The Drop
They were left alone and for a while the silence that came into the room after the last guest departed was unobtrusive, admissible on the grounds of something having ended. But then it changed. The silence filled with a presentiment of something not having begun.
Adam stretched his legs and put his hands on the back of his head. He closed his eyes like an animal preparing to give itself to the sun. The young man sitting opposite pulled a face. He wasn’t ready to be dismissed. He stared at Adam’s feet and waited. He was used to this kind of waiting. It was in his nature to delay, to let things develop to what he considered a definitive breaking point before acting or desisting from acting. It was an attribute he had inherited from his father, a man who like the earth had fire buried deep beneath the serene surface of his daily life. The landscape of his temperament was similarly dotted with dormant volcanoes and there was no way of predicting or calculating the conditions under which they would awaken. Not that he erupted in anger! No, not that. Never that. It was more to do with accumulations of feeling that unaccountably burst out of him in response to events that had occurred hours, days or even weeks earlier. He would suddenly laugh loud and long at a joke he had been told days earlier. He would suddenly jump up and vigorously embrace his wife, loudly extolling the virtue of her intelligence or cooking or perfect teeth. He would suddenly lean over and thump one of his children on the back or top of the head, saying “Right? Am I right?” when he hadn’t even asked a question. Or he would bang the table as he exclaimed “This is incredible!” over a book he had been reading for over a year. He was the most guardedly spontaneous person Tim had ever met, or wanted to meet. No wonder his mother aways had a wary shadow in her eyes. “Must you do that?” she would say with her hand over her chest. And to Tim, “Don’t laugh. It encourages him.”
And this pattern of unpremeditated delay in the progression of a feeling was the template for the music he wrote. But was it delay or was it caution? Was it a quality of inevitability? He didn't know. All he did know is that the transition from one level of urgency to another had nothing to do with the emotion or sensation driving him. No, that remained intact throughout like a diver standing at he end of a diving platform. What built up was the music's body of intention, the ripple and flow of its muscles, the increase in its heart-rate, the slow blinking of its gaze, and then the sudden and complete fall into the drop. The wonderful drop! The diver isn’t important. The emotion doesn’t count. The drop is all and whatever happens after that is self-explanatory. His father had been the master of drops!
He sensed Adam had opened his eyes and slowly raised his own to meet them. He smiled but not at Adam. He had recognized the shadow in Adam’s eyes. “You must be tired,” he said. “I know I am.” He yawned exhaustively and even had to wipe his eyes. Adam followed suit. He stretched out his arms and rolled his fists in the air. Tim looked speculatively at Adam’s chest. It had a placid look to it as though the organs it contained were at peace with their lot in life. He could imagine a horse standing there on a field inside his thoracic cavity. A horse that could stand still for ages, so still that it looked as though it must be thinking or was pensive about something. Yet when he sang! That voice! His voice trotted, pranced, cantered, galloped. It tossed its head. It reared up. It ran full tilt at obstacles and leaped over them. It panted and snorted when it came to a standstill. it's nostrils flared. It's back was glossy with sweat.
He suddenly stood up. Adam looked up at him. “Are you off?” he said congenially. He pulled himself off the couch and prepared himself to fulfill the duties of a host. But Tim didn’t move. He didn’t gather up his belongings and move towards the door. He didn’t make any fare-you-well small talk about the day’s or night’s events. He just stood there, staring at him.
“Is something wrong.” Adam asked at length.
“No,” Tim said. “Nothing’s wrong." He paused. "I’m thinking about us kissing,” he added with a shrug. “Perhaps we should do that.”
Adam abruptly sat back down on the couch. This was a most unexpected turn of events but not the territory itself, no, the territory was familiar. But Tim? Well, he hadn’t seen that coming.
“Tim, that’s - dumb,” he said. He made himself smile. He winced as he repeated the statement. “Just, dumb.”
Tim smiled down at him. “Really?” he said. “Okay.” The expression in his eyes, so far as Adam could make out, was completely unfazed. He watched as Tim fetched his things and headed to the doorway. Adam joined him. He held the door open but before he knew how it had happened Tim’s lips were on his. He had no kiss to give in return and instead had to wait for the awkwardness of the moment to end. But Tim was grinning at him. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?’ he said. Adam’s eyebrows shot up and before he could control himself he heard himself saying politely, “Very nice indeed, but- .”
Tim dropped his bag and put his arms around Adam’s neck. Then he withdrew them, found Adam’s wrists and positioned them behind his back. Adam held onto him for a moment but then released him. He was not in the least tempted. Nor did he feel flattered. Nor did the shock of physical proximity release him from the stupor of feeling baffled. He disengaged Tim’s arms and as though by way of apology said, “Funny to think when I was singing my heart out on Idol you were in short pants somewhere, a pimply school boy eyeing the girls up, buds stuck permanently in your ears...” His voice trailed off and left a sardonic twist in the corners of his smile.
Tim smirked. So that was his problem. He leaned forward. “Kiss me anyway,” he said. Now, at last, Adam was aggravated. He pushed Tim away. He bent down to retrieve the bag and with two hands rammed it against Tim’s chest. “You need to go home. You won’t even remember this.” He nudged him out of the door. He watched him walk down the hall and stand in front of the elevator. Tim pressed the button and then turned for his final attempt. He pursed his lips and kept them pursed for a long moment and then made a popping kiss sound. His mouth shot open with the impact of the smack.
The elevator doors opened and he stepped inside. The emptiness of the corridor he left behind him in the corridor struck Adam like a blow. The mystery fogging up the window in his mind abruptly cleared. It took only a few swift steps for him to be holding the automatic doors open so that he could get inside. It took only one swift movement for him to have Tim pinned against the elevator wall. The doors closed behind them.
Adam put his hands up on the wall and slowly pushed his body into Tim’s. He looked down and Tim looked up at him, his expression one of delicate self-possession. Adam took hold of one of his wrists and forced his hand between the press of their bodies. He held it against his groin. “This is what a kiss means. Do you get that? Do you get it?”
“Then fuck me,” Tim said complacently. He widened his eyes at Adam. “Kiss me first though,” he added. His body and not just his mouth became the agent of the kissing that now took place. The dryness of his lips became a property of desire and he brushed them to and fro on Adam’s open mouth. His hand had crept to Adam’s waistline and taken a firm grip on the waistband. He gently ground his knuckles into the soft abdomen. He could sense the wetness of Adam’s mouth waiting to envelop his lips but he prevaricated. He ran his lips to and fro. It was like striking a match in slow motion.
He suddenly stopped the kiss, opened the elevator doors, and dragged Adam behind him like a big dog. The dog jumped up on him and knocked him against the wall, unable and unwilling to control the excesses of his energy. They kissed along the corridor, they kissed in the doorway of Adam’s apartment, they kissed when they finally went inside. But when the door slammed shut the fun part was over. Adam had regained his sexual composure and got down to business.
Tim gave himself up to the fullest expression of his nature. As he lay on the bed, arms and legs akimbo, watching as Adam divested them both of their clothes, he felt the the supremely exquisite detachment of imminence coming to a head.
“Lay me down,” he said when Adam laid himself down on top of him. But Adam didn’t answer. He was already doing it.
And then it happened. Suddenly and decisively. The drop! The massive drop! He thumped his arm on Adam’s back! “Was I right?” he said. “Am I right!”
He had just enough time between kisses to consider how faithfully he mirrored his father’s aversion to instant gratification.