Romantic Gestures
“I can't believe you never told me you like blokes.”
They were driving through darkness from Bangkok to Saraburi, the road winding out before them across wide, flat lands. In the distance, at the dark horizon, Colin could make out the vague shapes of mountains beneath the broad, clear sky dotted with stars. The wind was cool and dank with the smell of earth and trees as it rushed in the windows. Colin preferred the windows down to an air conditioner, especially in a country like this where the air was so vital and fresh.
“I don't like blokes.” Colin said. He was sitting with his feet up on the dashboard, slumped in his seat. “I like a bloke. And I love women, so I'm not gay!”
Eamon glanced over at him, the blue-green glow from the dashboard under lighting his face. “We're driving a hundred kilometers tonight so you can talk to the man you've been having sex with for two months. That's not gay?”
“No.” Colin ran his hand back through his hair, which was being violently ruffled by the wind. “I don't care if you're the expert. Why does everyone need a label for things?”
“It helps identify them.”
“It's also damning.” Colin shot him a look. “Christ, I've lived all my life with labels. All these cute little words people put on me. Hell raiser, bad boy, brawler. But no one is any one thing. You're gay, but gay isn't who you are. You're also a dancer, and—and a teacher, a brother, a son, a friend! It's all those things that make up who you are. Why be defined by just one?” He was nervous. He had a capacity to talk more than Eamon when he was nervous.
“Society is more comfortable when naming things,” Eamon yawned, pushing against the wheel and back against the seat to stretch his arms and legs. “You have to make your own definitions.”
“Well, it's society's preoccupation with putting a neat, cozy little sticker on everything that's created this mess,” Colin propped his head on his hand, elbow on the door, gazing out the window. “And made me such a basket case.”
“Yes, let's blame society. I think that fall you took down the stairs when you were ten has something to do with you being a basket case.” Eamon snorted. “Maybe some of your brain leaked out with the blood that was gushing out of your head.”
Colin shot him a glaring look, though it was probably lost in the darkness. Eamon glanced at him and smiled. “I'm kidding Colin. Lighten up, would you?”
“I can't lighten up,” Colin looked back out the window. “I'm a fucking wreck. I can't believe you're making me do this.”
“What are you afraid of Colin?” Eamon lowered his voice. “That it might work out?”
“Why would I be afraid of that?”
“Because then you have to do something with it.”
Silence fell, broken only by the steady hum of the engine, the road passing beneath them. It was so vast and dark outside the windows, like they were floating in space.
“When did you realize you liked blokes?” Eamon finally asked.
“Two months ago.” It was Colin's turn to yawn and stretch. He was supposed to be coming up with something to say to Jared when they arrived, but his mind just closed down at the thought, paralyzed with anxiousness. It was almost as if some part of him still thought Eamon would turn the car around.
“Right. Believe me Colin, it's not something that just happens one day,” Eamon said critically. “No matter how beautiful the guy is. There has to be the seeds of it long before.”
“I don't fucking know then.” Colin rubbed at his eyes with the heel of his hand. They still stung. He couldn't believe he had cried like that, though it had cleared his head amazingly well—now he felt a sort of emptiness inside where the voices had once held residence. They were quiet, at least for the moment.
“Come on, you have to know,” Eamon said.
Colin hadn't told Eamon about his experimentation in school, or any of those off occasions where he had ended up with a guy in his bed. Those incidents were isolated, at least in Colin's mind, to the point of almost non-existence. He wondered if Eamon could guess at them though.
“Maybe Jared is really a woman in disguise,” Colin offered
“With an arse like that?” Eamon scoffed. “No, I don't think so.” He paused a moment, then glanced over at Colin. “I should watch my mouth, shouldn't I? That was a very wrong thing to say to you.”
“I'll put it on the list of wrong things you've said to me in my life,” Colin rubbed at one eye again. “Along with the time you told me you'd cut my head off and put it in the freezer if I told Dad you were sneaking his whisky.”
Eamon snickered. “I used to think that was funny, you know. The idea of your head sitting in the freezer while people were getting in and out of it to get things.”
“Should I add serial killer to your labels?”
They arrived in Saraburi province shortly after midnight and in Muaklek about twenty minutes later. That was where the resort the principle actors were staying at for the filming in Phu Kae Garden was. Colin had gotten the directions from Oliver, which led them to a lush, flat area full of trees, and back a long road where there were clusters of cabins and huts. At the entrance to the main part of the resort a security guard stopped them.
“We don't have a pass,” Eamon said, leaning out the window. The guard spoke English, but it was heavily accented. “We're looking for a friend of ours who's staying here. Can you take us to the main office?”
“The main office is closed until the morning,” the security guard told them. “If you don't have a guest pass, you can't enter the resort.”
Colin felt a mixture of disappointment and relief. “We'll have to go stay at a hotel tonight and come back in the morning,” Colin said. “Let's go.”
“Can't we just go in and look around, see if we can find him?” Eamon was still arguing with the guard.
“You'll have to come back in the morning Sir,” the guard said firmly. “No entry after 10 p.m. without a guest pass.”
