyed Jason, and hell, that was like winning Lotto twice and picking the winner of the Melbourne Cup every year and everything else lucky and unlikely in the world. So yeah, Colin had waited until Jason closed the bar, and went home with him. And that was good because it meant Col wasn’t alone that night. And for a while he fell in love.

  The next year, the third of November actually was Melbourne Cup, always the first Tuesday in November, the race that stops a nation. The Rose and Thorn was crowded with a different clientele, and people had been drinking too long through the day and into the night, and a few ugly fights had broken out. So Colin had had a quick drink, his usual grieving, birthday toasts to Sebby, and avoided getting into a fight with a couple of mean, middle-aged drunks who thought Col looked queer. Or so they told him. Except they weren’t so drunk that they didn’t also notice that Col was a big guy, and mild though he usually was, he was getting pissed off. And that year there was no gorgeous, green-eyed Jason behind the bar. That particular ship had sailed, breaking Col’s heart in the process. The Rose and Thorn was under new management, and the bar staff were surly bastards. Col was just glad to get out of there.

  Colin O’Ryan was probably the only person in New South Wales, or the world for that matter, who actually subscribed to the Marwillbah Herald. It came out once a week, thin and sort of sad, celebrating and lamenting the sort of things small Australian country towns and their inhabitants lamented and celebrated. Reported things only a few people probably cared about: for example the abysmal performance of the Marwillbah Wombats (in all grades and age groups) in their last few games, and the success of a fundraiser for the local nursing home, a record price paid at auction for a some kind of cow, fashions at the Marwillbah Picnic Races, and the Marwillbah Pony Club had won some kind of state title. Yeah, fascinating stuff, really. Colin had sent a donation for the nursing home fundraiser. He wasn’t sure why, just seemed like a good thing to do. Or maybe it gave him a tenuous connection to a place he’d never known and would never visit. A place where Sebby Andersson had grinned at the camera one Christmas Day, looking like the happiest kid in the world, with his baby sister and his best mate.

  After a while the nice people at the Marwillbah Herald emailed and suggested it might be easier for Col to simply check their website, rather than paying to get the paper delivered all the way to Sydney. Yeah, all the way to Sydney, as if it was a dangerous voyage to the New World and not just posting a thin little newspaper from one part of the state to another part of the state once a week.

  He had no idea why he thought reading that stupid country town paper was important anyway, or so he told himself. He would hate to think he was trying to find in the reporting of life in a boring little rural town some sign of Sebby. But Col was looking for something, he knew he was. Not a living Sebby of course, because that would be madness, but some sign that Sebby Andersson had some sort of legacy that he’d left behind. Something. Anything. So yes, maybe Cal was looking for mention of some building called the Sebastian Andersson Memorial something or other, a scholarship named after Sebby, even a bloody sporting award. Something. Anything.

  Eventually Col gave up subscribing to the paper. Funnily enough he kind of missed it, and the website wasn’t the same. It was shared among a lot of regional papers, and a lot of the little stuff about Marwillbah got lost. Over time Colin got out of the habit of checking it, except a couple of times a year, when he was very tired and depressed, or wondering what the hell he was doing with his life, or those strange times when he found himself suddenly thinking about Sebby.

  It wasn’t as if Col had never lost a patient, not as if some of those kids, all of those kids, couldn’t break you into tiny pieces. And sure, a lot of them would never get a first kiss, or go to a school formal or fall in love… So, why did Sebby Andersson stay with Col? It wasn’t as if Col could have done anything differently, except, of course, kept his big mouth shut that night. Kept it cool and professional and not uttered such absolute rubbish to a dying boy about the amazing life he was going to live. And even Sebby knew it was bullshit, his very words in fact. But for just a few moments there had been some kind of light in Sebby’s eyes, something there like hope. Sebby wanted to believe; maybe somewhere in his mind and heart he did believe Col, if only for a few moments, and only a tiny bit. And that was the problem, the thing Col could never forgive himself for doing: he had just for the briefest time given hope where he had no right to give it. Given hope where hope was impossible and so very cruel. And that was what haunted Col - he’d made a dying child a promise Col could never keep, shown Sebby a life he would never, ever live.

  No matter how in those few minutes it was as if Col could almost see Sebby growing up and being alive and healthy and strong in the world. No, damn it, for those few moments he had seen it, and he truly wanted to believe in some kind of miracle, some gift of a future where Sebby did get to live. As if by speaking the words Col could make it happen for Sebby. And Col had a hard time forgiving himself for that stupidity, th
at hope, that lunacy, that cruelty, that weakness… whatever it had been.

  So Sebby Andersson stayed with Col, almost as a physical presence. The look in Sebby’s eyes, that hope and steadfast purpose he could never fulfil. Sebby was the ghost that followed Col. Though that wasn’t quite right. Not a ghost, a more solid presence than any ghost. No, it was more as if Sebby was someone Col had said goodbye to, but only because they were leaving the state or leaving the country. Someone who was out in the world somewhere still, alive and well. And those were thoughts even Col’s strange, fey grandmother would have looked worried about if he’d shared them.

  The third of November when Sebby Andersson should have turned eighteen, and gotten smashed, and danced like a maniac at the Marwillbah Pub, Col said his usual toasts to Sebby half a world away. In a forsaken little village in Ethiopia, near the Sudanese border, Col tipped back a bottle of water. He was bone tired, off the end of another gut wrenching shift as a volunteer with a medical mission. Yet he smiled just a little, watching a ragged bunch of kids kick a ball around in the dust in front of the tents. And he knew Sebby wouldn’t begrudge the smile, because Sebby too, once, had kicked a football around with his mates, in a different land, covered in dust and laughing just like that, in sheer innocent joy.

  Col was back in Sydney the next year, and found the Rose and Thorn no longer existed. There had been a fire and the building had been torn down. So on a drizzly spring evening, Colin O’Ryan had loitered near a building site and he had, for the first time in his life, stood on a public street and drank out of a bottle, still in a brown paper bag. It was fine Irish whiskey, the stuff his grandfather swore by, but the police still weren’t impressed. Even so they’d let him go without too much hassle. Maybe there was something so terrible and lost and forlorn showing on his face that convinced even hardened city cops to just let him be for a few moments. So he drank his toast to Sebby’s first kiss and to Sebby’s amazing life that had never happened, and then Col went away quietly. Just as he’d promised the police he would.