Excerpt Two: Quill

Quill From Chapter Three

Quill
By Neal Drinnan

Woodrow's hair hung in bouncy ringlets. His dark eyes smouldered in the same way they had when he and Blaise had first met; he was freshly showered and powdered from the gym.

Some people are attracted to the very darkness that marks their future suffering. Blaise wondered whether he was one of those people. Had he sought beauty at any cost? Just what lay in the depths of those alluring pools of darkness?

"I don't know how you can bear to still be in that suit, Blaise. It's so humid. Didn't you go for a swim tonight?"

"No, I was tired."

Woodrow blended some soy milk, bran, egg, and a banana in the food processor.

"Tired -- what -- from sitting at your desk all day? You'll be getting love handles soon."

He grabbed his lover's potentially handled midriff and gave it a squeeze. Blaise stir-fried, all the while repressing painful surges of anger. He was increasingly aware of Woodie insinuating cruel, personal doubts into their relationship at every possible opportunity.

"I should join your gym. I could get a lift home with you."

"Tricky," he said, gulping the smoothie. "I might not go all the same nights as you, and it's a bit of a hike from Bondi Junction station. You'd do better to go to the gym at Kings Cross, then just get on the train again and you're home -- easy."

"You don't want me to go to yours?"

"I don't mind, but you know I spot with Gavin... I couldn't just dump him."

"Of course not. I prefer swimming and yoga anyway."

"Hah, when was the last time you went to yoga? And you swallow all the air you're supposed to breathe -- it makes you fart."

"I fully intend to go again, and how different are those disgusting black protein bricks you eat? They have exactly the same effect."

Blaise finished dishing up dinner, thinking to himself: Farting, now there's something they don't talk about on the back flap of books. "Lectures at Princeton and UCLA, and farts in bed." That wouldn't help sell romantic-erotic fiction, would it? He smiled inwardly.

Woodie sat waiting for his dinner, reading the new Bulletin while half-watching the news.

"Hey, guess what, Blaise. Joanna at work is reading Elliot's new book. Crap with a capital C, she reckons. Full of his ideas on love and relationships -- can you imagine!"

Blaise's eyes smarted with hot, involuntary tears. He blinked them back before Woodie caught sight. He took a deep breath as he ferried two steaming plates to the table.

"I'm not allowed to. Remember?"

"Allowed to what?"

"Imagine."

"Why is it always a fucking drama when this comes up? I thought you'd want to know if it was crap, which I'm told it is."

"Yeah, by Joanna, who thought The Sweet Hereafter was crap but You've Got Mail was fantastic. Hello. I can't even imagine why someone like her would read it anyway."

"Someone gave it to her. She's a very intelligent girl, though she did say you definitely shouldn't read it and neither should I."

"Well, I would have thought that was a red rag to a bull; two bulls, in fact. Woodrow, I would so much rather make up my own mind about something like Elliot's book."

"You are touchy, aren't you? You only call me Woodrow when you're mad."

"What do you expect -- forbidden to read my ex-boyfriend's book?"

"Forbidden? I thought we agreed it would be less distressing for you -- for us, if it comes to that! Hell, me, forbid? Just don't let me see it if you succumb. I have to look at it on Joanna's desk all day, I don't want to come home to it at night as well."

Blaise looked up from the sink. "Let's just be thankful he stays in New York these days and there's no launch here -- not that we'd get an invite anyway."

"Oh drag the fucking launch up again. I apologised for that, didn't I?"

"To me, not to Elliot."

"Blaise, I'm sure Elliot Bernard, international author, academic and wanker, has not been lying awake in bed for the last three years waiting for me to apologise."