The Cockney Canuck - 113. Chapter 113 Photographic Evidence

The streets of Cobourg were dark, cold, and mostly deserted, but Rory and I were glowing and still full of zest as we began the short walk back to his house. Despite an inauspicious and clumsy start, Fran’s Halloween party was fun and a huge success, especially for the Blues Brothers.

Everyone knew I wasn’t overjoyed by my ex-girlfriend’s attempt to set me up with a blind date, and if Rory hadn’t agreed to go with me, I probably would have cancelled. Now, I had to admit it would have been a big mistake.

Despite his peculiar choice of fancy dress, Conner, the cute little country boy from Saskatchewan, had made a big impression on me, and we agreed to meet the following weekend. It was too soon to start thinking of him as my boyfriend, and I didn’t want to chance my luck by jumping the gun, but he seemed to like me, and he even gave me a quick hairy hug before he left.

His dad arrived to collect him a little earlier than expected, much to the dismay of his sassy sister Rebecca, who spent most of the evening talking to Rory. This was perhaps the biggest surprise. According to David, Conner’s twin sister had several eligible male suitors in tow, but had snubbed them all in favour of our friend who most people were convinced was gay.

It was no more than he deserved. Rory was due a swing of the bat, and I was just as happy for him as I was for myself. It opened up some exciting possibilities, and I began grilling him the moment we left the party.

“I could end up dating your girlfriend’s twin brother. Isn’t that cool?”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” He was trying to temper his excitement and play it down, but his sloppy grin kept giving him away. He had already told me he was going to see a movie with her.

“So when’s your date.”

“Thursday, but it’s no big deal.”

“Of course it’s a big deal. You're going on a date.”

“It’s just a movie. I wanted to go see it anyway.”

“Oh yeah. What’s it called then—this movie.”

He smiled and cocked his head at me blushing. “I can’t remember now.”

I laughed. “I thought as much. It doesn’t matter, I doubt if you’ll be watching much of it anyway. Just make sure you brush your teeth before you leave home. And I’ve got some condoms for you if you want. You never know. Better safe than sorry.”

“What are you like? You're worse than my mom.”

“Does she give you condoms?”

“No.”

“Well then. But don’t forget I’m gonna want to know everything that happened. So don’t go keeping anything from me.”

“Don’t hold your breath. There may not be anything to tell.”

“Oh, yes there will. And I want the best friend version, not the mom version, you hear?” When I looked to my side though, I was talking to myself. Rory had stopped a good ten yards back and was leaning against a signpost. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I’m just having a rest.”

“Stop fooling around. We only have to walk to your house, remember. It’s like three blocks away.”

We had barely made it to the end of Fran’s street, and I was already starting to feel the cold. Then when he caught up, he tripped on the grass verge, and I had to grab his arm to steady him.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” he said. “I’m worried. What if I don’t like her?”

“Like her? What’s that got to do with it. You don’t need to like her. She’s attractive, even I can see that.”

“But we might not be compactable.”

“You mean compatible.”

“What did I say?”

“It doesn’t matter, the point is, you won't be worrying about stuff like that when she has your dick in her mouth.” I put my arm around him and gave him a friendly squeeze.

For once he didn’t object to me cuddling him. Instead, he leaned into me and surprised me with a quick hug of his own.

“Thanks for being my friend,” he said, and gave me a goofy smile before resting his head on my shoulder. It was a little random, but I liked his spontaneity and waited for him to have his moment before realising he was falling asleep.

“Rory. You can’t sleep on my shoulder.” I gently pushed him away and moved my nose towards his mouth.

“What are you doing?”

“Smelling your breath. How many beers did you have?”

He giggled as he held onto my arm. “I thought you were going to kiss me.”

That pretty much answered my question.

‘He’s drunk’.

“How many did you have, Rory?”

“Two, I think. Maybe three. Yeah, three.”

“How are you feeling?”

“Great,” he said. “I’m not drunk, you know.”

I wasn’t convinced. He was swaying and starting to slur his words. It was funny but entirely out of character.

Rory didn’t usually share the same interest in alcohol as some of the other kids in school, including myself, and I was surprised earlier to see him accept a beer from Philippe.

