Storms - 8. Michael

Trev’s party was the most epic affair. The booze flowed like water, people smoked pot outside, the bedrooms were occupied by couples getting it on (sometimes more than one couple per room), and bass heavy tunes pumped through every room of the flat. I was miles away, though, a million things occupying my mind. I would be sixteen soon, my parents were going to Africa in a week and were staying away for nearly two whole months, and, oh yeah, I had inadvertently come out to my sister yesterday.

It had been completely unintentional. I was minding my own business, zoning out while cleaning the dishes, and she utterly blindsided me with this weird third degree.

‘You know, the way you’ve been acting lately, if I didn’t know better I’d say you had a crush,’ Liz said, leaning against the kitchen counter next to me.

‘What?’ I raised an eyebrow at her. ‘No! I really don’t. And what do you mean, “way I’ve been acting”?’

She smirked. ‘That’s as good as a confession, right there.’

‘It is not!’ I protested, which only made her smirk wider. ‘It’s none of your business, anyway.’

‘Au contraire, little bear,’ said Liz. ‘I’m your big sis, everything is my business. Big sister privilege. Now spill. Who is it? Ooh, is it Amy?’

‘What? No! Why does everyone think Amy and I are together?’

‘Because you’re both single, attractive people who hang out together a lot?’

‘I don’t have a crush on Amy.’

‘Who, then?’

‘No one!’ I insisted. ‘Seriously, I don’t . . . you don’t know him anyway.’

‘Aha, so there is someone—hang on, did you say “him”?’

An awkward silence followed during which I realised my mistake. As my sister and I stared at one another, I wondered how many people had accidentally outed themselves by using the wrong pronoun. I lowered my gaze.

‘Er . . . No. I meant her?’ I tried, refusing to look at her, but I knew my blush gave me away. My stupid and brilliant older sister put a hand on my cheek, turning my face towards her, and smiled at me.

‘I was just teasing, you know,’ she said softly. ‘So . . . You like boys, then?’

I sighed. ‘I guess? Just . . . Please, don’t tell Mum and Dad.’

‘They won’t care, you know. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but our parents are bleeding heart hippies, what with the saving the world and the human rights campaigns and all that.’

‘No, I know,’ I said. ‘It’s not that. I just . . . I haven’t even kissed a boy yet, you know? This could just be some phase, I might not even be gay, or even bi or whatever. I want to know what I am first, and then I want to tell them myself. When I’m ready.’

Liz nodded. ‘Okay.’ Then she gave me a hug, and a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’m proud of you, bear.’

I sipped my beer gloomily. I was supposed to have fun tonight. Instead my mind was anywhere but here. I thought about Daniel. Wondered how he spent his Saturday nights. The thought of him all by himself with no one to talk to made my heart ache. And no doubt that was exactly how he was spending this evening.

‘Hey!’ said Amy, bumping into my shoulder with her own. ‘Ground Control to Michael Storm. Where are you?’

I looked at her and smiled. ‘I’m right here.’

She sighed. ‘I wish Julie could have come with us.’

‘The two of you seem to get along,’ I said. Julie had eaten with us every day since Tuesday, and she and Amy appeared to have lots to talk about.

‘She’s fun,’ Amy replied with a shrug.

‘She’s coming over to watch Netflix tomorrow,’ said Deacon. ‘You should come too. Both of you.’

‘Netflix and chill?’ Amy gave a wicked grin. Deacon just rolled his eyes. ‘I’ll see, depends on how hungover I am.’ She drained her plastic cup of whatever it contained. ‘I think there’s a game of spin the bottle going on in the kitchen. Wanna check it out?’

Siobhan put her arms tightly around Deacon. ‘Not us. We have a strict policy never to kiss anyone but each other.’

‘Suit yourselves. Michael?’

I looked away. ‘I dunno . . .’

‘Aww, come on!’ Amy pressed. ‘I don’t wanna go by myself.’

I finally relented, and we left Deacon and Siobhan in the living room, making our way to the kitchen where, sure enough, a bunch of kids sat in a circle on the floor with an empty wine bottle between them. Two of them currently had their tongues firmly inserted down one another’s throats.

‘As long as there have been bottles and alcohol,’ I said, ‘people have been playing this game. I’ll bet it was invented by the monk who first bottled beer.’

‘You are such a weirdo,’ said Amy, rolling her eyes, and we joined the circle.

