Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

James and George saw the car parked outside the local hotel and heard roars of laughter, and decided not to go in. Ah, it would be a great story to tell. Apparently the driver told it, roaring with laughter, buying drinks. These two fellows, he said, one of them a monk, and they both dived into a ditch! Maybe they thought it was the crack of doom.

The locals knew. Two men, one of them a monk, did not walk out together at night. The publican and his regulars neither knew nor really cared who the man was: likely a substantial citizen. But a monk was not exactly a man; if he went with other men then he was a monk who was doing the Devil's work.

'Would the monk be having blond hair?' asked the landlord, which earned a roar of steely laughter.

James was called into the Abbot's office, and the story of the motor car recounted as if it had happened to someone else. The Abbot said nothing too direct. A few of James's unexplained absences were noted, and he was asked, in the kindest, most helpful way, if perhaps he would not be interested in an exciting mission to California.

'So that was the end of George Kelly and me.' James seemed quite cheerful about it. 'At least I got out of Clonmel. And into all that sunshine.'

They kissed again, and the Viagra moved into the bed with them. James became suddenly demanding and masculine. In the street lights, Michael saw the outline of his lean stomach. Michael counted the years. If James were still alive, he would now be over ninety years old. James entered him.

I hope you found someone, James. I hope the sun and the sea and the health of California urged you to throw off your robes. I hope you moved to Santa Monica and met Christopher Isherwood, and set up a retreat in Big Sur. Or that you and one of your brother monks quietly and discreetly tied the knot. I hope you played guitar around campfires for many years to come, and that your God reciprocated your love.

Or maybe I'll wish even you another life in which George Kelly goes after you and comes whistling up to the mission over the brow of a California hill. I think I'll see that and wish it, and then I'll put you both there. Somewhere else.

'Good night,' said the monk, and kissed him again. 'I'd like to go home now, if I may.' He went with a sound of a whisper in the air.

It was two in the morning, and Michael was left alone.

The miracle was a wonder, but what good was it if it left you alone? What good did it do you if it meant you had no one in your life. What had Billie said? People want love?

'Henry?' he asked. 'Henry, are you there?'

Henry, naked, was suddenly at the foot of the bed, his wings folding shut.

'Henry,' Michael began shyly. 'Henry… could there be two of you?'

Henry rested his chin on his hands, tossed the tousle of his hair away from his face. 'There already are,' he replied. 'Me and the one asleep with Philip.'

'Well. If there are, could one of them live with me, too?'

It wasn't a handsome face, but it was a good face, and it widened in sympathy and a kind of amusement. 'You know the answer to that is yes. But is that what the miracle is about?'

'I don't know what it's about and I don't care.'

'Oh, you do care. Because you know that the universe can't keep twisting itself into new knots just to keep you happy.'

'That's why I want it to stop. I'm sick of people who fade out.'

Henry smiled. 'You're sick of Angels then. And what am I, Michael?'

Michael closed his eyes and sighed.

'Maybe it's time to try your wings,' said the Angel, and smiled.

Who's for real?

In the last days of his marriage to Phil, as promiscuity took hold, Michael often went to Russell Square.

Usually, he would be a bit drunk, having spent an evening with one of his own few friends. The controls would be switched off. Usually the controls warned Michael that what the Square contained was dangerous. Drunk, he didn't care.

In the early nineties, the untended shrubbery would be full of groups of men, some on their knees, others with shorts down. It was a curiously generous place, where strangers would give their all, or what they could.

A sweet and beautiful black man with liquid eyes would suddenly offer his rear. A German tourist would walk you safely home and say good night on the doorstep. An Israeli soldier, as big as Schwarzenegger, would shake with excitement in your grasp, and quickly go through every sexual motion, short of coming. There were people who wanted to pick someone up and take them home. There were people who only wanted to touch a dick with the tips of their fingers and then leave.

As the nineties progressed, the shrubbery was trimmed and the arrival of police cars grew more frequent. Circles of hardier souls would gather around a small public utility, rather like a gas meter or water pump that was camouflaged with a screen of green wooden slats. Inside those protective walls, it could be as crowded as a rush-hour tube train. Once Michael found himself wanking off an extremely well-endowed Australian, while his own penis was flailed with desperate vigour by a Japanese tourist who stayed completely zipped in. Whatever they wanted, they all kept Russell Square in a sealed compartment away from the rest of their lives.

Michael was here because he could not take people back to the flat. Michael's offer was clear. Hi, I have a boyfriend but we're not faithful, and I'm passive and here for safe sex.

Others seemed to say: I don't want love; love hurts. Or, I am HIV positive and I don't care who I make ill. Or, I am not HIV positive but I'm pissed and I no longer care… for now. Hiya, my name is Nick and I play the cello and live at home and I am very slightly crazy, enough to be on medication, and I am lonely and this makes me feel less alone.

Hello, I'm an American tourist and I come here once every five years and my wife back in the hotel thinks I am out for an evening stroll.

Hi, my name is Adam and I'm rich and sixteen and I have a car of my own.

Michael's idea of getting real was to go back to Russell Square. He popped a precautionary Viagra and went out.

He had forgotten that deep thrill of cruising at night. It produced a dragging sensation of mingled fear and excitement in his bowels. He could hear his own breath and found that hiseyes flicked towards any movement in the darkness. Like desire itself, seeping out of your bones, men moved in shadows, behind trees.

A young guy, a skinny student in a baseball cap, walked past Michael stony-eyed. You could tell he was a student because the baseball cap looked fake. Students mostly wanted other students. Lurking by a tree was what looked like a very short, fat Italian waiter who stared straight through Michael. Even an old guy in the rolled-up sleeves of a striped dress shirt ignored him. He had metal-frame glasses and flyaway white hair.

Michael began to get worried. Usually, you had to find something you wanted quickly. If not you could spend hours circling in the dark, past the same men eyeing up the same you, in ever decreasing spirals of lust.

A tall man strolled towards him. He would be a bit younger than Michael; white shirt, black trousers. A bouncer maybe, with a bit of a potbelly.

His eyes followed Michael as he passed, and they were blue, and his hair was a faded, natural blond. Michael couldn't help but turn his head. The man stopped, as if jingling change in his pocket. Michael felt a constriction around his heart and his breathing. The man started to walk towards him. Bingo.

'Do you live near here?' the guy muttered, the standard polite introduction. He had an Irish accent. Clonmel, Michael thought. In the yellow glare of street lights dappled through leaves, he saw a handsome, sensible face.

'I'd live anywhere you wanted me to live,' replied Michael, which was true for a moment.