This is a (very) belated birthday girl for Julads, who is one of the best writers of AU fanfic I have ever had the pleasure of reading. If you haven't taken the time to check out "Swarm and Handle" or "Alla Breve," please read those before beginning on this fic. Her writing is not only mature and complex; she offers some of the most substantial and best-researched, most immersive AU writing you will ever be privileged to experience. I hope in this story, a prequel to another fic of mine, I have been able to satisfy her interest in AU fanfic while offering something that is testament to her quality as a writer and contributions to the South Park fandom.

Since FFN doesn't allow copying and pasting, or linking, find Julads' work on this site at ~julads.

Thanks is due to Nhaingen, for reviewing a draft of this, and to Ceia, for her truly comprehensive comments, especially about British speech and culture.

Michaelmas

October-December 1966

Outrages on decency.

11. Any male person who, in public or private, commits, or is a party to the commission of, or procures or attempts to procure the commission by any male person of, any act of gross indecency with another male person, shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and being convicted thereof shall be liable at the discretion of the court to be imprisoned for any term not exceeding two years, . . .

Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 ("Labouchere Amendment")

"Hello," a voice sang, "I've just let myself in. Stanley? Hello?" It was chipper and musical. Kyle. He was probably high, Stanley figured.

"I'm in here, darling. Bathroom," Stanley clarified. "Mirror. Distressed." So they were both a bit high. Stanley felt himself coming down anyway. The only thing more stressful than formal dinner with the maudlin Magdalens was forced sobriety. Stanley wasn't altogether certain how he'd borne it. He and Kyle had laughed all the way through the iceberg and canned beet salad, but things had calmed by dessert to the point that they saw nothing amusing at all in currant-studded gelatin. Kyle had flung one (a currant, that is) across the table at Bridon, a year below them.

"Oops," he'd said, dropping a register into his breathy queer lisp. "What a calamity."

Bridon remained unconvinced, and scowled at them over his coffee.

Now Stanley was obsessively tugging at his hair in the bathroom mirror, wondering how he was meant to show his face to the world. Butters Stotch was performing her usual routine at The Queen's Men and although the show began in 10 minutes, Stanley knew he'd be seeing it again – she sang the same tunes each week, and winked at the same gentlemen in the back who tipped well. It wouldn't do to go out in public with pitch roots climbing away from his part, the notable sign of slacking off where one's appearance was concerned.

This was when Kyle slipped into the loo behind Stanley, a bottle of uncorked spumante in hand. "I picked this up from Eric; lord knows why he had it. I've been drinking it on the way over. Want some?"

Stanley took the bottle, fitted his mouth around the opening (a not-unfamiliar behavior), and tipped.

"That's it," Kyle said. "Be more drunk."

Handing the bottle back, Stanley wiped his grinning mouth. "I should say your hair looks to be in excellent form."

"Well, I did have it cut last week. I'm just unsure of whether it works with my nose. I think the old look hid it rather well." Leaning in to inspect his face in the mirror, Kyle sighed. True, he had an aquiline nose — but Stanley felt it made him look imperial and interesting. "It's so unbalanced and awkward. Correct?"

"No." On the counter, Stanley spotted two cigarettes next to each other. One was marijuana, and one tobacco. He'd rolled both earlier in the afternoon, but his memory betrayed him. Figuring either was good enough, he reached for the closer one, lit, and inhaled. "It suits you. I love it. Want some?" he asked, handing it off to Kyle.

"What is it? Is it drugs?"

"Just a cigarette."

Kyle declined. "Eric gets so annoyed when I smoke. He calls it 'bohemian,' with that air of disdain, you know."

"What do you care what Eric cares?"

Kyle blushed, biting his lip to draw some blood away from his cheeks. "No reason, you know. You know, just curious what he likes, that's all."

"Mhmm." Winking at himself in the mirror, Stanley tugged at his fringe, and grasped at the joint remaining on the counter. After a hit he turned to Kyle and asked, "Trade?"

"Certainly." With smoke trailing from his lips, Kyle said, "Eric hates everything. I offered him some drugs after dinner and he scowled at me. I offered him a blow job as well and he called me a 'fucking Jewess,' or something, I wasn't really paying attention — you know how he gets, refusing to come see Miss B perform and I, I don't know—"

"Oh, but I don't know why you care. I don't know what you see in him," Stanley replied. He wished he'd drunk more of the spumante. "So, is my hair all right?"

"Oh, like you don't know," Kyle said, choosing to ignore the question about hair. "He's bloody fucking gorgeous. Don't act as if you haven't taken advantage of that."

"Surely one of the least enjoyable things ever, fucking that man."

Kyle's eyes darkened for a moment as he turned from the glare of the wall light, but with a shrug he sighed, and asked, "Do you know who's been making eyes at you for weeks now?" before pausing to take a gulp of spumante. "You will just die if I tell you. Or haven't you noticed?"

"No idea," Stanley admitted. "That boy from the commissary? Clyde? Oh, no, he's too square to actually look at a man. It wouldn't be Craig, would it? He's so hateful, and he has that fiancée. And surely it isn't Miss B, she's married, so — I don't know, who else is there? Garrison?"

"Stanley — Garrison?"

"Of course. Well, I think you are just making things up to annoy me."

"Well, you were closer when you guessed Craig. It's Token, darling — I think Token is a bit hung up on you."

Shutting off the light, Stanley left the bathroom, Kyle trailing — the joint at his lips, cigarette left smoldering by the mirror, spumante now depleted and abandoned.

For a moment there was calamity while Stanley rifled through piles — piles of papers, of banknotes, of an exhausted ribbon from his powder-blue Royal electric, of soiled clothing — until finding his keys. Only after pocketing them did Stanley cross his arms, lean against the door, and say, "Bollocks."

Kyle had to pull the joint from his mouth to answer: "No, it's true!"

"What would some attractive earl-to-be want with a simple professor's son?" Stanley simpered, raising his brows in mocking, to mask the real fragility rooted in such a question.

"You're rather safe for a queer virgin, I think, dear — too gentlemanly to scare anyone off, at least. And absurdly handsome, you know. So easy to look at."

Stanley pouted, reaching out to grasp the joint from Kyle's fingers. "It's cruel of you to distract me," he said after a long, tense drag. "I'll never write anything beautiful if you keep getting me sidetracked, stupid things sticking in my brain, you know."

"I think that's the reefer, actually." Grabbing an angora sweater off a pouffe (having left it there last weekend), Kyle pulled it over his head. "Shall we go?"

Kyle had decided that Butters needed flowers, but being late (and moreover, miserly), this had somehow escaped accomplishing until they were en route, hurrying along the dark passages through the colleges on the way to Becket Street —to Stanley it seemed a random place for a burlesque establishment, even having gone for two years now.

They stopped in some woman's marvelous yard, black-eyed yellow-petaled blooms enticing them. After plucking one or two, the gardener rushed out with a broom and chased them away, shouting down the street, "Pansies for pansies!" which was something they giggled at, being in a state where it all just seemed riotous.

They knew the bouncer at the Queen's Men, a burly old queen who didn't like them at all, so he made them pay double-cover, just to make a point. Kyle grumbled about it, but foisted over four shillings, too drunk to really protest. "Miss B on yet?" he asked, pulling the sleeve of his angora sweater toward the elbow, and extending the underside of his wrist for stamping.

