Chapter One – Pederasty

I could not, for the life of me, understand what exactly it was I thought I was doing and, to much of my own frustration, kept on doing it regardless.

This statement is true to everything in my life that involved him, really—telling myself to just stop, while saying I can’t.

I met him a few weeks before our relationship became… unethical, perhaps, though I despise to use that word as it has a sort of crooked feel to it, villainous, and I swear I had done no wrong. You’ll see. Before we became too close, we’ll say instead. When is too close, you may ask? I guess when it feels different. When you have to fool yourself into believing it’s not.

For the sake of sparing you our tedious introductions, I start on a Saturday, in a cafe far enough out of town that it would limit the chances of someone I recognised —or who recognised me—from opening the door. I didn’t plan for it, for any of it, it just happened. A spur of the moment decision, nothing more, nothing less. Breakfast on a whim, there’s nothing wrong with that, right?

I took a sip of bitter, cheap coffee, and directed my vision away from the window and back to the boy opposite me, who was forking at a mushroom on his plate. My lips curved into a smile despite myself and the door opened, letting in the morning sun. City sun; harsh, unforgiving. I asked myself what I needed to be forgiven for and chose to swallow it down with another gulp of coffee.

The majority of the light, however, did not come from the sun, nor the dull lights above us, but from the guileless eyes penetrating mine from across the table; ethereal in the way they shone so blue, colourful and pristine enough to catch the attention of any sorry fool, the way they had caught mine. He was at a lecture I was teaching, an unfamiliar yet curious little face set amongst my regular students. But there he was, pen between his teeth, fluffy golden hair pushed back out of his face, and a smile like a loaded shotgun.

He engulfed his fourth cup of coffee since we had arrived not even an hour before, and I pulled the mug away from him with the raised brow of a concerned parent.

“I wanted that,” he said, matter of fact like.

“You drink far too much of it.”

The boy rolled his eyes, grinned, and took a bite of toast, his bottom lip pushed out of shape when he licked the butter from his fingers. He ran the fingers of his — thankfully — clean hand through his hair, trying to get a strand to stay put but failing, and so he removed his glasses instead, seemingly satisfied. To this day I don’t know what that accomplished, but strange creatures tend to do stranger things. It was a surprise to see him wearing them, even, despite my recommendation he get his eyes tested after I had glanced at him more times than I’d ever admit to during one of my lectures, I’d probably only seen him sporting them a handful of times. Round, tortoiseshell, and as well suited then at the cafe as they were the month previously; I glanced at them where they rested on the coffee table and made a noise of utter distress to see butter — somehow — smudged into their lenses.

“How,” I said, and the boy laughed, giggly little thing. I cleaned the glasses with a napkin and while I was occupied he stole back his coffee.

“Too slow,” he said, ecstatic when I glared at him, and so I sighed in feigned annoyance, inspected the glasses in my hand; clean, clear; and outstretched my arm to perch them back onto their owner. Without thinking. The boy grinned. The door opened. My heart skipped. I snatched my hand away and the boy pushed his glasses up further. Over and over I told myself absolutely no good could come of this, that friendships — if that’s even what this was — were not typically made nineteen years apart. Perhaps, though, they could be made on the concept that great minds think alike, and that was enough comfort for the time being. It was enough because it had to be.

It all started with an email, one I could have — should have — ignored, declined, deleted. It’s really that boring, that simple, I promise. An unexpected, unplanned, completely out-of-the-blue email. It’s not like I saw him somewhere, wandering the university grounds, and then sought him out to hand him my work email in the hopes of getting his attention, or anything. What I’m saying is I had nothing to do with it, nothing at all…

That enthusiastic email full of exclamation marks, seeking permission to sit in on my classes while complaining about school, same song and dance, different day, right?! he had written. I read it and scoffed. Ignorantly, I will admit. Who wouldn’t have? He was, how old? Fifteen, sixteen — couldn’t have been more if he were still in comprehensive school. It was ridiculous to think he could comprehend the material and subject matter I taught, understand the depths of history; how the world as we see it today is shaped by our predecessors, moulded by the past; know the difference between Aristotle and Socrates, Epicurus and Plato. I hate to admit it was initially solely for my own amusement, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. The benefit being getting the last laugh over a cocky school kid. What a fool I’d been.

His mug hit the table top and I took it away again, then asked how his Italian was coming along. He hummed, considering.

“It’s coming along,” he said. A beautiful language made all the more interesting by such a clever boy. A wonder, to me and to everyone else who got to know him — he was top of every one of his classes, and was currently learning one language while being soothingly fluent in an additional four.

