Geoff Ryman - Lust Or No Harm Done

'I am so English.'

'You really gay?'

'Yup.'

'What's that like?'

'No different from being straight… except you lead a different life.'

'Did you, like, really make a pass at Dad?'

'Yes.'

'Jeesh. You're really sick.' He was amused. Michael thought he was going to say something like Gross-out City. Instead he said, 'Do you like me too?'

'Up to a point.'

The teenager's grin was steady. 'Jeez. What don't you like about me?'

Michael stirred. 'Your attitude. I know what's inside and I know what you're hiding. Remember, I never saw Dad when we were kids. So, whenever I did see him, he didn't feel like my father. When I did see him, he was my ideal man.'

There was a glimmer of understanding. The voice went softer. 'Mine too. He sees my kids a lot. He comes up that driveway and they go running out. "Grandpa Blasco! Grandpa Blasco." 'Cause he always brings them little presents and stuff, you know.'

Tell him I love him.'

Michael Blasco sighed. 'Where I am, you don't exist. And him and me, we don't have to tell each other that shit. We just know.'

'Cool,' said Michael, smiling.

'Cool,' agreed Michael the Angel. He looked around him at the walls and his face screwed up with distaste. 'Are all English bathrooms this colour?'

'Only Mum's.'

'I keep thinking I'll go and visit. I remember my English half too. Keep an eye open, you might even see me in London, England.'

They didn't really have much to say to each other. The other Michael narrowed his eyes. 'So. I guess I'll be on my way. It's been really… weird.'

'I'll go,' said Michael.

He stepped out of the bathroom. And looked down the corridor past both bedrooms to the sitting room. Somebody was watching the TV. He could hear sobbing music, and a breathy, posed woman's voice whisper a scripted lament. He padded down the corridor. The carpet and the walls were white.

In the Oceanside living room, another Michael was watching a movie at 3.00 am. He was crying, and hugging and chewing a pillow at the same time. He was practically bald, with long hair in wisps, and just above the ears, a line of black scabs.

Michael sat down on the sofa next to him, gently, fearful of disturbing or even breaking him. 'Hiya,' he said gently.

'Hiya,' this Michael replied, miserable, and with a quick jab wiped his face.

'Howya doin'?'

'Oh,' this one sighed. 'Not so chipper.' He had lost even more weight than our Michael had.

'Where have you spent the last twenty years?'

This Michael didn't want to talk. He wanted to watch his movie. It was Gene Tierney. Who, these days, was a Gene Tierney fan?

'Are you gay?'

Long pause. 'Uh-huh.' An American yes.

'Did you marry Dad?'

Longer pause. 'I divorced him.' With a shiver of irritation, curdled anger, this Michael suddenly roused himself and snapped off the television from the remote control. He turned and faced Michael, looking like death. 'So what exactly do you want to know?'

'What happened?'

'What the hell do you think happened?'

Michael's voice went soothing. 'I don't know.'

'How long do you think you can stay married to your father?'

'Oh. I'd say until about six months after you graduate. And then everyone starts to ask when's Michael moving into a place of his own? People start to say: has Michael got a girlfriend? People start to say: Louis, are you seeing anybody? They start asking each other: have you ever seen Louis with a woman? Are you sure that's his son?'

The other Michael was looking at the TV as if the film were still showing. 'That's about it. Plus.'

'It's that plus I can't imagine.'

'Plus it fucks you up. Fucks you both up. You start saying to yourself every time you fuck and every time you don't fuck: this is my father. There is a word for this. The word is incest. It's supposed to be wrong.' This Michael punches the pillow. 'And you start to look at guys your own age. And he starts to think, it would be a lot healthier if you split up, if he found someone else too. He says that to you. You cry, because it's true. And because, goddammit, you don't want anyone else. Who could ever compete with your Dad?'

Michael asked, 'Did he start to drink?'

The other Michael just nodded. He sighed raggedly. 'And how.'

'Lose his job?'

Just a quick nod, yes. 'He had to have dental work.' Whatever that meant. 'He got all fat. You'd find him in the hall in the morning, and he'd shat himself. He'd get drunk and yell things. One day I just got in the car and started driving.'

'Bad scene.'

This Michael chuckled and shuddered at once.

'But you got out.'

A kind of cough. 'Not really, no. No, I wouldn't say that.'

'How come?'

'Let your father fuck you for seven years and find out.'

Michael coughed. 'I never did. I tried. I never did.'

Michael the Angel said, 'You end up in LA, you hit the bars and declare open season on your ass.' He shrugged. 'It was the 1980s. I got sick.'

'Michael, love. Is there somebody there?' It was his mother, calling from the spare bedroom.

Michael's heart stopped. He looked about the room. This was California; she shouldn't be there.

The other Michael answered, shouting towards the bedrooms. 'It's OK, Mom. I'm just talking to myself.' He leaned towards Michael. Michael could see the shape of his skull. 'She came over to take care of me. She's a nice lady.'

'She is,' murmured Michael. 'Look. I don't want her to see me.'

The patient's eyes said: she'd love to see you. You're healthy.

'See you around,' said Michael.

'You hope not,' said the other Michael. He flicked the film back on. Gene Tierney sat in a casino that was in circles like a circus.

'What year is it?' Michael asked.

'1995. Early.'

Before the three-drug treatment. Michael felt sick. He walked unsteadily back to the California bedroom.

His father was in bed waiting for him, but there were strands of muscle down his neck, and his pectorals sagged like an old woman's dugs and were thicketed with snow-white hair. His face had collapsed.

'Everything all right, Mikey?' he asked in a phlegmy, quavering voice.

'Sure Dad.'

'I love you, baby.' His father's age-spotted hand clasped his. 'I thought you'd gone away.' The voice trailed off with relief from panic.

And it could have been this too, me at 38 and him… how old? Michael started counting and got up to 70 and stopped.

There was nowhere else to go. Michael lay down next to him. His father smelled now of dentures and catheters and the ending up of things.

Get out; go away, Michael told the apparition. Leave me alone, we never would have ended up here, it would have been terrible, sick, sad.

Michael looked back.

And in the bed, there was himself. Himself at 38 now as he was.

'Welcome home,' his self said, and held open his arms.

Michael could see that he was beautiful, and he could see his body was beautiful.

The Angel smiled shyly and rolled up and over and pulled open his cheeks, and the fur crinkled apart to show the oddly innocent-looking croissant of an orifice. Michael leaned forward to kiss this lower mouth. It was like having a foot massage – an unloved part of the body responded with delight to unexpected tenderness. Michael both gave the kiss and felt it.

Michael was surprised how feminine his body looked with its hips spread wide, and the back arched. This only made him love it more, so he stretched forward and kissed the back of his own neck, which he had never really been able to see before. It was the youngest part of his body. It looked sixteen years old, even now.

His unreliable cock was now buoyant as if floating in salt water. Michael pushed forward but against anal resistance, it missed and swept up the crease between the buttocks.