Page 5 of The Tourist

I nodded.Didn’t seem to trust my words on that subject at themoment.

“You’ll comearound tonight, like you said? To the bar?”

I noddedagain. Like I must have said?“Sure.”

Neither of usmoved nearer, to kiss goodbye or anything. Ricky gave a lopsidedgrin, then turned and left the bedroom. I heard him walk across theliving room, then the front door opened and shut again behindhim.

All the roomswere silent. I could smell the faint aroma of shower gel, imaginethe warm condensation drying on the bathroom tiles. A few drops ofwater glistened on the bedroom floor, where we’d walked from thebathroom to the bed.

My mind wasfull of Ricky—how adorable he was, how sexy. And the memories? Theywere flooding in now, and they were very good, very vivid. How Icooked for him, how he chose the TV programs for us to watch. Howwe checked out our work rotas at the beginning of the week, and hadstarted to make a routine together. How he smiled, how hechattered, how he shared stories with me about his customers, aboutideas he had for events at the bar, if he could persuade Matty.Most of all, how his body felt in my bed. And then I rememberedthat no one had ever called me handsome before, or gazed at mysmile like it hung the moon—and how shocked I’d been that he cameon to me in the first place.

Me.

He’d been fullof chat when I was doing the renovations in Matty’s bar in thesummer, and he made me laugh. He was so fucking hot, all the otherguys had eyes for him, and I’d been embarrassingly clumsy in askinghim for a date. But his eyes had lit up like fireworks, and he saidyeah, he really wanted to go out with me. Then he seemed to take astep back; he confessed he’d just split from a guy, and things werestill a bit raw. Okay, I’d said quickly, scared I’d lost my chance, we didn’t haveto rush anything. Maybe just have some fun. See how things wentbetween us. He’d looked relieved, though there were still thoseexciting fireworks in his eyes, and he’d been almost awestruck whenI took his hand between mine...

“I feel goodwith you, Dan,” he’d said, a little bit shy. “I feelsafe.”

So, what thefuck was going on in my mind at the moment? In myhost’s mind? Too muchconfusion, too much Ricky.I had it bad for him already, it seemed. Yet I wasalso in a mess about it all. There was a real buzz, as they saythese days, a sparkle between us when we were together. But it wasbloody obvious to me, I didn’t trust it.

Dandidn’t trust it.

What was Rickydoing with me, nothing but a builder, rough and ready? He onlywanted to have fun; I should keep reminding myself. It probablywouldn’t last. Could end, any day. I should just enjoy the present,whatever time we had. Yet I also knew that was never going to beenough. And when he got tired of the fun and moved on… I couldn’tget past the knot of agony in my chest that flared at thethought.

And what wasthe story with Calder, Ricky’s ex? There’snothing going on with him. I didn’t thinkthe guy on the other end of Ricky’s phone realised that. MaybeRicky didn’t realise it himself.

Why didn’t Itell Ricky to stay away from his ex? Tell him that I didn’t wanthim to go around there. That I wanted more than just the fun andthe great sex. He was mine now, I was his, and I wanted to makethat clear to everyone, a public statement we were together. Thewords of commitment had formed in my mind plenty of times but I’dnever said them to him. Never had the balls to. Did I think he’dlaugh? Look pitying? Shut the door again on his way out, but harderthis time and for good? I had no right to keep hassling him,pushing him, demanding things just for myself. I didn’t deservehim.

“I’ve fucked up,” I said aloud. My voice echoed in the quietroom, the sound of it alien yet familiar at the same time. I sankback down onto the bed, the pain in my gut something far more thanphysical. I’d goaded him too hard, been too jealous. MaybeI’d royally fuckedup. The misery was a sickening taste in my mouth.

And as his tourist?

I felt it all,and it was bitter and twisted. I discovered that, for my host,failure had as foul a taste as fear. And—as for myself—it’d been abloody long time since I’d sampled either sostrongly.

CHAPTER 3

So, let’s justtake a step back here, or at the very least, a mental one. Maybemore than one step.

This wasn’treally me, yousee. I wasn’t the well-built man sitting on the bed, his head inhis hands, short dark curls still damp from the shower, skin stilltingling from a great orgasm. Ears still echoing with that frontdoor shutting behind his lover, leaving his flat.

I was just avisitor.

Like I saidbefore, that’s what I did. I visited. I surfed around, looking forpeople who were having fun, who needed some extra energy, who wereopen to share, whether they realised it fully or not. Then I’d dropin. Some people might call it inhabiting, some might use the wordpossession.

I liked tocall it tourism.

And I’d seen ahell of a lot of things in my time as a tourist. Mainly through theeyes of men, my personal preference. Their lives, their sexualproclivities, their excitement, their need, their lust, and theirgames. Then more men, and the whole thing all over again, but witha change of intimate equipment. I’d joined in, I’d willinglywatched, I’d enhanced the whole bloody thing for ’em, from withintheir heads and bodies. It had always been a hell of anentertainment. Still was, usually.

The mansitting on the bed gave a strangled sob, tugging me back into hishead. Dan. Yeah,that was me for the moment. I let those emotions of his swamp me,prepared to cope with it now. Total misery was never a good look onme, but I didn’t think he needed any extra conflict inside his headto make it worse, at least not for a while. He had it bad forRicky; a deep, passionate longing, way deeper than—to me, atleast—the much easier-to-handle lust. So why didn’t he grab it withboth hands? What was the bloody problem?

Seemed likeDan was on the verge of tears. Hell’s bells. That just made meitch, like I’d been bitten, like my skin was crawling. Felt like hewanted to punch someone too, which I thought was a far moreconstructive response. I even found myself looking around forsomething I could thump, but short of a couple of pillows, theplace didn’t have a lot to offer.

Dan lookedaround too. Of course; we were one and the same. But he was no moreimpressed than I was. The flat was a good size, but it was for asingle man, a bit of a loner. Just the bed and a chest, then aglance into the living room to find a couch and a small table andchairs. An old TV, a radio, a few books. The furniture was goodquality but sparse. He got up off the bed and walked over to thebedroom door. On the opposite wall in the living room was a mirror.He looked in it.

I stared moreclosely than he did. I mean, it was a business thing for me, right?I needed to know exactly what I had to work with. He wasgood-looking, no question, though not with the startling movie-starlooks of Ricky. But Dan was clean and strong, and the look in hiseyes was a mixture of things I didn’t see that often. Constancy,truth, reliability.

There werereasons I didn’t find that kind of thing in my line of work. Orleisure, whatever you wanted to call it. Mainly it was because mykind of tourism was purely for the fun. Or, more honestly, for thesex. I loved it in life—what I could remember of that—and Icontinued to seek it out now. It was one of the few things youcould rely on, in my opinion. Sexual passion remained the same,whatever the times. And I’d travelled through more than a fewof them.

I was prettyyoung when I… you know. Croaked, passed on, died. Whatever the fuckyou wanted to call it. I’d learned whole new vocabularies over theyears, take my word for it. But the words for the basic things inlife remained pretty constant. Birth, death, fucking. And I’dalready had my fair share of fucking, you know? I’d been doing itsince I learned how to use my prick and knew where to find men whoenjoyed it, too. Ace, they called me. I didn’t have much memory ofa permanent home or family, and I couldn’t recall my real name, butAce stuck easily enough. Not that a name mattered nowadays. Butwhile I was still living, I answered to it when I could—when someman called. It worked for me.