Sykes left while I was in the shower. The blanket was folded on the couch and the water glass and sick bowl inverted on the draining board. He had left the door ajar and I wondered if he had gone out for cigarettes. I checked to make sure that my wallet was intact and that nothing was missing from the apartment. It was not until I was about to leave for work that I discovered that the front-door key was gone.
I didn’t see Sykes for some time after that. Several weeks went by. I considered changing the lock but had another key cut instead. I searched for him in the stale bar where we had met and in the other dark and slightly decadent haunts I thought he might be likely to frequent. The barmen didn’t seem to register when I asked if they had seen a thin man with heavy auburn hair and baroque earrings and I suddenly realised, when I came to describe him, that I had no idea how old Sykes was. His pale face was clear in my mind. I could still see him sleeping on the pillow in the morning light. The aquiline nose, the flickering lashes, the blue dawn of stubble on his jaw. But the features seemed somehow nascent, unseasoned, as though the signatures of emotion and experience had been erased. It was almost as though he was wearing a mask to conceal his real face. The more I thought about Sykes and what he had told me, the more I wanted to see him again. I had that urgent sensation of fusion, that euphoric, hungry terror that signals falling in love.
The Institute of Pain was back in the news. The Poole twins were coming up for trial and the media had launched into a frenzy of speculation. I redoubled my efforts to find Sykes so that he could tell me what had really happened. In the end Sykes found me. I came home late one night after an evening of choking down drinks I didn’t want and making conversation with people I didn’t like. Sykes was sitting on the sofa. He was wearing a black singlet and he had taken off his boots. His feet were white and fragile, illustrated with the same blue veins that coiled up his arms. On the coffee table there was a bottle of Russian vodka, two glasses, a bowl of ice and a lime, sliced into wedges. Sykes must have been there for a while because the ashtray was overflowing and the bottle was half finished.
‘Howdy partner,’ Sykes said in a dry cowboy accent. ‘Pull up a drink and make yourself at home.’ I was so pleased to see him that I overlooked the fact that he had entered the apartment without my permission. I lit a cigarette and poured a drink.
‘Where have you been? I’ve been looking for you.’
‘I know,’ said Sykes. He watched me for a long moment, then he smiled. ‘And here I am. At your service.’
We talked and drank until about three in the morning. When the cigarettes ran out we fell into bed. I didn’t close the curtains and the lights from the motorway were like a fire in the distance. We locked together, pushing into each other as though we were trying to fuse. He kissed me until my tongue ached and then fucked me till I bled.