"Not to my knowledge," came the gruff reply, "although I dare say she's well ready. Been writhing under me not an hour ago. Did a turn while the husband had a vada. It's full of HPs in there. Coming together? Leaving separately?"

"Oh, lord." Kyle sniffed, jerking his arm from the bouncer, which smeared the ink. "Who hasn't had that? Don't be impressed with yourself. Cheers." And he slipped into the club.

"She's awfully proud!" the bouncer barked at Stanley as he tendered his change. "You wouldn't turn me away, would you?"

Stanley shrugged. "Missing the performance, I think," he replied, following Kyle away from the doorman.

For Kyle a shandy and for Stanley a can of Fuller's. They sat at a table near the back, locking eyes with no one —until Bradley caught them, anyway, and came over to say hello.

"So proud of him!" Bradley gushed, the wine in his highball threatening to spill with every wild gesticulation. "Prospectus on Tolkien passed! I knew it would, of course it would, he's a genius — my god, I love him."

Stanley and Kyle just looked at each other, not knowing how long they might expect this to go on for. What time was curtain, anyway?

"And what are you boys doing?"

"Blake," Kyle answered at the ready. "I've been working on it for years it seems. I like his pretty pictures almost as much as his verse, really."

"Never read it," Bradley admitted.

"There's a first time for everything." Kyle shrugged, knowing was true and yet unlikely — Bradley was older, and out of university already. He knew everything he was going to learn.

"And you, Stanley?" he asked.

Stanley bristled, annoyed at even the barest hint of friendliness, mourning a particular pair of tight trousers long gone, with Bradley to blame. "Waugh, I should think," Stanley growled, clutching his beer tighter, "but Garrison won't approve my prospectus."

"Oh, what a shame! Why not?"

"Waugh's too modern, too much of a modernist for the old man to handle," Kyle answered, sensing Stanley's disinterest in discussing it further.

"But Waugh and Tolkien are roughly contemporary—"

"Tolkien's an antiquarian if I've ever met one," Stanley replied, and indeed he had met the Professor on one occasion, perhaps two. "Look, I'll get it through eventually. I obviously didn't come out tonight to talk shop."

"Right," Bradley agreed, bidding adieus.

"She," Stanley growled, "will not take a hint."

"You'll get the thing passed, you know."

"Not now, darling."

The din of the crowd and chipped dishes of stale old toast passed around tables and clinking glasses began to increase in the old room. They were underground, in a half-submerged basement — the whole thing was so clandestine and somewhat pre-war. Not that either of them knew what that meant, pre-war — the idea that Britain might have been at some point partly submerged, only to have been excavated, now on display for the modern era.

Kyle tried to check his watch, but he hadn't got one, and instead licked at the rim of his drink, impatient.

"Would you ever fuck old Clyde?" Stanley asked.

Kyle's eyes nearly bulged from his head, the question caught him so off-guard. "Would I fuck Clyde? I think 'would I fuck a brolly' is a better question, and the answer is still 'absolutely under no circumstance.' It's a moot point anyway, seeing as Clyde's the least likely person on the planet to ever make it with another man."

Stanley's inner delight at this answer prompted a wide smile, and he said, "Because they're here, you know."

"Who's here?"

"Clyde and Token."

Kyle shook his head. "Hardly believe it."

"Believe it. … Wish I had a cigarette."

"Later, dear." Kyle patted Stanley's hand, just as anxious but somewhat more collected. "Her shows are never all that long."

At the end of his Fuller's, Stanley got up and went to the bar, restless and annoyed that he'd come down here in the first place. So many depraved queens, so many first-year initiates to the scene — and Clyde and Token, who were already at the bar, gawking at him.

"Oh," Clyde said first, making it awkward as it could be. "So, you do come down here."

Stanley rolled his eyes. "I suppose we do," he said, assuming he and Kyle were the plural second-person, a key little set. "Sure."

"Together?" Clyde asked.

"Not as such, no, but did we arrive together? We did."

"That's all I meant."

"Of course."

They eyed each other, Stanley and Clyde, Clyde with uncertainty and Stanley with the narrowed eyes of disdain.

"Figures," Stanley muttered, collapsing a handful of change onto the bar.

"Exact change helps," the bartender snapped.

"Bottle of sherry, two glasses," Stanley replied.

Biting his lip, the barkeep took the change and shuffled off.

"I don't know what we came down here for," Clyde said, slapping the bar. "I'll be in the loo. This whole place is full of queens. Cheers." As a departing gesture, he slapped Token on the shoulder, squeezing for good luck.

Token nodded in Stanley's direction; deciding to be bold, he slid his glass down the bar and sidled up next to Stanley. "Evening, Stanley," he said, voice very cordial. "Pleasure running into you."

"Evening, my lord," Stanley replied, turning to face Token. They'd talked before; never off-campus. It seemed this was the first time they'd found themselves outside of the stony cloisters and rocky Victorian sitting rooms that comprised their education.

Shaking his head, Token insisted, "No need for formalities. You've known me two years now."

"Two years and I've never seen you out. This is really nerve-wracking."

A look of inestimable sadness settled on Token's face, his smile turning down. Stanley had never really noticed how handsome Token was, and his look of intense displeasure just amplified it: square jaw, good cheekbones, nice manicured brows. It was dark in the club, too dark for Stanley to estimate the exact pitch of Token's skin, but he knew it was nice, too — rich and varied and complex, as dark as Kyle was pale and blush.

"Don't be nerve-wracked," Token said. "It's just a burlesque club. Anyone's welcome." His voice was so earnest. Stanley liked it.

"Not anyone." Stanley felt nervous. "You know, um, not girls, for example."

"Do I look like a girl?"

"No! I mean, obviously not—"

"Why are you so nervous?"

"You never come in here—"

"Am I not allowed in here now?"

"Token — my lord — I'm sorry, you just don't understand."

"Then explain it to me. I wanted to ask—"

"Excuse me." A tap on the shoulder, and Stanley turned around to find the bartender handing over a bottle of sherry and two highball glasses. "Your order."

"Thanks." Stanley gathered the bottle and glasses to his chest. "Oh, I have to go — Kyle, you know—"

"All right, well, perhaps after—"

Stanley didn't know what to say, so he nodded. "Right. Cheers." And he fled back to his table, where Kyle was sitting, smoking a skinny cigarette.

"That took you so long."

"Token and Clyde cornered me. Well, Token, really. Clyde went to the loo. I wonder if he knows what people do in there."

"I'm sure he thinks he knows." Kyle laughed, ashing the cigarette onto the floor. (Had 'later' come already?) "Give me a drink, dear. It's been the longest day. I had an art history tutorial. For Blake, you know, Romantic etchings. Didn't I tell you?"

"No, I thought you had the day off."

"I wish I had."

Stanley handed Kyle a glass of sherry. "My day just went from decent to truly strange."

"How so?"

"Token tried to talk to me."

"You talk to him in lessons all the time. This sherry is terrible, you know. It's the driest thing I've drunk in my life."

"Well, what do you want for a 2-pound bottle? Buy your own drink next time. As for Token, darling, it wasn't so much that he was speaking to me, but that he came to a queer burlesque club to do it, determinedly, as if he meant to pick me up — and with what you said earlier, it threw me. I was always sure he spent his weekends in London with Craig at some club."

"Well, he may on other weekends." Kyle smirked, licking sherry from his upper lip. "Christ, it's been 20 minutes. When is she going on?"

"How do you know how long it's been? You don't carry a watch."

