Stronger Than Lions - 15. Under the Branches

‘It’s not like you’re going to meet the Queen,’ said Bella as we sat down on a bench in the quad outside the hall. ‘You just need a nice shirt and jeans. And make sure you shave your five o’clock shadow. By the way, what does your dad know?’

‘He thinks we’re going to the movies, which is technically true.’

‘You’re going to have to tell him at some stage, my friend.’

‘What if he freaks out and I can’t see Chris any more?’

‘Your dad is old school but I don’t think he’s a bigot. Plus you’re 18 in two weeks’ time and then legally you’re an adult.’

‘You make everything seem so easy.’

She sighed. ‘Don’t worry so much. Do you want me to drop by to help you choose an outfit?’

I beamed. ‘Consider it your first official fag hag gig.’

* * *

Bella came round at about four. We fussed for half an hour choosing a shirt. We settled on a cobalt blue one she said brought out the colour of my eyes.

‘Now take off your glasses and roll up your sleeves,’ she instructed.

‘Why?’

‘Just shut up and do it.’

Bella made a slow around circle me, holding her phone up as if it were a microphone. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, in this exhibit we see a type specimen of a very particular subspecies of mid-2000s adolescent male, in rare courtship apparel. Note how, in this particular configuration, the organism is particularly attractive despite its protestations to the contrary. ’

‘You’re enjoying this way too much, Isabella Carmichael.’

‘You’ll thank me when Chris can’t keep his hands off you.’

After Bella left I lay on my bed for a while. I scanned the random objects on my bookshelf and fixed on my grandfather’s old cigarette tin. It still housed a Marvel Comics sticker collection I’d amassed when I was ten.

I reached for the tin and rummaged through the collection. Sure enough, there was a sticker of Thing from the Fantastic Four with his fist aimed at all and sundry.

Chris arrived at half-past six. I heard my dad answer the door and I had a last frantic check in the mirror. I ambled down the staircase as nonchalantly as I could. My heart was beating very fast when I spotted him talking to my dad.

His wavy hair had been tamed a little. He was wearing a charcoal jacket and a crisp striped shirt, with dark trousers and black Converse All Stars.

‘You two boys are looking really sharp there,’ said my father. ‘Try not to break too many girls’ hearts.’

As soon as we were out of the house’s view our faces erupted into huge smiles.

‘Hello, sexy,’ he said. ‘You look fantastic.’

‘You too, handsome.’ We were getting more comfortable with pet names. ‘Just wish I could kiss you out the open.’

He bit his lip and nodded slowly. ‘Ja, bru. Me too.’

We had pizza in a little Italian place in Kenilworth. Halfway through I felt one of his feet gently playing with my leg. It was hard for me to keep a straight face.

The movie was mindless fun, with buckets of blood, slimy monsters, and the requisite screaming bimbos. Chris held my hand, clenching every time the film delivered a jolt. At some point he guided my hand to his crotch. We were sitting in the back in an empty row. To hell with it, I thought, and inched my hand under his trousers. He groaned and leaned his head against mine as I touched him.

He started squirming and took hold of my hand and gently moved it away.

‘If I come I might not be able to keep quiet,’ he whispered, and I sniggered.

My sniggering stopped and switched to heavy breathing as he returned the favour.

The drive back was a lazy quietude. The autumn night was unusually warm so we rolled down the windows, inhaling the scents of dead leaves, sea air and malt from the brewery.

He stopped The Thing a little bit past my house, under the branches of a large oak, where the pools of light from the streetlamps didn’t reach. The tree was heavy with yellowing leaves but had not begun to shed them. We kissed long and slow, making out for a good ten minutes.

‘My first make-out session in a car,’ I said as we stopped to draw breath.

‘Hope it lived up to expectations? I guess an Audi or Volvo sedan with soft leather seats might be more comfortable, but that’s not me.’

‘It very much exceeded expectations. Including the part where I thought I was grabbing your dick but was actually grabbing the gear lever. Take it as a compliment.’