I recall fondly the first time he came to my office, when he ran straight to the bookshelf as if drawn by fate. I warned him, humoured, that the book he had chosen was written in Greek, and I wish I had words to describe how cunning a grin he flashed me before opening it, and reading it. Exceptionally well, as if it was his first language. The boy had intrigued me so much that the next night’s result was the same… As was the next, and then the one after that, until a pattern started to emerge, a pattern neither of us wanted to mention and so simply did not. In a world where ignorance is bliss, it’s foolish to be wise. Frequent occurrences that never stopped, that’s all they were. That is until they slyly blossomed into something bigger. From spending time in my office, to having him in my car to drop him home far too late, and from that to the takeaway restaurants that upgraded to dine-in restaurants. The more I tried to claw myself away the deeper I sank, quicksand, and the more I fought the more it surrounded me and whispered, enticing me to give in. And here we are.

After promising myself this would no longer continue, there I was, eating breakfast on a weekend at 9am, discussing languages and making small talk when I should have been marking; writing course material, putting together presentations for my upcoming classes; Christ, even building sandcastles with my niece would have been a wiser choice than dining with a boy only eight years older than she, and who was of no relation, none at all, to me. He meant nothing to me. Nothing.

“Speaking of Italian,” he said, “how’s your Greek coming along?”

I’d known him for around four weeks and this had become one of our things. Yes, we had a ‘thing’, don’t read too much into it. That’s what happens when you spend a lot of time with someone. An inside joke, all it was. Nothing more, nothing less. He knew I wasn’t interested in learning the language, I had no desire nor the need. I humoured him regardless.

“I have yet to take it up,” I said, smirking.

“Weirdo.”

“Oh here we go again—”

“I just don’t think you should call yourself a professor of…” the boy stopped talking, lips pushed out as he thought about it, “…anything, to be honest.”

“Well, you’ll be pleased to know that I don’t,” I said, “I’m a lecturer.”

“Shouldn’t call yourself that either,” he grinned.

“Tell me,” I said, teasing. “What do I teach?”

“Something to do with the words… ‘Ancient’, ‘Philosophy’, and uh… ‘Greeks’.” He intentionally jumbled it up, having a tendency to go against the grain so to speak. If I had asked him instead to recite the alphabet for me, he would have done so starting with Z. “See, Greek. Shame on you, Professor,” he said. “It’s like teaching math and not knowing what 9 x 9 is.”

“It’s not at all like that.”

The boy shrugged, took another bite of his toast, and chewed it obnoxiously. “Whatever. It doesn’t matter, ‘cause I won’t back down. You should know Greek.”

“And what,” I smirked, “are you going to do about it?”

“Oh, I don’t know… I could steal your job,” he laughed, focused playful blue eyes back to mine. “Or, you could let me teach you like I’ve asked, I don’t know, a million times?”

I was sure it was more than that, even. It wasn’t that I didn’t know Greek, I just wasn’t fluent; didn’t need to be. I taught philosophy and history, not language or linguistics. As for his millionth request, having him teach me a language would mean a massive increase in our time together.

I smiled nervously on edge all of a sudden, a feeling I had to get used to when I was around him. I’d get caught up, sucked into a trance, comfortable enough to relax and enjoy his company, and then reality would hit me sooner or later, reminding me with a stab to the lung I shouldn’t be there. Rinse and repeat.

“Are you finished?” I asked, referring to his food. He was. Stacking our plates, I continued the conversation. “As you know, I know enough to get by, so I decline your offer. Again.”

“Let me,” he said.

“No.”

“Let me—”

“No.” He pushed his lips to a pout instead of responding, and then the relentless blonde reached for his coffee again. “Matthew.” It was a warning, and he looked at me with wide eyes, blown with innocence yet highlighted with a mischief that never seemed to waver, and his response was simple, but layered with defiance.

“What?”

“You know what.”

“I’m thirsty,” he said, and so I rolled my eyes and waved my hand at him, letting him have his way as I always did. It was not even my right, I don’t suppose, to limit how much coffee he could drink, so I had to let him win. Dizzy boy made dizzier from too much caffeine and sugar. And guess what? He didn’t finish the rest of it apart from a miniscule sip. I’d given in, after all, and that’s what he wanted. The coffee left in his cup was just to rub salt in the wound, prove a point. I never learned to tell him no.

