"Alice did you sometimes learn something from your past experiences, or what?"

"What."

from 'Alice in Wonderland'

Lewis Carroll

I felt his palm pushing on the back of my open hand against the wall.

Jesus Christ, he had already put his hands everywhere and I had not even asked yet

'What's your name?'

Here it is.

'I'm not telling you.

Who the hell knows you. '

'I am going to fuck you, at least tell me who you are.'

Fair enough .

I had to stop going around and having fun with the worst scum of Cambridge. Sooner or later, with my arrogance I would offend the wrong person. But I was in the third year and then it was like a personal tradition. Inaugurated the academic year with this anonymous sex.

This one I had recovered in one of the remotest pub, the farther from campus, the less bullshit risked to do.

I had spent half an hour before I had the courage to meet his eyes.

But he stared at me with no control e no shame.

He looked at me as if he never had seen a man before me, and actually saw the environment that he frequented, I had not struggled to believe it.

Interesting boy, tall, dark hair and messy just enough to make me want to abuse of his companionship , before lock me in the corridors of the spotless ,most prestigious college of England – well you should agree, one of the two most prestigious colleges of England ( 1).

And in any case, when one would ever view a skin like mine?

When I entered the bathroom I called the usual seven minutes.

If he had not come in that time frame I would come out and say goodbye.

It had been four.

More than last time,

less than the first.

I was losing it?

I walked over to the door to look out and check it, when it suddenly opened.

Four and a half minutes.

We exchanged a few words that together did not make a sentence and then I had his hands everywhere.

That 's what I like of this poor trash,

They know what is worth to risking jail.

And although they are all queers , they exude masculinity from every flap of skin.

They have no grace.

They have no rules.

And for once, what I was, it counted for nothing.

I represented no more than a hand on the wall.

Cambridge, 10 March 1937

In or out.

Life is made of moments of indecision and choices suspended on the edge of a logic that does not exist and perhaps unnecessary.

I stared at the window of the tea room next to the library and I kept wondering if the bug was in or out.

Yes, it wanted only a gesture, a careless hand, one blast, maybe wings, to figure out where it was.

But I, I stared at him.

In or out.

To be or not to be.

But then, really be what?

'A jerk.

That's what .'

When I felt my shoulder moved to direct my arm to the window, the voice of Niall Horan, just set to its most arrogant tone, broke the smoky air of the room.

'Only a fool would give up to the throne of England for an american woman.'

She was not enough a woman, he had to add the source to give a better idea.

As if giving up the throne of England for an English woman would not be too mad.

'I would let you know that you are calling the King of England a jerk, I don't even know if there is death penalty for this.'

The ability of Liam Payne to not grasp the true meaning of a conversation never ceased to amaze me.

He had the ambitious certainty that tidy up a place after a tornado, was enough to revive the silver candlesticks.

It was not his fault.

All the high English society had the stubborn belief that the appearance of a well-lit, on the day of receipt, would be enough to hide generations of scandals wretches.

Or that the well-trained horses were enough to win wars.

Small saddles and tight bridles.

Everything under strict control.

Napoleon was not enough for them to realize that they did not control their own shit.

And even an Empire nearly dismantled after a won war .

'Former King.

Payne. '

Niall objected.

And he continued.

'Just because he's a jerk.

He gave up the throne for a woman.

He gave up the throne for an american woman.'

He ruled again.

I postponed the decision on the insect and intervened

'Maybe Wallis Simpson is not a woman like any other.

Maybe she knows arts that we do not even imagine .'

I let that statement tinged the edges of the conversation, of the wickedness and vulgarity, enough to shut up all the audacity to pretend of Horan and the plaster respectability of Payne.

I would have ended there, triumphant in my steel capacity to provoke, if not in the room there was someone else.

'Do not be vulgar,

Tomlinson.

it does not suit you .'

There it is.

Leaning in the doorway arch only with the tip of the shoulder, his arms and legs crossed, and a look not too intrusive to fill the entire room.

Harry Styles had just discovered my bluff.

Again.

