Last Year's Echo, Chapter 4-D
Aug. 4th, 2017 04:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yes_2daySo now starts the interesting stuff... It is just the beginning. :) This chapter covers early July - mid Oct 1961.
WARNING: This is slash fiction, and if that is not your thing, don't read this. Still, this chapter is PG-13 rated.
Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 4D
****
Paul put down the book and set it aside. He was crying, and it had snuck up on him so quickly he didn’t notice it until teardrops were hitting the pages of the book. Man, this was painful. Why was he reading it so intensely this time? Previously, when the book was in gallows, and even before that when it was just a manuscript, Paul had skimmed through this section without taking it in. He hadn’t wanted to revisit those terrible memories. Had all this terrible stuff happened within only a month of his life? It seemed as though it had to have gone on longer than that to leave such a powerful echo of pain. For some reason, this time while Paul was reading this section of John’s book, the words were hitting him where he lived. Or, more accurately, they were hitting him where his throbbing pain lived, deep within his subconscious mind. He felt as though he could indulge his feelings freely, since John was off shopping and lunching with Mary and the grandsons. He was alone in the house, and thus free to express his pain.
The black depression hovered over him for a good 20 minutes or so, until it started to lift and then all that was left was his strongly beating heart. To Paul, his beating heart was loud and alarming. He consciously began to do his yoga breathing exercises, and calmed himself down. He felt spent, and leaned back on the sofa, one hand over his now becalmed heart, the other laying flat on the sofa cushion next to him. He was finally able to think with his Ego, and not with his Id. Deeply hidden memories had finally revealed themselves in their fullest complexity. And what was rational Paul going to do with these memories? They had haunted him from an echoing distance for 45 years. They had subtly colored his interactions with John the whole fucking time. Paul knew he had kept one foot out of the circle of trust John had sought to develop for them. And how often had he been rewarded for guarding himself so well? Countless times. The whole thing with Brian Epstein, and Spain, and suddenly all the song credits were ‘Lennon & McCartney’ as opposed to being interchanged depending on who wrote what. The ostracizing John had forced on him when Paul at first refused to experiment with LSD. Yoko. Allen Klein. The brick through his window. The disgusting song, How Do You Sleep? The Lennon Remembers interviews, and all the other nasty interviews in the ‘70s. Nigel. Brad...
It had been years now - 6 or 7 years - since a Lennon betrayal, but Paul was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. John was always saying he had a ‘mental illness’ that caused all these things to happen. He had apologized, but Paul sensed that even as he apologized John didn’t understand why he did these things, and thus how would he learn not to repeat them? Seven years was a long time for John to be true to him, Paul’s Ego pointed out. Maybe he had learned how not to repeat this behavior in his therapy with Fiona. So maybe now it was up to Paul to deal with the fear of John’s next betrayal that he constantly carried deep within himself, locked in a room guarded by his resentful Id. Paul did not want this poison inside of him, and he felt that now he had looked it in the face, he could better explain to his therapist where the pain was centered. Hopefully, Marc could help him vanquish these memories forever.
<<<<<<<
I don’t have a memory of getting home that night or what I did for the next 2 weeks. I do know that I went into one of the deepest depressions I’ve ever had. This time, living back with Mimi, and buried under my blankets, there was no Paul to come and drag me out of bed. Mimi got mad and told me to go get a “real” job. I might never have gotten out of bed if George Harrison hadn’t come running over with some hair-raising news.
“Paul is auditioning with another group!” he shouted. I shot up out of bed instantly.
“What? Where? When?”
“Pete heard it from Bob Wooler. He is auditioning with some group out of Manchester. They’re at the Jacaranda. Now.”
Some super human force – a combination of fear, jealousy, rage and possessiveness – propelled me out of my bed, into some clothes, and out the door, George nipping at my heels. We grabbed the bus and then raced two blocks from the stop to the Jacaranda. George waited outside, after trying to urge me not to burst in. I burst in anyway. I charged into the seating area, where a group of chairs were placed in a circle, and four men were playing chords on instruments. Paul’s back was to me, but I knew it was he. I had lost all control, and made a total fool of myself. I’m embarrassed to think of it now, but I was screaming at him and crying at the same time, swearing. The Manchester musicians were looking at me as if I were a random crazy man who wandered in off the street.