He was laughing so hard he was crying.

‘Um,’ I said, fumbling in my back pocket as the silliness died down, ‘I have a little something for you.’ I handed him an envelope in which I’d put the sticker. ‘I thought it might look cool to put somewhere in your car… you’ll see why.’

His face lit up as he took the sticker out.

‘I fuckin’ love it, bru. Who would’ve thought The Thing would ever meet The Thing.’

‘It was meant to be.’

‘Which reminds me,’ he said, reaching behind his seat and fumbling about, ‘I got a little something for you too. Except I was a dork and didn’t give it to you at the beginning.’

‘What?’

‘Um. I hope you don’t think it’s too cheesy, but, anyway…’

Looking bashful, he handed me a brown paper gift bag. Inside was a small soft toy: a stuffed lion cub with oversized, almost anime eyes.

‘His name is Cubby,’ he said. ‘Not very original, I know, but I was five years old at the time.’

‘This was…is… one of your soft toys? No, dude, I can’t take this. It’s too special.’

He held up a hand. ‘No. I want you to have him. On permanent loan. Cubby has always slept on my bed with me and now I want him to be with you when I’m not.’

I brought the little lion closer to my face and thumbed its frayed, matted, probably polyester mane. He was perfect. ‘All I gave you is a silly sticker.’

‘Which is possibly the coolest thing someone’s ever given me.’

‘If you say so. I’ll look after Cubby—but only if you promise to visit him regularly.’

‘I will comply.’

‘Stop stealing my line.’

‘You know you love it, Seven of Mine.’

‘Not irrelevant. But I still need to find a designation for you.’

‘Doesn’t have to be Borg.’

* * *

My emotions were smearing across each other as I finally drifted off to sleep. I held little Cubby close to me. I could smell Chris on him. I imagined my boyfriend as a little flaxen-haired boy, comforted by his favourite toy as the sounds of the old farmhouse enveloped him. Perhaps he heard his brothers messing about with each other in another room. Perhaps his parents peered lovingly over his bed, holding hands, long before bitterness forced its way between them.

I dreamed, of all things, of numbers that night. There was my first abacus, except it had cutesy little hearts on it and there seemed to be an unending amount of them. My brain asked a thousand questions. How do you quantify love? Can you weigh it, measure it, pin it down with equations? If the sum of all experiences was really just a group of chemicals having a gangbang in a cluster of nerve endings, how could this even try to articulate the infinite?

I had not yet read that there were different types of infinities. Some countable, some not. I knew that you could love someone more and more and that you can stop loving. I also knew that love has no units. I knew from the first time I kissed Chris that it would be pointless to measure how much I cared about him.

* * *

It was a Saturday afternoon, and we went for a walk through Newlands Forest. Panting and sweating, we reached a lookout point and sat down, looking at the panorama of the city below us. Chris propped himself against a rock and I settled myself between his legs.

‘Are you happy with the pace of things?’ he said apropos of nothing. ‘Are things going too fast? Or too slow for you?’

I reached out and touched his neck. ‘No, you dork. It’s just perfect.’

‘Good. I’m enjoying taking slow. I’m not…no longer… a wham-bam-thank you ma’am kind of guy. In fact I never liked being one.’

‘I’m a man, not a ma’am,’ I said, sticking out my tongue. He tapped me playfully on my head. ‘Wait,’ I continued. ‘Has that been a problem for some people?’

‘You wouldn’t believe,’ he said, massaging my shoulders. ‘One girl I dated broke up with me because I hadn’t slept with her after one week.’

‘Sounds a bit harsh.’

‘Yup. I’m not a prude, bru, but I like to get to know people first.’

‘This just in—Durban boy revealed to be gentleman, Cape Town is shocked.’

‘Asshole.’

‘You love it. Tell me, though…’

‘Yeah bru?’

‘What’s sex like?’

He paused, eyes widening. ‘You okay with me talking about my past?’