He pushed the mug away from him into the middle of the table, his shoulders hunched and his arms outstretched, making himself look so much smaller than he was. I told him to sit up, please…and instead of accepting my request he, rebellious as ever, folded his arms across the table and rested his chin on them, looking up at me, grinning. He was treacherous, aware of how on edge I was, aware that we shouldn’t have been there together, and yet there he was playing on it; laying it on thicker; pushing my buttons to watch me squirm. And he would do this, constantly, for no other reason than he seemed to get a kick out of it. Angelic and crafty, sly and beautiful as a fox. Young, and yet not; intelligent beyond words, yet still at an age where his body was not quite used to eight coffees a day. Able to hold an intellectual conversation all day long with people who worked their entire lives to know what they do, but if you gave him too much sugar, his concentration would wane.

Our plates were taken away by a kindly waitress, and that was it, done. Breakfast: over. Food: finished. Bill: paid for. There was one thing left to do on the list I was mindedly ticking, and that was to take him home. Yet we were still there, sitting, chatting. I was still there stuck in a trance.

“Right, come on then,” I said, snapping myself out of it. “Let’s get you home.”

“Do we have to?” he said, head tilted, curious. “I mean, we’re here now, right?” and what he meant to say, was, ‘Since you’re already risking getting into trouble, why not make it last.’

“Okay,” I said, “where would you like to go today?” because it was easier. Easier than arguing with the boy; easier than admitting that I couldn’t say no, that the worst part about it – the scariest – was that I didn’t want to.

His face lit up, that smile that reminded me of why I continually let him have his way. He hummed in thought at the question, his arm slung over the back of his chair, and didn’t yet respond. Attention focused and distant all at once, as he observed the ebb and flow of people walking past the window with their arms full of shopping bags. It wasn’t ignorance, just a youthful distraction, and I watched him, waiting. Question still unanswered, he smirked to himself rather than at me, and finally said “You decide.”

I didn’t want to drive around all day, not again. I wanted to take him somewhere occupying – distracting enough to have our attention off of each other. I knew the perfect place.

Leaving, I draped my overcoat over the boy’s frame to tackle the February chill that awaited us outside, because he hadn’t brought a coat, again, wearing only a pink t-shirt and black denim shorts when it was ten degrees outside. I scanned the street before we got into the car. I checked when I pulled off, too, and as I drove into St James’ square. Something was watching every thought and movement of mine with a cold, sneering hate. Perhaps it was my conscience. On the way he asked many times where it was we were going, but I returned the teasing vagueness he paid me on a regular basis and kept that information to myself.

A song was playing on the radio, it escapes me which, and both of us were singing along as I found somewhere to park, cursing myself for thinking it was a good idea to drive into London. For thinking that any of what I was doing was a good idea, really. I had hardly put the car into neutral when Matt was out and I was yelling for him to be careful and biting my tongue straight afterwards because he was rolling his eyes, again asking where we were going, and again I told him, “Somewhere,” all mysterious like, like I just needed to cut two holes in a white sheet and I’d be the villain in a Scooby-Doo episode, and he laughed but didn’t argue back beyond that and calling me a geek.

Oblivious as a toddler on a race track he followed me a few streets, bumping into people and cars and finding himself hilarious, around a turning and up the large brick steps to London library. Beautiful and illustrious, as was Matt you might say.

He dizzily asked again, as I held open the wide wooden door for him, where we were going, and then his eyes lit brighter than any star I’d seen and this time, muttered, “No way,” under his breath but stepped inside regardless. It took five seconds before he was on a ladder and up to the first floor, immediately seeking books and disappearing from my view. I spoke to the librarian for around fifteen minutes when I realised my plan was working, he was engaged in something and so was I and we were out together but we weren’t. He called my name shortly after and I looked up at him. He was leaning over the railing with the delighted look of someone who had found the key to nirvana on his face, and asked how long we could stay. I’d been thinking an hour maximum, I had work to do, bonds to cut, so I was in favour of leaving relatively soon and so…

“As long as you’d like,” I said. Worth it to see him smile. What’s one day more, right? Dangerous. It’s dangerous. It becomes habitual, it consumes.

Gone again when he pushed off the railing like it was a barre and danced away into the mass of bookshelves.

“He seems a delight to have around,” the librarian said, her name tag told me her name was Sara.

I hummed, staring at nothing, and I could feel that I was frowning but didn’t want to admit that it was because Sara made me realise that yes, he was a delight to have around, and what a waste it was going to be, throwing these moments away. It had to be done, however, and I knew that. Safer for the both of us, really. It’s funny how the brain works, telling you one thing while aiding you into doing the opposite. I climbed up the ladder to find him, searching through aisles and aisles of books until I stumbled upon him holding a heavy, leatherbound book, clearly not in English. From what I understood he had always been the type of kid excited by books and knowledge, creativity through art, words. and music.