Paul finally grabbed me by my arms and shouted, ‘Shurrup John!’ He was staring at me intensely – and waiting to see when I would come to my senses. I did so. He relaxed and said to the musicians, “This is a former band mate of mine. Do you mind if we have a private chat?” He then led me to the manager’s office, and closed the door. “John, you’re making a fool of yourself in front of the blokes. You have to pull yourself together.”
I burst out crying and started pleading with him to forgive me. I literally fell to my knees in supplication. He was horrified, and pulled me straight up off the ground. “Don’t do that, Johnny, don’t do that.” When I was face to face with him again, I saw there were tears on his face.
“Are you crying because I’m crying?” I asked him, remembering what he told me that time when he was comforting me after my mother died. Paul nodded his head in the affirmative. “You can’t forgive me?” I asked.
Paul let go a dramatic sigh, and finally looked me in the eye again. “Yes, I can forgive you, John. I just don’t know if I can trust you.” I reasoned, pled and cajoled for at least 15 minutes and he finally agreed to give me another chance. “But this is the thing, John. It isn’t your band any more than it is my band, and you don’t get to make unilateral decisions.” I agreed to this readily (the third time I had made him this promise in 5 years), and he said, “You can tell everyone you’re the leader if you want, but you’re not my leader. We have to be equal partners.” His terms – as far as armistices go – were very generous.
Paul told me to leave the club straight away, and he’d meet me at the bar in the Cavern Club in 30 minutes. I did leave the club immediately, but I waited just a few yards from the door. I wasn’t ready to take the chance that he wouldn’t follow through.
About 10 minutes went by, and I was getting ready to go back in the club and confront Paul again, when he came out, acoustic guitar slung over his back. “John! I thought I said I’d meet you…” He saw the look on my face and just smiled. “Alright, John, let’s go see if we can still play these damn instruments together.”
George had scarpered back to the Cavern Club when he had heard me screaming and crying. It was just too embarrassing for him. But everyone was overjoyed to see Paul walk through the door. We bellied up to the bar, and Ray McFall, the owner of the Cavern Club, came out to talk to us. Paul took a long swig on a pint, and then said with a wink,
“So Ray! What kind of gigs can we get off of you?” We all laughed. Good old Paul. Never stops working the room. Ray offered us our house band status back, and stood us a round of drinks.
We sat down –the four of us now – and had a band meeting. I had brought Stu’s bass guitar back with me from Germany; Stu had said we could use it if we needed it. I raised the subject of setting up auditions to find a new bass player. But Paul took a deep breath and said he would “give it a try”. I was amazed that he was willing to do it, frankly, because he was a very good guitarist, and he had resisted the idea so strongly when we were in Hamburg. On the other hand, his electric guitar had broken, and he hadn’t been able to afford replacing it. I handed Stu’s bass to Paul and told him that Stu didn’t want him to change the strings around.
“Great. I not only have to learn a new instrument, but I’ve got to do it upside down and backwards,” Paul grumbled. Here was my chance again to volunteer to take the bass – it made far more sense if I did – but I didn’t volunteer. (Rather than bother with Stu’s bass, Paul went out and purchased his beloved first Hofner, especially made for left-handed players. Bass guitars were less expensive than lead guitars in those days, so he could manage the never never.)
Allan Williams, having been informed of the contretemps at his club, the Jacaranda, walked in to the Cavern as we were having our beers. He came up to me and said, “I see you got your ace in the hole back, John,” with a grin. I told him how angry I was that he had set up the audition for Paul with the Manchester band. Allan got very serious, very quick. “Paul is a very serious talent, John. He has just as much talent as you, and in some ways more. You shouldn’t take him for granted, because I had groups coming in clamoring for him when they heard he was available, but Paul told me he didn’t want a Liverpool band. He didn’t want to compete with his old mates for Liverpool gigs. Otherwise, he would have been snapped up the first day you got back from Hamburg.”
Paul came up, interrupting our little tet a tet. “So, Allan, what have you got lined up for us?”
“Well, now that you’re back in the group Paul [he gave me a meaningful look], I’ve got a little tour going up to Scotland for about a week in mid-September. How does that sound?” We all cheered lustily. When the cheers died down, I turned to Paul and asked,
“What about your A levels?”
“What A levels?” He asked me with a wink. Total victory over Jim McCartney at last!