“Where did you get the others from?”

“What others?”

“The other beers, you plonker.”

“Oh, err, Fran, Nicola, and Fran, I think. Oh and that Philippe guy gave me one before we left.”

“Ain’t you the lucky one.” I smiled, but Rory didn’t get my joke. “Anyway, that makes four, not three. Come on, I’m frozen. You're gonna have to keep up with me.”

He wasn’t hammered but he was definitely a little tipsy and the cold night air had made it worse. Fortunately, we didn’t have too far to walk and my friend, fuelled by alcohol, kept me entertained in a very un-Rory like fashion. He talked all the way to his front door, and then I had to get him inside.

“Can you open the door, before I die of hyperthermia?”

He was leaning against the wall, and it looked as if he was drifting off again, so I shook his shoulder.

“What do you want?”

“Rory, where are your keys?”

“In my pocket,” he said, but he made no attempt to retrieve them, so I was forced to fish them out myself, much to his amusement.

“What are you doing?”

“Keep still, I’m looking for your keys, what do you think I’m doing?” He giggled and held onto my shoulder as I fumbled in his front pockets. Then he opened his eyes wide at me and took a sharp breath. “Oops, sorry, mate.”

“You did that on purpose.”

“It’s a habit. Usually, when I have my hand in a boy’s pocket, I’m looking for something else.” He chuckled and even looked a little disappointed when I proudly pulled out a set of keys and jingled them in front of his face.

‘Don’t go gay on me now, Rory’.

His bedroom was on the ground floor, and his parents slept upstairs, so he had more privacy than most, plus his own en-suite bathroom. I left him in there, splashing water on his face, while I stripped to my briefs and made myself comfortable on the spare mattress.

Then it was time for the entertainment, and I had a front row seat as he struggled to remove his clothes. He managed to remain upright, but he tied himself in a knot. His shirt was inside out and wrapped around his neck after he neglected to unbutton his cuffs.

He sat on his bed defeated. “Can you help me, please?”

I was happy to lend a hand and help untangle my friend from his troublesome clothing, but only after grabbing my phone and snapping a quick picture of him for posterity. It was so unlike Rory, but I resisted the temptation to share it on Facebook.

“I hope you do better than this when you're with Rebecca,” I said after stripping him to his boxers and covering his pale body with a huge duvet.

“I won't,” he mumbled.

“Oh, and please don’t throw up on me in the night.” My mattress was right next to his bed, and I had a nasty vision of him vomiting over the side. “That would be really gross.” When I looked at him though, he was already asleep with a faint smile across his face.

I reached for my phone and took another photograph. Maybe I was weird, but somethings needed to be captured, if only for my own benefit.

*     *     *

Rory’s room was much brighter than my basement bedroom, with two big windows that faced the sun. I woke up early wondering where I was. When I lifted my head, my friend was still tucked up in the same position, and I was relieved to see him still breathing. He looked too cute to disturb, so I decided to let him sleep.

When he finally stirred, it was just after nine, and I was sitting crossed legged on my mattress reading some of his old Marvel comics.

He looked at me and yawned. “How long have you been awake?”

“This long,” I said, pointing to a small stack of comics in front of me.

“I must have been tired.”

“Drunk you mean.”

“I wasn’t drunk,” he said, but he looked groggy as he got out of bed and stumbled over my mattress to the bathroom. When he returned, he picked his shirt off the floor and looked puzzled.

“I had to get you undressed,” I confessed. “Don’t you remember?”

“No.”

“Don’t worry, you're still a virgin.” I laughed as he threw the shirt at me.

“Thanks.”

“Not a problem. I didn’t want to deprive Rebecca of her trophy.”

His eyes opened wide at the mention of her name. “So it wasn’t a dream, after all.”

“Not unless I had the same one.”

He laughed and flopped face down on his bed, with a sweet groan. Then he opened one eye to look at me before turning on his side. “She’s nice, isn’t she? I mean she’s good looking.”

“Not bad considering her twin brother’s a gorilla.”

“Shit! You're right, and he’s your new boyfriend.”

“Not yet, he isn’t. I’m not as quick as you.”

