Firsts - 2. Marcus

There aren’t many things in his life that Marcus can control, but he can control this.

‘Go on, then!’ he tells the boy before him. ‘Big, fat fucker like you shouldn’t have any trouble beating down a skinny twerp like me, eh? Get on with it!’ He smirks. ‘Or haven’t you got the bollocks for it?’

The kid is two years older than Marcus and twice his size, but now he looks uncertain. A schoolyard predator, he’s obviously not used to prey that talks back.

‘I know what you are,’ Marcus continues. ‘You’re a limp-dicked, pea-brained fucking twatwaffle, balls the size of peanuts, too fucking stupid and too much of a coward to come at me on equal terms. So get fucked!’

He has it down to a precise art. Using words to confuse, confound, control. The bullies don’t know how to deal with his quick wit, don’t know how to respond to his insults or threats. And in the rare instances where they don’t back down, Marcus can always leg it. Usually, he doesn’t have to. He stands his ground, arms crossed over his chest, waiting.

A slow clapping starts somewhere to his right and he turns his head. A fifteen-year-old whose name Marcus thinks might be Adam is stepping out of the crowd with an amused smile on his face. ‘Bravo! Well done!’ He stands next to Marcus and faces the bully. ‘You heard him, Bradley, fuck off.’

Marcus scowls at the boy next to him. He was handling the situation just fine on his own, thank you. Adam (Marcus is quite certain now that that is his name) smiles calmly. He’s about Marcus’s height, though less skinny. He’s staring down Bradley the bully, and then Bradley turns around and lumbers off like a bear who just got slapped on the nose. Adam turns to Marcus and grins.

‘Really, well fucking done. Bradley’s a fucking moron.’

Marcus narrows his eyes. ‘I didn’t need your help!’ he snarls.

‘Course you didn’t.’ Adam’s eyes are fixed to Marcus’s, his gaze piercing and unrelenting. ‘I’ve just been wanting to talk to you, is all. Seen you in church.’

Of course. Another fucking Catholic.

‘I hope you don’t think that means we have something in common,’ Marcus scoffs, looking away. ‘I only go cause my parents make me.’

‘Yeah, me too.’

Marcus shakes his head and turns his back. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he mutters, but Adam’s hand is suddenly on his shoulder.

‘Hang on! I’d like to talk to you more.’

Marcus shakes the hand off. ‘Fuck off!’

‘No.’ Adam’s voice is firm and calm and Marcus turns to face him again.

‘Look, I don’t know who you think you are or what you’re playing at, but I don’t do friends, all right? I like being on my own, and I don’t like people fucking me about, so just get stuffed, yeah?’

‘Who said anything about friends?’

The look Adam is giving him stirs something, somewhere. Something primal and undernourished and absolutely terrifying. Marcus takes one step back, licking his lips, and takes in Adam’s soft blond locks, brown eyes and lightly tanned face, and for the first time in his life he wants something.

‘Fuck off,’ he says again, and then he runs away. Because this is not something that he can control, and that terrifies him most of all.

* * *

One thing that Marcus can control is what he eats. For instance, when he gets home from school that day, he eats an apple, but he declines his mother’s offer of tea later on, claiming that he isn’t hungry. And he isn’t, really. He’s stopped feeling hunger, most of the time. He stays in his room for the rest of the afternoon, doing homework. At thirteen, Marcus already works hard at everything. It’s true, what he told Adam. He doesn’t really do friends. (Not since primary school. Ethan fucked off down south with his family when they were eleven, and though they promised to stay in touch, they haven’t spoken since.)

Which is why he’s so surprised when the telephone rings around six, and his mother shouts that it’s for him.

It’s Adam. He wants to meet up and hang out for a bit. Marcus is suspicious, but in the end he reluctantly agrees.

Marcus’s working class neighbourhood is not, perhaps, the safest, but he and Adam end up wandering around it anyway, just talking, breath misting in the chilly February night air. Adam tells him that he admires the way he deals with bullies. That words are so much more effective than fists, and that Marcus can go far with such strong rhetorical skills. Marcus laughs and calls him mental, but he can’t help but feel a slight swell of pride that someone seems to give a shit.

They stop at a vandalised and deserted playground and sit on the swings to have a smoke.

