Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

'Oh,' said Michael, 'I think so.'

'I'll meet you there,' said Phil. 'With mine.'

The house had a name: the Looking Glass. A sign said so, in a cluster of mirrors and neon and preserved feather boas high up, out of the reach of vandals. The walls were painted mauve covered with mirror stars along the top.

Michael arrived alone and rang the bell with a shiver of mingled anticipation and inadequacy. He held a John Lewis shopping bag full of his costume.

The door was opened by a young man dressed like Carmen Miranda. A Salvador Dali moustache was painted on his upper lip.

'Hello, I'm Billy, welcome!'

Billy kissed him on the cheek and ushered him in. There was a kind of combination office, kitchen and reception area, covered in cork with photographs pinned to the walls. There was no one else. Michael had come on time, and was the first to arrive. 'You want to change?' Billy asked.

'Yes indeed,' said Michael, feeling dowdy. 'I'm… I'm…' He tried to think of the formula: somebody's amputated other half. He showed the invitation.

Billy completed the sentence. 'You're one of the optional extras. So am I. I'm the son of the woman who keeps Zoltan's books. You and I will have more fun than all these old slags because it's all new to us. Now. I want your drink ready when you come out looking fabulous. What do you fancy?'

Michael was scared of being boring so he said, 'A margarita.'

'I meant herbal tea,' said Billy.

Michael smiled at himself. 'I don't know anything about herbal tea. Choose the nicest.'

Billy smiled too. 'The nicest for the nicest,' he said.

Michael went into the bathroom as himself and came out with Tarzan. He wore Tarzan, Tarzan was his costume. Weissmuller loomed over him, loose-limbed, brown, sprawling, barefoot. Michael wore a concealing leopard skin that crossed his chest and hid his belly, as if he were plump. If anyone asked he would say he had come as Boy.

Billy looked a bit confused. 'Two herbal teas, then.'

'Yes, thank you.'

Tarzan approved. 'Tea good. Tea come from jungle.'

'This is… uh… Johnny,' Michael explained.

'Hello Johnny.' Billy was young enough that a beautiful body was nothing special. But he kept glancing back towards the front door. How did this person get in?

'Woman pretty,' said Tarzan. 'Nice moustache.'

There was a broad staircase leading upstairs. The host must have heard voices, for suddenly he descended. He was a huge man, big in every direction, with a pregnant potbelly and a devilish goatee. He wore a sari, and from out of his back, four extra blue papier-mâché arms.

Tarzan drew his hunting knife.

'Hello, hello, and welcome. I am Zoltan… and you?' He extended a hand towards the knife. He had style.

'Tarzan. Boy,' growled Johnny, hand on knife. Zoltan's smile thinned somewhat.

'Well, I am Kali. For the evening.' Hungarian was the lightest possible seasoning in the thick soup of his Oxbridge accent.

Michael said who he was and his name seemed to evaporate even as he said it. He didn't hear it himself. Tarzan was engaged in a traditional movie-monkey greeting, making Cheetah-like noises and sniffing Zoltan's extra blue arms.

'Will your friend keep this up all evening?'

'Day and night,' said Michael.

'You've sought help for him, I hope.'

Michael said without thinking, 'No, I love him just the way he is.'

'There are some trees upstairs,' said Zoltan, speaking to Tarzan as if to an idiot. 'Figs. On the trees. You'll like figs.' He turned back to Michael. 'Harry is the gardener, you'll have to talk to him not me. Perhaps your friend would like to swing in them.'

It was a cue. Michael said thank you, and walked upstairs without his host, both of them grateful to be spared more conversation.

The room was full of mythology and mirrors: a sphinx in gold foil with turquoise eyebrows, or a fourteen-foot-high statue of Liz, portraits of the famous on mirrors so you could see yourself as them. Much of it was beautiful. Michael wished he had managed to stay the distance with Zoltan, this far at least. He would have liked to know more about the glass buddhas, the holographic eyes. One whole wall was clear glass, and beyond it, huge-leafed plants.

'What a fantastic place,' he said and sipped tea. Fancy Philip knowing someone who lived in a place like this. Michael wondered what other places Philip had visited without him. What else, indeed, did he not know about Philip?

Tarzan was unimpressed. 'Crazy place,' he said. 'Boy go. Tarzan go.'

Why, wondered Michael, am I always playing somebody's father, or somebody's son?

'We'll stay for just a little while, OK?'

The room began to fill with people: ageing psychiatrists in beards; a filmmaker who had just done a documentary about Zoltan. As Michael approached them, summoning a smile, their eyes drifted off to his left or his right. A very nice woman from the corner shop wore a blue chiffon dress in folds and was far too butch to be intimidated by anything. Michael liked the look of her, and was grateful for fifteen minutes' conversation.

'Zoltan buys mangoes from me. They're hard to get this time of year, and he's very particular.' She shook her head as if to say: you know what I mean. Her eyes gleamed up at Johnny.

There was a roar of greeting from downstairs and a sound of cheeks being kissed. An actor who was one of the glass faces had arrived. Zoltan whisked him up the stairs, holding his arm. 'Everyone, Adam's here!'

'Oooh, Adam!' said the shop owner with enthusiasm. She turned back to Michael with narrowed eyes. 'He owes me money.' She joined the surge forward.

Michael stood alone. I am here because of Phil, he remembered, to show him.

Phil arrived an hour late. He was wearing bandages and a headdress hung with daisy chains of decapitated dolls' heads. He looked like a serial killer's chandelier. It's all right for me to try too hard, Michael thought: I'm a nerdy scientist out of my depth. But you are supposed to be an artist. You are supposed to be cool.

Michael met Phil's new friend. At very first glance, there was not much to see. He was a skinny young man wearing a brown sweater with holes in it. There was something familiar about his face; maybe he was an actor.

'This is Henry,' Philip announced, his eyes flicking back and forth between him and Tarzan. The dolls' heads kept clacking against each other.

Henry looked up. He had large brown eyes that engaged Michael directly with a pre-emptive warmth and kindness. The eyes seemed to say I know this can't be easy for you, but hi anyway. They shook hands, and Henry chuckled. God, he was handsome. His smile was sweet and broad and his skin was perfect, very pale but with flushed pink cheeks and a complexion as unblemished as shaving foam.

'Nice to meet you, Henry,' Michael said. 'Congratulations.'

'Why?' Henry asked. His voice was surprisingly resonant, rumbling.

'For not being bullied into thinking you've got to keep up with the rich and outrageous.'

'I don't have any money,' Henry said, and smiled and shrugged. Educated, Michael decided, old family, possibly dropped out. At a guess, I'd say you were the son of someone landed with a big farm in Norfolk, that you live in the country and possibly have a pair of tame jackdaws that sit on your shoulder.

Michael liked him. 'I don't think you're the type that would dress up anyway.'

Henry gave a very gentle bow of acknowledgement. 'Probably not, no.'

Michael fancied him. It was the same old mystery. Even Michael didn't think Philip was good-looking, but his boyfriends were always gorgeous. I'm forever fancying your boyfriends, Phil. Michael felt a thin strain of regret for his old marriage.

'Are you going to introduce me?' Phil asked, nodding towards Johnny.

'Him Tarzan,' said Michael. 'Me Boy.'