*****
John read that part over again, and realized he had accidentally left out an important part of the story: why had Paul agreed to come back, what was his thought process, and why did he agree to pick up the bass? He cursed at himself for not realizing it sooner, before it was too late. But he was still curious for his own sake about what had caused Paul’s change of heart. He went up to the music room at Cavendish, where Paul was playing chords and deeply engrossed in his process. John sat down on the piano bench next to him, and waited patiently until Paul snapped out of his daze and noticed John was there. He gifted John with a lovely warm smile.
“What’s up?” He asked.
“I was just reading that part of my book where you forgave me for my behavior in Hamburg that second time, and you agreed to come back.”
Paul’s face looked guarded now. “Oh?” He asked.
John smiled. “Don’t worry mate. I’m not gonna open that can of worms again. I was just curious why you agreed to come back after everything I had done? And why did you agree to take the bass on so readily?”
Paul was stilled by the question, but then responded in that intimate way he sometimes had. “I forgave you because that is what I do. I always forgive you. I can’t help myself. It’s like some kind of fatal flaw in my makeup I guess.” He laughed to show no hard feelings. “And I’d been thinking about the bass ever since you mentioned it. I never actually said I wouldn’t pick it up. I was thinking it through. I could see taking it on if I could make something of it that I had never heard anyone else make of it. I thought it would be an interesting challenge. Could I make that instrument be melodic? Could it harmonize? Could I make it sing? I’d been thinking about that, and so I decided I’d go for it. I certainly wasn’t going to stand there and go plunk, plunk, plunk. I’m not capable of doing that.”
John laughed, and Paul smiled at him in an uncomplicated way. Paul urged himself to go ahead and say the whole truth. “I also forgave you because I can never stay mad at you. I know where that bad stuff came from, John. You had such a damaging childhood. I could always see the scared little boy in you when you were being mean to me. Once I got over my feelings of rejection, I would remember that look in your eyes, and I couldn’t be mad anymore.”
“Feelings of rejection?” John asked. “Is that what you felt?”
Paul hadn’t realized he had revealed this until John pointed it out. “You meant so much to me, John. It always felt to me as though you were cutting my heart out. It was nearly unbearable.” Paul’s eyes had filled with tears.
John put his arm around Paul’s shoulders and pulled him close. He whispered roughly in Paul’s ear. “I’m so fucking lucky to have you. No one else in the world could possibly love me like you do, even when I don’t deserve it.”
Paul chuckled from within the tight embrace. And then he said, “I keep telling you John - everyone deserves to be loved.”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Scotland and the Gift of 100 Pounds
On September 20th 1961, the Beatles, sans Stu Sutcliffe for the first time in 1½-years, were in Edinburgh, Scotland, touring, third on the bill (which was a big step up for us in the British Isles). That night, we had a great show. The audience stomped and yelled through the first two acts, chanting “Beatles! Beatles! Beatles!” Although we were outwardly embarrassed for our colleagues, secretly we were thrilled. When we got to our hotel after the show, there was an envelope waiting for me at the front desk. When I opened it, I found a birthday card from my Aunt Elizabeth, my mother’s sister, who lived in Edinburgh. My 21st birthday was a few weeks away – on October 9th. I had not seen Aunt Elizabeth in years, so I think Mimi must have dropped her a line to tell her I was in town. When I opened the card, a 100-pound note fluttered out, a birthday gift from her and my Uncle.
I was in shock for at least 10 seconds, and then I screamed out at the top of my lungs –“I’m rich!” The band members quickly gathered around me in excitement. I was waving the note around and they were all yelling in excitement. None of us had ever seen a bill that large in our combined lives. Later that night, lying in yet another crappy single bed with Paul, trying to think of anything else besides him lying there being gorgeous – anything! - he suddenly asked me, “Now, who sent you this money again?” I explained to him it was my mother’s and Mimi’s sister who I hadn’t seen in years. He was impressed. “That’s a lot of money for someone who doesn’t know you well,” he pointed out. “You need to send her a thank you note.”