He stood there, proud,

never in awe,

with a beauty so shameless to intimidate the centuries of literature that were the setting.

Indeed.

He could inspire each of these works.

And for that it would have enough presence.

And while to others he lavish trivial acidity,

I was the victim who he reserved the charisma.

And then he turned to Niall.

'Horan you are so stupid that if I followed your reasoning I should say that your mother is american.

But, ironically, I happen to have an american mother and everything, in my being ,disproves your theory.

Among other things, you're not even english, what do you have to discuss so much to the origin of the Simpson? You will have to explain it to me.

At least the Yankee have conquered those independence, your people in Ireland are still suffering.

Instead, I will now tell you the biggest secret of England, and more .'

He walked past me, looking at me with that damn look of his.

Then he stopped behind Niall and, relying on the arms of his chair,

perching close to his ear, he whispered aloud

'Our beloved king, is not abdicating to an american woman,

-even if she is an artist, how the ingenuity of Tomlinson suggested.'

(He helped himself with an elegant movement of the hand, to humiliate me more gracefully)

'His problem is not having sex with something that comes from across the Atlantic,

but sympathizing politically for what is a bit 'too much across the Channel.' (3)

Liam got up from his chair as if he had just erupted beneath a mortar bomb, but before he could chant his objection, Harry was already responding:

'Rest soldier.

It is not worth being so loyal to a king who renounced at the crown for an american or a german.

Or worse.

For both.

Too much vulgarity.

Too much, all at once, to profane the dynasty of Windsor .'

The sounds of laughter of Niall accompanied the silent retreat of Liam.

No one wanted to start to discuss Hitler.

Nor even a policy that currently was none of our concern.

Or so we thought.

And in any case, no one wanted to start a discussion with Harry.

Although younger, he was more intelligent, cultured and brazen than all of us.

He had entered my -in our lives, only a few months earlier, who knows where, who knows why, but no one, not even for a second thought he could be just a regular guy.

Certainly I would not have redone the same mistake.

Yet.

Cambridge, September 1936

I felt his palm pushing on the back of my hand against the wall.

Jesus Christ, he had already put his hands everywhere and I had not even asked yet

'What's your name?'

'I'm not telling you.

Who the hell knows you. '

'I am going to fuck you, at least tell me who I'm doing it.'

Well yes, usually my name worked perfectly.

Nothing let them turn on as saying my fucking name.

'Louis.

My name is Louis.'

At least that was what always happened.

I heard him come closer, his chest against my back.

And with an unsustainable gently, he leans on my neck.

'Oh.

Louì.

Êtes vous français? '

Perfect pronunciation.

'No.'

I stammered.

Even better.

It came out panting because I was the one who get more excited.

And he get in.

'Ce n'est pas important.

I'll call you Louì.

It drives me crazy. '

His voice.

Holy Christ.

Low.

Deep.

His way of pronouncing my name in two languages together.

Liuì.

Only the beating of two syllables, and I was completely his.

I was not even able to speak.

I was just panting.

I pulled down a curse and he had pleaded

'Do not be vulgar

Louì,

It does not suit you .'

And I was thinking.

I thought the guys in the slums did not speak French, they did not know this pronunciation.

I thought, feeling them all over me, that those hands made of silk could not belong to a worker.

I thought the boors do not protesting for a blasphemy and do not smell like Bayles.

But then, what was he ?

Most of all, who the hell was he?

And why, instead of scare me, he let me feel it even harder?

In fact, I stopped even thinking.

Even when we finished, he gave up on my back and the feeling of fullness was absolute.

He did not move, not even I, we were on our pleasure still, as we agreed.

How to sublimate it in a silence that separated the surreal moment that we had just experienced and reality-or the almost- reality - of life that had led us there and that there would be swept away.

An island of pleasure, surrounded by a sea of silence.

Without knowing what the banks of our real lives were distant.

When he pulled away from me ,I could with difficulty put together my senses, and went back to the question that at that time was crucial.

Who the hell is he?

I try to stand straight and give me a tone of indifference.

