Lost in Manchester - 24. Victory. April 2010. Daniel

Daniel was sitting on the balcony of his flat, staring at a luminous pink pigeon which was intermittently squawking at him as it groomed its feathers. He wasn’t feeling entirely afraid of it, but at the same time he didn’t feel quite safe enough to edge his way to the door and back into the flat.

It was a strange sort of noise the bird was making too. It wasn’t a squawk actually. More like the noise from a quiz show when somebody knows the answer, or the noise you hear when something goes wrong in the game Operation. Or the noise of a door buzzer.

The sound of Ali’s voice in the hall woke him from his dream.

“Oh it’s you. Yeah, sure, come on up.”

A few minutes later he heard Adam’s voice say a tired hello.

“Adam, it’s ten to fucking nine” Ali said. “What are you doing here? Has something happened?”

“Daniel texted me last night – told me I had to come over first thing. Isn’t he up?”

Daniel glanced at the bedside clock. Why had he invited Adam over?

“I don’t think so” he heard Ali reply. “Come on through anyway, you look like shit by the way”.

Daniel gave it a minute, then dragged himself out of bed, pushed his way through the two doors into the lounge, heaved his bedraggled body slowly across the floor, and crumpled onto the sofa. Without even asking, Ali switched the kettle on.

“Wow. You look fucking rough too” she said cheerily.

He looked slowly up at her, summoning every bit of energy available, his eyelids feeling very heavy. But then silently, the skin across his face relaxed and a grin gradually spread across the full breadth.

“I. Am. Victorious” he said, maintaining eye contact with every word.

Adam laughed. “Someone got laid.”

“You look like you hooked up with Matt Damon” Ali ventured.

“Better.”

“Well it definitely didn’t start well” Adam said. He filled Ali in on the potential nightmare scenario of Daniel being stuck in the club with Jay, his high school suitor and Nate, the predatory best friend of his ex.

“In fact the last I saw of you, the student had one hand on the back of your neck.”

“What, and you did nothing about it?” Ali asked, turning to Adam.

Adam looked shifty. “I was, otherwise engaged…”

Daniel laughed and picked up the story.

“No, there was nothing going on there, I promise. The first thing I did was tell Jay in no uncertain terms that he was never going to flirt with me again or I’d speak to every bouncer on Canal Street and make sure they knew to look out for his fake ID. I sent him to get a glass of water and I watched him drink it, before anything else.

“Then, seeing that Adam was fully occupied, I decided to take some action. I walked up to Nate who was coming on to some guy in a far corner of the bar. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt, and pulled him away and against the wall. And I said to him. You’ve got one chance with me, and that’s right now, tonight”.

Daniel laughed, hardly believing what his memory told him.

“Then I said to him, how badly do you want it?”

“Oh god” Ali said, “you watch way too many porn films.”

“I know. And he was like, come on then fuck-puppet, let’s go.

“So we stumbled our way back to his, stopping in every doorway to kiss hard and grab each other all over, and we had honestly the most mind blowing athletic sex until about four in the morning. Then I cleaned myself up, and walked to the door. He was still trying to grab me again, but I smiled and pushed him away and left.”

“Wow” Adam said, shaking his head in wonder.

Daniel thought back to school and to Jordan McKenzie and the football guys, all athletic, and muscular, and brutal. He had lusted after them for so long, even though they had taken no interest in him at all. Those guys had always made him feel powerless, weak and inadequate.

But last night with Nate he was the one in control. It didn’t matter how broad and muscular and sporty Nate was, he stopped being the bully, or the unattainable footballer. He became just a guy, a body to get pleasure from; a notch on the bedpost. It didn’t matter that Daniel was the bottom. That wasn’t what it was about. He had been in control. It was like an awakening.

“I was so awesome”.

“So are you going to see him again?” Adam asked.

“No way. I fucked him and chucked him. No apologies. No repeats. I win.”

“My boy wonder” Ali said proudly. She turned to Adam. “So what about you?”

“Oh yeah” Adam said, seeming to remember something. “I think I’ve got a boyfriend”.

Daniel turned to him. “That’s amazing. So what, you chucked Ryan into the long grass and got chatting to some hot stud in the bar?”

“Ryan?” Ali asked

“Yeah, you remember that sleazy guy Adam went on a date with…”

Ali tapped his arm.

“…he was there too, with his excessive hair gel and…”

Ali hit his arm harder and he turned to see Adam looking a little uneasy.

“Oh no.”

“Yep” Adam confirmed.

“The new boyfriend is…”

“Yep.”

“Shit. Look, I mean, Ryan has his good points…”

“It’s fine. I think he’s different when you get to know him a bit.”

“Yeah…” Daniel said, trying to sound optimistic.

He shot a look across to Ali, which Adam saw.

“Ok, I know what you’re thinking but he shags like a bunny, so I don’t care.”

Ali smiled. “Good then”.

She finished making tea for them all and brought it across.

“So, what are you doing here at this ungodly hour?”

Adam looked across to Daniel.