What?????? I stared at him with disdain. But he continued to urge me to do so, adding “you never know, she might make a habit of it every year if you write her a really good thank you note.” Suddenly, I saw the wisdom in his idea. We immediately set about co-writing a thank you letter to my aunt and uncle. Every time I said something a little baldly, Paul would rephrase it far more tactfully and gracefully. His handwriting was so exquisite that I made him write the final version out for me. Yet another Lennon & McCartney original! We were giggling and had – as usual – a great time. We really did enjoy each other’s company and knew how to kill idle hours. I sent the letter off, and I later heard from Mimi how pleased Elizabeth was to have received my note.
“She said you wrote a beautiful letter, and were obviously such a polite, well-brought-up young man,” Mimi said to me. “She also mentioned what a beautiful handwriting you have.” And then, after a strategic pause, she asked snidely,
“Did Paul write it for you?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Two Spirits Dancing So Strangely
On the van trip back to Liverpool from Scotland, I fell into a deep funk while staring out the window. I was musing about the sexual feelings I had for Paul. Ever since Stu left and I had managed to rope Paul back into my life, these rogue feelings had begun to take over my entire life, waking and sleeping. I was with Paul 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. We slept together in tiny beds. We had sex with women in the same room on a fairly regular basis. And there I sat – after over four years of knowing him – and I was no closer to satisfying those needs than I ever was. I no longer tried to smother these thoughts and feelings. Although I had briefly forced them underground during that horrible last month in Hamburg, I had long since accepted them as a reality – however bizarre and inexplicable. Now, I had gotten to the point where all I wanted was relief.
What was worse, I was lying to him every minute of every day. Me - the great ‘honest’ one: Lying, every minute of every day to my best and closest friend. Not telling him the truth, when it was such an important truth, was the same as lying. He and I didn’t often keep secrets from each other, and had fallen into the habit of telling each other, when necessary, the absolute honest truth, no matter how hurtful.
But what was I to do about it? As the van rumbled through the night, I thought and thought. I needed to get him away: away from the other blokes, away from his clinging family, away from the freaking girls, away from the fucking instruments, rehearsals, and gigs. We needed to go away together to some neutral territory, alone, and then maybe – maybe – I could tell him the truth. And, thanks to Aunt Elizabeth, I now had the 100 pounds to fund the trip! (Little did she know.)
I was no longer a student in art college, having turned into a full-time band member, but I remembered the place I’d always longed to go since art college: Barcelona, Spain. There they had crazy, magnificent architecture, and a thriving artist’s colony. Also there, I had been informed by a bohemian fellow student, they had what he referred to as “boy bars” – places where a curious, experimental bloke could go to find like-minded people. There were evidently numerous cafes, bars and clubs where intellectual bohemian male Europeans all met to do their thing. When I expressed shock at this to my fellow student, and said, “But you have a girlfriend!” his response was music to my ears:
“Bohemians should experience everything,” he intoned.
This was all I needed to hear to fuel my fantasies about Paul. Now it wasn’t about being a weird, creepy queer, which is how homosexuals were treated in Liverpool circa 1961. Now it was about being a “bohemian”, which sounded just about right to me. But how was I to get Paul to see it that way? Not so easy. He was a real Irish Catholic boy from the blue-collar part of Liverpool, sheltered in many ways by his family’s teachings. He wasn’t likely to jump at the first chance of being introduced into the “bohemian lifestyle”. (When I interviewed Paul on this topic for the book, decades later, and explained my reasons for wanting to go to Barcelona with him, he suddenly burst out, “I didn’t know anything about these boy bars! I was conned!”)
I weighed up the pros and cons. On the pro side, I felt driven to tell him. I couldn’t keep it in any longer. He had already caught me with huge arousals in bed when we were sleeping together, and I had explained them away as the product of wet dreams. He would always chuckle and say, “I’m glad to see I’m not the only one.” But in his case it was girls he was dreaming about; in mine, it was he. I would much rather tell him about it myself then to have it come out in some other accidental and horribly embarrassing way. There was also a fair amount of the Lennon Magical Thinking going on. Maybe he wants it too? Maybe he’ll be all for the idea? Wouldn’t I be stupid not to say anything in that case?
The con was equally compelling. What if he was disgusted by what I said? What if he rejected me? It would ruin our friendship and partnership for sure. This by itself was the only con. But it was a huge one.
In the end, I did the thing I had to do. I really didn’t have any other choice. The word “torture” does not even do justice to how I felt living so close to him, and yet so far. It was agony, and I had to take the chance. Something had to change, because I could not live alone with the aching secret any longer.
