The Picture
Laine Hissett-Bonard
The ungodly loud ringing of the phone not two inches from my head roused me with a start from a pleasant half-doze, and I barely resisted pitching the damn thing across the room; my temper was short at the best of times, but even worse when I was rudely awakened. The number on the caller ID was my bass player’s, and I grumbled a good-natured curse as I fumbled the phone to my ear, squinting against the sunshine pouring through the window, its intensity only worsened by the London smog.
“What the fuck do you want?” I tried to start every conversation on a congenial note.
“Well, that’s nice, Brian,” Scott replied crossly. “What’s got your panties in a twist?”
Pushing myself into a reluctant sitting position, I rubbed my eyes with one hand, yawning. “You woke me.”
“I don’t know any other thirty-three-year-old man who’d be sleeping at three in the afternoon on a Sunday,” came Scott’s retort, and I laughed in spite of myself.
“Do you know any other thirty-three-year-old man who might actually be wearing panties to get into a twist?” I teased.
“A few,” Scott replied, “but none as bitchy as you, darling.”
“You don’t usually ring me during the day,” I said curiously, stumbling a little as I stood, but quickly righting myself and making my way to the kitchen for a glass of water. My afternoon nap did wonders for the hangover I’d woken up with that morning; last night’s vodka consumption felt fantastic at the time, but nine o’clock in the morning found me with a different opinion.
“I saw Mik today,” Scott said, and already, I didn’t like the accusatory tone in his voice.
“So?” I replied warily.
Scott released a heavy sigh into the phone, his patented, world-weary “I’ve had enough of Brian’s bullshit” sigh. “Don’t play coy, Brian,” he said. “You fucked him last night, didn’t you?”
“He told you that?” I blurted, surprised. While I was an incurable loudmouth in regard to my sexual exploits, Mikael was the polar opposite, never giving us so much as a single juicy detail.
“No; you just did,” Scott said, and I scowled.
“Shit.”
“Well, I already knew anyway,” Scott said. “I can always tell when you and Mik have shagged, just by getting one look at his face.”
“Why — is his eye bloodshot again?” I asked, and as I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the wall mirror, my face was a mask of concern. As proud as I had been to bring Mikael to that intense an orgasm, a recurrence might indicate some kind of medical condition.
“No,” Scott replied, then groaned. “Oh, Jesus, I thought that was just caused by too much vodka. Is that what happened to him?”
“Come on, Scott, get to the point,” I said impatiently. “What are you trying to say?”
“I can always tell Mik spent the night with you,” Scott said, his voice taking on that Papa Bear sternness that I had come to expect from him when he lectured me. The problem was, I couldn’t fathom what I had done to deserve a lecture. “He never says a word about it, but the way he looks is enough to tell the whole story. I stopped by his place today, and when he opened the door, Brian...” He paused for a moment, just long enough to drive me crazy with the suspense, before continuing. “He looked like he’s been crying all day.”
My throat tightened, my breath catching mid-inhale. “He... what?” I managed to choke out, my fingers gripping the phone tighter against my ear. “I... I didn’t force him to do anything, Scott; I swear it. He —”
“It’s not that,” Scott interrupted. “You’ve just got to stop using him like this. You must have broken up with what’s-his-name, did you?”
“Yes,” I sputter, “but — using him? How am I using him? Mikki’s a big boy — if he doesn’t want to fuck me, he doesn’t have to. How —”
Scott interrupts me again, this time with a note of impatience in his voice. “You can’t keep running to Mik for that kind of twisted consolation every time you break up with somebody, Brian. It’s not fair to him.”
“First of all, I didn’t ‘run to him,’” I said icily. “He showed up on my doorstep on his own. Second, what the fuck are you talking about, ‘fair to him’?” Scott, you’re not being logical. So Mikael gets himself laid whenever Brian gets dumped. So what?”
Scott let out a low growl of frustration in my ear, only slightly tinny through the phone. “Christ Almighty, mate, are you daft? You fucking sod, can’t you tell he’s in fucking love with you?”
I actually laughed out loud; the idea struck me as that preposterous. “He isn’t,” I replied, now positive that Scott was pulling my leg. “You had me going for a minute there, but —”
“Brian,” Scott said slowly, and this time more gently. “Listen to me. Stop being so self-absorbed for just a minute and really listen to me. Mikael loves you. I don’t know how you’ve missed it all these years, because I could see it from the very day I joined the band, but he does... and you treat him like shit.”
I didn’t recall ever in my life having so much to say, yet at the same time being so completely speechless. Instead of trying to collect my thoughts to speak, I sat down at the kitchen table with my glass of water and lit a cigarette with numb, fumbling fingers. My first drag was shaky, the cigarette trembling between my lips.