“Oh, but you're gonna see him again, right? I mean, he is cute.” He sat upright on his bed resting his feet on my mattress and flashing his dick at me through the leg of his boxer shorts.

It made me giggle. “Rory, you're not supposed to call other guys cute. That’s the kind of thing that gets people talking, and it’s kinda off-putting having to look at your penis when I’m talking to you.”

He smiled bashfully and closed his legs. “Oh, sorry. But you have to admit, he’s nice looking.”

“I know, but it’s distracting me.”

“I’m talking about Conner, you jerk.” Rory laughed, shook his head and then playfully kicked my leg on his way back to the bathroom. “Do you wanna take a shower?”

“It’s okay. I’ll wait until you're finished.”

“I wasn’t asking you to get in with me.” I was only joking, and I could hear him laughing as he turned on the water. “Do you usually take a shower with Daniel then?”

“Always. Don insists on it because it saves water. Sometimes Alex gets in too.”

“How cosy,” he said and then yelped. “Shit, the water’s cold.”

I enjoyed my sleepover at Rory’s house. I was able to appreciate his company more now I was no longer preoccupied with trying to jump his bones. Rory deserved a lot of credit for putting up with me. I was sure most straight boys wouldn’t have been as patient or laid back with a gay friend like me. He was a lot like Daniel in that way except tidier, and my brother didn’t have a choice. I was kind of forced on him.

It was difficult to take at the time, but now I was glad Rory was straight. It would have been a big mistake if we had exchanged our friendship for a relationship. He was worth much more to me as a friend.

Like the rest of his house, his room was comfortable and warm. It also felt safe, and I could relax; something I wasn’t able to do at home anymore. I even followed his example and left the bathroom door open so we could talk while I showered. I thought it was a cool thing to do. It said a lot about him.

I considered myself lucky to have found such a good friend. Not everything was bad in my life. Rory, along with my adopted siblings were reasons to be positive, and Conner offered some hope for a post-Nathan future. If I could just avoid confrontations at school and with the adults at home, I was sure my recent anxiety and dizzy spells would cease to be a problem.

“I just need to relax more,” I said to Rory’s parents over breakfast. They were asking me how I was feeling and if I had recovered from my injury. “Sometimes it’s not as easy as it sounds.”

“His house gets a little stressful,” said Rory.

I chuckled. “It’s just busy. It’s a big house, but sometimes it seems really small. That doesn’t make much sense, I know.”

“No, I totally get it. We all need our own space,” said his dad.

His parents were friendly, and it was fun talking to them because they were English. They used a lot of terms which were foreign to Canadians, but mixed with North American words and an accent that was a bit of both. It made for a strange dialect, and I got the impression they were clinging on to their heritage. Even though they spoke fondly about Manchester and some of the random things they still missed about the UK, they were more Canadian now than British.

Before I left, they told me I could sleep over whenever I wanted, providing Don and Sue didn’t object. It was kind of them to offer, but I knew I wouldn’t be allowed and I was tempted to tell them why.

‘I can’t stay over because my adopted parents think I’m in a relationship with your son’.

I wondered what their reaction would have been to that statement. They were aware that Rory had been having a hard time in school because of his slightly feminine ways, and it must have crossed their minds considering the amount of time we were spending together. If so, I suspected their approach would have contrasted with Don and Sue’s Neanderthal-like handling of such situations. Judging by the way they had raised Rory, I thought it highly unlikely they would have considered it a huge problem.

If only Don and Sue could have been more like Rory’s parents, or Nathan’s. Even Fran’s pseudo mafia family had a better connection to the twenty-first century than the hopeless couple in charge of my life for the next two years.

*     *     *

When I arrived home later that afternoon, I was relieved to find the house quiet and peaceful. Sue was in the living room reading a book. She looked up and smiled at me as I removed my shoes and crept to the stairs.

“Did you have a nice time last night, dear?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Nicola told me she saw you.”

I nodded confidently knowing she wouldn’t have revealed anything more.

“Is she here?”

“No, she’s out with her new boyfriend.”

“You mean Mister Lube.” I smiled.

“How’s Fran?”