Mysterious, too, the kind of mystery that surrounds many artists, the sort of unstable shine to their art that makes it so mind blowing. He’d never shown me his work, but I knew he was a painter, and I knew that he could draw rather well as he had won competition after competition at school, and other artists contests around Oxford.

“Can you read it?” I asked.

“French,” he said. So, yes. In the short time I’d known him, which could be considered a long time depending on how one looks at it, I had never witnessed him so much as look at a book in a negative manner, and there he was stood in my coat far too long for him, lost in a world I couldn’t understand and had no desire to, the last thing on my mind disturbing him. He put the book back as gently as he could, like it was fragile as moths’ wings, and then walked with the curiosity and grace of a cat through the maze of thousands of books, old and new, dating from the eighteenth century to modern day.

“Thank you,” he whispered when I found him again. The pleasure was mine.

It was a strange relationship, Matt and I. I was his lecturer and I was not, he did not pay tuition, was not down on any record as a student, but the way I saw it, or rather what you would have seen, was this: a well-respected teacher at a high-end university in a high-end library running after a whimsical schoolboy. I had no plan, never did, for if someone saw us. What if it was someone I knew? It could easily have been dismissed, I suppose, tell them a white lie and hope for the best, but what if it was someone he knew, what then? Too much to think about, easier not to.

I recall that afternoon the aggravation on his face at writing inside a book that didn’t belong there, harsh biro pen making corrections and notes, misspelled words scratched out, things that make an old book what it is. He ran his fingers over the pages, and I picked up a book – I don’t recall which – and missed him sneaking away, catching only a flash of that Cheshire grin as the lift closed. I could have left him to it, let his mind wander for however long he pleased and keep myself entertained by the rare silence the library had afforded me. I could have, and I paused and thought about it for a few moments, sighing before heading for the lift.

It opened on the third floor and he already had a pile of books cradled in his arms, walking towards a table.

“Jules, look what I found,” he whispered loudly, and I knew what he had found, as I had been at that library more times than I would be able to remember. Each section, each floor, the places for every category and the names of most of the books, this floor in particular. I knew and yet I went to Matt anyway, eager to hear the elation in his voice.

Books from the modern Greek section. All Greek literature written since the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, the Greek works from before that period on the neighbouring shelves. I sat with him at the table and he asked if I had read any of them, to which I had.

“I’d be surprised if there’s a book here I haven’t read.”

“You’re lying,” he said, laughing, “most of them are in Greek.”

“English transcripts,” I sighed, reaching for a book.

“I can see it now. Little Julian Blake buried in books he doesn’t understand,” he said, then laughed at himself and said seriously this time, “How long did you spend here?”

“Years.”

He found a way to tease me with that, too, ‘It took you years to read this?’ and I laughed and said as if he could do it sooner. He sat back in his chair, grinning.

“Give me a week and a shit-ton of coffee and I’ll know as much as you do, Mr Teacher.” I said that I loved his ambition, but was that not the beauty of my classes? To teach him what I knew?

“I suppose,” he said.

“And what does that mean?”

“Nothing.” Oh he did love to play games. Truth is, so did I.

I was unsatisfied with that answer, so I asked again.

“It slipped out, leave it,” he said, close to giggling. I could tell by the way he was biting his lip to curb the laughter for a moment.

“Do you not like my teaching now?”

“What?” he almost choked, “No, drama queen. I meant like… you’re the beauty of your classes, that’s all.”

“Oh.” That’s all.

“Kicking yourself for not letting it slide now, aren’t you?” Yes. He’d never been more right. Something was in my throat restricting my speech, like a boa constrictor slithering tighter and whispering in my ear, ‘Say something, Julian. The boy is waiting…’

“You can take some of these books out if you want to,” I said. What an asshole. He smirked, and said that’s what my classes were for, right? And besides, he wouldn’t have time to read any, as I took up too much of his time.

“Oh, I do apologise,” I said, feigning shock, “would you prefer if I took you home instead? Am I keeping you here against your will? You asked me, remember, if I’d come for breakfast.”

Matt leaned across the table, grinning at me.

“And you came,” he said. Checkmate. What could I have said to that? And then he said, “Why so sassy today, Jules?”

“I get it from you.” It made him laugh loud enough to fill the whole library with it, rage inducing to any other library goer but myself. To me, it was music, filling me with a warmth I hadn’t felt since my mother died eight years previously and took with her the choice of seeing her playing her piano in person again.

“To answer your question,” said Matt, fiddling with his glasses. “No, I don’t want to go home,” he paused, took off his glasses and put them in his coat’s – my coat’s – pocket, then said, “I like spending time with you.”