It was September 28th when I made my final decision. I went over to Paul’s house for dinner, and we talked about the band. We were both a little down about it at that moment. We were without a drummer again, and you had to have a drummer to book a gig. It seemed like we were always scrambling for a drummer, and racing around with last minute freak-outs. This was all because Pete Best had decided that he needed to help his family out in their business for a few months. Paul and I discussed this problem, and – uncharacteristically for him – Paul blurted out, “Sometimes it just feels like too much work to keep it all together.” I was very surprised to hear him say this, because he was always Mr. Can Do, Mr. Optimist.
But, like the great manipulator I was, I saw my opening! “Actually, Paul, I’ve been thinking I’d like to get away for awhile. I was thinking of going to Spain for a month, with the money my aunt gave me. How ‘bout it? Would you like to go too? I’ll pay for everything; I’ll buy you all the banana milkshakes money can buy!” [He was a huge fan of banana milkshakes, of all things, at the time.]
Paul’s eyes lit up like a Christmas tree. “Would I!” He pronounced. “But what about the gigs?” We had 4 or 5 gigs scheduled that month, plus all of our Cavern shows.
“Fuck the gigs! Let’s just be the irresponsible ones for once. Give ‘em a taste of their own medicine! Fuck them all!” I had jumped up and was waving my arms emphatically with a manic gleam in my eye, no doubt.
I was surprised and delighted when Paul jumped up and threw his arms up too, crying “Yeah!” I had expected to have to do a real snow job on him to get him to leave his responsibilities behind, especially without us having planned it all with maps, and pins, and strings.
The next day Paul and I went down to the Cavern and informed Ray McFall that we were going to be gone for a month. He was quite annoyed with us. After we did this, we called George and Pete and told them our plans. They too - especially George - were annoyed with us. We then went to the Jacaranda and told Allan Williams we’d be missing a month’s worth of gigs. He was beyond annoyed. He sat us down and lectured us. He pointed out how successful our Scotland trip had been, and how the momentum was moving in our favor. He said it was beyond irresponsible to disappear for a whole month under the circumstances! Paul and I looked at each other and felt doubt creeping in. In the end we agreed to cut our trip short to two weeks in lieu of a month, and Allan was satisfied with this adjustment. We then each packed a bag, and then Paul told his dad he was off on holiday with me. What little I learned about that interaction was not good; Jim McCartney was not happy about his golden boy running off to Europe with an untrustworthy troublemaker like me! (All of our friends were also astounded that we had chosen to do this. Upon our return to Liverpool, we found out that the scarper Paul and I did, along with the gigs we blew off, was the scandal-du-jour on the club scene there. The rumor was that Paul and I had run off to Spain to become beatnik folk singers, leaving England and the band behind for good! “Where do they get this stuff?” Paul asked me in wonderment, when George relayed the rumor to us. It was our first unpleasant taste of the bad side of fame.)
We left on September 30th, with the idea of hitchhiking rather than paying for transport, to save money for the fun stuff once we got there. Paul came up with the zany idea of using bowler hats as a gimmick to get people to pick us up. It worked pretty well, and we made our way to the Calais ferry in Dover. Once in Calais, though, we soon discovered that hitchhiking was not the “done” thing there. No one would stop, and we almost got arrested. So, we broke down and I purchased train tickets for us to Paris. We arrived in Montmartre just before midnight, and we had no idea what we were going to do. There was something liberating about it, and we were both very giddy. We found ourselves in a very risqué bar, where women who certainly looked like Professionals trolled the premises. I suggested that maybe we could persuade two of them to take us home, and, Paul added hopefully that maybe they’d give us a freebie too!
We did indeed find a couple of prostitutes willing to take us home. They were about 5 or 6 years older than us, and probably felt sorry for us, alone and clueless in a strange country. But, alas, as Paul delicately put it years later, “There was a floor to sleep on, but no fringe benefits.” The next morning, refreshed, we were ready to face Paris. Armed with a map I had purchased at the Calais docks, we wandered around the left bank area, and found a breakfast café where we could buy a cheap meal. Paul was utterly fascinated by the fact that the waitress had hair under her arms. “What’s that all about, do you suppose, John?” Personally, I thought it was disgusting. I said something about the hygiene in France being a bit off, but Paul would have none of it: “I think it’s incredibly sexy,” he said. “So what else is new?” I snarled, “You find everything sexy. So shut up and eat your food.”
