Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

Michael indicated the way to the bathroom and showed Lawrence how the shower worked.

'It has a pump?' Lawrence asked.

'Yeah, I guess so. There's a switch you have to turn on, only I leave it on all the time.'

'Water,' said Lawrence in a slightly wondering voice.

He made Michael feel graceless. Michael was never prepared for his creations to be more powerful than he was. And yet he should be prepared for it; they somehow were; as if they used him as a filter to strain their impurities. Thinking of the neighbours and what he hoped was to come he pulled the curtains shut. And finally, he picked up the blue and white paper that enfolded his Viagra and finally read its small blue print. The instructions said: take one hour before intercourse. Michael was going to have to engage Lawrence of Arabia in an hour's conversation.

Lawrence re-entered the room, moving without sound, without even disturbing the air. He was unashamed of his nakedness and was slightly erect, perhaps because his relative vulnerability excited him.

'So,' Lawrence asked, and began towelling himself vigorously as if to chafe away a layer of skin. He still smelled of sweat. 'What year is it?'

Michael told him.

'Is there a state of Israel?'

'Yes.' Michael felt awkward standing, but somehow unwilling to sit on the sofa.

'What has it done to the Arabs?'

'Moved them to one side. Integrated some of them into the state of Israel. Fought wars with the others.'

Lawrence rubbed; streaks of pink abrasion began to appear on his milk-white legs. 'Two great people destroyed. The last breath of British imperialism.'

Lawrence shook his head and sat down on Michael's living-room carpet with the abruptness of a wolf. He looked at Michael and Michael saw that yes, the blue-grey eyes were those of a wolf, in a boyish scholar's face, prematurely aged.

'Sit next to me,' Lawrence said, kindly. He looked utterly at home on the desert-coloured carpet.

Michael did, stiffly.

'I had a wonderful death. Don't you think? Still young on a motorcycle.'

Michael smiled at the pride. 'It is something of a prototype.'

'I hope that doesn't mean people imitate it!'

'No. But live fast, die young, James Dean, that kind of thing is around, but not really because of you.'

Lawrence 's head dipped in frustration. 'My entire life was spent trying to avoid power.'

His skinny body, the slightly awkward way it moved – oh, God, it reminded Michael of Phil. The pubes were shaved like an Arab's. Like a young boy just come into puberty. How many people does this man contain?

'Why avoid power?'

The grey eyes looked up, undeniable. 'Because I could have destroyed the world. I had it in me.'

From nowhere there was a yellow, rolled-up cigarette, lit and smelling of hashish. 'And because wisdom does not lie in power. You must have the potential for power, but use the power for different things. I wanted to be wise. I failed of course. I wanted to be a poet and a warrior and an historian.' The face closed slightly with tension. 'Do people still read my book?'

Michael did not have the heart to tell him that he had read only parts of it and thought it was horribly overwritten. 'It's everywhere. Though, to tell you the truth, most people see the movie.'

Lawrence closed his eyes and went very still. 'They made a film,' he said, as if in dread.

'I've got it on video; do you want to see it?'

'No!' said fiercely. Thank you,' said gently. 'It was kind of you to offer. I can imagine that the movie is very romantic. For those of us who understand English, the verb to romance means to lie.'

Hospitality, Michael thought, Arab hospitality. He had difficulty fighting his way to his knees. 'Would you like some tea?'

'Tea would be lovely, thank you,' said Lawrence and rewarded him with the most beautiful of smiles under the most doubtful of eyes.

Lawrence made Michael feel lonely. Michael asked him, 'Come and talk to me while I make it?'

Lawrence slid to his feet, as if gravity worked in reverse for him. He padded behind Michael into the kitchen.

Michael asked, 'Is tea all right? Are you hungry?'

'I try to be independent of food,' said Lawrence smiling, grasping his wrist again.

Michael was cursing his ignorance. It wasn't that he had only skimmed The Seven Pillars of Wisdom. He realized he knew nothing of the history. There must be a thousand questions that an educated person could ask Lawrence of Arabia. Michael had only one.

'Is it true that you had many Arab lovers?'

'No,' replied Lawrence. 'I had very few.'

'Is it true that your book is dedicated

'Yes.' Lawrence cut him off with a single, perfectly timed downward nod of the head. 'We all have a love of our life.'

Michael lowered his eyes and lapsed into a podgy English miserablism. 'I wish I did.'

'Tuh,' said Lawrence, a kind of chuckle, dismissive but affectionate. He leaned against the archway into the kitchen. He looked like a teenage girl, a bold Italian gamine, leaning against the village fountain. 'You may just have met him,' he said lightly, his eyes hooded, his smile teasing. He was naked, but clothed in something other. It was Michael who was embarrassed.

Michael clattered the teapot and cups onto a tray, and carried it rattling into the sitting room. They sat down on the carpet again, and Lawrence imperceptibly took over the serving of the tea.

Lawrence passed Michael a cup. It went out like a heartfelt gesture. 'What the Arabs taught me is that eloquence, even when overwrought or extravagant as some of their verse appears to be in translation, has a shape, an architecture that carries its own meaning.' Lawrence placed the teapot and sugar bowl on the carpet in a pattern as formed as a cuneiform wordsign from Nineveh. 'This shapeliness is mirrored in their calligraphy, in which the writing becomes a dance. The strange effect of all this is that in practice, and I mean the practice of love, their sexual cues are verbal. Ours are visual, related usually to looks. Theirs are veiled physically, but naked verbally. They say things such as, "Love exists to grow a new part of the soul, as my love for you has done. So even in Paradise, there will be part of my soul called Lawrence." '

'Someone said that to you?' asked Michael in wonder. Doh. Lawrence 's eyes were filmed over. His voice was slightly rougher when he said, 'You can sit closer to me, if that is your desire.'

Michael understood that this was an act of kindness, to understand and to do all of the work. Michael smiled at himself, to acknowledge that he was behind in the game. Feeling thick-arsed, Michael snailed himself in heaving stages six inches nearer to Lawrence.

'You have never suffered physically,' judged Lawrence.

Michael shook his head, no.

'I always made myself suffer physically, so that I would be enduring when I most needed to be. I would do without food or sleep or water. I would walk barefoot miles over rocks, so that I would disdain the physical.'

Michael was puzzling his way through the words. 'It's true. The worst I've had is a sprained ankle.'

The heat and the dust and starvation all burn away illusion. The body is an illusion.'

Michael was beginning to fall in love.

Lawrence looked at him, fiercely. 'I have never,' he said, 'allowed myself to achieve a sexual climax.'

Michael was beginning to fall out of love. Lawrence of Arabia was barking mad.

Then Lawrence of Arabia pulled Michael to him. The arms were still hot from sunlight. The wolf eyes blazed with a demand. They were insisting. They were insisting on something that was only somewhat like sex.

'Be my desert,' Lawrence demanded. 'Be my sunlight. Burn me.'

Michael looked at his watch. 'I have to keep you talking for twenty more minutes.'