"Forget it — the watch I mean. Don't you understand? Token is here to pick you up, Stanley."

"What? That's ridiculous! What do you know?"

"Me? I don't know anything. I've just been paying attention."

"Oh, that's madness. The only thing you pay attention to is Eric's trousers and William Blake verses."

"Enticing as those things are, or could be, I could take offense with that remark. I'm a very observant person."

"Observant of carts, maybe."

"Speak for yourself!"

"Well, I won't let this intrusion bother me" — 'intrusion' meaning Token's visit, or Kyle's interpretations thereof … Stanley was not sure which he meant, possibly both — "because if nothing else I was taught very diligently by my parents that if you want something to go away you can just ignore it, and it will."

"That's absurd." Kyle rolled his eyes, not that Stanley could tell in the dark, as the lights had finally gone down. "Ah, maybe the show will start now."

Anyone who knew Butters Stotch offstage would be surprised to know that he performed onstage in drag. He was quite reticent, blushed often, and was known to stammer. When he was most nervous he tucked his thumbs between his fore and middle fingers and mashed his fists together, rhythmically. He also sewed his own clothing, his frame slight enough (and just a bit too long) for girls' jumpers and plum-colored slacks he found at Oxfam. He altered things himself, using a seam-ripper to undo the sides and then remaking them with a sewing machine his father forbade him from using. Butters was a fascinating person. His stage persona was less an act than an amplification, girlish and humble, to great effect.

Stanley found Butters absolutely draining. "He does the same songs, every single week. Why do we go? I mean, why do we come here?"

"To support her." Kyle snatched the sherry bottle from the floor and helped himself to a second glass. (Stanley noticed that even if Kyle did not like what he was drinking, he still managed to over-pour.) "I mean, she's beautiful. Don't you think she's beautiful? Don't you wish you could have that sort of courage, to do what she does?"

"No. Women's clothing? I don't really want to perform for anyone. I don't want anyone to really see me. I don't know — women's clothing puts me off."

"I think it gets plenty of men off."

"Well, obviously. But not me. And not any man I'd like to be with."

"Well, what sort of man do you want to be with?" Kyle paused, biting his lip, trying to figure out what to say. "Token?"

"No."

"That boy from Classical archaeology? With the spectacles? He really liked you."

"He didn't like me. I liked him. Anyway, we didn't get on."

"Well, it didn't stop you from having him. Let's see. What about me?"

"You?" Stanley almost dropped his glass of sherry. "Jesus Christ, Kyle! You're talking over the performance!"

"And you're drunk." Kyle sniffed, swirling his glass. "Sometimes I wonder."

"About what?"

"Nothing."

"Of course."

At intermission, the bottle was empty. Kyle held it over his glass and smacked the bottom with the heel of his hand.

"I don't think you're going to get anything out of that," Stanley said.

Whimpering, Kyle sat back down. "I know! I'm just so thirsty. I have to go over to Eric's after this. If I'm too sober and converse with him he'll take it as an invitation to be brutal with me. And I don't know if I can do it, Stanley. I just don't know if I can do it."

"Well, you don't have to do anything, isn't that the point? Why go over at all? Make him go to you for once."

"I can't explain. If you don't love anyone you can't understand."

Stanley's eyes widened and his pulse quickened. Even drunk, he understood the significance of Kyle's incoherent musings. "You don't mean that."

"No, I do. I love him, dear, or at least I think I do."

"You like him because he's got a great big cock and he's brutal."

"I hate that he's brutal," Kyle corrected.

"You wish you hated that he's brutal but you're a right bitch and you won't do anything you don't want to." Stanley felt that miserable feeling, the one where he realized that he was talking directly about his infatuations and how he knew they'd never be reciprocated. He tried to stop himself, but he couldn't. Words just kept flowing: "I'd do anything that I could to protect you, darling. I don't know how you could say I haven't loved anyone. I understand, I understand what it is to love someone who, who just … hurts you. You see him and you think to yourself, if only I could be better, be stronger, be more of what he wants. But I've had to resign, because I can't be that. I can't be brutal like that. I can't, Kyle, I wish I could."

Softly, masked by the murmur of the crowd, Kyle said, "I'm sorry about your father, Stanley."

"Oh." Stanley's voice sounded broken. "Right, yes."

"But there are boys who'll love you. You don't need him."

"A boy's never loved me," Stanley said.

"That's not true."

"It's true, a boy never has. Never never never."

"Oh, Stanley, honey." Kyle sounded so disappointed. It made Stanley's heart sink. "How little you know."

Stanley worked by himself most often, while Kyle was with Eric. He liked to torture himself, sometimes, imagining their unions: short, brutal, with little said and less affection. Stanley had been with Eric, once, but that was two years back. He remembered it as a brief, bloody encounter, Eric grunting the whole time. He was enormous, Eric, with his rower's arms and shapely legs, but he had the most pleasant face, deep ember eyes that for Stanley recalled the bottom of a bottle of lager. Stanley wished he had eyes that dark and empty, but his were light Delft, something watery about them. The joy of a successful prospectus didn't move him. Kyle'd said his congratulations, and patted Stanley on the shoulder. "I knew you'd do it, see?" he said. Then he left to go find Eric.

Sitting on his bed with Scoop in his hands, Stanley struggled to avoid dropping the book onto the floor and rolling into a ball, sleeping forever. It was only 8, a Thursday night, and with no lectures on Friday, the weekend had begun. It would stretch into Monday, when Stanley had a Latin lesson at 11. He'd read the next two books of Dio's Historia Romana already and it had made him smile over descriptions of Decebalus, whom Stanley had last spied maimed in the court of casts in the Victoria and Albert Museum. It had made him miss Kyle dreadfully, and inspired his shift to Waugh. Now that he'd actually passed the prospectus, he'd have to write a thesis. Generally Stanley loved Waugh's invention of Africa, but tonight he felt stagnant and weary. He did drop the book, shifting to his side, and wished he'd had dinner.

A knock came at the door. It could only be Kyle, he figured, but Kyle was busy. Who must it be? "I'm coming," Stanley said, sitting up to put on a T-shirt. He kicked errant socks and books from his path to the door, moving a footstool aside and switching on a second lamp.

At the door was Token, Viscount Black, in a wool overcoat. "Stanley," he said, and he seemed nervous. "Hello."

"Hello." Stanley backed away from the threshold, careful not to trip on his mess, those books and socks and crumpled tissues, papers crushed under too many typographical errors and outmoded prospectus drafts. Stanley managed to pick up his copy of Dio, and set it on his writing desk. "Oh," he said, remembering his manners. "You can come in, of course. Of course." Token had never visited before. Stanley wasn't sure why he would now, of all times.

But Token was holding a bottle of champagne. "I hear you've passed your prospectus," he said, setting it on the writing desk next to Dio, "and I came to offer my congratulations." Token shut the door behind himself. "This is a nice room you've got."

"This isn't necessary — I mean." Stanley sunk into his armchair, lamenting his soiled T-shirt and messy room, the clanking heater and crumpled bed linens. This was an earl's son. What was he doing here? "Thank you, but — it's not a nice room, and don't congratulate me, I'm running so far behind, everyone else accomplished the same thing at the start of the term and I — oh, please take your coat off."

Token laughed, and he hung his coat on a hook by the door. "Thanks. You know, New College is a bit drafty sometimes—"

"It's all right. I'm not looking for reassurance."

