#settled in

Thank goodness Penelope knows a handful of public figures for helping her family out. They manage to find due of their place and have to do a little transition between certain businesses. Until this thing blows over, the original home is under a huge tarp, and their entire property is closed off for investigation. Closed to the public. 

And so it was as his train left St Pancras that his descent into this drear territory began, reading about the obsessive relationship between the virago and the termagant.  “Her throwaway candour is as exotic to me in its way, as a plate in an Amazonian tribesman’s lip.”  took his breath away, flooding him with memories (although most of the pleasant) of how breathtaking Sean’s early flirting had been, how insouciant, how casual.  Although, if he stopped to think of it, most of that had been online which Sean now, years later, admitted was all bravado.)   

And then - “Any species of sexual attraction that you can’t find documented on a seaside postcard fails the health test as far as these people are concerned.”  Ah, he should tweet that quote to Sean, or post it on Tumblr.  His lover would appreciate it.  “Any sexual arrangement existing outside the narrow channels of family newspaper convention is relegated to a great, sinister parenthesis of kinky “antics.”  Oh yes, Sean would ardently approve.  

But then “Have they never desired anyone outside the age range that local law and custom deemed suitable?  Never experience an impulse that fell outside the magic circle of sexual orthodoxy?”  This the virago said of the termagant, a sentiment easy to dismiss given that the virago didn’t seem to lust after anyone outside her age group, but rather after another member of her gender.  But that line struck Koester the way a stiletto might might strike a kidney.  

“Have they never desired anyone outside the age range that local law and custom deemed suitable?”  Every line after that felt more enervating than the last - so much that by the time they pulled into Ebbsfleet he was ruing the book, the trip, his profession, and really every decision of the past 5 years. 

“Light and narrow,” the  termagant described her youthful lover, and oh didn’t that bring back some very lovely memories.  But as the train sped toward the  Channel Tunnel Koester had convinced himself that he was too too much like the doomed Bathsheba and his Sean (the one who had all but abandoned him for the past two weeks and THEN made such a fuss when he was leaving!) was the dismissive 15-year-old “edible” Steven.  (Absurd, of course but in his brown study Koester’s drear imagination didn’t want to listen to reason, Sean was literate and truly talented.  The virago had dismissed Sheba’s lover as “a perfectly average boy in possession of a perfectly average intelligence” but naturally she was jealous.  Sean was, by no means, average, and a man didn’t have to be in love with the boy to see that.  Didn’t the professor throw Sean into the second pianists role without hesitation?  Wasn’t Sean filling in beautifully, much to the vociferous relief of both musicians and director?  

But didn’t following those thoughts only leave him more morose, more despondent, more disconsolate?  That he had betrayed his brilliant lover and fled to Belfort van Brugge to continue his stubborn habit of “Giving Sean Distance?”

And so it went - as the train pulled into Brussels he realized his drear plight - he was helpless to do anything but dive headlong into this loathsome book in order to finish it and be RID of the damn thing.  And along the way he could compare Sean to the light-and-narrow Connolly (to be fair, they did both possess “some instinct, some natural talent for sexual power play.”  Oh Sean did, Sean did in spades) and thus mourn his existence as the doomed (fictional!) Bathsheba, or contrast Sean to the unimpressive Connolly and thus mourn his miserable failure as a partner (his reality!)

Dear God, by the time he arrived in Bruges his misery would leave him atrabilious and splenetic (oh WHO was he kidding??  He was a hectoring old queen.  He would arrive waspish.)

This was utterly absurd.  As he changed trains in Brussels he commanded his rebellious brain to side with reality (no matter how guilty that made him feel) and promised himself he would communicate with Sean via some social media as soon as he was able.  Boarding the train to Burges he posted something quickly on Tumblr.  He posted quickly and without thinking.  It was short, but brutally honest, and he hit “save” without rereading it.  

At that moment, feeling so desiccated, so raw, he wondered if he would ever go back and read it at all.

Chapter 3

So there it was - his incautious plans (his for tuppence halfpenny incautious plans) had led to a row which had left him in a brown study as he prepared to board his train for Bruges - so what did he do?  Did he disport himself by visiting the quaint patisserie and simply letting sugar distract him?  No.  He thought about maintaining his figure and bought a book instead.

The WRONG book.

He was so sure that he remembered Zoë Heller’s little bit as being an easy and satisfying read - something about a half-remembered grandee feeling as he read about the trouble the upper-class teacher had with her Northern-accented, working class students, the “North London yobs.”  As a North London yob himself, it had made him feel superior.  But mostly he remembered contempt - his hauteur and contempt at the old lesbian schoolteacher who couldn’t embrace her sexuality and get a girlfriend of her own.