“Oh, right, yeah, the news. Sorry, I totally forgot I texted you. I might have been a bit drunk.”

“If it’s not important, I could come back after we’ve all slept a bit more?”

“No, no, it’s important. Well, maybe. Nate told me something last night. Between bouts of sexual bliss.”

“Yeah?”

“Ok, so Nate is also into the whole power play kind of stuff. He knows a load of guys into pretty hardcore S&M, and he was telling me about this guy he knew who was… okay, this is going to sound odd.”

“It’s fine. I’m not Mary Whitehouse” Adam replied.

“Okay, well this guy was being, like, trained up to be a human dog kind of thing.”

“Okay…” Adam said, cautiously.

Ali looked confused. “What the fuck does a human dog mean?”

“Honestly, best not to ask. But this training started a few months ago. Nate obviously thought it was hilarious that someone would do that. But the guy being trained is about our age and he was previously some kind of software engineer.”

“Right…” Adam said, still apparently having no idea where this was going.

“Well, don’t you get it? This process takes people out of their normal lives. It might for example make it seem like they’re a missing person.”

“Oh…” Adam said, the relevance dawning on him.

“And most importantly, the guy being trained, he used to be called Steve”.

“Aha” Adam said, his eyebrows raising.

“What’s he called now?” Ali asked.

Daniel stared at her, his half-functioning brain suddenly stumped by the unexpected question.

“I don’t know. Rover or something?”

Adam leant forward, keen to move the conversation on. “So you think this might be Paul’s missing ex?”

“It’s got to be a possibility, hasn’t it?”

Adam looked to be stewing all of this over.

“So how do we get in touch with this guy? Did you get his number from Nate?”

Daniel paused. It was his turn to look stumped. Did he get a phone number from Nate? The truth slowly dawned on him, and his hangover-death-face returned.

“Oh no” Adam said, a smile creeping onto his face.

“You didn’t ask him for the number” Ali said.

Daniel shut his eyes, hoping they would reopen to an alternate reality.

“No apologies. No repeats” Adam said, shaking his head.

Daniel picked up his tea. “Fine. I don’t need my dignity. I’ll call him again.”

Daniel showered, dressed and returned to his room, waiting a few minutes until the clock turned 10am before making the call. His heart was beating hard in his chest.

It rang a few times, and he blindly hoped that there would be no answer. But then there it was. That cocky, spine chilling laugh that he hated and adored.

“Fuck Danny boy. I text Dean when I woke up and bet him £20 that within two days you’d be crawling back for more. Fuck though. Less than 12 hours. You must have really loved it.”

Daniel gritted his teeth. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think about how he was feeling during sex last night.

“Fuck yeah. I’m so horny for more…”

“Mmm. I know you are Danny boy.”

“Nate…” he said, ready to move on to his real motive.

“Be here 9 o’clock tonight right. And don’t even think about wearing underwear”. He could hear Nate’s grin down the phone.

He couldn’t help it. Hearing that voice again, he knew he did want more. There was nothing to stop him though. He could sneak out of the flat later on, no-one would know. Maybe he’d been wrong about Nate. Maybe that sexual aggression could be compatible with a caring, respectful relationship. Maybe Nate wanted to settle down and they could be a regular couple. And they could fuck like that every night.

“Ok, sure”.

“You better be. Alright, I’ve got to go…”

“Nate…” he said again, remembering once more the reason for the call.

“What?”

“You remember the guy we talked about. The dog guy?”

Nate laughed that arrogant belly laugh again.

“Danny boy… you’re even kinkier than I thought”

“No, it’s not for me”, he said earnestly. “I just wanted his number…for a friend”. This sounded so lame. He hadn’t thought it through at all. “Is that ok?”

Nate paused, and Daniel was sure he was going to say no.

“I guess so” Nate said finally. “He’s always on the look-out for new boys. Don’t you go calling him though. I’m not up for sharing my fucktoy. Not yet anyway”. That arrogant laugh again.

A switch flicked in Daniel’s brain. What had he been thinking? Nate was still the same arsehole he’d always been. He grimaced and said nothing though. It was just another hammer blow for his self esteem.

Nate read the number and Daniel grabbed a pen and pad and wrote it down. He read it back to check.

“That’s the one Danny boy. So I’ll see you at nine yeah? You know there’s no escape from me now?”

Daniel inhaled deeply and summoned his last reserves of energy.

“Actually no” he said. His voice was solemn and without malice. “I’ve changed my mind. I walked out earlier because you’ve always been a dick to me, and you always will be a dick to me. So for once I’m choosing no dick. Today, for once, I win.”

He ripped the phone from his ear and pressed the call end button, as if it was the defuse button on a bomb.

Out of the ashes at his feet came the glorious flapping wings of a phoenix.

Daniel opened the door to head back to the lounge and immediately outside found Adam and Ali standing proudly, each of them holding an arm aloft for a double high five, which, after initial hesitation, he dispatched.

“I don’t even need to be angry about earwigging today” he said and floated back through to the lounge.