Seven Days of Us(28)
“And then,” he gasped, voice shrill with suppressed mirth, “Chingers sits up and promptly says: ‘Mmmm, Toby, why are your testes in my mouth?’” As if taking a cue, the table erupted with laughter.
“Guys, this is Jesse,” said George.
“Jessie? I’m sorry, your name’s Jessica?” said Alpha Male, dissolving into more guffaws.
“Stop it,” hissed the girl beside him, slapping him on the arm. “Sorry about this one—can’t take him anywhere,” she said, putting a hand over the man’s mouth. “Hel-lo,” she added, looking at Jesse properly. “And where are you from?”
“Los Angeles.” Jesse had learned long ago that this got a better response than “Iowa.”
“So what in God’s name possessed you to spend Christmas in Blakenham?” said Alpha Male. He talked like a fifty-year-old man, though he looked around thirty-five.
“He’s in film,” said George. So he had taken in what Jesse said after all.
“Christ,” said Alpha Male. “What are they filming here—period drama?”
“Uh, it’s more documentary.”
The girls were looking at him eagerly. They probably thought he was an actor. Women often did.
“Where’s the rest of your crew?” said the other, younger-looking girl. She had the same profile as the three men, and he guessed she was their sister.
“I came early. Wanted to get a feel for the place.”
“So you’re on your own at Christmas?” said the first girl.
“It’s all good—we just celebrated Thanksgiving back home. Plus it seemed like a nice opportunity to travel.”
“You can’t be on your own at Christmas! We’ll look after you,” said the girl he presumed was a sister, shifting up the bench to make room for Jesse.
She began introducing the table. Her name was Mouse, inexplicably, and the three men were her older brothers, as he’d guessed. Alpha Male, real name Tom or “Tommo,” was the oldest. George was the youngest, and the middle brother was named Matt. The girl beside Alpha Male was Camilla, Tom’s wife. By the way Mouse was tossing her hair, he guessed she didn’t have a refined gay-dar. But people didn’t always realize Jesse was gay, straight off. The looks Matt was shooting him suggested he thought Jesse was sharking on his little sister. Just as well Matt didn’t realize Jesse had a crush on his brother. A couple of times he sensed George looking at him on the edge of his vision, but whenever he checked, George either wasn’t or had just looked away. He was by far the cutest of the three brothers. He was the only one with the cool, swimming pool eyes. He wondered if George had guessed he was gay.
“Drinking game!” bellowed Alpha Male. “I Have Never: the Christmas round.”
Everything they said about Brits drinking was true. Shots were summoned from the bar and they played a few rounds of I Have Never, where it transpired that Matt had thrown up on his boss’s back at an office party, and Alpha Male had taken a dump in someone’s shoe at boarding school. Jesse wasn’t sure what the point was, since they clearly all knew each other’s secrets.
“OK, my turn,” said Camilla. “I have never given my ski instructor a blow job,” she crowed, looking at Mouse.
On impulse, Jesse knocked back one of the honey-colored shots on the table. His throat burned.
He blinked to find the whole group staring at him, stunned. His eyes met George’s, just for a second.
“What?” he said to them all. “Don’t tell me you had me down as straight?”
Alpha Male began chuckling and beating the table with his hand, his laughter rising to a crescendo. “So it’s that kind of film,” he spluttered. “Well, fuck me. Christmas drinks in the Woolmakers descends into gay porno. Fuck me.”
Jesse tried correcting them, but it was no use fighting the current—they wanted him to be a porn star, and so he was, even though he had no answer to Tom’s and Matt’s increasingly explicit questions.
The game moved on to everyone’s porno name, but the mood had shifted. Mouse’s hair tossing stopped. Matt was obviously repulsed by Jesse’s revelation, several times describing something as “gay” and then pointedly apologizing. Alpha Male was so drunk he looked like he wouldn’t care if Jesse had stated a sexual preference for chipmunks. The girls, he guessed, were keen to appear liberal. He could already see them telling the story in years to come: “Remember when we got talking to that gay porn star in the pub?” It was bullshit, of course. He’d barely been skiing. But he needed to know if what he sensed about George was real, or if his brain was addled by alcohol and too much alone time. Straight-seeming jock types had always been his weakness.
George was drinking hard. It looked like he was on a mission. Jesse had seen him finish two pints, a glass of mulled wine, and a bunch of shots, and now he was back from the bar with more beers—one for him, one for Jesse. Everybody else had refused his offer of a final drink.
Camilla returned from the bathroom. “Guys, I’m shattered. Home,” she said firmly, looking at her husband.
“Me, too,” said Mouse.
Alpha Male and Matt both stood, unsteadily. George stayed sitting down. “I’m gonna finish this one. I’ll catch you up,” he said to them, slurring slightly.