"Well, I brought this champagne." Token handed the bottle to Stanley. It was cool to the touch, condensation wetting Stanley's hands. "It you have two glasses, we could split it."

"All right." Stanley got up, moving slowly. It was hot in the room, the heater inefficient. Above the sink was a cupboard, and Stanley took out two jam jars out of which he liked to drink. As he set them on the table, he said, "I don't mean to assuage what seems like a generous gesture, my lord—"

Token was in the process of coaxing the cork from the bottle. "Oh," he muttered, "don't call me that."

"—but I hope you understand if I have to ask, what is it that you're doing here?" Stanley crossed his arms just as the cork popped onto the table.

"What," said Token, pouring a first glass, "is wrong with making a friendly gesture?"

"Shouldn't you be out with his grace or something?"

Token laughed again, as if the idea of his grace were ridiculous. "Craig has a fiancée now, you know, he's inclined to spend weekends with her. He went into London for dinner—"

"So Clyde, then—"

"What is all of this?" Token handed Stanley a jam jar of champagne. "Do you want me to leave?"

"Not necessarily. But I hope you understand why it's slightly baffling, seeing as we're not quite friends and you've never come here—"

"Maybe I've an ulterior motive," said Token. "Maybe I want something from you."

"Surely you know I've nothing to give you."

"Oh." Token rolled his eyes. "I'm not entirely certain that's true." He lifted his jar and drank from it.

Stanley sniffed his drink, the effervescence in his nose. It was a good champagne, but not opulent, a Bollinger Special Cuvée. Stanley was used to two-pound swill, whatever he could buy with what was in his pocket.

"I like that you've cut your hair," said Token. "I mean that you've grown out that bleach. It was looking sort of — am I being very rude?"

"It's nothing I haven't heard from my own father."

"Oh, sorry."

"No, I think it's a bit short now." Stanley set his glass on the table. He'd emptied it — but then, it was only a jam jar.

Token wasted no time refilling it. "But I do think it looks nice. You're very handsome." Token's own hair was cropped close but with some volume preserved, bristly and serious. It reminded Stanley of Kyle's hair, because Kyle's hair was also prone to unruliness, but he had let it erupt unmanaged until recently, neon with henna and tangled up in a mess. It was shorter now, but still quite unlike Token's, somewhat unbridled.

They refilled their glasses again, Stanley feeling dizzy without supper and suddenly quite fond of Token. "Do you know, it was quite a shock to me running into you at the Queen's Men," he said, straightening the sheets on his bed so they could sit there. "I never thought of you as the type."

"What sort of type do you mean?" Token asked.

"Oh." Stanley tucked the corners of his duvet under the mattress. "You know, outgoing."

"I'm outgoing."

"Not really."

"If you mean it's surprising to find me at a drag cabaret, well, you're correct. That might have been my first time. But Clyde wanted to go and I — I was glad to run into you."

"Oh, so Clyde frequents the scene, does he? Goes out cottaging, I imagine, charpering for trade—"

"What are you talking about?"

"Nothing." Stanley regretted saying those things. "Don't mind me."

They sat on the bed until the bottle was finished. Half a bottle of champagne made Stanley only tipsy on his empty stomach, and soon he felt rather good about Token, no longer concerned with why he'd come. That was when Token leaned over and kissed him, their glasses clinking together on the floor. Pulling away, Stanley wiped a smile from his lips and said, "I don't think this is befitting a viscount."

"What's unfitting about it? I can't be typical, I can't do typical things?"

"I've had it impressed upon me that there's nothing typical about kissing another chap." Stanley's arms were crossed, his T-shirt damp under the arms.

"Then I'm not allowed to be atypical?"

"You're allowed to be anything you like, my lord."

"Then why do you keep telling me I shouldn't be here?"

Stanley thought long and hard about what he wanted to express. He wished he had another jar of Bollinger to drink. "There are some things," he began, shifting on the mattress to punctuate his thoughts, "that we're really not supposed to vocalize. I don't, well — Kyle has a lot of fondness for the class system, of course, and it's difficult not to think of people — my friend Wendy, for instance, The Lady Wendy Testaburger—"

"You know Wendy Testaburger?"

"I know her, yes, she's not particularly formal in any way, I think she sees herself as something of an iconoclast, but I've noticed all these stubborn caveats—"

"Hm." Token tented his fingers. "You know, it's interesting to me that you know these fascinating people, but I'm not really here to contemplate them."

"I am simply saying that as I've gathered these rules about how an earl's son should act—"

"Stop calling me an earl's son," said Token. "I know what I am and I'll do what I please and I hope you understand that I don't care what Kyle Broflovski would think about it."

"I never said you should, I just said—"

Token kissed Stanley again, and they collapsed together onto the bed, both fully clothed, but vigorous about the kissing, quick and deep. It seemed obvious that Token had very little practice.

It was Stanley's resolve, as he lay in bed that night, curled against an earl's son, that he should do something about it.

"What do you know about The Lord Black?"

"Who?" Wendy was loud, not generally, but it was a crowded tea shop, and there were many voices crowding them in the little alcove in the back, dons and their wives meeting for a Sunday afternoon respite. The tea cup in her hands almost clattered against its saucer. "The Lord Black — Token Williams?"

"Yes, him." Stanley was picking at a scone, hardly hungry after parting with Token that morning.

"Not much. He's friends with the abominable Craig Tucker, but it's not as if we all know each other. He's in your course, isn't he, so I suspect you know more about him than I do."

"Yes," said Stanley. "I suspect I do." And he raised his eyebrows, and used his knife to slice off a bit of scone, which crumbled in his fingers.

"No," Wendy gasped. She set her tea cup down.

Stanley just nodded.

"Is everyone in the English department like that?"

"It seems that way." Stanley brushed the crumbs from his trousers, leaning in. "I haven't told anyone yet. It was just last night. Not even Kyle, not anyone."

"You fucked Token Williams?" Wendy asked. Her eyes were wider than her teacup.

Stanley shushed her. "Yes," he said. "Well, no, not — not properly. That is to say—"

"Stanley!" she gasped. "Is this a scandal?"

"I suspect it would be if we discussed it further here. Which is why I think we should go."

"Very well." Wendy touched the teapot, sliding her wrists against it. "We're almost out of tea, anyway."

They walked down the Broad, which was relatively empty, arm in arm. Wendy wore a sort of wool cape, for which Stanley made fun of her, and she made him pause while she wiped some mud from her white boots with her finger. They were up to her knees with a small heel and a squared toe. "This outfit's very a la mode, I'll have you know," she said. Her hair was dark and thick as always, straight and heavy. Her eyeliner was just as dark and thick, but smudging, running in the rain.

"Sometimes," Stanley said, trying to shield her with his hands, "I wish — oh, never mind, it's idiotic."

"You're not idiotic." She straightened up, and slipped her arm though the crook of his. "If anything you're a bit too smart for 21."

"Yes, well, I've only just gotten my topic approved, actually."

"At last." He knew she was joking. "All right, you're going to have to tell me about Token. We're far enough away from everyone." They were all the way to Holywell Street, and almost to New College.

"Let's turn here."

Wendy dropped her hand from Stanley's arm and they ducked against a building, Stanley leaning against it to light a cigarette. Wendy shielded it from the wind and rain.

"We saw Miss B at the Queen's Men a few weeks back," Stanley began, pocketing his lighter.

"Oh, you and Token?"