We discussed how much the train tickets cost to Spain, and made a decision to stay in Paris, because if we went on to Spain, we could only stay there for a week, whereas if we stayed in Paris, we could afford to stay for 2 weeks. (We had gravely underestimated how much it would cost to travel and stay abroad. We’d never have been able to afford a month away, even if we wanted to do it.)
That decision made, we then went out to find a place to stay. In the 2nd Arrondissement we found a very inexpensive room. There was a toilet right in the bedroom, next to a sink, with no attempt to hide it from the bed, which was straight across from it. The bedspread was a loud red and white paisley, and the room had matching curtains. The carpet was a deep red, with numerous dubious stains. But it was cheap, and it suited our purposes. Especially mine. I noted the bed was a large single, and it was pushed up against the wall.
Paul, meanwhile, was oblivious to my plans. He was as happy as I’d ever seen him, flirting with every female who crossed our path (unsuccessfully, thankfully). This was discouraging to me, and it caused me to put off saying anything to him about my feelings. My fear of rejection that, at home, seemed a lesser concern than my compulsion to proposition Paul, suddenly loomed larger and darker than ever. It seemed a hopeless cause. I said nothing to him that day.
Our second full day in Paris, October 3, found us sightseeing all over the place, and just having a great time. When I could just relax and enjoy Paul’s vibe, I could always have fun, and the time would pass quickly. It is hard to describe, except to say I never met another person so filled with the capacity of expressing simple joyousness as Paul. We were larking about in the Tuileries Gardens when Paul suddenly shouted out – “I don’t believe it! There’s Jurgen!” Sure enough, strolling down the mall was our old friend from Hamburg, Jurgen Vollmer. He was dumbfounded to see us. We all three jumped around like excited little girls at the amazing surprise of it all. We agreed to join forces and sightsee together, with Jurgen as our tour guide. He was there doing a research fellow project at a French university.
We went all over Paris with Jurgen that day, and in the early evening he came back to our pensione. I was impatient for Jurgen to leave, but then he suggested we go to a café together, and Paul accepted immediately before I could say no. So, we ended up at a café having espresso coffee near the Paris Opera House – Jurgen excited about showing us around, Paul excited about seeing Paris at night, and me pissed off and wanting to go back alone with Paul to the room.
Before we left for the café, Jurgen went on for what seemed like hours talking about his life in Paris, and all the cafes and shops, and the cool places to go. He regaled us with stories of the Exi’s back in Germany, and his art studies. My eyes were rolling back in my head, but I noticed Paul was as alert and interested as a puppy watching a food source. This was all new and exciting to him, and it should have been for me, too, but I was eaten up by the twin devils, anxiety and anticipation.
We left for the café at about 7 p.m. Again, I suffered through a lengthy conversation from Jurgen about Paris, art, and Hamburg. I wanted to throttle the guy to make him shut up. By this time, Paul had noted how quiet I was, and when Jurgen stepped away to get a refill on the espressos, he leaned over to me and asked, “Are you alright, John? You’re awfully quiet.” I reassured him I was fine – just a little tired. I told him I wanted to leave and go back to the pensione, and he agreed that would be a good idea.
Shortly thereafter, we got up to leave, but Jurgen – ever helpful – urged us to walk back via the Paris Opera House. “You must see it at night, all lit up. It is quite beautiful!” he enthused. Paul looked at me to see if I was okay with it, and I shrugged. So we headed over to the auditorium. It was late – 9 p.m. – but the street was filled with strolling romantic couples and sightseers. The cobble-stoned road glistened in the moonlight. Suddenly, I burst out in fake opera voice, and Paul jumped in on high harmony. I then grabbed Paul around the waist, and I started swinging him around to my badly remembered version of ‘Blue Danube’. Paul joined in, and we did a fairly respectable waltz around the square while Jurgen bent over in laughter, and curious tourists clapped along. Of course, we were both leading, and stepping all over each other’s feet (so what else is new?) but our timing and pitch were perfect (thanks to Paul).