Driving back the road, Colin saw the look on Eamon's face.
“We are not sneaking in there,” Colin said.
“There's no gates or walls or anything. It's not like breaking and entering!”
Eamon parked the car alongside the road and they walked back, cutting through the darkness of the trees.
“I swear to God if we get arrested Oliver will fucking kill me,” Colin whispered. He was nervous, for a number of reasons. On top of that he was fucking exhausted at this hour of the night, not having slept much the night before, and it made everything surreal, his head feeling thick and his vision fuzzy.
“Just calm down,” Eamon told him. They were approaching the resort and could see the huts through the trees. “No one will know we're here.”
“This isn't like sneaking into footie games when we were kids!” Colin hissed back at him. “If we get arrested, we could be deported!”
“God, I really hope we find Jared. I'm going to ask him if we can have your balls back.”
It turned out there was a fence around the property, but it was short and easily climbed over, more a gesture than a security measure. Colin looked around as they reached the ground on the other side of it. Everything was quiet and still, the lights from the huts and along the walkways between them reflecting on the water of an outdoor pool across the grounds. He wondered if Jared was really there. Baan Suan Sai Pan Resort was upscale, private, and classy Oliver had told them. It certainly looked that way—the perfect place to lodge a bunch of actors who thought they were upscale and classy as well, despite current evidence to the contrary.
“How are we going to find him?” Colin whispered. Eamon was looking up and down the narrow paved road that ran along the edge of the trees and wound back into the huts. There was no one around.
“Do you know what his rental looks like?”
“I think.”
They started walking, moving through the shadows between huts and darting around trees and bushes. They heard voices once, people standing out on a deck talking, but other than that there was seemingly no danger of being spotted at that hour.
Colin would pause at the cars sitting outside the huts every once in a while, looking them over, peeking inside, but he didn't think any of them were Jared's. At one point they saw headlights and dashed behind a hut until they passed. It was a security patrol truck, and Colin started to get deeply nervous.
“We're gonna get caught. We better get the hell out of here,” he whispered to Eamon. “We'll get a hotel and come back in the morning. Really, that's the best idea.”
Eamon scoffed. The truck was disappearing down the narrow road between the huts. “This is what love is about, Colin. Doing crazy, illegal shite at one o'clock in the morning.”
“And here I thought it was about happiness and stuff,” Colin peered around the side of the hut. They were crouched down by a bush and Eamon rose to his feet, peeking in the window above them. “Stop it!' Colin hissed at him.
“Listen,” Eamon crouched down again, touching his arm. He leaned toward him, whispering. “Everybody does something fucked up for someone they're taken with at some point in their life. It's romantic and all that. Let's them know you care.”
Colin rolled his eyes and peeked around the hut again. Everything was quiet and still once more.
“When I was twenty-three—do you remember Ricky O'Falley?”
Colin frowned. The name sounded familiar. After a moment's thought he put a face to it and gave Eamon a perplexed look. “You mean that lad used to go to Mam's church? The one that was in the choir?”
“He grew up.” Eamon smirked. “God, could he suck a cock.”
Colin's mouth fell open.
“Anyway, I was mad for him. Took him out a bunch of times, his family had no idea what was going on. I got totally infatuated with him, then he decided he couldn't be into blokes, it was too much hassle.”
Colin was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that Eamon had fucked a member of his mother's church.
“So one night,” Eamon held out his hands, obviously pleased with this story and about to deliver the punch line. “I climbed the side of his house, right up the drainpipe. I was gonna crawl in his window and have a passionate lovemaking session. All Romeo and Juliet shite. Convince him different.”
“How old was he?” Colin forgot to keep his voice down, then immediately lowered it. “He was some years behind us, wasn't he?”
“He was nineteen at the time, just ready to go off to university. I couldn't let him go without professing my undying love.” He snorted as if this was obvious, as if anybody would have went up a drainpipe and broke into their lover's bedroom under such circumstances.
“So what happened?” Colin was still dumbfounded. “Did it work?”
Eamon gave a sigh. “Broke my ankle. Goddamn pipe didn't hold. Only managed to limp away before his parents caught me.”
“Your ankle!” Colin's voice was rising again. “You said that happened falling down the steps!”
“There were some steps involved,” Eamon said matter-of-factly. “Porch steps, right below the drainpipe. Hurt like hell hitting them from two stories up.”
“Oh my God,” Colin looked around the hut. “That's it, we're getting out of here.”
“There's a lesson in this story, Colin.” He touched Colin's shoulder, making him look around at him.
“Yeah,” Colin whispered back at him. “Don't climb fucking drainpipes in the middle of the night to get a piece of arse or you'll break your ankle!” He rose and slipped off along the side of the hut.
Eamon followed him, and Colin started making his way back to the fence. It was confusing in the dark with so many huts, all of which looked nearly the same, and he quickly got disoriented. He wasn't entirely sure which way they had come. Eamon stayed on his heels, trying to convince him not to give up yet.
Colin stopped short as they came around one of the smaller huts, staring at the car parked in front of it.