"No, Kyle and I. Actually, he'd been teasing me earlier in the evening about Token fancying me, or I thought he was teasing, but the strangest thing happened, which is that Token and this other chap, Clyde, they showed up later at the cabaret. I was shocked because, well, respectable boys just don't do that."

"You're perfectly respectable."

Stanley flicked some ash to the ground, biting his lip. "I'm perfectly horrible, you mean."

"Such a deficit of self-confidence! I shan't indulge it."

"I can sustain it without your indulgence, or permission," said Stanley. "But be that as it may I am certain: the gentry do not mingle with us, in our scene."

"Oh, you've a scene now, suddenly? I thought Oxford was too small."

"There is one sort of theater," Stanley said, "at which there is held a semi-weekly cabaret of sorts."

"Oh! Perhaps next time I could tag along—"

"I don't know that you'd be welcome," said Stanley. "In any case, that isn't the point. The point is, that set has their own conventions. We don't mingle. Never have. So when Token and Clyde showed up—" Stanley lurched into a recollection of that night at the Queen's Men, and of the previous night's events.

When he was done, she said, "I'm sorry, I just don't imagine you as … passive, in these things. So to speak."

Stanley cocked an eyebrow, sighing. "To think you imagine it at all."

"Well, I believe I have a right to the contents of my own head! Besides, there's a sort of satisfaction in the consideration of two chaps making it. But it seems incorrect to picture you on the receiving end of things, so I'm not altogether sure I'll be revisiting that." She closed her eyes for a moment, the wind howling between them. Then, she opened her eyes again. "No, it's too ghastly, I can't think of it. Why don't you get on top?"

"I don't know," said Stanley. "I don't premeditate on these things. We began and it started — happening, and then it seemed too late to affect a change. But that's besides the point. It's a sort of academic inquiry, really. I should understand all positions if I wish to perform adequately. Isn't that sensible?"

"The whole thing's beyond sensibility," she said. "That's what makes it so delicious." She swept her hair behind her shoulder, and turned to walk back to the end of Holywell Street, away from New College.

Spurred by Wendy's inquisition, he deposited her at the gate of St. Anne's and headed directly back to New College. It had been in his best intentions today to follow tea with a trip to the library to get cracking on some reporting from the Second Italo-Ethiopian War. His heart longed to go to Kyle, to sprint toward Magdalen's fine green lawns and muddy river bank, the ancient stonework cold and all-knowing, ripe with the whispers to which it had played witness over many long years. But, no, Kyle might be with Eric, or he might be in a mood, or studying himself. On the walk to St. Anne's Stanley had been thinking about it, and now that he had left Wendy he found he could not dislodge the thought of it from his brain. Stanley had made it with a good sampling of boys by now, and though he was academically interested in passivity as a matter of comprehensiveness, he found himself hurrying down the road whence he'd come, fixated on the notion of dominating Token.

The problem with seeking out Token was that here, at the threshold of Token's bedsit, Stanley found Craig. The thought crossed Stanley's mind that perhaps they were gossiping, but why would they? The idea of Craig Tucker discussing sex was like discussing sex with one's parents; surely it did not happen. Craig was swilling gin and wearing a suit. "To what do we owe this pleasure?" he asked. Stanley could smell the gin on him. "Or, never mind. It's none of my business."

"I'm here to see Token." Stanley crossed his arms, coolly, wishing for a cigarette. At least it would be something to grasp.

"Well, yes, no doubt you would be." The ice rattled in Craig's crystal tumbler. It was lovelier than any of Stanley's old jam jars. "As he lives here."

Craig nearly always had a pinched, unpleasant look on his face, which rarely betrayed amusement. Stanley had regarded Craig for years as not terribly attractive, though there was a sort of charisma in the perpetual radiation of hatred. It was this sort of energy that drew Kyle to Eric, Stanley knew, for it had drawn Stanley to Eric at one time, too. It did not hurt, though, that Eric was a beautiful, thick-haired, swaggering mass of virility. Craig Tucker had an undead pallor, and he looked at all times as if he had climbed out of a ditch following a period of hibernation, squinting doubtfully in new light.

If Stanley caught color in Craig's cheeks that evening, it was impossible to attribute it to the embarrassment of finding himself in the midst of an obvious walkabout, or the drink. In either case, Craig drained the end of it just as Token got up and came to the door, putting a hand on Craig's shoulder.

"Oh good." Token somehow possessed the ability to keep cool in situations like these, and he did not miss a beat: "Shall we get on with the Conrad?"

"Yes," said Stanley, and then, "Pardon?"

"Into the Heart of Darkness, of course," and it dawned on Stanley that Token was providing adequate cover.

"Do you know," said Stanley to Craig, Stanley loosening his posture a bit, "that Waugh was reporting from Ethiopia when Italy invaded?"

"I don't see what that has to do with the Congo," Craig replied. "Anyway, fine. I've dinner plans anyway." He shrugged out of Token's grasp and went to grab his coat.

"Thank god you've come," said Token, in a quiet voice. "He was going on about the duties."

"Duties?" Stanley asked, stepping inside.

"Death duties," Craig barked. "My father's passing."

"I thought you were terribly thrilled about that."

"Shut up, Marsh! How can I be excited about anything that's costing me a fortune?"

"You're right," said Stanley, "pardon me. That was terribly rude. I'm sure you loved your father dearly."

"It was a tragedy to lose him," said Token. "He really meant well."

"Meant well!" Craig, coated, shoved his empty tumbler into Token's hands. Stanley could see they were shaking. "It was those duties that killed him. Your beloved Kyle's mother and her totalitarian party, they're to blame for this. So the sodden masses can have their socialist orgies—"

"Craig, dear," said Token. "You'll be late."

"The upkeep alone!" Craig continued. "Half of my home is in mothballs. It killed him, okay."

"You did say that you relished the chance to get into your seat," Token said.

"Not before I've finished my degree! And I'll have to go down after three years now. And the rest of it. Total mess, this is. It's the stress that killed him. I'm not going out that way, do you hear me?"

"Oh, Craig," Token said, in a resigned sort of way. "You'd better get going. "

"Yes. Heaven forbid I should be tardy!" He brushed the sleeves of his coat, as if in the brief moment he had been standing there, it had become dusty. He nodded and said, "Marsh," by way of parting, and then to Token, "I'll call."

"I know." Crooking fingers, Token bid Stanley to enter.

"I didn't mean to insult him," Stanley said, nearly tripping over the ancient threshold, which stuck up fruitlessly from the floor, perhaps to keep the cold out. There was time only to notice that a fire was lit, though burning low, and the room was nice, or perhaps just well-outfitted, with an Afghan rug on the floor and a taxidermy marmot on the mantle.

"He is so easily insulted," said Token, "and I say that fully believing him to be my dearest friend. But don't worry about that—" and Token lunged in for Stanley's lips, awkwardly, missing them and planting a kiss off-center.

So Stanley readjusted. He tried the things that worked with other boys: his hands on Token's face, pressing hips together, shoving Token toward the bed. It smelled like soot and gin, an unhappy reminder that Craig had just left. The thought was not quite enough to turn Stanley away from his objective. With a knee, he forced Token's thighs apart, a hand grasping at the small of Token's back.

Token, who had been kissing Stanley's mouth and face in a pulsating sort of rhythm, paused for a moment.

Stanley let his hand rest at the hem of Token's tweeds. As the kissing resumed, Stanley slipped his fingers past the elastic of Token's pants.

"No."

"No?"

