Read Online On Chasing Brad Through Purgatory by Stephen Benatar - Free Book Online Page B

impersonation of someone who’s a lot more than half-educated.”
    â€œThank you. But that’s only bluff.”
    â€œI see. So what happened when you left university?”
    â€œI came to London to seek fame and fortune.”
    â€œAnd…?”
    â€œAnd I’m still working on it. In both departments.”
    â€œFame?” he asked. “As what?”
    â€œDon’t laugh. At the start I had some idea of going in for modelling. Or even acting. Remember I was still only nineteen.”
    â€œI’m not laughing. Not at all. And now?”
    â€œI think I’d like to write. Steamy adventures of a young gay down from the provinces. Tasting life in the big city.”
    â€œAnd planning to remain?”
    â€œOh very much so. Didn’t someone once say that if you’re tired of London you must be tired of life?”
    â€œYes good old Doctor Johnson. But that was before traffic pollution and mobile telephones and—I think—Miss Shirley Bassey.” (Here I ought to say that Miss Bassey had long since been replaced by Liza Minnelli and Abba, several songs from Abba, and now by another lady—“Jerry Sothern,” said Brad—who was plaintively asking if she’d recognize the light in his eyes/which no other eyes reveal/or shall I pass him by/and never realize/that he was my … ideal? For some reason the wistful quality of the singer’s voice or the poignancy of the lyric itself, with all its emphasis on—according to Brad—the haphazardness of fate, had briefly attracted the attention of us both.) “This young gay down from the provinces though: how does he manage to get by?”
    â€œHe stacks the shelves at Price-As-You-Like-It. In Cricklewood Lane.”
    â€œAh. And I’m sure it doesn’t get much steamier than that.” He nodded towards my nearly empty glass. “Same again?”
    â€œThis time it has to be my turn.”
    But he was already on his feet. “Let’s wait until that novel of yours hits the bestseller lists.”
    â€œBrad I didn’t say it was a novel.” (Though it was of course.) “I suspect you have this fearful habit of jumping to conclusions.”
    He laughed. “Your own personal adventures then? Less truthful than fiction yet far more imaginative. Come on—tell me I sound like a very poor imitation of Oscar Wilde.”
    â€œOh I wouldn’t be so impolite. Why would you accuse me of being that?”
    â€œMaybe because I jump to conclusions; and maybe because I get the feeling you’re someone who would, almost automatically, keep a person on his toes.”
    â€œQuite frightening in fact?”
    â€œNo. I think I’d be more inclined to call it …”
    But the right word didn’t come to him immediately; and whilst he was searching for it I swiftly rose and preceded him to the bar. The thing was I didn’t want him to believe I was simply on the take … even if at least to some extent I knew I was. (The proper study of mankind is man was something else I remembered somebody had once said.) We had been talking for longer than it might appear and Brad had already paid for our first two rounds; at least I had sufficient money to buy a couple of Glenfiddichs and still with any luck have bus fare home. (He mustn’t think that I was going to be too easy. I had no intention of letting him get me into bed that night.)
    Yet he caught up with me well before I had a chance to place my order. “… bracing,” he informed me with a grin. “Look. It’s getting late and I haven’t eaten yet. What about you? Let’s transfer this meeting to a restaurant.”
    â€œI had a sandwich earlier—”
    â€œA growing boy needs more than just a sandwich.”
    A growing boy did. And anyway that sandwich now seemed a long time ago: before Jonathan had unexpectedly turned up in what was clearly confrontational mood.