A girl called Clara spun the bottle, and it landed on Anne. ‘Truth or dare?’ asked Clara, and I sighed. Of course it had to be Truth or Dare spin the bottle.

‘Truth,’ said Anne.

Clara rolled her eyes. ‘Boring! Fine. If you could go out with anyone in the school, who would it be?’

Anne flushed scarlet, and her eyes flicked to me. I had to stop myself from groaning in frustration. Not another one!

‘I bloody hate you!’ Anne hissed at Clara, who smirked back in a way that told me she had already known the answer to the question before she had asked it.

‘Answer the question,’ she said simply.

Anne looked at her hands. ‘Michael Storm,’ she mumbled, but it was loud enough for everyone to hear, and around us people laughed and wolf whistled. I wasn’t sure who was more embarrassed, her or me.

Still fuming, Anne snatched up the bottle and spun it. It landed neatly on Amy.

‘Dare,’ said Amy, before Anne even had time to ask.

‘Hm . . . Chug a can of beer,’ said Anne.

One was produced, and Amy chugged the whole thing to enormous cheers. She looked a little green afterwards, but still reached out to spin the bottle.

It landed on me, and Amy got this mischievous glint in her eye. ‘Truth or dare?’ she asked silkily.

Truth should have been the safe bet, and I was about to pick it when my mind was brought back to my conversation with my sister, and I realised that truth wasn’t safe at all. So I said, ‘Dare.’

Amy grinned, and looked around the circle. ‘Seven minutes in heaven with . . .’ She paused dramatically. ‘Jasper.’

‘What?’ I said.

But Jasper Mayfield, an athletic half Filipino sixteen-year-old who was more than easy on the eyes, got to his feet with a smirk. ‘Come on, then, Storm. I’ll make a man out of you.’

The circle erupted into raucous cheers and laughter.

‘Where should they go?’ Amy asked Trev.

‘Hall closet’s big enough,’ he said with a shrug, his words slightly slurred, and before I had time to react I was pulled to my feet and shoved out into the hall. Jasper and I were stuffed inside the closet, and the door closed behind us, leaving us in near total darkness.

My beer was still in my hand, and I took a sip of it. The closet was a tight fit, and coats and jackets hung about us. We stayed like that for a minute or so.

‘So,’ I said, finally, sounding braver than I felt, ‘you said you’d make a man out of me?’

Next to me, Jasper chuckled softly. ‘I find it best to play along with these things. You get all defensive, people are just gonna get suspicious.’ There was a pause. ‘Could I have a sip of your beer?’

I handed him the can, our fingers brushing in the dark, and suddenly my heart was pounding. There was no denying that Jasper was hot as hell. I didn’t think I’d at all mind kissing him. But making a move, even here in the dark where no one could see, was risky. I had never known him to be mean spirited, or homophobic, but that didn’t mean he’d react well to another guy trying to kiss him.

He handed back my beer can, but I fumbled and it dropped to the floor. It had been nearly empty, but I still swore, and tried to bend down to pick it up. Easier said than done in the enclosed space. I managed to crouch down, feeling around on the floor, and suddenly the light of a mobile phone screen shone from above. The can had landed neatly in a boot, and I picked it up, getting back to my feet.

We stood closer than I had thought. Jasper’s eyes shone in the light from his mobile phone. He glanced down at it. ‘Three minutes to go,’ he whispered, and then the light went out.

I don’t know who leaned in first, but then our lips were touching, and his tongue was in my mouth, and mine in his, and he held my face still in his hands. Our breath mingled, and though the rest of our bodies weren’t touching, I was suddenly rock hard. I was kissing a boy, and I really, really liked it.

Too soon, it was over, and Jasper placed his index finger over my lips. I could only just see the outline of his face.

‘This stays in here, right?’ he whispered, and I nodded. ‘I’ve actually wanted to try kissing a guy for a while,’ he confessed. ‘I’m glad it was you, mate.’

I said nothing. He removed his finger from my lips, and I drained my can of beer while adjusting my junk with my other hand so no one would see the bulge in my jeans, and then the door opened, flooding the closet with far too bright light.

When I stepped out of the closet, I couldn’t see Amy anywhere. I found her a few minutes later in a bathroom, vomiting profusely, that beer she had chugged finally having caught up with her. Girl really couldn’t hold her liquor worth a damn. I waited until she had finished, and then walked her home.

