Bernard Black stared out of his grimy windows and, for once, wished that breakfast was taking its' sweet time. He'd had a very upsetting conversation with Fran the night before, and, with his hangover rebelling against the obnoxiously loud and happy and fulfilled singing that Manny was emitting in the kitchen, it seemed all the worse.
"Oh don't be silly, Bernard. You're in love with Manny, and everyone except him knows it. What we are doing tonight, is… is… drinking to our perpetual loneliness! Every guy I get to go on a date with is gay or too sane to stay with me. Every guy you… well… shack up with… is straight or a er woman, who leaves you inevitably… I think I'm a little confused with all of this… what is this?"
He'd pushed the awful shaped bottle towards her, the remnants of Manny's godawful Beetroot Liquer, and she'd snorted.
"Bottle looks like a solidified torrent of piss. Anyway, we're having depressed lonely drinkies, because I am always alone, and because Manny is upstairs shagging his new girlfriend."
Bernard burrowed into the crap on his desk and lay there, hoping that the sunlight would go away, and that Manny wouldn't come through the curtain, exuberantly happy, with his breakfast.
As Manny came through, Bernard could hear her showering.
Whatever Fran thought, he resolved to himself, he didn't love Manny. The pubic hair attached to his face alone put Bernard off. Kissing those lips must be like performing cunnilingus; all confusing and in the end something disgustingly unwashed gets stuck between your teeth.
Oh no, Bernard did not love Manny at all.
And he wasn't jealous. To prove it, when Manny rested his hand on Bernards back and asked if he was okay, Bernard grabbed the stapler and, quite successfully he thought, stapled Manny's beard into what looked much less like rampant lesbain groin hair.
"Bernard! What did you do that for?" He demanded, half waking Fran so that she groaned and shifted on the sofa. The shower stopped, upstairs, and Rowena called out to Manny. He looked pointedly at Bernard silently as he pried out some staples, not all, and trudged back up the stairs.
Bernard stared at the toast and tea, felt sick right down deep in his stomach, and reached beneath his desk for a bottle of piss.
For some reason, Rowena stayed for lunch. Bernard retreated upstairs so that the saccharine happiness wouldn't reach his ears. He lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, listening to The Thing moving around beneath his bed.
He tried not to think about their sex, and he failed. He could remember moments, tiny moments of half thoughts, in the bathroom in the morning and in the shop. Watching Manny move and stretch and bend. Thinking that, though he wasn't into Manny, that somehow despite his hairy repulsive fat hippie appearance the man was eerily beautiful. Just individual parts, not as a whole. Like that curve near the small of his back, when he was reaching to the top shelf. If Bernard was his lover, he'd have…
And his arse, when he bent, was much more shapely than any other Bernard had seen.
But of course, it was Manny, and Bernard wasn't his lover, so he had no place really in admiring that sort of thing. He was just appreciating it visually until Manny got a lover to do that gorgeous flesh justice.
A woman like Rowena…
Bernard swore and felt his head ache. He took another swig of wine from his bottle and closed his eyes.
He could hear them, downstairs, being jovial and friendly and lauging. Their disgusting happiness alternated with the mocking yowling of the cat who owned the building, and Bernard was struck with the sudden epiphany that he could always burn the place down, and destroy them all with it.
But, then, where would he keep all his books? Where else in the world would there be a dank and lonely enough corner to have a bookshop with just enough customers to cover rent, but not so many that he had to reorder books too often…
Bah! He'd wait until taxes, at least, so that Manny did them. If he didn't run off with Roweeeena.
It felt like ages that Bernard lay there in the half light, certainly long enough for The Thing to get bored and settle down quietly. Bernard heard the bell ring, and ring, and ring, at the door. Customers. He heard them laugh, and talk about how sweet the young couple were.
He heard someone coming up the stairs. So did The Thing, which made itself known. Manny entered with a bunch of bananas and a carefully unstapled beard. Bernard looked up at him and scoffed, then he forced down some more shitty wine.
"You're a bloody soft touch, you know that?" He slurred grumpily. But he felt his heart swell, thinking that Manny was always so sweet to the ecosystem's inhabitants. Most people tried to kill them…
Manny sat down uncomforably close to Bernard's leg on the bed. He absently lay a hand on Bernard's thigh for balance while he kindly peeled a banana and dangled it temptingly near the edge of the bed. The Thing hunrgily grabbed it, and released a jumbled cacophony of thanks.