‘You’re very angry, aren’t you?’ It’s not really a question, but Adam seems to expect an answer all the same.

Marcus shrugs, dropping tobacco ash into the sand beneath the swing. ‘Don’t see how you’re not. Living in this piss town, nothing but Catholics and delinquents.’ He doesn’t go deeper, doesn’t let on about what goes on at home, but he has the distinct impression that Adam somehow knows anyway. The look he gets doesn’t feel like pity, but Marcus can’t be sure. ‘What do you want with me?’ he asks after a few moments, daring to meet Adam’s gaze.

Adam gives him a lopsided smile. ‘I like you,’ he says.

‘Why? I don’t like you.’

‘I know. That’s okay. You don’t like anyone.’

Marcus stands up, putting out his fag, and Adam follows suit, placing a hand on his shoulder.

‘If you don’t let go I’ll rip off your fucking arm and beat you to death with it,’ Marcus growls.

‘Not your best line,’ says Adam. His hand doesn’t go anywhere. Instead he looks around and, seeing no one, pushes Marcus back against the frame of the swing set and kisses him.

It’s the first time anyone has kissed Marcus, and he is so surprised he forgets to breathe at first. Then surprise is replaced with fury. This isn’t okay. This is something he should be able to control. He pushes Adam away with more strength than his skinny body should by rights be able to possess.

‘Fuck off, you poof!’ he shouts, and runs off home without another word.

When he gets there, his father is home, and drunk, and gives him an earful about being out late and how he should be doing his homework (which he has already finished). Marcus goes to bed, lying still in the darkness and trying to ignore the angry shouts from next door (‘How dare you let your son run around the neighbourhood at all hours? You’re such a useless bitch, wish I’d never married you, someone else might have been able to give me better children!’). He doesn’t cry. He never cries.

* * *

Several weeks pass before Marcus speaks to Adam again. In that time, he doesn’t go a single day without his mind wandering back to the incident in the playground. At first, he assumes this feeling in the pit of his stomach to be anger, disgust or fear, but when he wakes up for the third time in as many days with a sweaty brow and wet pants from dreams of Adam’s lips, he is forced to concede that he may have misinterpreted that feeling.

Then, one day in March, he sees Adam walking across the school yard and, before he’s properly aware of having done so, has grabbed him by the upper arm and is dragging him away over to the blue schoolyard fence, where he lets go and stares resolutely down at the ground.

Adam looks at him curiously, head cocked to one side. ‘Yes?’ he says, after a few moments’ silence.

Marcus raises his gaze to his eyes and glares at him angrily. ‘That thing,’ he says. ‘The thing that you did.’

Adam smirks. ‘You mean when I—’

‘Shut up!’ Marcus looks around nervously. ‘I want . . . I want to do that again. Not here!’ he hurries to add. ‘Just . . . And you don’t get to decide how or when or anything like that, it’s, I’m the one who—It’s got to be my choice. Just so we’re totally fucking clear about that.’

Adam nods slowly. ‘Yeah, all right. So, how and when?’ He pauses. ‘And where? You could come to my place.’

‘Tomorrow?’

‘Yeah, sure. Tomorrow. After school.’

‘Okay.’ Marcus hesitates. ‘Bye.’

‘See you tomorrow.’

* * *

Adam’s house is bigger and nicer than Marcus’s. Adam has his own bedroom, which is impressive enough on its own in a family of six. He has two older brothers and one younger sister. The eldest of his brothers has gone away to university.

‘Go on, then,’ Adam says when they’re finally both sitting on his bed. ‘You came here for a reason, didn’t you?’

Marcus only hesitates for a moment. Then he leans in and plants his lips on Adam’s. He pushes the older boy back into the pillows and climbs on top of him, testing everything. Adam’s lips are fuller and softer than his own. When they open, his teeth are slightly crooked, and Marcus can feel it with his tongue. Adam’s tongue is long and wet and very warm. His mouth is hot and tastes sweet. Marcus doesn’t really know what he’s doing, but the response he gets is encouraging. Adam puts his arms around his waist and draws him down towards him, kissing him back. It feels good.

When Marcus begins to move his hips against him, Adam breaks the kiss and laughs. ‘Whoa, there. Slow up.’