I stood at the top of the stairs and let out a deep breath. It would have been easy for me to spin her a yarn or just kept her wondering. It may have even been beneficial to my health in the short term and given me a much-needed respite. Time to re-arm and plan for future conflicts, but I decided to put her straight. I didn’t want to go back into hiding. It would only lead to more significant problems further down the line.

“Fran’s fine,” I said looking her in the eye. “But just in case you're wondering. I have no intention of getting back with her. She has a boyfriend, and I’m not interested in girls. We’re just friends, that’s all. That’s how it will always be. I like girls but as friends. Nothing more.”

She forced a smile, but I could sense some disappointment. “Well, at least you're honest, dear. That’s all I ask.”

It was a blatant lie. Honesty had done me no favours at all in that house as my next statement proved.

“I stayed at Rory’s house last night.”

That’s when her face dropped. “I see.”

“No, you don’t see. I know you don’t get it.”

“Then maybe you should put me right on this, Robbie.” Her tone changed, and the room seemed to get darker as she put her book down and waited for my explanation.

“I slept over. It’s as simple as that. He’s my best friend. It’s a perfectly normal thing for friends to do, even if one of them happens to be gay. Ask Daniel.”

“That’s different.”

“WHY IS IT?”

“It’s different if they’re both gay?”

“No it’s not; it doesn’t make any difference.”

“Were his parents at home?”

“YES! Why don’t you call them? And make yourself look like a real dumbass. Rory isn’t even gay, and soon everyone’s gonna know that. It’ll be obvious when people see him with the hottest girl in Cobourg.”

“Who’s the hottest girl in Cobourg?”

I turned my head to the kitchen and was surprised to see Alex poking his head around the doorway.

“I didn’t know you were there.”

“Alex is helping me cook dinner,” said Sue and I smirked.

“What are you making, chef?”

“None of your business.” He withdrew back to the kitchen, making me suspicious.

“It is my business if I have to eat it.”

“Leave him alone,” said Sue, but I was curious and crept towards the kitchen for a closer look.

‘This, I gotta see’.

“Oh, my God. What the fuck are you wearing?”

“Don’t laugh, dickhead.”

I laughed, and he walked over to threaten me.

“If you tell anyone, I swear, you’ll be sorry.” He was wearing one of Sue’s full-length flowery aprons and a pair of matching oven mitts. The countertop was covered in flour, and so was he. It was even in his hair.

“You look sexy,” I whispered and then blew him a kiss and stepped back as he took a swing at me. “Hey! Careful with those oven gloves, Rocky.”

I was saved by Sue and the timer on the stove, which put Alex in a spin. He was caught in two minds. He wanted to hit me for laughing at him, and so did I, but Sue wanted him to take something out of the stove, and I could smell burning.

Had it been anyone else, it wouldn’t have been funny at all, but an apron on Alex, was hilarious and his frustrated reaction to my laughter was the icing on the cake. It was crying out to be captured on digital media. So I reached for my phone as Alex pulled out his culinary creation and placed it on the counter.

“What is it?”

“It’s a meat pie, dickhead.”

“A dick pie, how tasty.” Sue wasn’t impressed by my crude humour, and neither was my friend.

“Don’t laugh at him,” said Sue. “He’s been doing quite well. He’s had a few problems with his pastry, that’s all.”

“You're telling me. It looks a little limp in the middle.”

“You’ll be limp in the middle in a minute.”

“Boys, please. Be nice to each other.”

“And don’t take any pictures,” said Alex. “I mean it.”

I was pushing my luck, but it would have been a crime not to, and in the end, I just couldn’t resist. “Say cheese.”

“I’m warning you,” he growled, but it was too late. The flash lit up the kitchen, and I shoved the phone in my back pocket.

Sue was furious. “ROBBIE! He told you not to….”

I must have pushed him too far, and he snapped. Sue could only watch as he threw off his oven mitts and chased me downstairs.

Amy was watching TV and looked surprised as I leapt over the couch and stood behind it.

“Hi, Amy,”

“Hi, Robbie.”

“Give me the phone,” said Alex, holding out his hand.

“No,” I replied.

“Why are you wearing my mom’s apron?” asked Amy.