"Let's not do it that way."

Stanley now found himself flat on his back, his posture of dominance reduced to a memory.

"Do you mind it this way?" Token asked. He reached for the fly on Stanley's trousers and began to undo it, with confidence.

"I don't mind." Stanley was still, staring at Token's fingers at the hem of his pants. Stanley withdrew his hands from Token's body, holding them above his head, turning to gaze up at the plaster ceiling.

"But it's not your preference? We needn't do it this way, exactly. Or at all. I shouldn't have presumed—"

"I'd prefer to do it this way than not at all."

"Oh. Well, all right, then."

"Yes, do hurry." It sounded childish as Stanley said it, hating to think he was being impatient. He felt mismatched, for Token's movements were decisive and he had put an end to Stanley's scheme with little fanfare. But then, who would Token have made it with? Surely Craig, Stanley figured, thinking back on the way that Craig had been here just before. And Clyde had been at the Queen's Men as well. Perhaps they all did it together, the way that Bradley and Butters did it, a third chap there to act as an intermediary. Yet the idea of Craig under Token was nauseating; Craig betrayed no scrap of lasciviousness, and he was a tightly wound sort with no obvious interests in anything purely pleasurable.

"Are you all right?" Token asked. It came just as he had slipped off his own pants, revealing everything, in a lewd way unlike Stanley's previous encounter with Token's anatomy. The shock, combined with the sickened look that must have crossed Stanley's face as he thought of Craig, probably betrayed Stanley's inner unease with this situation. But that thing: it was unusually large, or the largest Stanley had ever seen, and he wanted it. "I mean, we obviously don't have to do this if you don't feel all right about it."

"No! I mean — no, I want to." Stanley grabbed for it, and the weight of it in his hand was shocking. "I don't usually talk this much." He began to blush.

"I don't know much about how it goes at all," said Token. "I didn't expect so much talking, but I can't call it unwelcome, either."

"Then perhaps let's resign ourselves to limited discussions."

Token chuckled to himself, pushing Stanley down to the mattress by the shoulders.

There was nothing to it, this receptive mode. That was the trouble; there was nothing to it.

Token insisted on walking Stanley back to Magdalen. It was night now, or dark out, and supper was approaching. They walked the gray path that snaked between the colleges, which let out to a well-trod bank of the Cherwell. Stanley liked to sit at the river's edge in the warmer weather and smoke pensively with Kyle, the cigarette passing between them in silence, the sweet, soft smell of the reefer mingling with the acrid dampness of the leaves sticking to the bottoms of their shoes. Would Token sit in the mud, Stanley wondered? Would Token smoke marijuana and gossip about the other third-years? What was there to Token, Stanley wondered, other than the reservation of his character, his shallow interest in Conrad, the length of his cock?

"Bona charvering," Stanley muttered, letting the words pierce the quiet that otherwise hung about the riverbank.

"Pardon?" Token shook his head. His hands were in his pockets. "Come again?"

"Oh." Now Stanley felt foolish. Of course Token wouldn't know. Why would he? "Never mind. I had a nice time."

They paused at the entry to the college. The dark-green-black Cherwell lapped in gentle swells against the bank. For a moment Stanley wondered if he shouldn't do something for this man: embrace him, kiss him, say thank you. No, thanking Token for the privilege of receiving his seed was too passive, and Stanley did not want to be passive. This whole experiment had been for nothing. It had failed. He should lean forward and kiss Token here, outside the college, the stupid river sloshing about in ominous motion, the only entity impinging on this moment. Then came the shouts from the college: supper was nearing, and anyone sitting down to the formal meal was rushing for the hall, robes lashing behind through the wide old cloisters. The shouting, the river, and then Stanley knew he couldn't do it. Token didn't know what he was doing — it was a dalliance; that was all. A sense of gross dread filled Stanley and he said, "Well, good night."

"Are you going to eat?" Token asked.

"I've a sandwich in my room," said Stanley, though it was a lie. He would probably drink with no accompaniment.

"Well, if you'll be all right."

"I'll be fine," Stanley insisted. "I am a 21-year-old man of full majority, Viscount. I shall be quite all right."

"I suppose you shall," said Token. He took a step to go, then turned back around. "I really do not like to be called 'viscount.' It's not proper, and I sense it's not flattering."

"I don't mean anything by it," said Stanley. He felt better in control now. "Well. Good night."

Rushing to his room, a thought overtook Stanley. He paused and turned, to go to Kyle's room on the other side of the college, in a small Tudor building the overlooked the river. Kyle would want something to eat. Stanley knew he could not speak of last night, or of this afternoon, to Kyle. Yet a compulsion to find Kyle and eat with him drove Stanley to rush toward Kyle in inglorious haste, barely avoiding the stragglers on their way to dinner.

Kyle was at home, but he was dressing, preparing to go out. "My dear, I wasn't expecting you," Kyle said. It was a patently ridiculous thing to assert. What exactly about their friendship was ever expected? "As you can see I'm about to head out for the evening."

Stanley fell onto a settee, draped with ridiculous scarves of silk and fine crepe wool, the crushed velvet of the cushions sinking under Stanley's weight. "I went out with Wendy," he said, as if to cover for his madcap arrival. "We had tea."

"And how's Wendy, then?" Kyle was sitting on the bed with a bottle of fragrant Asti in the gap between his crossed legs. He was plucking his brows with a little hand-mirror, a bejeweled thing that Kyle had probably swiped from his mother, spiriting it away. He tossed the tweezers on the bed and rubbed at the redness under his auburn brows. "Go on, dearest, what's the trouble?"

"No trouble," said Stanley, "but I thought you might like dinner."

"I'd love dinner. I'm going out to get some with Eric."

So that explained it: the Asti, the plucking, the litter of scarves discarded in a furious, insecure haste across the room. Kyle reached over, drinking from the bottle, grasping from his nightstand a little pot of cream foundation. He set the bottle on the floor and began to work on his eyes, rubbing the foundation into the wells that sunk into the sides of his nose. This went on for a few minutes until he was satisfied, pinching his cheeks for color.

"What have you been smoking?" Stanley asked. "Can, may I have some?"

"Don't be silly. Just bevvying." Pointedly, he took a sip from the bottle of Asti. Standing up, he smoothed out his corduroys, a lovely salmon pair that clung to the swell of Kyle's behind like a second, extra-sensual skin. Stanley hadn't even been hard with Token before, but now his cock stood to attention. He wanted to bury his face in that glorious bounty.

"Let me ask you something."

Kyle was searching through his wardrobe for a shirt now. "Anything, of course."

"What should it ideally be like, receiving it?"

Snorting, Kyle pulled a black turtleneck from the wardrobe. He sniffed it. "I should fire that woman if it were up to me. Everything she washes comes out smelling of mildew."

"It must be nice to have someone external to wash your clothes."

"It must be nice to have a mother who deigns to see after the washing herself. So I could simply take the bus up the road and have my shirts laundered."

"Ah, but she doesn't. I'm an adult now."

"Well, growing up, it must have been nice. Just to, you know. Have someone around."

"It was fine." Stanley shrugged. "Whatever is normal is normal to oneself."

"What a stupid thing to say. What does that even mean?" Kyle tugged the jumper free from the crook of his nose and pulled the hem down to sit at the hem of his corduroys, the garments just meeting. When he reached up and folded over the neck, the hem of the jumper lifted, exposing a strip of bare skin.

