Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

'Michael.' His father is starting to get angry.

Michael howls, and covers his face, and bolts from the room. The gesture is perfectly sincere, but Michael is also aware of very slightly overplaying it. He is offering up the shame and guilt and self-disgust his father wants him to feel. He runs out the front door, and down the steps.

'Michael! Michael!' his father shouts after him.

Michael has forgotten the key and the security gate is locked.

'Michael!'

He hears the apartment door slam, and feet on the steps. The gate and fence are metal poles with something like spikes on the top, with crossbars only at the top and bottom. Michael jumps and hoists himself up. His shirt catches and tears. He stumbles and kicks and topples forwards, hands reaching out to take the blow. Grit is driven into them and his knee thumps hollowly on the sidewalk. He stands up and his knee is weak under him. He has to hobble along the sidewalk. It runs parallel to the fence, and on the other side of the fence his father strolls alongside him, on his way back to the condo staircase.

'I'll keep it simple, Michael. I'll just tell her what's happened. I won't make any trouble. You'll have to face her sooner or later, boy. And yourself.'

And his father climbs up the staircase to the waiting phone.

Michael hobbles on towards the beach. He can hear the sea, shushing like a mother to quiet his fears. 'Oh man, oh man.' Michael says to himself, over and over.

At 3:15 am there are birds singing somewhere and there is a steely hint of dawn. He stomps flat-footed down the steps from the cliffs onto the beach. There is no one, just security lights blazing in shrubbery, street lights, the odd light bulb over the driveway into holiday apartments.

What Michael wants to do is flee. He wants to slip back into the apartment when his father is at work and pack up his things, maybe take some food, and not go back to either home. He can't stand the thought of being back in either home. He just wants to disappear.

He flings himself down onto a hollow in the sand, in the dark, hoping that no one can see him.

The breakers keep pummelling. They keep coming back, one after another. You imagine a little kid in them, and he keeps getting knocked over, and the kid wonders why they don't stop. They pull out for a little while, and the little kid thinks oh good, it's gone, I can swim now, and then the wave hits him again.

There is no way this is going to get better. Everything, everything is going to change. He saw his mother's long face. What is she going to make of this? What is he going to tell her? She knows I wanted to live with Dad. Now she'll know why. She probably knows that now, right now. And she'll know that Dad will want her to pick up the pieces again. It would be hard enough for her to find out I'm gay, but that I was crazy enough to make a pass at my own father. That I would be that dumb, that sicko.

Of all the guys in the world, why your father?

Because he's beautiful. Michael saw his father's face, his body, and the colour of his skin. He remembered the smell of him, the smell of his mouth, the feel of his lips. The love, the sexual love flooded back. In the end losing his father hurt the most, or rather, losing the dream of him. That's why I did it; that's why I dreamed myself into a hole. I could have shut up, not told him, lived my little dream. For how long, Michael? He would have started to ask you about girlfriends. He might have noticed my eyes straying. Sooner or later something like tonight would have happened.

Michael faced inevitability. This was always going to happen, he realized. From the moment I started making my plans, this was waiting for me.

So it really wouldn't have been any good if I'd been smarter. Dad never would have loved me.

Michael started to weep again, for that lost dream; it had been his life over the last two months, and he had no other life to mourn. He'd already left his old one.

Michael must have fallen asleep in the end. Suddenly there was sunlight. Seagulls made exhilarating noises, one after another like the bells of many churches. There was a paved road along this stretch of beach and all along it old ladies were walking their dogs, or businessmen were jogging in grey tracksuits. For a moment it was beautiful, and then Michael remembered. He looked at his watch. It was 6:10. What if Dad came looking for him?

Michael stood up and started to hobble further down the beach towards Carlsbad. Between Carlsbad and Oceanside there was a marsh, a wildlife reserve with a lagoon and birds. The main road raced through the middle of it on a causeway. So did the railway on a separate series of bridges. If Michael slipped under the railway, he could hide from the road, amid the reeds. Then maybe about ten o'clock he could go and have breakfast at Cafe 101. He could pack some stuff and take off.

Well maybe. How was he going to take off? By bus? How much money did he have? What was he going to do? Say: Hey, Dad, I'm running away from home, can I borrow the car? It began to feel like another dream. He had developed distaste for dreams.

He felt exposed, naked in the wide expanse of beach and brilliant sunshine. He turned off the beach and limped as fast as he could up onto the railway. He scanned the road, slipping on gravel, for any sign of a blue Ford. He hobbled along the tracks, visible all the while from the road.

Finally he saw the pathway under the railroad. He skidded down the bank, and ducking low, scampered under the bridge.

The lagoon was lined with the backs of expensive homes and the railway. There was no road anywhere near it. Michael squatted on the banks and looked at the insect patterns imprinted on the creamy mud. He waited.

He remembered his Dad used to bring him here, to look at the birds, and spend an hour or two fishing. It was always hot and still. What do you think of your son now, Dad? Michael asked the memory of his fishing father. The sun pounded like unrelenting boredom.

Hungry, Mikey? You've still got the price of a Huevos Rancheros in your pocket. In a week you won't.

Just how much of a baby are you, Michael? This is what a five-year-old does. He decides to run away and gets halfway down the block before realizing that he can't cope.

Michael slapped his own face again. He had to slap something, he was so mad, so bereaved, so ashamed. He couldn't stand it. He couldn't stand being inside his own skin. He seethed tinder his skin, like oil in a joint being roasted in the oven. You're not hitting hard enough, Michael. He really slammed himself on the cheek. It went numb. He picked up a stone and drove it as hard as he could into the centre of his face. His nose started to bleed. Drops of blood dotted his trousers.

Stupid fucking fairy, what the stupid fucking hell good does that do? He broke down again, and started to cry. It was late and getting hot and he was sick from hunger, bleeding, and lack of sleep. Ten am. Maybe it was safe to get going.

A train roared overhead, hooting and rocking the track from side to side like a crib. Michael toyed with the idea of waiting for the next train and walking under it. That might even look like an accident.

The thought of Huevos Rancheros made him decide he wanted to be around. And that made him laugh and snuffle at the same time. All I've got to look forward to is a 101 breakfast.

He strode alongside the tracks, perfectly safely into Oceanside. He climbed up another bank onto a side street and walked among all the whispering ranch-style homes, with their lawns and succulent ground cover being automatically watered. Michael was watered too. He washed the blood off his face.

He turned up the street to the cafe and went in the back door from the parking lot, and the first person he saw in a booth was Dad. Michael thought about turning and running and realized that he didn't have the strength.