“What?” Eamon whispered. “Is that his car?”
Colin narrowed his eyes at it, uncertain. His heart was pounding from nerves and exertion. “I don't know.” He whispered back.
The hut had a small deck with stairs leading up to it, the porch light off, curtains drawn in all the windows. Flowers grew around the legs of the deck, perfuming the night air. They crept toward the car and Colin peered in the driver side window.
Jared's sunglasses were lying on the seat.
“It's his.” Colin whispered. He turned and looked at the hut, his racing heart coming up in his throat, a new kind of fear gripping him.
“All right.” Eamon grabbed his shoulders from behind and started massaging them firmly. “Do you know what you're going to say?”
“No!” Colin's voice came out panicky.
“You haven't even thought about it?”
“No! I was too busy breaking into a resort!” He tried to slow his breathing and think. “So…do you think I should walk up to the door and knock?”
Eamon's hands paused on his shoulders, then he squeezed. “Hell no. Come on.”
He led Colin around the back of the hut. Colin's mind was racing so quickly that it didn't occur to him what Eamon was up to until he saw him testing the windows.
“I'm not crawling through the fucking window!” Colin whispered furiously at him.
“It'll be fucking romantic!” Eamon stopped at one, which was cracked open. Jared always liked to have a window open. Eamon pointed frantically and joyously at it. Colin turned and tried to run.
Eamon caught him, locking his arms underneath his, and Colin struggled, trying not to cause a commotion.
“Let me go!” He snarled.
“Get back there and get in the window!” Eamon was dragging him back. “Climb in his window, crawl in his bed, and wake him up with kisses. Tell him how you feel about him and that you're so fucking sorry for being a twat. It'll melt him, right there. Trust me on this.”
Colin was not at all convinced that was the proper course of action. Eamon was adamant though, and standing underneath the open window, Colin was too afraid to argue with him lest Jared hear them.
“Come on,” Eamon whispered. He started pushing the window up. “It's not like it's the first time you've climbed through a window.”
Colin was fucking terrified—more because he was about to face Jared than because he was breaking into a hut—but helpless to resist Eamon's powers of persuasion. Eamon got the window open, then boosted him up. Colin held his breath and wiggled through, pushing the curtains aside, hoping there was nothing in the way.
The floor was clear beneath the window, and he tumbled onto it gently, thanking whoever might be listening that he'd toned his body up for this role and was fairly agile. Getting to his feet and peering around in the darkness, he saw he was in a bedroom.
The curtains were drawn, but a little bit of light filtered in. He couldn't tell how well furnished the room was, but it was good sized, and there was a rather large bed to his left. There was a dark shape on it, a blurred, roughly human form. Colin had the sudden gripping terror that he might have been wrong. What if he had just shimmied through the window of some poor old lady's hut and she died of a heart attack when he woke her up?
Colin looked back out the window, and Eamon gave him an eager thumbs-up. He looked at the bed again.
Moving toward it, Colin's fears of a mix-up were alleviated. That was definitely Jared's scent.
Colin stood next to the bed and basked in it for a moment, gazing down at the dark figure. He had his back to Colin, one arm draped over the blankets, light from the windows glinting on his fingernails. His hair was spread out over the light-colored pillowcase in dark tendrils. Colin glanced back at the window, thinking maybe Eamon had the right idea after all. He hadn't expected to be struck with such emotion when he saw him.
He took a moment to collect himself and calm down, to slow his racing heart. He also started thinking of something to say. Listening to Jared's soft breathing, he felt the ache come back to him that he had experienced on the patio earlier that night.
Finally, with a deep breath, he leaned over and put his hand on Jared's shoulder.
There was movement, so sudden it was startling and took Colin off guard. The next thing that happened was completely unexpected, and that was something very hard and metal hitting Colin in the face. It struck him so hard across the bridge of his nose that his vision went black for a second. He reeled back, stunned, pain spreading out in white-hot daggers across his cheeks and forehead.
“Fuck!” He shrieked, and dropped to his knees, clutching his face. Wetness gushed into his hands. “What the fuck!”
There was movement, scuffling around, and then a light came on. Colin was keeled over in agony.
“What the fucking hell!” Jared screamed. “Colin! You fucking idiot!”
Colin heard Eamon's voice from somewhere behind him, outside the window, and then Jared was shouting again. Through Colin's blurred vision he saw the weapon, lying benignly on the floor next to the bed, gleaming in the lamplight. A metal serving tray, the kind they brought with room service. Do they offer that kind of service in a place like this? his mind somehow managed to wonder.
“For fuck sake! What the fuck are you doing crawling in my window like a fucking psychopath!” Jared was still shouting at the top of his voice. He leaned over Colin, prying his hands away from his face. Colin's hands were red and his lips were going numb. “Oliver is going to fucking kill me!” Jared raged. He looked absolutely livid, his hair wild around his face.
Eamon must have crawled through the window, because he was in the room a moment later, touching Colin's shoulders, trying to look at his face. Colin felt sick.
“I'm gonna fucking kill you,” Colin managed to choke out.
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