“I know you’re still there; I can hear you smoking,” Scott said after a moment.
“Yes, I’m here,” I replied hollowly. “I’m just thinking about what a dick I am.”
“I won’t argue with you,” Scott said. “I don’t know how you could be oblivious to this... he’s hurting so much, and you just keep adding to it — stomping on his heart every time you let him into your bed, chuck your muck, and then act like it never happened.”
“I...” Trailing off, I had to bite back an automatically cutting retort in my own defense. The truth was, I had no defense; it was simply my kill-or-be-killed nature that made me itch to respond with an equally hurtful comment. The difference was, however, that Scott didn’t deserve an attack; I did. The thought that I could be responsible for causing Mikael, possibly the closest person in the world to my heart, pain for any reason made me feel sick to my stomach, and I stubbed out my half-smoked cigarette, grimacing at the sour taste it left in my mouth.
“What are you going to do?” Scott asked finally — always the man who needed a plan, unlike myself.
“A lot of thinking,” I replied honestly, feeling tears pricking my eyes and hearing them in my voice, as well. “Scott... I honestly didn’t know.”
“I know,” he said softly, “but that doesn’t change the fact that Mik’s hurting, and you need to make some decisions. All right?”
“Yes.” Such a small voice rarely issued from my throat. “And... I’m sorry.”
“Don’t tell me,” Scott said. “I’m not angry with you, Brian... and neither is Mik, I’m sure, but you do need to cut him loose and let him live his life. He’s just hanging onto a fantasy. Haven’t you noticed that he hasn’t had a boyfriend in ages?”
Although he couldn’t see me, I shook my head miserably. The truth was, I hadn’t noticed. I had just assumed that Mikael preferred spending his time dating casually rather than getting involved in a serious relationship... the reason behind that never even occurred to me. How could it have? I would never have imagined that the reason could be me. “I didn’t think about it.”
“You haven’t thought about a lot of things,” Scott said, and although his voice was gentle, his remark still cut deep, making me wince. “I think it’s time you did... and when you’re done, you need to ring Mik up.”
“I will.” A tear slipped from beneath my lashes and spilled onto the back of my hand where it rested limply on the tabletop, and I stifled a sob as I hung up the phone. How could I have been so selfish all of these years? I must have broken up with a hundred people in the time I’d known Mikael, and after each relationship ended, I sought comfort, acceptance, and unconditional love from the one person I knew I could trust to provide it: Mikael.
Mikael... my drummer, my best friend, my confidant, my voice of reason. The one who tamed the savage beast in me, the one who kept me grounded. Sometimes my mommy, sometimes my psychotherapist, sometimes my lover... always my soul mate. But how could I have known that he actually loved me? How could I have known that he was always so willing to open his arms to me at those times because those were the only times I would ever fall into them?
“Well, if you’d opened your eyes, you selfish twat, and thought about someone aside from yourself, you might have gotten a clue,” I said aloud, my voice breaking. I couldn’t possibly count all of the times Mikael and I had replayed the same scene over and over again: Enter Brian, stage left. Brian tells his sad story, whines about how unsexy and undesirable he must be, all but begs for reassurance. Mikael verbally worships Brian, strokes his ego, tells him he’s beautiful and sexy and the other person was crazy not to want him. They fall into bed. Fade to next morning; Brian pretends nothing happened between them, ignoring the hurt in Mikael’s eyes. End scene.
I had spent a lot of years hating myself, but I doubted at that moment that I had ever in my life harbored this much animosity toward the notoriously self-centered, sometimes heartless bastard that I knew most other people saw when they looked at me. I’d always known I could be thoughtless and egocentric — hell, if I wanted to be totally honest, egomaniacal was a better word — but this simply went above and beyond. I’d hurt many people in my day with my self-serving ways, but never... never someone about whom I cared so deeply and so all-consumingly. Mikael... God, I had known him since I was a child. He had seen me through my worst years, stayed by my side through my least attractive periods, held my hand through depression and anorexia and even suicidal ideations... And somehow, despite all of that, the man still loved me. He was still willing, despite my idiosyncrasies and my childish behavior and my temper tantrums, to take what he could get, remaining essentially single in hopes that — what? That one of these times, I might just decide that one night with him wasn’t enough?
