thought; but Duffy decided to shrug it off. McKechnie probably wasn’t an entirely straight-up-and-down guy, but which of his clients ever had been? And did you expect a guy who sold King Kong masks in Soho to behave like a clergyman? There was one rule you tried to stick to in this business: you believed the client was dealing straight with you until you had strong evidence to the contrary.
He rang Carol and asked her if she’d like to come round that evening. She said she couldn’t, she was going to the pictures (who with? But the rules said you weren’t allowed to ask). She could come the next night, though. Duffy said Yes please, and he’d make her the best toasted cheese she’d had since the last time she’d had toasted cheese.
He contemplated another evening alone in his flat. Maybe he’d better go out and find someone. Soho made you randy, there was no doubt about that. Not the films he’d seen – the Hoover, the sheepdog and the goose – or the memory of having his windscreen squeegeed in the Peep Show; it was just being there. The air over mill towns used to be heavy with a precipitate of soot; you breathed it into your lungs and body; over Soho, the air seemed filled with a precipitate of sex.
Duffy’s mind idled over the choice between trawling for a man and trawling for a woman. To Duffy it was like choosing between bacon and egg and bacon and tomato. Whichever you decided on you had a good time; it was just what your taste-buds felt like that evening. Women were usually less likely to leave you needing a visit to the clinic. On the other hand they were a bit more expensive; they tended not to stand their ground if they were going to go to bed with you later; and some of them made the sentimental mistake of believing that because Duffy was nice to them it meant that he wanted to see them again. Then he had to be firm, and tell them no, and that often added a sour note to breakfast.
The other thing was that, in practical terms, men could be more relied upon if you wanted to get laid. You spent longer chatting up women than you did men; and even if you were in a singles bar where it was generally assumed that everyone was on the prowl, it was still part of the accepted convention that a girl had every right to dump you with a final No, even if all evening she’d been giving off signals which said Yes. Whereas if you went to a gay club, you never left disappointed. Not everyone went there determined to get laid, of course; there was a certain amount of ‘Well, I’ll see’, and ‘Try me later’; but as long as you were clean and neat, you were bound to end up with someone. There was rarely any of that breakfast trouble, either. Indeed, what some of the guys you brought back wanted to do was just get up and leave before the sheets were dry. Well, that was O.K. by Duffy too.
It looked as if it was heading for another evening down at the Alligator. Besides, if he were seeing Carol tomorrow, it always gave him a jolt if he’d spent the previous night with a girl. And that spoiled the previous night as well; it had him making all sorts of comparisons which weren’t a good idea. No, Duffy decided, it would definitely have to be a guy tonight. He headed off to the bathroom to smarten himself up.
A few hours later, he finished his evening at the Alligator with Jack, a gentle, blond American from the Mid-West who was hitch-hiking round Europe with a copy of the Spartacus Gay Guide to Europe and a reverent determination to visit every major club and bar listed in it. The tourism side of the venture almost outweighed the gayness side of it: Jack had been sipping a Campari at the Alligator in the manner of a camera-laden tripper lighting a candle at Chartres. He almost had to be reminded about wanting to get laid. Over breakfast, Jack confessed a shy desire to start up his own Good Gay Guide along the lines of the Good Food Guide, relying on reports from members and occasionally sending out inspectors to
He rang Carol and asked her if she’d like to come round that evening. She said she couldn’t, she was going to the pictures (who with? But the rules said you weren’t allowed to ask). She could come the next night, though. Duffy said Yes please, and he’d make her the best toasted cheese she’d had since the last time she’d had toasted cheese.
He contemplated another evening alone in his flat. Maybe he’d better go out and find someone. Soho made you randy, there was no doubt about that. Not the films he’d seen – the Hoover, the sheepdog and the goose – or the memory of having his windscreen squeegeed in the Peep Show; it was just being there. The air over mill towns used to be heavy with a precipitate of soot; you breathed it into your lungs and body; over Soho, the air seemed filled with a precipitate of sex.
Duffy’s mind idled over the choice between trawling for a man and trawling for a woman. To Duffy it was like choosing between bacon and egg and bacon and tomato. Whichever you decided on you had a good time; it was just what your taste-buds felt like that evening. Women were usually less likely to leave you needing a visit to the clinic. On the other hand they were a bit more expensive; they tended not to stand their ground if they were going to go to bed with you later; and some of them made the sentimental mistake of believing that because Duffy was nice to them it meant that he wanted to see them again. Then he had to be firm, and tell them no, and that often added a sour note to breakfast.
The other thing was that, in practical terms, men could be more relied upon if you wanted to get laid. You spent longer chatting up women than you did men; and even if you were in a singles bar where it was generally assumed that everyone was on the prowl, it was still part of the accepted convention that a girl had every right to dump you with a final No, even if all evening she’d been giving off signals which said Yes. Whereas if you went to a gay club, you never left disappointed. Not everyone went there determined to get laid, of course; there was a certain amount of ‘Well, I’ll see’, and ‘Try me later’; but as long as you were clean and neat, you were bound to end up with someone. There was rarely any of that breakfast trouble, either. Indeed, what some of the guys you brought back wanted to do was just get up and leave before the sheets were dry. Well, that was O.K. by Duffy too.
It looked as if it was heading for another evening down at the Alligator. Besides, if he were seeing Carol tomorrow, it always gave him a jolt if he’d spent the previous night with a girl. And that spoiled the previous night as well; it had him making all sorts of comparisons which weren’t a good idea. No, Duffy decided, it would definitely have to be a guy tonight. He headed off to the bathroom to smarten himself up.
A few hours later, he finished his evening at the Alligator with Jack, a gentle, blond American from the Mid-West who was hitch-hiking round Europe with a copy of the Spartacus Gay Guide to Europe and a reverent determination to visit every major club and bar listed in it. The tourism side of the venture almost outweighed the gayness side of it: Jack had been sipping a Campari at the Alligator in the manner of a camera-laden tripper lighting a candle at Chartres. He almost had to be reminded about wanting to get laid. Over breakfast, Jack confessed a shy desire to start up his own Good Gay Guide along the lines of the Good Food Guide, relying on reports from members and occasionally sending out inspectors to
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