Jurgen had dinner plans (in Paris they ate late – at around 10 p.m. – because their mid-day meal was at 2 p.m. in those days), and so he left us near the Montmartre Market, and we headed back to our pensione. As we walked, I was talking to myself roughly, exhorting myself to speak up and get it over with. I spied a café, and I announced that I was feeling better, and suggested we get dinner, and then afterwards we could go to a club or something. Paul thought that was a splendid idea, and we found seats in the café.
It was a typical Parisian bistro circa 1961, and since it was in Montmartre, its reputation was no better than it had to be. The only women in the place were courtesans, mistresses and high-priced call girls, dripping in jewels and being fawned over by middle aged men, who clearly should have been home with their wives. To our innocent eyes, though, we just thought they were the most beautiful and sophisticated women we’d ever seen. “Look at that one!” Paul would whisper. “She looks like Brigitte Bardot!” This went on ad nauseum, to the point where I was in despair. His head was like a ricochet, moving this way and that, and his eyes alive with lust.
I finally couldn’t take it any more. “Stop doing that!” I suddenly snapped. It turned out much louder than I had intended. Every one in the restaurant stopped talking and looked at me. I blushed. Paul was staring at me in shock, with his mouth hanging open. I had gone from not having enough of Paul’s attention to suddenly having way too much of his attention in just a few seconds. I laughed, trying to convey the message that it was a joke. Everyone else relaxed, and went back to what they were doing. But Paul was still staring at me – concerned.
“What’s going on John?” He asked.
“It’s just that I wanted to talk to you, and you’re so distracted.”
“What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked, with those huge hazel eyes so earnest and innocent staring at me. I certainly had his full attention now.
“Oh, I don’t know,” I punted, desperately searching for the right words. “Just about, I don’t know, about us.”
“What about us, John? Are you mad at me? Have I done something wrong?” I looked up and saw concern there for the first time.
“No, don’t be daft! Why would I be mad at you?”
“I don’t know, you just have seemed a bit – off – ever since we got to Paris. I thought maybe I’d said or done something to upset you, or maybe you’re sorry you invited me.”
“It’s what you’re not doing and saying that is upsetting to me.” I said bluntly.
Paul’s face was a study in consternation. “I’m sorry? What do you mean by that?” He wasn’t angry, just confused and concerned.
I suddenly became shy again, overwhelmed with a desire to dry up and blow away. “It’s just that...well, I have these…call them feelings…I have these feelings…”
If anything, Paul’s face became even more confused and concerned. “John! For Christ’s sake just spit it out! You’re giving me a heart attack here! You don’t want to quit the band, do you?”
“Quit the band? Are you mad? No of course not!” I responded in indignation. Why was it always the band with him?
“Well, what then? It can’t be that bad. And even if it is, we can fix it. We just have to figure out a way. Just tell me what it is, and we’ll work it out.”
I took a deep breath, and decided upon the indirect approach. “Do you ever wonder what it would be like to have sex with a bloke?”
I don’t know what Paul was expecting, but he clearly wasn’t expecting that. “You what?” he asked me, not sure he heard right.
I repeated the question, and he sat there staring at me in confusion for a good 10 seconds. He finally said, slowly and carefully, “Why do you ask, John?”
“Because I, well, as I said, I have these feelings….”
I was watching his face intently for the first sign of panic. Instead, his face looked like it had a cloud hanging over it for a moment, and then suddenly the cloud cleared. “Oh,” he said, “thaaaat.” The word “that” sounded like it had 4 syllables when Paul said it that night. He looked relieved.
“What do you mean, ‘thaaaat’?” I asked indignantly.
“I mean, I knew that,” he said simply.
“Knew what?” I felt sure he had gotten hold of the wrong end of the stick somehow. He couldn’t possibly know, because then that would mean that – maybe everyone else knew too? Maybe it was obvious? But Paul was answering my question:
“I know that you fancy me, the way sometimes girls do.” He said it matter-of-factly, and with no trace of disgust or sarcasm.
There. It was said. Only he said it, not me. Well, that was weird. I was filled with panic that this was a widely known and badly kept secret amongst the blokes back home. My heart was beating so fast it felt as though it was going to break through my chest wall.
“How could you have known that?” I managed to scrape out in a hoarse whisper.
Paul’s face was suddenly very empathetic, very tender. “You’re my best friend, John. How could I not know?”
