To Indigo by Tanith Lee (read along books txt) 📕

Even I, even then, even like that, did a kind of physical double-take. “What?”

“Your bath.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Yeah. I know you’re a nice hygienic guy. Clean shaven, all but that cobweb arrangement on your head. Teeth your own and all flossed and brushed, the rest showered, ready to face the world. But I think today, take an early bath. Or a shower, if you prefer.”

I said, hollow and estranged, knowing it was not so simple, “If you say so.”

“Yes, Roy. That’s it.”

I half turned.

“No, no, sorry, Roy, should have explained. We’ll see to the water in a minute. Just take your stuff off.”

“My – stuff.”

“Clothes, Roy. Shirt, pants, your Y-fronts or whatever you favour. Shoes and socks.”

The shock this time came externally from far away and wrapped around me as if I were something dead that could not feel.

I didn’t move. My brain had nothing inside it but rushing and white noise.

“Oh,” he said. Contrite, he lifted one hand. “Again, mea culpa. I should have made it clear. This isn’t sexual. You have nothing to fear, that way.”

I didn’t move.

“Oh, come on, Roy. Do you want me to help?”

I must have backed a step. The filing cabinet tapped my spine.

“Yes, OK,” he said, reasonably, “why am I telling you to do this. Because it has to be faced, Roy,” (Oh Christ, shades of my father), “it just has to be dealt with, here and now. Clothes off. All and everything. Or I will help, Roy,” His voice was quiet and a faint hint of worry was in his expression – not yet quite the upset and concern that had heralded the blow. But enough.

“Give me a minute,” I said.

“Sure. I’ll time you.” And he started, at an exact pace, softly aloud to count off the seconds.

My mind sent me a message that he was checking to make sure I had nothing ‘concealed on my person’. My mind was trying, apparently, to make sense of what was either senseless or had another meaning it refused to confront – to face up to.

I knew, despite the business with bags and jacket, that Sej wasn’t checking for anything concealed. Unless it was my concealed flesh. My body.

And no, it wasn’t sexual.

At school, when the showers had been installed for use after games, (games – the misnomer of all time, nothing playful about them), one or two things had gone on here and there. I have no problem at all with homosexuality, so long as I’m not expected to join in. To me, even when presented in the best of literature, it seems silly, a sort of invention. I’ve no doubt this is a flaw in my intelligence – not of course that I find myself ‘straight’ as they say, but to be incapable of grasping others may find non-straightness not only the only option, but enjoyable. Or maybe even, as a boy of my own age, then about sixteen, once coaxingly said to me, my alienation is my defence against finding out my true feelings. Most if not all men are supposedly quite adaptable to enthusiastic sexual acts with their own gender. Generally however, at school or elsewhere, I’ve seldom been propositioned. Nevertheless I seemed to know enough to believe that he, Joseph Traskul Sej, had no inclination or interest that way. And at the same moment a burning dominance radiated from him. There was no route out of this. As with everything else, I’d better give in.

It goes without saying, I’ve had to strip in front of strangers before, once or twice in tense and difficult situations, as when I’d had a cancer scare two and a half years previously.

I didn’t wait until he reached sixty in his counting.

Off came everything, as he had stipulated, watch and shoes first. I hung the shirt and pants lightly over the back of the desk chair, left the rest on the floor.

He sat in silence, watching me.

I didn’t glance at him.

When everything was off I stood there by the desk, looking out of the window. And he got up, and came and looked me over, front and back, at a distance of about four to six feet.

During this he said nothing. Neither did I. It took about five minutes.

“OK,” he said, “let’s run the bath, shall we?”

Now I was to walk first. I went into the bathroom and realised I did not want to bend over in front of him to put the plug in the tub. Something so trivial. And curious, too, if I felt – and I didn’t – no sexual threat. Yet threat of course I did feel. I simply couldn’t codify it. It wasn’t that I was merely embarrassed. I was not embarrassed. While my body has little to recommend it neither am I deformed or spectacularly scarred. I’ve been neither blessed nor cursed in any physical area. I am a short skinny man, generally average, nondescript.

Having no choice anyway, I leant forward and shoved in the plug, then turned on both taps.

He meanwhile walked past me and letting it down, sat on the closed seat of the lavatory. He kept on watching, observing.

Then he said, “You were circumcised.”

That sent another jolt through me. Not the reference, just the impact of his quiet, flat tone.

Again I said nothing and he added, “It’s routine in some hospitals. Evidently the one where you were born, as I don’t think you’re Semitic.” When I didn’t speak now he added “Or are you?”

So I must answer.

“I haven’t a clue. My parents weren’t.”

“You’re a bit underweight,” he went on, as if musing, “gut a bit flabby. Nothing much.” The bath was full; I turned off the taps. “Get in, then,” he said.

I got in. I sat down when he gestured to me to sit, in the warm water.

“Well,” he said, “just carry on.”

“What am I supposed to carry on with?” I said.

“Your bath. Just do what you always do.” He paused and then said, in the most