“God, I’m such a waste!” I exclaimed, slapping my palm down on the tabletop hard enough to sting and rising abruptly to my feet to pace the room. Scott was right; how could I have missed the signals? It wasn’t as if Mikael hid his emotions; one of the many things I’d always adored about him was the way he wore his heart on his sleeve. For being able to read his emotions as well as I’d always thought I could, I had to wonder now how gifted I really was at reading what went on behind his eyes. Obviously, I’d either ignored or somehow missed the signs... or maybe Mikael hid them so well that I simply didn’t pick up on them. Somehow, I couldn’t believe that possibility, though; after all, Scott had seen it, so it wasn’t as if Mikael had concealed it well. No, the problem lay in my own ignorance, my selfish loyalty to number one above all others, and the fact that as long as my own needs were being met, all else was secondary... if that.
I really hated myself at that moment.
Shedding my clothing as I made my way down the hall, I was naked by the time I reached the bathroom, so I stepped into the tub and turned on the shower while standing under the faucet, gasping at the initial blast of cold water that struck me in the face and chest, but holding my ground; if anything, the shock provided a much needed wake-up. Eventually, the water grew warm, and I turned my back to it, allowing the deluge to stream over my slumped shoulders for several minutes while my exhausted mind attempted to grasp the gravity of what I’d learned. It all made perfect sense to me, too; all of the pieces fit. Why else would Mikael always be so ready, willing, and, above all, available to spend the night with me when I needed him to? Why else did he unfailingly blush to the roots of his hair when I told him I loved him? Why else did he always lay awake, staring at the ceiling, long after he thought I had fallen asleep, with an achingly desolate expression on his face?
And how could I have not pieced this together before?
Stepping out of the shower, I wiped a clear spot on the steam-fogged mirror, regarding my naked-faced reflection with its scornful glare directed back at me. “You’re a self-centered prick,” I said aloud, watching my mirror twin mouth the words back at me, upper lip curling in disdain. “You don’t deserve his love.”
The melancholy in the eyes of my reflection confirmed that I knew that was true, and I turned away from the mirror, wrapping a towel around my waist before I stepped out into the cooler air of the hallway. In my bedroom, I set out to dress, opening my closet to scan through the racks of clothing, but I ended up instead sinking onto the bed with my head in my hands, filled with a great, gut-wrenching confusion. “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” I mumbled, swiping a hand over my face. I knew I had to talk to Mikael... but what was I going to say? Look, I know you’re in love with me, so I can’t shag you anymore. Was I kidding myself? It was probably just the selfish child in me, but I didn’t think I’d be able to give that up. My nights with Mikael were more to me than just in-fucking-credible lays... he made me feel safe... wanted... needed. He made me feel comfortable just being myself, when, around everyone else, I felt the need to wear a mask, to hide the fuck-up I knew I truly was. Around Mikael, I needed no camouflage; he accepted me for what I was... all of me... unconditionally.
Isn’t that what love is? my brain whispered, and I chuckled a little, dryly. How would I know? It had been so long since I was actually in love that I didn’t know if I’d remember the feeling. I’d been searching for so long for it that I probably wouldn’t recognize it if it bit me in the ass. I did know that I was well beyond needing a new partner every night, though; as long as I was regularly getting laid, I certainly didn’t mind bedding down with the same person night after night. I got over that little hang-up right around the same time I noticed the first line on my face where there had never been a line before.
Dragging myself up from the bed, I distractedly managed to dress myself, then stood in front of my vanity mirror to apply makeup, sticking out my tongue at the boyish, bare-faced reflection I cast. It was a far cry from the pretty, painted visage I normally presented, as evidenced by several of the photographs tucked into the mirror’s frame... most of which, I realized with a sudden, inexplicable flush, prominently featured me and Mikael. There we were on a beach in Mexico, where we had gone on holiday together, this one showing Mikael swinging me around after I leapt into his arms; there was one from a photo shoot for a local music mag with me in Mikael’s lap, my head tucked under his chin and his arms wrapped securely and possessively around me. Oh, and there was a good one — me trying to stick my tongue in Mikael’s mouth. Scott had taken that one at my last New Year’s Eve party.
My intentions of putting on makeup forgotten, I plucked one of the photos from its place on the mirror’s edge and examined it; this one was my favorite, a shot of Mikael from the night I had taken him out for his thirtieth birthday. As he stood in front of the mirror, spiking his short, bleach-blond hair, I had snuck up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder, and when he glanced back at me, my trusty Polaroid captured his expression of innocent surprise — a deer in the headlights face if I ever saw one — tinged with his ever-present, charming good humor, wide-eyed and guileless and absolutely gorgeous in his own unique, uncalculated way. He was wearing eyeliner and that sparkly red shirt I so loved on him, the one that showed off his leanly muscled arms and just a hint of bare chest.