“He’s deranged,” I said as we circled the couch, first one way, then the other, with Amy between us.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means, I’m gonna beat up your brother if he doesn’t give me his phone.”

He feigned to go left and almost caught me off guard as he sprang to the right, only to be stopped in his tracks by Amy. She stood on the couch and hit him square in the face with a cushion.

“LEAVE HIM ALONE!” she shouted. I knew I could rely on Amy to be totally biased in my favour, no matter who I was up against, but I wasn’t as confident when it came to Daniel.

I tried to run past him as he stepped out of the bedroom to see what the commotion was about. The plan was to barricade myself in my room until Alex calmed down, and it may have worked if he hadn’t got there first to block the entrance.

It was nearly November, and Daniel was still dressed in only a pair of shorts, but it didn’t stop me from putting my arms around him and holding him in front of me as a hostage.

“Keep away from me, Alex or Daniel gets it!”

Alex raised his eyebrows and stared at me before his mouth curled up.

“You what?” he said and smirked.

“I said keep away, or he gets it.”

“Go ahead then, give it to him. If that’s what you want.”

“Give him what?” said Daniel.

It put me in a quandary. I didn’t have a plan, but when Daniel tried to worm free, I tightened my grip around his waist.

“Don’t struggle. You’ll only make it worse for yourself.”

It was entertainment for Alex, and while he was laughing, he wasn’t hitting me.

I was surprised at how pliable Daniel was, but it looked bad, and I could hear Sue grumbling her way down the stairs. She would never have understood, so I let him go.

She arrived just as Alex grabbed my sweater and was about to hurt me.

“No fighting in the house, boys,” she said, and I teased him with a fake smile.

“It’s okay,” said Alex. “We’ll go outside.” He smiled back at me as he opened the sliding door and pulled me with him.

“I’m pretty sure she meant outside as well,” I said clinging to the doorframe.

“Let Robbie go please, Alex,” said Sue, but she was hardly convincing, and it looked as if my luck had finally run out. Until Amy reaffirmed her position as my closest ally. Another tenacious strike with the same cushion hit Alex on the side of the head. It brought a reprimand from Sue but distracted my attacker long enough for me to break free and bolt into the garden laughing.

It may have been possible for me to evade Alex on his own and double back to the house, but not with Daniel helping him, and after a quick chase, I was rugby tackled to the ground by my much fitter, younger brother.

When Alex caught up, I was lying face down at the back of the garden on the damp grass. I was spent and out of breath with Daniel kneeling on top of me.

“I’m not well,” I said. “You're not allowed to hit me.”

“Don’t panic, I’m not going to touch your precious head,” said Alex, as he stooped to grab my ass.

“If it’s sex you want, we can go inside. It’s more private. Not you though Daniel, you’ll have to watch. I don’t do incest.”

Daniel laughed and stood up, but Alex was after my phone, not my ass. He removed it from my back pocket and began searching for the incriminating photograph.

“Can I get up now?”

“No! Stay there.” As I tried to lift myself, he pressed his foot against the small of my back to push me down again. “What’s this? Oh man, I’ve hit the jackpot. Is that Rory you have tied up?”

“Let me see,” said Daniel, and soon they were both laughing.

“He’s not tied up.”

“Looks like it to me. And there’s another one of him sleeping. Ah, he looks so sweet. So you really are banging him.” I closed my eyes as Sue approached.

She must have heard him, but she seemed more concerned with the possibility of me having to return to the hospital. She tore into Alex as I picked myself off the ground and brushed myself down, wiping bits of grass from my face and staring angrily at my attacker.

“He’s got my phone,” I added.

“Give it back please, Alex.” He glared at me before reluctantly complying with her instruction.

“Why don’t you show her your photos?”

“Stop squabbling,” said Sue, before turning on Daniel and scolding him for his poor dress sense.

When she wasn’t looking, I goaded Alex with a fake smile and a not so subtle hand gesture. He lashed out at me, but I evaded his reckless punch and smirked as Sue ordered him back to the kitchen.

“I hope your pastry doesn’t get ruined,” I said. Daniel thought it was funny, but Alex turned halfway down the garden to give me the finger. “That’s a form of swearing, Sue. He should have to pay a dollar for that.”