“Why didn’t you say something to me? It’s been hell!“ I blurted out.
Paul got peeved at that. “It’s not for me to say, John. If you didn’t want to talk about it, then I wasn’t going to bring it up.”
We both sat quietly for what seemed like several minutes, but was probably only a few. Paul was idly stirring his tea, and letting me steep over what had been said. I was staring into the middle of the restaurant trying to understand what this all meant. Good? Bad? Indifferent?
“Is it that obvious?” I finally asked, fearfully, my heart no doubt in my eyes. “Is it written all over my bloody face?”
“No one else knows if that is what you’re worrying about. We’re just so close, you and I, that I would have to be a complete beaut not to notice it.”
“And it doesn’t bother you? You don’t hate me for it?”
Paul’s face registered clear astonishment. “Hate you? Why? Because you fancy me? Of course not! That’s a really stupid reason to hate somebody.”
“So, you’re not going to push me away? You’re not afraid to be around me?”
“It isn’t as though you’ve ever jumped me,” he said calmly. “What’s there to be afraid of?”
I sat quietly for a few minutes, but he was watching me carefully now. I could see that he was reading something in my eyes that was unnerving him. So, I just decided to go for it.
“But you never answered my question: have you ever wondered what it was like to have sex with a bloke?”
“No,” he said carefully, “my imagination won’t go that far. I wouldn’t even know where to begin.”
“But is it something you’re curious about, that you’d like to try just to see what it is like?”
Paul was finally processing what I was really asking for; I could see in his face that he was on the edge of his nerves, and that he was observing the conversation at a high level of alert now.
“John,” he finally said, pausing for a moment to phrase his question carefully, “are you asking me to have sex with you?”
We both fell deathly silent. We stared into each other’s eyes for a good long time.
Paul spoke again. “Is that why you brought me here?” He asked, more insistent this time. I didn’t respond. I couldn’t. I remember my hands were clasped in my lap, and I was squeezing them hard together, and they were cold and shaking. The whole thing felt like it was going to rocket out of control. My eyes started to fill with tears, and I was swearing at myself for this. I wanted to dive into a hole and never come out. I squeezed my eyes shut and just sat there silently.
“John, look at me,” Paul said, reaching across the table and jostling my arm. Reluctantly, I opened my eyes and no doubt he could see the tears there. He sighed deeply, and said, “Look, it isn’t as if I have the slightest clue how to do it. And what if I couldn’t do it? It could ruin our friendship, our band – everything! Is it really that important to you that you could risk everything?”
A few more tortuous minutes passed before I finally gained enough control of my emotions to say something. “I already risked everything, didn’t I?” I said. He quirked his eyebrow at me - that was his way of asking me to explain further. “Just by putting it out here on the table, I’ve risked everything,” I continued. “If you say no, nothing will ever be the same. If you say yes, it might go bad and things will never be the same. Either way, we’re doomed. But if you say yes, and it goes right, then we have a chance of keeping what we have.” In short, I had just laid down an ultimatum: be my lover or the band was over.
Paul sat staring at me for another few moments, and I could see that the wheels were turning in his head. In that instant, to me, it felt like a roulette wheel. Finally, after rubbing his eyes for a few moments, he seemed to have made a decision. The band was going to win out. It always did with him.
“I’ll give it a try, John. But I’m only doing this because I care about you, and I don’t want to hurt you. Please try not to hate me if I can’t follow through.”
Now that I had won, I felt a rush of confidence (and also something else) course through my body. “Oh, you’ll ‘follow through’ alright, Macca. I’ll see to that!” I announced in a raunchy voice. Paul’s face reflected shock, and then embarrassment.
As seductions go, it wasn’t randy; it wasn’t even remotely romantic. It was painful, and we had to pick our way through it as if it were a minefield. Like every other choice we made in our relationship, first we had to imagine the bridge, then design the bridge, and then build the bridge before we could walk over it to the other side.
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Date: 2017-08-07 03:00 pm (UTC)Just finished reading the majority of Too Much Rain, which I enjoyed very much. I've followed along to this story, but there appears to be something missing between the last post and this one. Maybe it's an operator issue, but I can't seem to find chapters 4-B and 4-C. Could you point me in the right direction?
Thanks for keeping up your writing, I'm loving your AU John and Paul.
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Date: 2017-08-07 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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