As I examined every minute detail of the photo, from his deep black pupils, dilated from the flash, to the faint shadows cast by the backlighting, from the irrepressible shimmer of his shirt to the soft fullness of his lips, I was struck by a sudden, unexpected epiphany, one that was both shocking and somehow perfectly plausible at the same time: I didn’t need random, brainless pretty-boys like the one who’d broken up with me by telephone the day before... not when I had a familiar, much loved, beautiful, quirky drummer right here who was — and, I realized now, always had been — willing to provide me with all of the love I would ever need, who accepted me for all I was and who didn’t give a damn if I got old and bald. The thought occurred to me then, too, that I should have seen this coming; ever since we were classmates in primary school, we’d been virtually inseparable, always touching and kissing and professing our love for one another, and everyone who saw us together for the first time assumed that we were lovers based solely on the way we behaved together. I had always assumed that Mikael and I simply had a friendship more open and passionate than most, possibly due to our similar sexual leanings, but, examined now in the cold light of day — much as I now examined this familiar picture — it became clear to me that all of these years, through bullshit and victories and disappointments and laughter, we’d really been meant for each other all along.
Grinning widely, I carefully tucked the photograph back under the mirror’s frame and reached for my mascara, but something Mikael had said to me only a couple of weeks ago resurfaced in my mind, giving me pause. I had invited “my boyfriends,” as I sometimes liked to call Mikael and Scott, over to my flat for the evening to gorge ourselves on gossip and junk food; Scott had gracefully bowed out, claiming “family obligations,” although Mikael cracked on the phone that Scott probably just didn’t want to deal with the cattiness of a pair of old queens like us. When I answered the door that evening to find Mikael standing there, he gave me a good-natured frown and asked me why I was wearing makeup.
“I didn’t want to be ugly for you, darling,” I teased, batting my mascara-heavy lashes, but Mikael gently took me by the arm and led me to the bathroom, where he flicked on the light and positioned us in front of the mirror.
“You’re not ugly,” he said, wrapping one long, slender arm around my chest from behind and kissing me softly on the temple. “Look at yourself. You’re beautiful. I don’t want you in makeup; you don’t need it. You don’t need to hide yourself from me, because I love you just the way you are.”
God, how those words took on a different ring as I replayed them in my head now... and the thoughts that filled my mind caused a flush that began to build, spreading from the fireball in the pit of my stomach, until every part of me was tingling pleasantly. Dropping my tube of mascara on the dresser, I grabbed my knit cap instead, settling it on my head and leaving my flat with nothing more than some cash in my pocket, thoughts of the future in my head, and a deep, penetrating, fuzzy warmth in my chest.
On the cab ride to Mikael’s place, I stared out the window at the sights of London passing me by, wondering exactly what I was going to say to Mikael when I arrived. What could I say? Of course, it would have to be delivered with my patented candor in order to sweep Mikael off his feet.
“Mikael, I love you.”
That was true, of course, but I said it all the time; it wouldn’t have nearly the desired punch if it wasn’t accompanied by something more definitive, more me.
“Mikael, I want you for more than just your cock.”
Well, that was a start.
“Mikael, if I was a woman, I would bear your children.”
That one made me smirk a little; it sounded just like me: shocking, bold, and more than a little queer.
The ride was short, and, after tossing a few extra pounds the driver’s way, I nearly ran up the sidewalk to the front door of Mikael’s building. I slipped in behind a carpet-muncher with a buzz cut and camouflage pants, nodding politely although she glared suspiciously at me as I ignored the lift and bolted for the stairs. Perhaps, without my makeup, I appeared butch enough to pose as her competition.
Rapping briskly on Mikael’s door, I fidgeted nervously as I waited for him to answer, my breath quick from my dash up the four flights and my heart pounding from something much more than simple exertion, and my breath caught in my throat as I heard him shuffling around inside the flat, the chain rattling inside the door. “It’s me, Mikki,” I called before he even had a chance to speak, and I hated the mousy, helium-infused timbre of my voice, but at least it would leave him with no question of my authenticity. “Let me in.”
“Brian?” I heard the chain fall a second before he pulled the door open, and I felt the breath being sucked from my lungs at the sight of him. Yes, his lovely brown eyes were red-rimmed and over-bright, it was true... but he was still a vision, even barefoot in sweat pants and a ridiculously ancient Tina Turner t-shirt, his hair, now cropped close and back to his natural brown, bearing the unmistakable mark of a recent, extended meeting with his pillow. “What are you doing here?”
“We need to talk,” I said softly, and as he stepped aside to admit me, I still had no idea what I was going to say to him... but somewhere deep inside my fragile, trembling soul, I knew that no matter what I said, his arms would open wide to allow me to fall into them again...
And this time, for good.