“Fuck off, snitch,” said a distant Alex. I pointed at him and stared at Sue, demanding some kind of punishment, but she turned on me instead.

I was banished to my room for the remainder of the evening for inciting trouble and forced to apologise to Alex at the dinner table. She also made me delete the photo from my phone. I complained, but it was a ruse, I had already sent it to my computer, along with the pictures of Rory.

*     *     *

I waited patiently until Wednesday evening before calling Conner, and he answered straight away with my name. I was pleasantly surprised, almost as if I was expecting him to forget about me.

“Are you still okay to meet up on Saturday?”

“Of course, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Good, so am I.”

“Where do you wanna meet? My mom’s gonna give me a ride into town. She has to do some shopping and stuff.”

I didn’t reckon on having to meet his mom, and it put a bit of a dampener on what I was expecting to be our first date. I wanted to see him on his own, not with parental supervision.

“What time can you be here for?” I was hoping to spend the day with him, but now I had visions of his mom waiting to drive him home.

‘Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, after all. We should’ve gone to the movies instead. Like Rory’.

“I can meet any time. I guess it depends on what you have planned.”

I hadn’t really planned anything. I could show him Cobourg in half-an-hour and November wasn’t the best time of year for the beach.

“I was just gonna play it by ear,” I confessed, and he laughed.

“Well, I’m sure it’ll be fun. I’m not expecting a grand tour, so don’t fret. Whatever you wanna do, I’ll be happy.”

‘I doubt it’.

Had he been able to read my mind, he may have had second thoughts about our weekend rendezvous. If I had my way, I would have skipped the boring preliminaries altogether and gone straight to the main event. I was getting fed up of entertaining myself. After all, we had plenty of time to get to know each other afterwards.

Two months had passed since I last experienced Nathan’s deft touch and spluttered to my fourth orgasm in as many hours at the Palm Springs Motel. Since then, my only sexual experience was giving an embarrassing and undeserving blowjob to my fake cousin in the shoppers parking lot at Thanksgiving. An unreciprocated act born out of frustration and a regrettable mistake which I desperately wanted to forget, but knew I wouldn’t.

“Are you still there?” he asked.

“Yeah, just thinking.”

He chuckled and started asking me about Rory, who had a date arranged with his sister the following evening. They seemed quite close, and I guess he just wanted to be sure she was going to be okay.

“Rory’s a total gentleman. He’s probably the nicest and most genuine person I know.”

“Wow, that’s a big compliment.”

“No, I just don’t know that many people.”

He thought it was funny, but what did he expect. I was doing my best to get my buddy laid, although I expected it would take more than a few trips to the cinema to coax his dinkle into the open.

“That’s not what I heard.”

I was intrigued. “What have you heard about me then?”

“Don’t worry, nothing bad or I wouldn’t be talking to you right now.”

“Well, I suppose it depends on where you got your information. I’m sure not everyone around here would give me a good reference.”

“Are we talking ex-boyfriends?”

“Boyfriend,” I corrected him. “There’s only the one. But I don’t think I’m the flavour of the month.”

“I’ve heard about him. Nathan isn’t it? He’s the boy my sister was talking to outside the movie theatre.”

“Yeah, it was the same night we split up.”

“Are you over him?” He put a lot of emphasis on this question, and I could understand why this was quite important to him.

“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t entirely convinced I was telling the truth.

As much as I wanted to forget about him. Nathan still occupied a huge amount of brain space. It didn’t matter whether he liked me anymore or not. He was always there and impossible to dislodge. Even when I was talking to his likely replacement.

From what I had seen so far, Conner seemed like a nice boy. He was smart, well-mannered, and self-assured like nothing was a problem for him. The kind of kid, most parents, would be proud of.

In many ways, he was the complete opposite of Nathan’s often melodramatic personality, and perhaps this should have appealed to me. A boy who may even be acceptable to Don, solving all my problems in one go, and planting me firmly in the garden of mediocrity.

It should have been enough to confine my ex-boyfriend to history, along with all the chaos, frivolity, and multi-coloured bling that surrounded him.

But it wasn’t, and I knew it never would be.