Ask a question needed with the air of who doesn't care about anything.

'So you'd be?'

I asked, staring at the buttons of his shirt.

He looked at me smugly but I saw a crease to the side of his lips stretching his smile.

'I'm not telling you.

Who the hell knows you .'

He looked at me again.

This time in a different way.

He looked at me like I was naked in front of him.

No, he looked at me as if I was naked just for him.

And then he went on.

I saw him with a sarcastic laugh.

I had just be screwed by a stranger.

In all senses.

With all senses.

And I was laughing.

And I was terrified.

The only sad victory that bastard left me, after a few weeks earlier he had taken advantage of me in the bathroom – well the agreement was absolutely consensual and even more but I do not know who he was, and then I was the one who had been used - was the fact that he has paid the bill for both.

It was not actually that the victory-and in fact, I would also regret it -, because to be honest I could pay the bill for the entire room with only the weekly allowance when I was 12, the victory was the fact that he paid before joining me in the bathroom.

So, from the four and a half minutes that I had to wait, I had to take off the time he has spent to pay the bill.

I am a picky.

I love the details.

And he practically run in the bathroom as soon as he saw me get away.

In substance, most likely, I beat my personal record of conquer.

(Actually that night I had beaten other records, for which I was not too proud)

And if the boor had not decided to do the gentleman I'd be even fully certain.

Too bad that some records could not be discuss in public and so them were to remain only my things, as the calendars of prisoners on the walls of the prison; incomprehensible, encouraging and necessary.

I thought about that, in the yard, during a break between two lessons, while Liam complained about the new schedule of courses and Niall of his new roommate, freshman and deaf-mute, always the same speeches, always the same complaints.

Boredom.

Nothingness.

Actually I thought on the unknown even during class, in the cafeteria, while playing tennis, while I was brushing my teeth, and as I stared at the book of international relations in the library.

More than the record I was obsessed with who the bastard that I was fucked in the bathroom of the pub was –well , he was the one who had fucked me, but in any case the question did not change.

He knew my name and was not a worker or one of those mindless who frequented those places.

Who the hell was he, it was impossible to understand.

He was a stranger and knew my secret.

Of course it was also his secret but it was my life that I was worried, not his.

It was not the first time that I slipped in one of those pubs to try an easy company.

I knew what would be the consequences of what I was doing but I also knew that a story away from my environment, where no one knew my name, it was a risk I could afford to run.

But that evening I had made a mistake.

It could cost me really much (3)

'There it is.

That guy.

The weirdo .'

If he did not screaming, he was not happy.

Whenever I was lost on my own thoughts.

Niall and his inappropriate tone of voice.

And right in time the pedantic comment of Liam.

'Look, he is deaf and dumb, not delayed.'

I turned around following their voices, still asleep on my doubts.

In fact, I thought of being on the brink of the worst possible madness.

I saw him from a distance.

There he is, really.

He crossed the grass of the entrance of the faculty, we were on the other side of the porch.

The view could not be the best, a sniper would have known how to make better choices.

The same step stylish, shorter hair, and the same air as an arrogant son of a bitch.

He was he, no doubt.

'There it is.'

I concentrated and then I turned to Niall.

'Excuse me, is he your roommate?

The deaf-mute? '

'Yes Louis.

That's him.

The weirdo.'

Even Liam interjected

'Oh, it is deaf and dumb not retar ..'

'Liam we understand.

And now please be quiet.

How you said your roommate is called, Niall? '

(It is also possible that I have a devilish grin appeared on one side of my lips)

'I told you twenty times Tomlinson.'

'Add the twenty-first , maybe this time I remember.'

I danced on my impatience.

'Harold.

Harold

Styles.'

Deaf and dumb.

That animal.

Although I wanted to laugh a little bit.

I imagined Niall in that room screaming and shouting and swearing cause he could not make himself understood, and the one to take him for a ride.

I ignored completely Horan and started following the boor gentleman by cutting off the porch.

He seemed in a hurry and it was almost impossible to keep up with those ibex legs.