Marcus sits up and glares down at him. ‘What for?’

Adam grins and shakes his head. ‘Jesus, I fucking love Catholic boys . . . So repressed, starved, up for fucking anything.’

‘You’re a Catholic boy,’ Marcus reminds him.

‘Yeah, but I’m not typical.’

‘Neither am I!’

‘No need to get defensive, I’m just saying.’

Marcus hesitates. ‘You’ve . . . done this before then, have you?’

‘Well, yeah. You didn’t think you were the first boy I’ve kissed, did you?’

‘Of course I fucking didn’t!’ Marcus crosses his arms and stares at the wall. ‘How many?’

‘Loads,’ Adam tells him nonchalantly.

Marcus glances sideways at him. ‘And, more than kissing?’

‘Some.’ Adam sits up as well. ‘I’m not gonna do that to you, though.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because you’re fucking thirteen, you stupid little twat.’ Adam smiles.

‘I’ll be fourteen soon.’

‘Yeah, and I’ll be sixteen. I’ll still be way older than you, and I’ll be in college.’

‘Anyway,’ Marcus huffs, ‘I’d be the one doing the doing, fuckwit.’

Adam smirks at him and ruffles his hair. ‘That so?’

‘Yeah. No one’s gonna fuck me.’

‘Why do you have to be in charge all the fucking time?’ Adam asks.

Marcus shrugs.

Adam presses on. ‘You seriously need to relax. Let go. Stop trying to control everything and let shit happen.’

‘Never.’

* * *

That turns out to be a lie. About half a year later, Adam invites him along to a party at a friend’s house. It’s the first time Marcus drinks. He doesn’t really want to, because of what happens when his dad drinks, but everyone else is doing it, and everyone cool is here. So Marcus drinks.

And he loves it. He loves how it enables him to so completely not give a fuck. And so he drinks more, and he smokes a lot of cigarettes, and talks to cool people, and feels like a cool person. Then Adam drags him aside, into an empty, dark bedroom, and they snog for a good while. Adam asks him to suck him off. Marcus says no at first, but he does it anyway.

It’s the first time Marcus sucks dick. It’s not very pleasant. Adam comes down his throat, and Marcus, very drunk at this point, vomits all over the carpet. Adam does not reciprocate.

Marcus will never think of what happened in that bedroom as non-consensual, and will claim with his dying breath that he was in full control of his faculties, but a permanent stain in someone’s bedroom carpet will proclaim otherwise. Marcus just never really thinks about it, but it’s the last time he speaks to Adam, and the last time he touches another boy in nearly two years.

* * *

Marcus meets Julian in college. Julian has wide, blue eyes and dark, curly hair. He’s a bit older, but much smaller than Marcus—lithe and graceful and adorable—and Marcus allows himself to think that Julian is the most gorgeous human being he’s ever seen. Within a couple of months, he’s completely fucking soppy about him, and they’ve barely spoken two words to one another. They only have Maths together. All Julian’s A-levels are sciences, while Marcus is taking Social Studies and English and History.

Still, he’s infatuated. He fantasises about Julian, imagines his stupidly wide blue eyes and his red lips as he comes. He’s never wanted anyone this badly before, and that scares the shit out of him. He’d be willing to lose control, if it was for Julian.

He’s given the opportunity to do just that at a party in November. There is alcohol involved, and then, somehow, when the party’s over some time around two in the morning, he finds himself alone with Julian, standing outside in the freezing cold air. Julian doesn’t have a jacket. Feeling like the hero in some stupid fucking rom-com, Marcus offers him his and asks which way he’s going.

Turns out Julian’s house is on the way to Marcus’s. What luck.

’This isn’t a good neighbourhood to walk home alone in,’ Julian tells him when they’re outside his house, taking off Marcus’s jacket and handing it back to him. They’ve barely spoken during the whole ten minute walk. ‘Why don’t you kip at the end of my bed or something?’

They’re both drunk. That’s Marcus’s excuse when kipping at the end of Julian’s bed turns into sleeping almost naked, pressed up against his back with his lips in Julian’s hair. When they wake up the next morning and kiss drowsily for a full ten minutes, Marcus has run out of excuses. He also has no good excuse for telling Julian that he’s the most beautiful boy he’s ever seen and that he’s wanted to kiss him since the first time he saw him.