“Why?” One simple word, just one. Funny how by uttering it, you open the door to things you don’t want to let in. He said because he liked to. Because he knew I liked to. Because I made him laugh and we had tons in common and, “Because everything else is boring.” I smiled. I smiled because it was true. And then I immediately felt guilty for it. Guilty for smiling, and guilty for allowing any of what Matt said to be the truth.

We were quiet for a while. The boy was sifting through enough books to last him his lifetime and I was happy enough to watch his enthusiasm. After a long time he found a Greek poem set during the Trojan War and began to read it out loud and he glanced at me, eyes blue enough to startle, and because of that stumbled over a few words and giggled. If I recall correctly, that was when I decided it was the most endearing sound I had ever heard.

“Got ahead of yourself,” I said, smirking.

“What did you think?”

“I thought it sounded like it was meant to sound.”

“And how was it meant to sound?” he asked.

Beautiful. There are, and were, many words I could have used in its place. But then I would have been intentionally avoiding it, worse perhaps than speaking it. I had nothing to hide so why not say it? Would I have found the poem as beautiful if it were read by someone else? Absolutely. A comfortable delusion to mask the significance of it, and I couldn’t break the gaze he had me trapped in if my life depended on it. Then he looked away first. A submission that ironically held so much power, my eyes still glued to him, and he smiled and started to read to himself again. I told myself that it was rare someone didn’t pay the boy a glance when they saw him. Or us, together. Told myself that it was just a lingering gaze.

There’s that word again, ‘Just.’ Nothing but a tiny, insignificant word that implies whatever being spoken about is, well, tiny and insignificant. It is a word used to minimise what follows, a cop out. Back then it was just my favourite word.

I checked my watch. “We should get going,” I said.

He pushed his lips into a pout, sad and child-like. “You said as long as we wannttt,” he said.

I rolled my eyes. “I know, but it’s going to take us a month to get back if we don’t leave soon,” and he laughed but did part with the books, though begrudgingly.

When we were outside, I put my hand on his shoulder, because the look on his face was one I would never grow used to seeing, and would wreck me all the more when the time to stop our friendship would come. I told him I’d bring him again, whenever he’d like, and it stung like dry ice, lying to his face like that, but I would have taken anything to see that sadness turned into a smile, brighter than the sun that had by then, at 5pm in February, already begun to set.

It did take longer to get home. An hour of sitting in traffic with the dancing jester who had cranked the volume to almost the highest it could go and who reminded me, when we got out of the traffic and finally close to his house, that it didn’t take a month, and that I was a drama queen. Rich coming from him, but alright. I parked a few houses down from his house. Half the street down, more accurately. If someone saw me there, with him… I could not explain myself. I could not take risks bigger than I already had. He unbuckled his seatbelt and thanked me, for that day and all of the others. I said it wasn’t a problem. Liar. I said I’d see him Monday. Liar.

“Can I see you tomorrow?” he asked, eyes saying, ‘I know you want to.’ I thought about it. Hated myself for doing so. I’d given up one day of working from home already and unless I wanted my students on my ass for being late with their marks, there was no chance I was going to do it again. So, feeling awful about it, I told him I couldn’t.

“It’s okay,” he smiled. “Monday, then.”

“Monday.”

Maybe I could see him Monday, after a lecture, on a work day, at the university, nothing but an eager student and a lecturer willing to give forth his knowledge. I would have told myself anything, anything to make myself believe that our boundaries remained intact.

We said our goodbyes. He walked away with a wave and I didn’t yet drive off, I never did. I watched him walk up the cold street in his denim shorts, the spring in his steps and his fluffy hair that bounced along with them, because I liked to make sure he got home safe. I thought of that day, and all the others. How the minute he left, the car was devoid of that warmth. How the minute I told him this was no longer going to continue, it would cut, deep enough to hurt. To scar, perhaps. And there, I came to the conclusion that, if it stayed just like that, just eating out and bringing out a smile on each other and not getting too close, what was so wrong about that?

When was too close? When it felt different. When I could fool myself into thinking it was not. I could not stop myself from pressing the horn of the car as much as I could stop the grin that rose to my face when Matt stopped, deer in the headlights, and turned before jogging back to me. I could not for the life of me understand what exactly it was that I thought I was doing, and to much of my own frustration, kept doing it regardless. I wound the window down, looking into the doe eyes staring me down in curiosity.

“Yes, Julian?” he said. “Are you still free tomorrow?” I asked, and his grin said it all. I asked myself why. But why any of it? Why do any of the things you and I do? I decided not to think too deeply about it, and I gave myself Matt’s answer: everything else was boring.

Pederasty – J.C. Morgan

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Category: Sale, Fiction, Thriller/Crime, Contemporary Fiction