As he sat down on the train he recalled, vaguely, that there had not actually been a hero and villain in the book, although he seemed to remember assuming it to be about an aging lesbian in denial torturing a young straight woman who had been minding her own business (back in the early 2000′s when reading the book was de rigueur for everyone in his circle) but in the end only able to sum it up by quoting Alice Through The Lookingglass  “Well, they were both very unpleasant characters.”

Looking back, he could point to exact moment his brown study turned towards complete despondency.  He was in the act of sitting down on the train when he read the back of the book and his eye fell on the quote  "It takes a special sort of talent to make love seem really creepy."

It could only go downhill from there.

I’m going to timy-wimy this and FIRST write the email that Kess sends Sean, so Sean can have it, and THEN write up to the part where he sends the email.

Settled In - The Problem With Trains          Chapter 2

The problem wasn’t claustrophobia, really (Koester mused on the train.)  He wasn’t feeling claustrophobic.

He was feeling intrusive.

The time AWAY from Sean was FOR Sean, wasn’t it?  It was to make their partnership better.  He had a good 20+ years of observing other ‘marriages’ and partnerships and relationships, hadn’t that been his constant conclusion?  That distance made couples happier?

And so, when he found himself (horrifying!) living with his partner, wasn’t that why he was constantly in a state of planning an escape?  For Sean’s sake?

And so he started volunteering for away trips.  Nothing severe.  Always train-related (usually.)  Never more than 2 or 3 days.  The math worked - if he spent 3 days away from Sean every 3 weeks, that came to about the same as it had been before, right?

Only his timing had been off.  WAY off.  He had scheduled a trip right before Sean’s class’ winter concert.  

That caused The Row.

And The Row was what had caused this terrible mood, wasn’t it?  (But it was more than that - it was winter, after all, which always Koester moody, more pensive.  And the book.  And the fact that Sean had been so busy the past two weeks, so busy that Koester was beginning to feel abandoned.  Which was ridiculous.  But mostly it was the book.)

Or maybe it was the fact that he had just abandoned his lover at the exact same time that his lover needed him the most.  While he was madly preparing for the concert.  (Sean was more than prepared, but the other featured pianist had dropped out unexpectedly and now Sean was the only pianist for the entirety of the concert.  Sean was filling in beautifully (Koester believed) but he had less time to prepare than usual and was feeling particularly stressed.)  And what did Sean do when he was stressed?  He forgot to eat.

Sean’s eating peccadilloes were not very unusual to Koester - he had known many beautiful gay men who “forgot” to eat.  But there were circumstances under which Sean literally forgot to eat, and these were those.  Normally Koester would be there to care for his lover - to prepare highly nutritious foods, to sit next to Sean, rubbing his back, practically snuggling the boy and all but actually feeding him.  It worked when Sean was too nervous to eat and it was impossible to do long-distance.   And who’s fault was that?  Koester’s.  Completely.  

“It’s WORK.  I have to go to WORK, don’t I Sean?”  he found himself saying, raising his voice, but then trying to soften it (because this WAS all his fault) which only left him with a whining hectoring tone that sounded so shameful to his ears.  It WAS work, but he had volunteered for it, and now he was making his Sensitive Artist’s life so much more difficult.  And for what?

Even on the train the echo of that voice, that horrible, fussy queen voice, haunted him.  It threw a gloomy cloud over all his plans -t he plans they had made as he was out the door that would put him back in London with EXACTLY enough time to make it to the concert to watch it.  Or at least, the majority of it.  (If nothing went wrong.  But what if something went wrong?  What if everything went wrong?)

Still, he feigned optimism when he left.  HE didn’t want to leave his sensitive artist under these circumstances, so he put on a brave face.

“Sweetheart,” he said, taking his lover’s face in his hands and looking deep into his eyes with what he hoped was a reassuring expression.  “You’re going to be brilliant.  Your mates are going to br brilliant.  As always.  And when the audience stands to applause, which they will do, as they always do, I will be standing there applauding with them.  I will be there, and you will see me afterward.  Believe me.”

And if he couldn’t make that happen, how much worse was he going to feel?

And THAT’S why he couldn’t work on the train.  THAT’S why he made the mistake of buying the book at the little shop.  And now he was in a mood as black as the weird sister’s cauldron, a sense of doom moving in like Birnam Wood on Dunsinane, and a creeping sense of self-loathing that would put the Prince of Denmark to shame.

WHY hadn’t he remembered his kindle?  He could have been reading some pleasantries by Chuck Tingle - like Anally Yours, the Unicorn Sailor or Leonardo Decaprico Finally Wins His Award And It Pounds Him in the Butt or even Slammed in the Butthole by My Concept of Linear Time.  But no.  He wanted the old fashioned comfort of a BOOK in his hands and now he was so depressed he could hardly walk.  His shoulders drooped embarrassingly as he left the station and he walked like Adam, singly cast out of Eden, baring all the guilt of creation alone. 

And did the pints help?

No, they did not.