Marcus never thought that his first time would involve him on his back, and a boy much shorter than him fucking him senseless while whispering to him to keep quiet. But that’s what happens. Julian clearly knows what he’s doing, and though it’s awkward and Marcus doesn’t really know how to behave, and it hurts quite a bit, it also feels amazing. Julian is fucking amazing, and Marcus is totally, utterly in love.

He surrenders himself completely. He throws caution to the wind, and lets himself get carried away by this boy. He feels lucky, and happy, and in love, and he’s never felt so good before.

Which is why he crashes all the harder when, a few weeks later, Julian rejects him. In a moment of post-coital insanity, Marcus tells Julian that he loves him, and Julian laughs at him. He laughs. ‘Fuck off, Marcus!’ he says. ‘We’ve just been having fun, haven’t we? I mean, for fuck’s sake! If I loved every guy I’ve shagged, I’d have at least ten boyfriends at any given time!’

Marcus breaks, then. He feels himself shatter to a million fucking pieces, and suddenly he just wants to hurt Julian. Wants to beat him, or rape him, even, make him his bitch. He wants to show him that he can’t do this to him, can’t treat him like this, and those thoughts scare him more than anything else ever has before.

So instead he shouts at Julian that he’s a fucking cunt, and that if he ever so much as tries to talk to him again, Marcus will tear off his fucking cock and stuff it in his ear and then fuck him with a fucking shovel. Then he runs away, and promises himself that he’s never going to let himself love anyone else ever again. Many years later, he’ll realise what an incredible coincidence it is that the only other two people he’s ever allowed himself to love also have names that start with the letter J, and wonder if maybe this is some kind of subconscious fucking manifestation of his still-broken heart. Soon after, he will dismiss the thought and decide that he’s being a whiny pussy and should pull himself together, and never think of it again.

Over the course of the next couple of years, Marcus shags a number of people, most of them strangers, and he’s the one doing the doing, just like he told Adam he would be those years ago. He holds them down, and he fucks them, and he enjoys the feeling of control, of being in charge, and he promises never to let anyone dominate him again. This he can control. His cock, and his heart. (Ironically, once he gets to university, where it’s much easier to find willing, experienced boys, he will be almost celibate—aside from a couple of drunken and rather anonymous encounters, one of which turns out to be a girl, during fresher’s week—until his final year.)

* * *

The first time Marcus stands up to his father is only a couple of weeks after Julian dumps him. It’s a Thursday, and his dad comes home as drunk as ever, shouting and swearing and making demands. When Marcus ignores him, Brian Allen advances on him, yelling that he wishes Marcus had never been born, and that his mother is such a useless cunt for not being able to give him any more children.

It is then, faced with this wild-eyed, screaming lunatic, that Marcus realises that he’s taller than this man now. He’s bigger, and he can shout just as loud, and he is so fucking done with being anyone’s bitch.

‘Don’t you dare have a fucking go at Ma!’

Marcus’s father is so taken aback by this outburst that he falls silent at once.

‘She has always done her best, and she’s done everything you’ve asked, and it’s not her fucking fault that she can’t have more kids! You, on the other hand, you’re just a fucking bully; a self-serving, alcoholic cunt who has to verbally abuse women and kids to make himself feel good! Does it make you feel like a big man? Does it? Well, fuck you, and if you so much as look at her wrong again in my presence, so help me I will eat you up and sick you back out you pathetic little man!’

His dad stands there, in the middle of the kitchen, opening and closing his mouth like some parody of a fish, before he shuffles off to bed and falls asleep almost immediately. The incident is never mentioned again, and Marcus doesn’t have to explode like that again until nearly a year later when his father has apparently forgotten about the first time and tries to shout his son into submission again. It does not work.

When it becomes time for Marcus to leave for university, his father hugs him awkwardly and tells him to call his mother often, but that he doesn’t need to see him outside of Christmas, and for the summer holidays he had better get himself a job. Marcus agrees to these terms. He is indifferent to the old fucker now. He doesn’t matter to him one bit. Nothing really does, anymore.