Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

He really couldn't think why he should be crying. He had a good job, didn't he? He had a flat in London 's prosperous West End. He had a sensible relationship that had lasted nearly thirteen years. His papers had helped earn his ex-polytechnic a 5 from the Higher Research Board. Who was he, to be unhappy? Who, indeed, was Michael?

So where is Philip?

Out, as always. Michael had no idea where.

It hadn't always been like that. There was a time when they did things together and regularly cooked meals for each other. There was a time when he and Phil regularly attempted to make love.

They'd met more than twelve years before. Michael had been 26 and had his father's athletic build. His beard outlined a smooth and doleful face, but in doleful repose it was rather beautiful. His hair, for once, was cut short. Michael at 26 was many people's cup of tea, if not exactly his own.

They met at First Out, a gay coffee shop. Phil was trying to find copies of the free newspapers. Michael gave him his, and Phil sat next to him in the window.

Phil had been skinny, intense and spotty. His cheeks were pitted, but that only increased the craggy drama of his face. He was all a-quiver, in his first week of art school, nineteen, terrified, anxious, and aggressive, like a stray terrier needing a home. It is perhaps to Michael's credit that he found this touching, moving and beautiful in a way.

Their attachment was brusque. Halfway through the first lovemaking session, Michael had known it would work. Philip was hot to the touch and his ribcage showed pale and lean. His hands shivered like butterflies. The two men made a shape together – Michael's bulk against Philip's fragility – that seemed to tell a coherent story.

On their second date, Michael called Philip 'my love'. Phil hated his student roommates; they didn't wash their cutlery or themselves. He needed a place to crash, he said. Michael, full of hope, asked Phil to live with him. There was something suddenly erotic about being the older man, about offering a flat, an income, a routine, a home. Philip moved in two weeks later.

Domestication with its rituals over salt and spoons soothed them both. They took turns with the washing-up and shared expenses, and settled quickly into a life of tidal regularity. There was something soothing, too, about being with someone whom so few people would find attractive.

The age difference helped. Michael could play the role of protector and teacher; and Philip was insecure and young for his age and needed that. For a time it was charming that Philip's nickname for Michael was 'Father'. It sounded like an old-fashioned marriage. 'Hello, Father,' Philip would call out on Michael's arrival home, or when Michael showed up at the pub for a crawl.

Early on, before art school got to him, Phil painted Michael's portrait. This was before Philip stared to glue dirty carpet onto metal poles, so it was a perfectly conventional painting. Philip said that it was designed to fill a niche in the sitting room.

It portrayed Michael as ballast. The jacket, slightly crumpled, looked like a carved stone replica of clothing. The weight of his body was given a granite substance, and he stood feet well apart looking as immovable as the Earth. The painting was called 'Taurus'. At least in the beginning, Michael was an anchoring point.

Even then the sex didn't work. But it didn't work in a strange backward way that they both noted and were proud of. It seemed to confirm they were some kind of perfect match. They would allude to it lightly, discreetly to their very best friends.

Phil hated any male response from his partners at all. For all his fluttering, or perhaps because of it, he would not suck Michael's cock and found the idea of anal penetration repulsive. Which was just as well, considering Michael could not penetrate whipped cream.

It was no mystery to Michael why Philip was screwed up. A year after they met, Philip finally summoned the nerve to take Michael home to meet his parents. Michael would not have believed Roland and Virginia if he had not met them. They were fake posh. They pretended to be from Surrey, where they now lived. Who in their right mind pretended to be posh these days?

Philip's father was some kind of retired manager from ICI. He had a worn moustache and some kind of dressing on his hair which rendered it flat and glossy. Roland wore navy blazers without the right to, and shirts whose thick blue stripes were still somehow garish. Virginia 's hair was died orange and piled high like Margaret Thatcher's, and she had an air of studied, delicate refinement. She talked like an actress in a 1950s film.

They had made cucumber sandwiches. Their teapot had pink curlicues. Michael kept his eyes fixed on it as Philip's mother made efforts to persuade her son to go back to medical school. They didn't like the idea of art school at all. Roland was robust. 'Don't want people to think you hang around with a bunch of arty-farty people, Philip.' Arty-farty meant queer. Roland was supposed to have no idea about his son's sexuality. Only Philip's mother 'knew'.

The family had a best room that was kept under wraps, and of which Michael was vouchsafed a glimpse. The furniture was sealed in plastic and the carpets covered with protecting translucent treads. It was as if they wanted people to have safe sex with the sofa. The dresser proudly displayed the Wedgwood china, which was never used. 'This is for special events,' said Philip's mother, communicating with no effort that the first visit of her son's partner was not special enough.

When Philip's sister died unexpectedly, his mother rang to ask that Michael not come to the funeral, as it was 'a family occasion'. In any event, Michael was not 'to visit quite so often, as it might give rise to questions'.

'I'll make it easy,' said Michael. 'I won't go at all.'

'That's not what she wants, Michael,' said Philip, looking anguished.

'It's what I want,' said Michael. 'I don't like being treated like the mad aunt in the attic. It'll be easier for you too. You won't even have to mention me.'

Indeed, Michael was not mentioned in family conversation. Philip's family weekends were now just another period of absence.

Which Michael had been grateful for, as it made it easier to bring people back. It's how most gay marriages are supposed to work. You get tired of sex with each other, and being a man yourself you understand: it's fun to be let off your leash for a scamper.

But when does it cease to be that? When do you start hoping he won't be home so you can bring a trick back? When do you start saying: 'Got another arts do on tonight. You won't want to come, will you?' When do you start slipping sideways into bushes at Russell Square after every social engagement?

How long is it then before there is no sexual side to the marriage? What do you call the marriage then? Like other mainly financial arrangements, you might call it a partnership. They still both took a measure of pride in it.

'He's a scientist,' Phil said at a recent party, as if clearing the table for a specially cooked, nut-free dish. Philip at 31 was already beginning to look ragged and discontent. 'He's doing brain research. You're trying to prove we have a soul aren't you?'

'Do we have a soul then?' asked Jimmy Banter. He was a better-known artist than Philip. He had a merry smile and a watchful eye.

'What we have,' said Michael, feeling his weight, 'is more like a centre of gravity. You can't find a centre of gravity surgically. It's not an organ or an inner eye. You won't find a car part called the centre of gravity, but the car has one anyway. The self is like that. It's the centre of focus if you like, where all the stresses and strains of the brain come together.'

Jimmy Banter looked over his shoulder. 'Is that why you've got such a big ego then, Phil? All those stresses and strains?' Jimmy disliked weight and he disliked bald truth but he loved drama.