‘I’m sure.’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I mean if you’re doing it right it feels great… like this slow wave that builds up inside you. It’s warm. And wet, and, like, messy. You sort of melt into each other? That’s when you care about the person. Sometimes it’s just a brief, like, happy little squirt but you feel strange and empty afterwards.’

‘So how many…’

‘Does it matter?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ I said, unsure if I was speaking the truth. ‘I was just curious.’

‘Okay, three I've like, gone all the way with. I was sixteen when I lost my virginity to a girl. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but she did.’

‘You sound like quite the stud.’

‘It’s not like that,’ he said, sounding a little defensive. ‘It’s not like I was deliberately racking up points or something. Some guys actually do that.’

‘I didn’t mean to…’

‘Bru. It’s not just about sticking your dick in someone. That weekend away, when we were just lying together that evening, kissing, no dicks stuck into anyone—that was just, fuckin’ beautiful, bru. Better than anything I’ve felt with anybody before.’

‘You being serious?’

‘Would I lie to the person I care most about?’

I mouthed the words softly. ‘Care most about.’

He interlaced his hands with mine. ‘I love you, Seven of Mine.’

‘Oh my god.’ I stared at him.

‘Cal?’

'You fucking said it.'

'One of us had to say it first,' he said philosophically.

I beamed. ‘As it happens I love you too, Number One.’

We leaned in for our grand Hollywood kiss; I half-expected the slow movement of a Rachmaninov concerto to start playing. But we heard voices, and we broke it off prematurely. A couple walking past had seen us, and they were staring.

‘Hi there,’ said Chris, waving, and draping an arm across my shoulder. ‘Lovely day, isn’t it!’

They walked away briskly.

‘How rude,’ I said, when my felt heartbeat slow a bit. ‘And how were you just so calm?’

‘I really don’t care what people think right now,’ he said, throwing up his hands. ‘Not everyone is evergoing to understand us. We’re lucky to have Bella and Rob.’

‘And that this is…’ I hesitated. ‘Legal here. Did you ever think you’d end up dating a guy?’

He chuckled. ‘To be honest, no.’

I bit my lip. ‘Me neither.’

‘I told you the very first time we kissed. Don’t put yourself in a box.’

‘Sometimes I feel like I’m this third type of human.’

‘What are you talking about?’

My tone became plangent. ‘I’m scared neither straight nor gay people are going to, you know, get me. Like I can’t be trusted. I was watching this episode of Sex and the City with my sister, where one of the girls dates a bi guy and her friends say “bisexuality is just a layover on the way to Gay Town.” Are you scared I’m going to cheat on you with—another woman?’

‘No, stupid,’ he said, smiling kindly. ‘Well, not any more than you’d cheat on me with another guy. Being true…fidelity? Fidelity, yeah, it’s not related to what makes your dick hard.’

‘I know.’

‘And maybe until recently I was trying to convince myself I was a straight guy. During years at a boys school, it made me realise how some straight guys think. What I’m saying is… don’t ever think you’re less of a man just because you don’t run around after a ball in the mud.’

‘Where did all this come from? Where did you come from?’

‘Let me finish. When those fuckers call you "faggot” they’re just doing it to convince themselves they are real men, meanwhile they have no fuckin' clue what that means. Which reminds me, bru. I only have experience dating girls, so it’s like hard-wired in me to want to open the door for you or pay for dinner or whatever. That doesn’t mean either of us has to be in some sort of, I dunno, role..’

‘Jeez,’ I said, ‘when did you swallow a psychology textbook? As long as I can return the favour. Maybe I can’t carry you in my arms, big guy, but I’m leading you when we dance.’

He beamed. ‘I look forward to that dance. And it’s your turn to buy me flowers.’

I kicked up a clod of red soil. ‘How come you’re so open-minded about things?’

‘Too much fresh farm air,’ he said with a dopey smile.

My phone bleeped with a message. It was Rob:

- Hey you two! Still on for gaming tonight) I have tons of ice cream at my place for after.

I stood up, texting back that I was keen. I helped Chris pull himself up.

We walked down the hill to the parking lot arm in arm, invincible.