Everything was so polite in here, Bernard thought to himself, and he had a bit more of a drink. To chase away his tears. Halfway to his mouth for a second bit more, Bernard's bottle was rudely torn away.
Torn away from his clasped hand like a treacherous housemate, torn away to happiness and heterosexual love and sex and waking up in a bed next to someone else.
Manny's hand moved on his thigh, pressed in harder as he leant over to wedge the bottle into some crap on the bedside table. Then it went away completely, and returned to his forehead. It felt nice, Manny's hand, and warm.
"Are you okay, Bernard? You don't feel like you have a fever… Why didn't you take the alka seltzer I left you with breakfast?"
"The wha?"
"You know, it fizzes and gets rid of hangovers."
"Ah, yes, yeah, that thing. No."
Manny frowned, and looked into Bernard's eyes.
"Bernard, you should take better care of yourself."
Bernard could feel Manny's hand move away, slowly trailing itself along his face. It felt like poison; how many times had that hand clasped desperately at writhing she-flesh just hours ago?!
Bernard pushed his thoughts away, and rolled onto his side, curling into a ball.
"Piss off."
Manny and Rowena went out to lunch together. Fran made sure that Bernard ate some cold toast, and sat him down with a glass of wine and a cigarette. She moaned on about some wanker of a date while he stared at his desk and had an internal battle over whether it was worse to think about lunch with Roweena, how his head felt, or what shite Fran was ranting about. Was that something about a turtle?!
She had to be stopped, really, she did. And like any woman dopey from too many films with Fabio or whatever-his-arse was, other peoples' romantic business was to Fran like bananas were to The Thing, or the impulse to scream was to children.
"I don't believe in love, you know. It's like betting and television; I've had my flings, I've had my bruises, and broken hearts. And I'm through with it!"
He slammed his glass down on the desk and then felt guilty and cradled it softly in his fingers, stroking the side in apology. He hadn't meant to hurt it.
Fran fell silent, and her face contorted a little. She poured them both some more wine.
"Oh, Bernard, but it's not through with you." She made pitying, soothing noises, and then fell into a witchy cackle.
"Oh get out, get out of here you harpie!"
Bernard found that, for whatever reason, he just couldn't face life. He slumped upstairs and flung himself back into his bed.
This day was awful, just awful. He slept.
He was woken up by the shop bell, and the noise of Fran talking to Manny and Rowena. So Fran had stayed? Bernard supposed that she had nothing better to do, probably stuck in the self-help section reading some dating guide from the 70s.
They moved into the kitchen, and Bernard could hear vaguely ominous words floating up, words like "dinner", "stay", and "cook". He moaned incoherently at the universe, hating that Roweeeeena would be staying, probably another night. He could hear their spiteful joviality and convivality emanating from the floorboards beneath his bed.
He crawled beneath his duvet and made a small fluffy wall of protection between himself and the air, in case the idiocy was transmissable.
Manny came up the stairs, for some reason. Bernard knew from over three years of familiarity and just common sense, really, that only Manny was aware enough of everything in the house to traipse up without any halting. Except for last night, when he'd shown Rowena how to get up.
So hopefully, it was Manny. Bernard's bedroom door opened, and he knew it was Manny, because he didn't hear any gasps of horror, and The Thing was acting excited. Like in the morning, Manny sat down on the bed and fed some bananas to The Thing. After sitting for a few moments he turned and tugged at the duvet Bernard was hiding in.
"So I went shopping, with Rowena. And I, er, found some things I wanted to bring you."
Bernard choked back a sob, he'd been having crazy mood swings today, and was proud that it only came out of his mouth and the duvet as a muted grunt. Manny sighed and leant back against the duvet, his back resting against Bernard's, warm even through the puffy duvet. He began to unpack things from a bag and explain them, putting them down on a clear space on the bed.
"So I got you some wine, from a gourmet shop. One's supposed to be made from strawberries, the other from, er, rice. Thought you'd have a good ten minutes bitching about how awful they were."
Bernard felt a funny warm feeling, not unlike indigestion, start in his chest. It spread, slowly, throughout his entire body. It was warm, and sweet, and sickly strange. It made him want to writhe around in agony, or destroy something. Anything, anything to get it to stop.
It made him want to kiss someone with a beard.
"And then we went out to lunch, and there were these funny little chocolates shaped like animals. I got one that looks like the cat that owns the shop, I thought maybe we could set it on fire together after dinner."
The feeling grew inside his chest, and Bernard bit his fist to avoid moving or reacting or rolling over and reaching out for god knew what reason.
"Bernard, are you okay?"
