Eimear McBride - The Lesser Bohemians

We stand outside a moment and be the faces beyond the glass surveying our old world. Empty flat. Goodbye that life, then pass on down the steps and drop my key in a drain. And so we go down through Kentish Town. Warmer out than in. Battered and happy. Quiet though, because soon enough the night will come. On into Camden. Up the Camden Road. Right onto his much For Sale street — not his though. Just dandelion leaves trod all down his path with this going away and the coming back. Some great ending it feels like. For now though, just go through his broke door.

His room a bit tidier. Boxes pushed a bit back. Warm from the day and cigarettes smoked. And all in through, the smell of him. Drop the duvet. Close the door behind while he shoulders off my heavy bag, turning in the dusty light. Pulling up his window to let the evening in. Some car then roaring down to Camden and after it, in waves, the Thursday traffic reams by. Soothes like balm. Calms the mind, and we, in here, are very calm, knowing now for the first time precisely where we are.

And he comes to me across the room to put his long arms around. Leaning down to be held and hold so well. Moving until we find the right place, where I fit with him. Sealing together. Closing every gap. Breathing each other like an ocean we have thought a long time of, and missed. I push his jacket off first. Shirt then. Tugging down where he must help, smiling at me, shaking cuffs from his wrists. Laughing when I kiss his warm armpit and, as he slides his glasses off, I touch his smooth shoulders with my mouth. There where they curve into collarbone. There, in the deep, as they round to his arms. Long and lean and strong I think. Just starting to turn brown. And kiss his chest in amongst the dark hairs. Smiling up to, arms around his waist. Opening, slipping off trousers and belt. He, obedient, stepping out, only stopping to kiss. Pulling now at his underwear, touching just a little and careful. Smiling to the grey eyes smiling at me. Catching me up to stroke my cheek. Then stepping back to watch me undress. Slipping clothes off and showing him myself. His warm hand laid on my breast. Thumb moving my nipple a touch. Happy together but so silent we are that a clock two floors up is more, that pigeons in the tree beyond make more noise than we two need to. And my turn to lead him back across the room. Sitting him on his armchair. Kneeling down between but up to kiss. To take his long fingers through my hair. Find his mouth with mine. His tongue with my tongue. His hands running my body but I’m sliding down. All his old scars. Each country of him. I know them like the world. The good smell of his chest, the lean stomach as well. Hold where he is hard, then bend to press against my lips. Shiver through him as I let it in. Past my teeth and onto my tongue. Deep into my mouth and he goes smooth in. Like warm stone. Soft skin. Moving him. Feeling all the filling veins fill until it must be almost sore. But the more I do, the more it goes. Down his legs. Up his torso. Travelling into the balls grown tight in my palm. Of all his body, the tenderest part, so I put my mouth there too. In through the folds and tickling beneath until he laughs and catches at my hand to stop, but taking all the pleasure that I have to give. Loving to. Rising up a little against when he goes back into my mouth. Tasting all of him there. Taking in far as I can. Going quicker until lips bruise. Then the long of my tongue does the work instead. Holding gently to keep him straight. Licking the little wet off the tip. Sticky of it on my lips. Going down again. And the excitement roams over. Up his back. Across his chest. In the bob of his throat, and as he puts his head back, I see where it’s begun hazing out sight. His whole long body giving to each movement I make. The only sound is my mouth creasing with wet and his deep increasing breath until he’s brought — in case I don’t know — to saying Eily I’m really close. But I ignore this, because I can. Just keep him there, hard as he’s ever been. But in a moment he says again Eily, I’m really close now. So I take him out, to say So come then. He just looks at me, tortured with want and full of feeling. I can’t do that to you, he says. I want you to, I say Let’s just be us today. Then take him back into my mouth, on the very verge of go. So he grips my hand. So he strokes my hair. So and then, he lets himself. And I can feel the pleasure roll across him, to and from my mouth. The swell of his body as it goes through. Then the first drops from the first wave spring to the back of my tongue, coming up from inside him and out into me. And I able for it, the warmth and taste of him. For the more of it and more. Him hardly controlling, even pushing a bit. His whole body alive and hot in my mouth. I shift back just enough to make more room, then swallow, swallow it down. Swallowing until he is done and. Breathes as if he can’t quite catch the air while I, to complete, lick him clean. Still hard though he’s finished, but fragile in it. Kiss the gentle head and rest myself in the crease, down by the dark pubic hair and breathe him in. Open as I have ever been. The wind could rush right through without touching my skin so at peace with it, and in love with him, that I could stay here for years. But he leans himself forward and says Come up here to me. I reach my arms round his neck to be pulled onto his knee. Two months Eily, he says Or two years or twenty, whatever you’ll give me, I’ll take.

In the close night I wake alone in bed but, across the dark, he is at his desk. Streetlight filleting the bones in his back. Cigarette, of course. So I get up and go put my arms around him. What are you doing, my love? Just thinking, he says And looking at this picture of my mother again. I can just about remember her looking like this. Who could’ve imagined what would come next? Or guessed the girl in this photograph would starve herself to death? Or that on hearing it all I’d be able to think of was how much I loved her when I was a little boy. In our quiet warm world we think on that. Then he drops the photo. Stubs out his cigarette. Says Come on, and takes me back to bed. We make ourselves comfortable in each other’s arms there, then go to sleep.

Strings of sunlight all through my hair as I make on up Haverstock Hill. Quick, for he almost has me late. Shit! Nearly ten! Run down Prince of Wales Road. Front steps bereft of the usual herd, all up on the balcony now. In I too and up the stairs. Just beginning, as I get there. Wedge myself in amid the costume rails. Poor fuckers, she whispers friendly-like and budging up. Hey Alison, yeah, I don’t envy them this. Everything resting on it. Get a job. Get an agent. What’s Danny doing? Miss Julie, I say. She rolls her eyes Of course he is, he doesn’t half fancy himself!

Straight after the run-through First Years disperse for the readying. My job’s a spot of foyer sweeping. Making sure the Spotlight pictures are neat. Telling Danny, as he wanders past Break a leg! and Me and Stephen are back together again! Good work, he says Any chance of asking his agent to keep an eye out for me?

Soon enough the afternoon showing begins. First and Second Years — banned from sound — cram ourselves into the canteen. Hear casting directors and agents come in. Glasses clink and Hello darling! Third Years cracking the side door open, waiting for their cues. Then disappearing off into the Church. Afterwards whispering That went well, or I fucked up, or I really can’t tell, suppose I’ll have to wait and see. But time goes round and soon he’ll come which makes me somewhat insensible to their suffering.

Tap polite claps through the door, then a hum up of standing. I go out into the loiter of Third Years waiting, making interesting, looking thin. Teachers sympathising or saying Well done. Hey Danny, happy? Reasonably, he says Just got to hope now I get a bite, but there’s someone waiting for you outside. So I follow on out to the brim of day. And leant against the pillar, there he is. Talking to some small man — or who by comparison, seems. The lightness still all about him, right through his long frame. Fag in his mouth. Loot under his arm. Saying No he is, I saw him last term and I’m actually thinking of getting him to read. Then he sees me Hey Eil! — taps the little man’s arm — Hang on a sec, this is her. And reaches through the mayhem for me. Been waiting long? Few minutes, he says So let me introduce you. This is my girlfriend Eily, this is my agent. Hello. Shake and Is that short for Eileen? Éilís, Stephen says Hey Danny, over here, there’s someone I want you to meet.