I saw him entering the bathroom of the floor and waited for the classrooms to be filled in and the hall to be empty.

At the beginning he knew my name and I do not know who he was.

And that had taken away the sleep and filled me with troubled thoughts.

And the bastard had done it on purpose.

But now, I knew who he was.

Name and surname beating only name.

Even if French, even if exciting.

(okay, well, better to focus on else)

But now I was the one in the lead.

When he opened the door we clashed, again.

It looked like a deja vu.

I told him the same thing.

'Oops'

The same that he had said to me entering the bathroom of the pub.

I said it with that vindictive arrogance of those who was in the lead.

Then I looked at him.

And I died a little.

All of my shy looks, the smoking pub, the low lights of the bathroom, the effects of alcohol, the craving of sex, the excitement of his breath and his French and the anxiety about what he knew of me and I did not know about him and all about that night was stuck in the folds of my carelessness, was now before me in all its arrogance.

It was like looking at Medusa.

My eyes were hypnotized.

I looked like a child at the Luna Park.

The rides, the lights, the cotton candy.

My eyes were crazed bullets.

Jesus Christ I had become the deaf-mute.

Mouth, eyes, hair, neck, skin.

He did not miss the chance and he stole the joke.

'Hi'

Hi, tilting his head slightly.

Still with that smile just mentioned and tone soaked in sarcasm that dripped annoyingly now obviously on me.

He and his ability to make damn sensual words.

He looking at me in that cursed way.

Harry Styles who raped me with his eyes.

With one blink he was stroking my whole body.

As if his tongue was licking every centimeter of skin.

It was the delicacy of a breeze on a wet body.

'Oh

Louì,

you look like Alice who followed the white rabbit and do not know which door to choose.'

(He grimaced and if he was someone else I could thought he wanted to take off my embarrassment)

Perhaps at this point it would be appropriate and gentle to introduce myself.

'I am Har ... '

'Harold Styles'

I said almost pretending to ignore its importance.

Not even the satisfaction of joining the victory.

Of course I had not won a shit.

And of course I had to pay it immediately.

'Louì,

I was a guest in your ass,

You are now allowed to call me Harry.

And I would give you the joy of a replica,

but right now I'm late for my class.'

Then, meanwhile he said goodbye, he said that One thing.

'See you around my Lord.'

I had a feeling worse than when I went away from the pub.

He knew so much more about me than what I knew of him still.

And I had underestimated him.

Again.

I should have been terrified and instead but my brain drummed on one sentence.

And I would give you the joy of a replica.

And one disastrous question.

When?

Notes

(1) Of course, the other one is Oxford.

Oxford was founded in 1096, Cambridge in 1231.

The sarcastic tone reflects the multi-old competition between the two prestigious universities.

(2) Edward VIII was King of England and the British Empire from January 1936 to December of that year.

The official reason for his abdication in favor of his brother Albert - up the throne as George VI- was his relationship with actress Wallis Simpson, bourgeois, but mostly american divorcee -the king of England, by the time of Henry VIII , also head of the Church (which is the same Henry VIII married six times is one of those follies which is full).

To marry Simpson, Edward was forced to renounce the throne.

A few months later, in March of '37, his brother gave him the title of Duke of Windsor, a title that it fell too Wallis when in June became his wife.

There are suspicions that the reason why Edward was removed from the throne was not only his passion for Wallis.

Everyone knew of his sympathies for totalitarian regimes, in particular for the respect that he had for Nazi Germany.

In fact, the former king was sent to the Bahamas as governor for the entire period of the war and returned home only after the conflict ended.

(3) Here the discussion is wide but I will try to summarize it as much as possible.

In England the laws against homosexuality have always been hard.

In reality it is only one law, the Buggery Act, dated 1533, to the time of Henry VIII, and included the death penalty for the crime of sodomy.

Only in 1861 the death penalty was replaced by imprisonment.

It is for this law that Oscar Wilde had to endure imprisonment.

The law was abolished only in 1967, thirty years after the events she's describing.