If anyone other than me even remembered mine and Jasper’s seven minutes in heaven, they never mentioned it. There was no gossip at school. No one seemed to care.

* * *

When I got home, I found my parents in the living room, drinking wine and watching a documentary. Dad smiled when he saw me.

‘You’re home early,’ he observed. ‘Your curfew’s not until midnight.’

I shrugged. ‘Amy got sick, so I walked her home. Is Lizzy in?’

Mum shook her head. ‘She went out with friends from uni. Why don’t you join us for a bit, darling?’

‘Yeah, sure. Just need the bathroom first.’

I scaled the stairs to my bedroom and quickly changed out of my party clothes (which undoubtedly smelled like pot smoke, even if I hadn’t actually smoked anything stronger than half a Lucky Strike) and into my PJs. Then I went into the ensuite bathroom to brush the beer breath out of my mouth, before going back down to the living room.

I sat in one of the chairs, pulling my bare feet up under me, and glanced at the telly. It was a programme about the treatment of gay people in Russia.

‘Shameful,’ said Mum after a while, shaking her head. ‘That a politician would talk like that, about human beings! Makes you physically ill, doesn’t it . . .’

‘Just goes to show, nothing has really changed there since Soviet,’ Dad said sadly. ‘There’s no freedom of speech or expression, no free press . . . All we’re missing are the Siberian death camps. It’s a human rights nightmare.’

Mum nodded along emphatically to everything he said, and for a moment I considered standing up and telling them, ‘Mum, Dad, I kissed a boy tonight and it was amazing. I think I might be gay.’

But I didn’t. I felt like I needed to think all this through a bit more first. Maybe when they came home from Africa again. Maybe for Christmas. I imagined coming out during Christmas dinner, with all three of my living grandparents seated at the table looking flabbergasted. Or perhaps afterwards, amidst eggnog and carols on the radio. Shaking everyone’s world just the tiniest bit in the middle of the dignified holiday cheer. The idea made me smile.

‘Thank goodness it’s not like that here anymore,’ said Mum, indicating the protesters gathered outside a Pride event, shouting insults and vitriol at anyone going inside.

I shrugged. ‘It might not be like that, but people still use those kinds of words. I hear them in school every day. People throw them around, not even thinking about what they mean, I think. It’s not like there aren’t any homophobes left in Britain.’

Dad shook his head. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, Michael. Can’t say I’m surprised, but it’s certainly sad.’

‘They’ll grow out of it,’ Mum assured me. ‘One day, they’ll realise what they’re saying, and they’ll stop. The world’s headed in the right direction.’

Dad looked at her. ‘We’ll likely encounter a lot of this on our trip, Diane.’ He nodded towards the telly. ‘Are you ready for that?’

‘No, I know,’ she said, sounding vaguely annoyed. ‘I’ve been around the block a few times, I know what the world is.’

Dad made a placating gesture. ‘Of course you do, I’m sorry.’

‘How come homophobes care so much about how gay people have sex?’ I asked no one in particular. ‘These people talk more about gay sex than any gay person ever does.’

Dad gave a nervous chuckle. ‘How do you know how much gay people talk about sex, Michael?’

‘They obsess over it because they think that’s all there is,’ Mum said. ‘It’s easier that way. They don’t want to think that it’s about love. They think gay people don’t love. Which is utter stupidity, of course, because of course they do.’

I turned my eyes to the TV again. These two guys were talking about how they loved each other and wanted to get married, but Russia’s gay propaganda law made it so they couldn’t even kiss or hold hands in public. I thought about Jasper’s insistence that our kiss would stay in that closet, and then I thought of the irony of that, of the closet being the keeper of that secret.

I knew how lucky I was. High school wouldn’t last forever, I was sitting my GCSEs in the spring, and Mum was right, all those people would grow up. Most of them would grow out of their homophobia. Soon, none of this would matter.

Standing up, I said, ‘Hey, I’m pretty tired. I’m going to bed.’

‘Good night, sweetheart,’ said Mum.

And Dad said, ‘Sleep well, kiddo.’

I kissed Mum on the cheek and hugged Dad. ‘Night.’ I went upstairs to my room, and thinking about Jasper’s lips and his tongue, and his hands on my face, I got myself off before drifting off to sleep.