Stanley did not bother an attempt to look away. "I mean it, though. I have been thinking about it — passivity, I mean, receiving. You are the foremost expert."

"Me? I think you mean Butters."

"I don't want her perspective, and I disagree. You are the expert. I am asking genuinely."

"Why? Haven't you taken it before? Stanley, I know you have."

"Well, rarely. I just want to know! What do you think? If one were looking to amplify the experience, what would he do?"

"Well, my dear, there is nothing to be done." Kyle came and sat on the bed, next to Stanley, thumbing the label on the bottle of Asti. It was nearly empty, and Kyle offered it to Stanley, who accepted it, taking a sip. "That's rather the point, isn't it? You don't do anything."

"I don't understand, though. The sensation is decent enough, but the mentality is something with which I find myself struggling. How is anyone meant to climb into bed—"

"Bed if you're lucky!"

"—and simply lie there, without some sort of emotional resolution about the meaning of the experience?"

"What sort of meaning is there supposed to be? I hope you haven't finished this." Kyle grabbed the bottle from Stanley's hands. "Either you enjoy the sensation of a cock in your arse, or you don't. I'm not really certain what else there is to it. What else is there to it?" He finished the bottle, tilting back to expose the underside of his chin. Kyle was smooth-shaved and pale, his bulky hair shorter than it had been once. But in the pale, orange glow of a table lamp on the bedside table with a sheer scarf draped over the shade, the shape of Kyle's hair traced a jagged shadow against his sallow skin.

There was an urge to lean in and kiss the line of that shadow, to dissemble Kyle's careful preparations by falling together in a reckless frenzy of clothed humping. Yet Stanley restrained himself, feeling guilty about Token and, worse, knowing it to be perfectly clear that Kyle wanted Eric, that Kyle would never want someone who was giving it up to a queer virgin peer with no pretense to perversion. The whole thing was rather drab and Stanley's sense of desire began to recede. He put his knees against his chest and hugged them, wishing he had a cigarette, for it would have made him seem more aloof.

"I'm really excited." Kyle stood up, surveying his rump by peering behind his shoulder, fussing in the mirror, dabbing that delightful scent behind his ears and at the pulse points in his wrists. "The whole thing will be perfectly awful. But if I bide my time patiently, if I resist the urge to argue with him too much — the key is to find the perfect balance of tension, neither too much nor too little. Argue with him just enough! Then, I'll get my reward. That's the part that excites me. I can barely stand the waiting!" From a hook on the door he grabbed an outlandish coat: boxy, hip-height, ivory in collar, black fur trim, three big buttons, sleeves to mid-forearm. The fabric was ornate though not attractive, a subtle pinwheel pattern emerging on second glance. It was obviously a woman's coat, and with his hair growing out Kyle had the look of a young lady until one noticed his height, the thickness of his fingers, the knot in his throat peeking just over the turtleneck. He walked with lush determination, though, his behind a pendulous affect, nearly careening to and fro.

Again, Stanley said and did nothing, suppressing his need to push Kyle against the door to the old tudor and thrust against that arse like it was a pillow and he was 15 again, yearning to have someone, anyone to get off with. The maddening thing was that the sex Stanley had experienced very recently had done nothing for him, utterly nothing. He hadn't even climaxed. Sex should have quelled his lust, but instead it had left him inflamed, feeling very needy and very alone, even as Kyle's leather soles accompanied Stanley to the entrance to Magdalen College.

"It never gets better," he muttered, feeling left behind like a child forgotten somewhere exotic: the southeastern seaside, the bustling department store in Birmingham, a roadside goat pen, where for just one penny a boy could feed a handful of pellets to the animals, their threatening buck teeth and alien pupils off-putting and scary. Stanley himself loved livestock, but his eight-year-old niece had stood in the pen last weekend crying and crying, utterly terrified, screaming for her mother. Children should not scream like that, and Stanley felt now a bit lost in the same sense, utterly alone. Here with Kyle as Rhian had been with Stanley in that pen, and yet so unnerved and overwhelmed that the best solution would be to simply drop down to the ground in sobs, unable to articulate any truthful needs or desires.

"What's that?" On a weekend night and with an air of confidence Kyle looked youthfully stylish, the dilettante son of an MP from North Islington, perhaps on his way to see an art band play in the back room of a gritty little club off the high street.

"Nothing, darling. Never mind." Were Stanley to offer his arm, and were Kyle to take it, the effect would have been ruined. There was being an artful dandy, and then there was overkill. Oxford was tolerant of youths; the town was full of them. No one wished to become painfully aware of the queerness lurking down the hall, sitting at the same dinner table.

Eric was standing by the bridge, not far from the boathouse, smoking something (knowing Eric, probably just a cigarette) and scowling. Dropping the butt to the ground, he smothered the smoldering ashes with the heel of his loafer. "You're late."

"Dear, I'm never late," said Kyle, "merely delayed."

"Yes, I can see that." Eric held out his hand for Stanley to take. "Aren't you a good auntie, chaperoning for me?"

Grasping Eric's hand, Stanley cocked a brow. "Take care of her, would you?" It was dripping with irony, and Stanley felt the burn of self-hatred as he said it. Here was Eric, massive in height and thick-necked, a consummate glutton if Stanley had ever known one. If anyone were able to protect Kyle it would have to have been Eric, for he was well-muscled from vigorous rowing. Not, of course, that Eric would; if ever they were caught Stanley suspected Eric would be more likely to flee. Eric never did any schoolwork; how could he possibly muster the will to act as Kyle's savior? Yet inherent within this coupling was potential, and Stanley felt the cruel absence of any such potential between Kyle and himself. Eric would never give Kyle a respectable existence, a fact which made Kyle miserable; yet the fact that Kyle wanted such a thing nearly drove Stanley to tears when he thought about it. Eric passed, easily, socializing coolly with his rowing teammates and casually stringing along actual girls from college mixers. Stanley couldn't do that, and it crushed him, despite the fact he didn't truly want to.

"She'll be fine," Eric huffed. He always spoke as if labored, unless he was on about something, in which case he prattled like a champion, spewing rubbish with ease. "Wine her, dine her. You know the next bit."

"Yes," Stanley agreed. "Cheers."

Making a sad face, Kyle patted Stanley on the shoulder. "Don't wait up," he said. There was something sorrowful there, as if he wished Stanley might come.

About to announce, "I haven't had dinner, so, I'll join you," Stanley was not surprised when they turned to go over the bridge. It was only on the walk back to his rooms that Stanley considered the possibility that Kyle had not wanted Stanley to come; perhaps, Stanley mused, Kyle had just wanted him to go away.

It was cold in Stanley's room, but he bore it in silence, looking forward to his evening routine: type quotes from Waugh's biography of Rossetti, which made no sense to Stanley as a component of the corpus; dinner with Token at the Rotary, where there were no prices on the menu; a moment for conjugal activity; and then, Stanley would sneak out of Token's room and fly back to his own, feeling nervous and exhilarated. It was a Saturday evening, candles flickering around the typewriter, a cigarette burning low on the flat, polished surface of dolostone the old man had given Stanley for his birthday. It was the latest in a series of beige and forgettable rocks that Professor Marsh had presented to his son over the course of Stanley's lifetime. The best use Stanley could conjure for this latest specimen was makeshift ashtray.

