Alec

by William di Canzio

He went to the boathouse. He opened the slats of the shutters: sunlight patterned the floor like fish bones. He read the address Simcox had given him, not knowing what he would do with it. He lay back in his corner and watched the dust float in the sunbeams. We’ve been very happy … One of the spaniels nosed through the door and came to him. He stroked her silky head. Reason admonished Alec: he’d already been too wild, stealing into the manor last night, to the bed of a man who could have rejected or even betrayed him. It would be still more reckless to write Maurice at his home in that haughty suburb. To write would test their relationship. Could it survive outside a moldy bedroom in a decrepit country house? To write would also test Maurice, and himself even more. The pain of rejection would belong only to him, since Maurice held the power to hurt, accorded not only by money and class, but also by Alec’s own yearning. Why risk it? Why not cherish the memory of their night together, keep busy for the next ten days, and set sail? Still in his white cricket clothes, the trousers now stained reddish on the right leg, where he’d rubbed the ball, he walked to the village with the spaniel. There he sent Maurice this wire: COME BACK, WAITING TONIGHT AT BOATHOUSE, PENGE, ALEC.