Junction X by Erastes (best autobiographies to read .TXT) 📕

“I don’t need to explain it to you.”

“Were you planning to explain it to the police?”

“You bastard. You wouldn’t dare.”

He looked shocked then. “Of course I wouldn’t. But someone would. Bloody hell, Eddie, what did you think? Did you think no one would ever find out?”

He had backed down, and he was trying to be reasonable, but I wasn’t letting him off the hook. My anger burned deeply. He’d cheated me of watching Alex walk away.

“You’ve got no right, Phil. No right. Christ! What sort of friend are you? What kind of bloke spies on his friends? I should never have taken this place!”

His voice had a leering, mocking quality to it, and I knew I’d been right; he hadn’t wanted to help. “But, oh so handy, though, I’d say. And there was me thinking that your lady friend would be swanning in from London, instead of…what?”

“Shut up, Phil.”

“How convenient. Right next door.”

“I told you to shut up.”

“So bloody cosy. And I never saw it.” He went quiet and I could see his mind working. “Shit. You’ve been at it since before Christmas. Bonfire Night. That boy was lit up—I remember wondering if he was in love because he never stopped smiling.”

“Don’t. Don’t bloody talk about him. You’ve got no right to be here! What are you getting from this? Some sick pleasure?”

“Just stop. Stop yelling at me and sit down. You stupid bastard. Have you any idea of what you are doing?”

“Yes! Do you think I don’t?” I had tears in my eyes, tears of utter fury, and I couldn’t stop shouting at him. “It’s you that doesn’t understand!”

“Oh, I think I have a pretty good idea, Eddie. And you are calling me sick? You’re fucking a child.”

“Oh don’t be ridiculous. He’s eighteen.”

“Legally, he’s a child, Eddie! How did you think it was going to go? How do you think his father is going to react? How would you react, if it was John?”

He took the wind out of my sails with that. “Don’t be stupid. He’s an adult. You’ve seen him.”

“I’ve seen him playing in the snow. I’ve seen him playing sparklers with your kids. He’s just left school, you told me. He’s a bloody child, Eddie, and they are going to crucify you for it.”

“But…” I waved my arms incoherently at him.

“Us?”

I nodded numbly.

“Consenting adults. Breaking the law, of course. But no one’s involved except us. But you fuck a child, Eddie, and there’s no coming back from that.”

“Oh, get out. Get out! You have no idea. None.”

He looked around the room and gave an exaggerated sniff. “Don’t I? I’m surprised the Railways Board hasn’t already twigged. A grown man, coming in and followed shortly by his—”

“No more. You’ve said your piece. Now get out.” I grabbed his arm and shoved him towards the door. “Get the fuck out before I do something I regret.”

He resisted me and forced me to a standstill. “I’m trying to bloody help, you idiot. Christ…why? Just tell me why. Wasn’t it enough for you?”

“Is this what it’s about? Are you bloody jealous?” His eyes flinched and I wondered if I’d hit him where it hurt. “I love him, of course.”

“Oh, fuck.”

“Well, what did you think? You’d think that I’d…that I’m some kind of man who would do that?”

“That’s what everyone will think. Love isn’t going to come into it. That doesn’t exist for us.”

I was getting angry again, “I knew you didn’t understand.”

He seemed to punch each word. “As far as they are concerned, Eddie, it’s not love. It’s perversion. That’s all they’ll see. Married man with his paws all over a boy.”

“It wasn’t like that. He started it.”

“Yeah, right. Tell that to the court, Eddie. And good luck with it. Oh don’t worry, I’m going, and you needn’t fret that I’ll say anything. I won’t. You’ll hang yourself soon enough. I thought I knew you, Eddie. I thought I knew you.” He gave me a look and left.

 I recognised the look; it was disgust.

+ + +

It took me a while before I stopped shaking. When I got home, there were questions, more questions. “I had a row with Phil,” I said, summing it all up in one idiotic sentence, “and I don’t want to talk about it.”

I went to bed as early as I could, but Phil’s words wouldn’t leave me. I lay awake while my ulcer played havoc with my insides, and my mind churned with almost the same ferocity. I wasn’t so short-sighted not to have realised the danger I was in, and Alex too, thanks to me. But Phil’s words had shaken me. Alex’s height and maturity had made it easy to forget (or to push aside) the fact that he wasn’t an adult and wouldn’t be for two more years. We could both lose everything. I’d known it, but I’d kept the fear suffocated, pushed down deep.

That night, as I lay and looked at the ceiling, I pushed my life ahead, one move at a time like a chess game, and I ended up with checkmate every single time. The only good choice for us both was an impossible dream—taking Alex and running far, far away. He’d talked of living in some country—never England—high up in some tree-lined hills where we could love and be ourselves.

I closed my eyes. I could almost see a hillside with a dirt track disappearing into the trees—like something from Durrell’s books. Perhaps it was Corfu. I saw myself driving in a battered yellow car. Deep into some pine woods and then up a dusty track. At the top of a stone-filled slope was a rickety gate with a young man sitting on top of it, a young man with blond hair, ragged trousers and bare feet.

He’s a kid, Eddie. Phil’s voice resounded in my head like the chimes of the downstairs clock.

Phil was a bastard—I saw that now—but he was right. Running could never be an option. Even taking into account what I was running from, taking an underage boy