[Milliways]: First Gestures

[smallgayjew]

Posner can't believe that it's actually here. He can't believe he's finally leaving home (with Dakin) and moving out (with Dakin) and starting at Oxford (with Dakin). He's got all his essentials packed into a trunk and a suitcase, and it feels like too little to encompass his life so far, but it also feels appropriate to be starting a new life without any of the encumbrances of the old.

On the platform, he kisses his mum and hugs his dad and shakes his uncle's hand, and he tries not to look at the tears his mum is holding back, and he tries not to let his own fall. It isn't sad, not really. It's only...a bit frightening.

So he kisses his mum once more, and he lets her fix his hair, and he hugs his dad again, and then he takes a deep breath and lugs his trunk and his suitcase and his whole life onto the train and moves to find a seat by the window so he can wave them off they can wave him off.

And he doesn't sing Gracie Fields this time, but he wants to.

Comments

[smallgayjew]

"How can I?"

[pushtheboatout]

"I'm trying to make it less difficult."

[smallgayjew]

"Yes, but I can't just...forget what it's like to kiss you," David says quietly.

[pushtheboatout]

"Think about a purple elephant instead." He smiles at David.

[smallgayjew]

"All the way to Oxford?"

[pushtheboatout]

"You can move on to a pink rabbit if you need to," says Stuart generously. "Or poetry. You must know volumes. And not love poems, poems about anything else. Poems about feet or war trains or houses or chess pieces. Owls. Anything but love poems."

[smallgayjew]

David closes his eyes, quiet a moment, and then says, "The diameter of the bomb was thirty centimeters
and the diameter of its effective range about seven meters,
with four dead and eleven wounded.
And around these, in a larger circle
of pain and time, two hospitals are scattered
and one graveyard. But the young woman
who was buried in the city she came from,
at a distance of more than a hundred kilometers,
enlarges the circle considerably,
and the solitary man mourning her death
at the distant shores of a country far across the sea
includes the entire world in the circle.
And I won’t even mention the crying of orphans
that reaches up to the throne of God and
beyond, making a circle with no end and no God."

...Most of the poems he knows that are not about love are also not about happiness.

[pushtheboatout]

"Dear God, that's a sad one," says Stuart quietly.

[smallgayjew]

"Yes, sorry," David mumbles, frowning a bit as if surprised by himself.

After another moment's thought, he tries again.

"Mama said I'd lose my head
if it wasn't fastened on.
Today I guess it wasn't
'cause while playing with my cousin
it fell off and rolled away
and now it's gone.

And I can't look for it
'cause my eyes are in it,
and I can't call to it
'cause my mouth is on it
(couldn't hear me anyway
'cause my ears are on it),
can't even think about it
'cause my brain is in it.
So I guess I'll sit down
on this rock
and rest for just a minute..."

[pushtheboatout]

Dakin chortles. "Much better. I can picture the illustration too. Poor kid..."

He can think of a poem about feet, but it's also about love, and therefore forbidden.

Well, he'll save it for later, he supposes.

[smallgayjew]

"Thank you," David says with a smile. "I thought it was much better."

He shifts, minutely, closer to Stuart.

"First I saw the white bear, then I saw the black;
Then I saw the camel with a hump upon his back;
Then I saw the grey wolf, with mutton in his maw;
Then I saw the wombat waddle in the straw;
Then I saw the elephant a-waving of his trunk;
Then I saw the monkeys—mercy, how unpleasantly they smelt!"

[pushtheboatout]

More giggling from Stuart. "I knew you'd find something else to think about."

[smallgayjew]

"Yes, well...Thackeray."

It's difficult for him to stick to nonsense entirely, so he has to add one more at least.

"We never know how high we are
Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
Our statures touch the skies—

The Heroism we recite
Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
For fear to be a King—"

[pushtheboatout]

Stuart leans back his head and looks at David, smiling like he doesn't know it's there.