Stanley did not understand these rocks, and he was resistant to his father's explanations. "There's quite a bit of controversy surrounding dolostone," Randy had attempted to explain, but Stanley had let it wash over him. His father's selfishness was such that Stanley could not bear to sustain another year of rock gifts; on his next birthday he intended to be as far from his parents as possible. He was not certain at present how to enact such a plan, but it would come to him in time. In the meanwhile, Stanley was at least conscious of the fact that there was a fundamental miscommunication between the two of them; as little as Stanley understood his father the professor, so Randy too did not understand his son. He would have scoffed at Waugh's treatise on one of the masters of Pre-Raphaelite art, and dismissed the premise of Stanley's work on Waugh entirely. Randy and Sharon did not understand art; they were practical people, and they tended to be upset that their son had inadvertently grown up this way. It was words that Stanley loved, words and beauty; had it been a rock with any character at all, Stanley might have loved it duly. But it was just a flat piece of dolostone, something meant to be ignored by the side of the road. Stanley wished his father had left it there.

Sitting at the typewriter, sipping brandy from a jam jar, Stanley's mind wandered to the topic of beauty. He was not much for the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood, but Waugh's prose in general could move Stanley to tears. To that effect, he closed his eyes as he swallowed the brandy, thinking of his most beloved passage of Brideshead:

"I was out of my mind for a day or two," he said, "I kept thinking I was back in Oxford. You went to my house? Did you like it? Is Kurt still there? I won't ask you if you liked Kurt; no one does. It's funny—I couldn't get on without him, you know."

It was beautiful to Stanley not for the quality of the prose but the emotion within, the sentiment expressed by Sebastian mirroring his own life: Sebastian "couldn't get on without him," yet "no one" liked Kurt. Stanley reread the passage to himself, and it stung.

After emptying the jam jar, Stanley reached for a sheet of loose-leaf and wound it through the gears of his typewriter. He propped open Brideshead Revisited by creasing the weight of the spine under the bottom of his bottle of brandy. Licking his lips, he began to type out the passage: Return. Return. Indent. Open inverted commas. I was—

The trouble with typing was that it made hearing other noises difficult, the racket of the keys a fury that drowned out shouting, the kettle whistling, or in this instance, a knocking at the door. It was only when Stanley paused to lift the bottle of brandy, to refill his cup, that he heard it. "Who's there?" he asked, approaching.

"It's me," said Kyle, from the other side of the door. "Stanley, I need you." There was a desperate tinge to it, a bit of a whine.

Stanley opened it immediately, of course.

"It's dreadful!" said Kyle. He was dressed in wrinkled black trousers and his pink angora sweater. It was too cold in the corridors for such an ensemble, and Stanley wondered for a moment if Kyle had locked himself out.

"Are you all right?" Stanley asked. "You can stay here and we can see the lodge about a spare key in the morning."

"No, I've got my key here." Kyle barged his way in, shouldering past Stanley and over the threshold. "Close the door, please, it's freezing out there. Besides, I don't need all of college hearing this."

"Is it about Eric?"

"Eric?" Kyle began to unbutton those rumbled black slacks. "No, I haven't seen him since our pint after last night's lesson, when he called me a harlot and dumped ashes on my head."

"He dumped ashes on your head?"

"More like he was smoking a damned cigar and he ashed it in my hair."

"Kyle!"

"What? I'm fine." Bare-legged now, Kyle crawled into Stanley's bed. "Fuck Eric, I'm not here about him."

"Then—" Stanley grabbed the brandy from his writing desk and brought it to Kyle.

"It's my brother," said Kyle. "He's missing." He sipped liberally from the bottle, a bead of brandy escaping to roll down his chin.

"Missing how? Was he coming home? Perhaps he's just late."

"He is not just late. He vanished last Sunday night. On Monday morning they found a note expressly stating that he was leaving and wouldn't be found. He hasn't been home and my parents have only told me just now."

"Just now?"

"Well, it was the Sabbath."

"But, all week?"

"He might have turned up." Kyle shrugged, concentrating on the bottle. "But he's just gone."

"What did the note say?"

"Beyond the general? I don't know, I've not personally read it."

"Darling." Stanley came to sit by Kyle on the bed, putting an arm around Kyle's shoulders. "I'm sure he'll turn up."

"He may well," said Kyle, miserably. "My mother's got Scotland Yard on it."

"They'll find him."

"Will they? You've met him, Stanley. He's so angry. What if he doesn't want to be found?"

"Well, surely he doesn't want to be found. It's a childish fantasy, running away. We all want to run somewhere, don't we, yet only the truly desperate go down that road."

"Are you saying he was desperate?"

"Well, I don't know — I have only met him briefly."

"You lived with us all summer!"

"Yes, and he kept himself shut away in his room. Kyle, people do not simply disappear. He is probably somewhere in London, getting up to some trouble, and he'll come back when he is bored. I was 14 or 15 once, and I longed to do the same. It's a passing fancy."

Pulling his mouth from the bottle, Kyle said, "But kids are doing this now, you know, they're just abandoning all rational sense and acting like completely self-centered imbeciles."

"That's overdramatic."

"Dramatic? Stanley, my brother is missing! He's disappeared!"

"I know," said Stanley. "I'm truly sorry." He crossed his arms, trying to appear businesslike about this situation. It was difficult to know how to react to such news, seeing as he neither knew nor much liked Ike in the first place. "Is there anything I could do?"

"Oh, you're a dear," said Kyle, falling to his side. "Could I sleep here tonight? I'll catch a train down in the morning. I have to go home. I feel — I need to be with my parents."

"How long will you be gone for?"

"Oh, a night or two. I can't afford to be away for much longer than that. My father told me not to come, but he can't lock me out. I'm going."

They got ready for bed, Kyle sharing Stanley's toothbrush and borrowing a pair of Stanley's pajamas. It was cold in the room, and though Stanley longed for skin-to-skin contact, the draft demanded that they get into bed clothed. Finally, Stanley turned the light out. There was something chaste and relieving about their closeness, sharing a coverlet and the quilt Stanley's grandmother had crocheted for him before she'd died. Stanley was conscious of the niggling at his backside, a reminder that earlier in the day he had seen Token. They had taken a walk along the river and returned to this very room, this very bed. Now the thought of it made Stanley feel guilt, for letting Kyle into bed with him. There had never been such guilt before, but somehow Stanley knew that if Token were to find out about this, missing brother or not, his feelings might be hurt.

"Did you tell Eric?" Stanley asked. The words hung there in the darkness for a moment.

"Jesus, no," said Kyle. He was whispering, a nighttime volume. "Why would I?"

"Why wouldn't you? Wouldn't you tell him that?"

It took Kyle a moment to answer, and when he did, he sounded pained. "He has no empathy," Kyle said, "no compassion. Perhaps if I'd wanted to be made fun of, I'd have told Eric. He certainly wouldn't have offered to help."

"I can't believe that," said Stanley, "even of him."

"Well, believe it." There was a pause, and Kyle filled it by pressing a dry peck to Stanley's lips. "That's not why I like him." Lifting his thigh, Kyle ran his knee into the crease of Stanley's clenched legs, bouncing once or twice against Stanley's pajama-clad testicles. "I'll fill you in when I get back, of course. When I know more about the situation." Kyle waited for a response, and when one was not forthcoming, he merely said, "Good night."

"Good night," Stanley echoed. His voice was brittle and dry.

This was part one of four. The story is actually finished and I plan to get the next installment up on Friday. If you have some time between now and then I encourage you to leave a comment for Julads on some of her work.

Thanks for reading!