Shit he must've let out some little noise.
"Fine, FINE!"
Manny sighed, tired or something, he had his exasperated voice on. He began to lift himself off of the bed.
"I'm just going to go and cook some dinner, then."
"No!"
The outburst was involuntary. Bernard, given his recent revelations, knew he wouldn't make it through a whole meal of kissy huggyRoweeena. He could imagine it now; Manny would cook and she'd be there helping him cut vegetables. While Fran and Bernard drank at the table, they'd have to watch Manny stand behind her and, romantically clasping her hands in his, show her how to artfully carve something or other into a carrot.
Manny sat back down while Bernard was thinking, and pulled the duvet away sometime during the soliloquy. Bernard realised it when Manny took hold of his shoulder and pulled him over. He fell, spreadeagled, on the bed. Manny braced a hand beside Bernard's head and leant forwards. Bernard felt the sensation of sweet crazy burning intensify and he involuntarily licked his lips.
Like the hairy monkey he was, Manny unconsciously mimicked the action as he raised his free hand to Bernard's forehead.
"Are you okay, Bernard?"
He asked, his face quite visibly lined with worry.
Bernard blinked, trying to think of anything other than the very recent image of Manny's tongue and lips, of anything other than the soft wet sound he had made.
"Ah………… thing. The thing is, Manny, that I think that Rowena is… a… turd. And I will not share my dinner table with such a disgusting object. I don't think you should see her again."
Manny smiled, then, in a very confusing way, and the hand on his head moved gently, stroking his forehead.
"Do you have a cold?"
"What?"
"Well, you've checked my head for fever about seven times in the last two days, I thought maybe you were scared that you'd given it to me and that I'd rightly exact my righteous justice upon you."
Manny seemed to be breathing in, and out, and focusing very hard on something. His hand still hadn't moved.
"Shit, Bernard, I can't…"
And then Bernard felt warm all over, and heavy. Manny was lying down over him, his hand had slipped to the side of Bernard's head and was anchoring him as warm, soft lips pressed against his. Bernard could consciously feel his brain begin to short circuit as he raised an arm to touch the small of Manny's back. He felt a tongue press against his lips and, mindlessly, he swallowed it into his mouth.
And oh, God. Fuck. The soft noises Manny was making, the way that despite its' size and girth The Beard wasn't feeling in the way at all. The way that Manny was shifting, twising his legs so that every inch possible was in contact with Bernard.
But then Manny's kisses became hotter, and more slobbery. He breathed, open mouthed, onto Bernard's face. He began to rock rythmically against Bernard's thigh. It was hot and overwhelming and somewhat unnerving. Because, Bernard knew somehow, no matter how sweet Manny's arse felt beneath his fingers, the amount of booze he'd had would preclude any… ahem… activities that day.
Bernard would have reached up to push Manny away, or maybe just lain there, scared that if he did things would revert instantly, but he didn't have to decide, not really, because somebody knocked on the door and Manny sat up quickly, straightening his shirt and trying to tidy his hair. But his face was flushed and his lips swollen from kissing; if you looked deliberately at his lap you could see his erection quite obviously through his awful, summery shorts.
More knocking came, tentative. Bernard took a deep breath and prepared to shout out…. Well, something. But Fran's voice came, loud and laughing, through the door.
"I'm off, Manny. I've paid "Rowena" off, and you owe me about 200 for her. She said she charged extra for having to spend the night in this dump, but also gave you a discount for just being cute and oblivious. I'm going to lock the door now."
Bernard pulled at Manny's hair until he turned to face him. Bernard looked at Manny, and maybe slapped him a little on the back of the head, until he explained things.
"Ow, ow! Bernard! Ow! Ahh! Okay, okay. What?"
Bernard gave Manny one more swat on the head, for good measure, and stared at him.
"What did Fran mean, 200 pounds?"
Manny hid his head behind his hair and muttered. Bernard had to lean back in, very very close, to hear.
"….and maybe I might have hired a prostitute to pretend to be my girlfriend to try and make you jealous so I knew for sure."
"Knew what for sure?"
It didn't have to be said, and Manny just turned around and kissed Bernard on the forehead. Bernard started to speak, but Manny smiled and cut him off.
"I know, I know, exacting hygiene. I figure, if you only ever fuck me, I can take care of that problem. And we shouldn't worry about that until you're sober enough to, well, you know…"
Bernard couldn't decide whether he was supposed to yell at Manny now or let the warm tingling feelings take him over. He decided that he'd just hold Manny's hand and wait for something else to happen.