ON MY WAY HOME ONE afternoon I sheltered for a minute on the Dam as the rain came sheeting down, watching how the surface of the canal pulsed with the impact, water exploding upwards in dancing droplets. The low clouds and insinuating moisture of Amsterdam’s spring had given way to a sustained downpour. I decided to give up trailing from one bar to the next.
Back at the apartment I took up my usual position on the sofa beneath the window. Down below a pair of white swans had taken refuge in the lee of the canal bank, the image reflected in the lower edge of the window pane, an assimilation of white feathers against black water.
Still restless, I got up and turned on the lights. I poured myself a jenever and drank it neat, quickly. It seared my throat. I poured another and sank back into the depths of the cushions. I gazed into the room, finally numbed, the edge taken off the power of the disconsolation that refused to release me.
I don’t know how long I sat there, scarcely moving, but when I heard the creak of Oliver’s ascent of the stairs it startled me into motion. I heard the click of his key in the lock and then there he was, stamping his feet, water trailing off the charcoal tresses of his swept-back hair. In the soft light he seemed to gleam. He came over to me, laughing, hands outstretched and fingers extended, seeking me out, blind to the room. I saw that his glasses had misted over. He found me on the sofa and fell into me, embracing me. He was icy cold and his coat was sodden. I pushed him away, protesting and laughing at the same time. He took off his glasses and peered down at me.
“I am utterly drenched,” he announced. As evidence he pulled away the flap of his coat. The rain had penetrated the fabric and his cotton shirt was sopping. It clung to his thin body, which looked ethereal through the wet sheen of the cloth. A pang of erotic longing came over me and a sudden sharp memory of Paul. I had not thought about my former lover in months.
Oliver disappeared into the shower. I heard the water pulsing against the aluminium base of the shower cubicle and the gas hissing in the geyser as he turned on the hot tap. Thin tendrils of steam escaped into the room, weaving a filigree trace below the ceiling.
When he came back into the room he was dressed in a tracksuit and T-shirt. He poured himself a glass of red wine. Then he went over to his briefcase and took out two cassette tapes. “I found these in the library at the Conservatory,” he said, looking at me over his shoulder.
The first was a choral piece – a dirge. After the initial explorations of a string quartet, male bass voices rose above the strings, deep and atavistic, filling the room. Sopranos floated in from above and the music began to take form. Drum beats rising up and out of the strings. I could hear an African inflection beginning to drive what sounded to me like a hymn into something more emphatic – a Greek chorus of chants and demands.
The music invaded me. I doubled over in physical pain, holding my sides. Oliver came across to the sofa and sat down beside me. “What is it?” he asked, pulling me close and holding me tightly.
I began to weep. “I don’t want to be here,” I told him. “I am dying here.”
Oliver said nothing. He cradled me in a loose embrace and then drew me in slowly so that my head was resting on his chest beneath his chin. Gently he ran his fingers through my hair and rocked me, allowing me to sob. The music came to an end but he didn’t get up to turn the cassette. In the new silence of the room, I heard his slow measured breathing, the moistness of it pulsing in my hair.
Gradually, my sobbing subsided. I lay against him, spent, waiting for the awful grief to go. I could feel his heartbeat under the thin fabric of his T-shirt. He was warm from the shower and smelled of soap. I moved closer to him, taking up the rhythm of his body. We stayed like that for a long time, Oliver stroking my hair, running his fingers through its strands, saying nothing, just breathing, quietly, rhythmically.
In the warmth of him I found comfort and I was almost afraid to let go, but eventually I pulled away and looked up into his finely angled face – the pale translucent skin, the delicate spectacle frames, the intense blueness of his eyes. The skin in his clavicle was luminescent in the half-light. I was suddenly aware of the erotic compulsion of him.
I had to do it then, resolute in the outcome of unrequited longing. He was my intimate friend in this alien place. I needed to capture that, finally as my own, against the darkness and the alienation of this cold city. I reached up and kissed him, tentatively, softly, in case he might pull away.
But Oliver returned my kiss with force, his tongue in my mouth, drawing me closer to him. I was electrified. The familiar outlines of his body were now charged with an erotic undercurrent and, caught in the force of a writhing kiss, I tasted him, explored him, delirious with connection.
I slipped my hand in under his T-shirt, feeling the heat of him, amazed at the perfection of his torso, the tautness, the sheer contained-ness of him. We pulled against each other, our bodies aligned. I got to my feet and held out my hand to him. As he stood his body was silhouetted against the soft light of the room, curved like a bow. I pulled off his T-shirt and, without looking at what it revealed, began to run my tongue over his body. He was aroused.
I pulled my shirt off and we collapsed back down onto the sofa in an embrace. I wanted him now, my friend, my comrade lover. I could not get enough of him; I needed to possess him. I needed to know that he would always be there, to buckle under me, as he was doing at this moment. He groaned deliciously as I took his cock in my mouth, the acorn-shaped apex of it smooth, silky, like the texture of a mushroom. He came quickly, the cum flying from him, catching at me, beautiful to watch. Eyes closed, replete, he sank back into the pillows.
I fell against him, kissing him, running my hands over his chest, rubbing the stray semen into the crease of his abdomen. We had arrived.
“You haven’t come,” Oliver said.
“I don’t care,” I replied.