He wants to say "I love you", but, well, train. He touches David's hand with his knuckles instead.

[smallgayjew]

David turns to face him a bit, returning that smile. He bites his lip to keep from saying just that.

[pushtheboatout]

"Don't hate me for this," Stuart says softly, and then recties:

"When I cannot look at your face
I look at your feet.
Your feet of arched bone,
your hard little feet.
I know that they support you,
and that your sweet weight
rises upon them.
Your waist and your breasts,
the doubled purple
of your nipples,
the sockets of your eyes
that have just flown away,
your wide fruit mouth,
your red tresses,
my little tower.
But I love your feet
only because they walked
upon the earth and upon
the wind and upon the waters,
until they found me."

[smallgayjew]

David's lips twitch as he attempts to hide a smile.

"You said no love poems," he whispers.

[pushtheboatout]

"I know. That's why I don't want you to hate me."

[smallgayjew]

"I don't hate you," David assures him. "But I may have to find a suitable punishment for you..."

[pushtheboatout]

Stuart looks intrigued.

[smallgayjew]

David smiles slyly, turning in his seat to face Stuart, just looking at him a moment.

When he speaks, his voice is low, secret, just for Stuart.

"He came out of the office where he was employed
in an unimportant and poorly paid position
(up to eight pounds a month, with tips);
when he finished his tedious work
that kept him stooped all afternoon,
he came out at seven, and sauntered slowly,
gazing idly in the street. Beautiful
and interesting, he carried himself
as if he'd reached his full sensual potential.
He turned twenty-nine a month ago.

He gazed idly in the street, and down the poor alleys
that led to his rooms.

Passing by a small shop
where they sold cheap
and inferior goods for laborers,
he saw a face inside, he saw a shape
that moved him to enter, and he acted as if
he wanted to see colored handkerchiefs.

He asked about the quality of the handkerchiefs
and what they cost
in a choked voice
almost erased by desire.
And the answers came the same way,
absently, in a lowered voice,
with an implied consent.

They kept talking about the merchandise—but
their sole aim: to touch hands," His fingertips brush the back of Stuart's hand where it lays on the seat next to his,
"on top of the handkerchiefs, to draw
their faces together, their lips, as if by accident;
a fleeting touch of their limbs.

Quickly and furtively so the shopkeeper
sitting in the back would not notice."

[pushtheboatout]

Stuart exhales with a shudder.

[smallgayjew]

David gives him his most innocent smile.

The effect of which is probably slightly ruined by the way his eyes have darkened slightly.

[pushtheboatout]

Two can play this game, Mr. Posner.

"I love you, because in my thousand and one nights of dreams,
I never once dreamed of you.
I looked down paths that traveled from afar,
but it was never you I expected.
Suddenly I've felt you flying through my soul
in quick , lofty flight,
and how beautiful you seem way up there, far
from my always idiot heart!
Love me that way, flying over everything.
And, like the bird on its branch, land in my arms
only to rest,
then fly off again.
Be not like the romantic one who,
In love, set me on fire.
When you climb up my mansion,
enter so lightly, that as you enter
the dog on my heart will not bark."

[smallgayjew]

Well, if he will keep breaking the rules, the punishment must continue.

With a blush in his cheeks, and his fingertips still subtly stroking over Stuart's skin, David tries again.

"Last night unto my bed bethought there came
Our lady of strange dreams, and from an urn
She poured live fire, so that mine eyes did burn
At the sight of it. Anon the floating fame
Took many shapes, and one cried: 'I am shame
That walks with Love, I am most wise to turn
Cold lips and limbs to fire; therefore discern
And see my loveliness, and praise my name.'

And afterwords, in radiant garments dressed
With sound of flutes and laughing of glad lips,
A pomp of all the passions passed along
All the night through; till the white phantom ships
Of dawn sailed in. Whereat I said this song,
'Of all sweet passions Shame is the loveliest.'"