There Will Be Phlogiston Read online

  “Why?” he snapped. “Are the rumours insufficiently detailed?” It seemed there was a brittle, angry place at the deepest heart of shame that felt almost like pride. “It’s all true. I was at the docks, soliciting sodomitical advances. And, afterwards, the gentleman’s friends took it upon themselves to punish me for it. Does that satisfy you?”

  Jones’s fingers closed lightly around his wrist, a circle of warmth that made him remember the last time Jones had held him, pinned to the wall, threatening and promising. “What have I done to make you think I’d be pleased by cruelty?”

  And all at once, Lord Mercury crumbled. Whatever that final piece of pride had been, it was gone now, shattered by a few gentle words, leaving only loss and old longing. His eyes burned with fresh tears. “It’s not what you’ve done. The last time we . . . If I hadn’t . . . I deserved this.”

  “Not on my account. And certainly not on your own.”

  “I should not have been there.” I should have been with you. “And I should have been able to defend myself.”

  Jones laid his hand back upon the coverlet and patted it. “Arkady, if people want to hurt you, they can always hurt you. It doesn’t matter how well you use a sword or your fists, or what kind of man you think you are.”

  It seemed impossible to imagine that Jones could ever have been powerless. “Have you . . .” Too late, he realised what he was asking and fell silent.

  Jones laughed. “Have I ever got the shit kicked out of me? I was born in the undercity. I’ve worked for pimps and panderers and pirates. What do you think?”

  Oh, what a stupid question. There was no solace in knowing that. “I . . . I apologise.”

  “You get used to it. Not that anyone should have to.” Jones leaned forward, brushing a jagged lock of what remained of Lord Mercury’s hair away from his brow. “How badly did they hurt you?”

  “Nothing that will not heal.”

  “Those motherswinkers.”

  There was something oddly touching about the glimmer of anger in Jones’s eyes, the growl in his throat. It made Lord Mercury feel slightly more capable of bravery. “Thank you, but I’m fine.”

  “Are the police looking for them?”

  “I’m not . . . That is—” It was still, however, hard to speak of. “I would prefer this matter received no further attention.”

  “Tell me about them?”

  “I could describe their boots and their fists rather well, but probably little else.”

  “A few small details will do. I have resources, connections, I can find these bastards.”

  Truthfully, Lord Mercury had fantasised about it. The visitation of righteous retribution on three soldiers whose faces he could barely picture. He had imagined them at his feet, weeping and humiliated, begging for his forgiveness. For a while it had comforted him, until he had realised how childish it was, how hollow and meaningless. “I don’t need you to do that,” he said, at last.

  “No, I know. Thought I’d offer, just in case.”

  “Well, err, thank you for offering to have some men found and beaten for me.”

  Jones actually blushed. “Next time I’ll try flowers.”

  And Lord Mercury laughed—the impulse catching him as sweetly and unexpectedly as snowdrops in spring. Laughter had seemed so far away from him the last few days, but it was easy now. Too easy. A sharp, hot pain as blood rushed to fill the cut that had reopened on his lip, and a far deeper one like an iron band around his ribs, and he fell silent again, stifling a gasp and wincing. Jones offered him his perfect handkerchief, and Lord Mercury had to accept it or be reduced to dabbing at himself with the sleeve of his nightshirt. “Would you really have done that? Brought me flowers?”

  “Would you have wanted me to?”

  It was an odd idea, not displeasing, but still odd. “I thought gentlemen only gave flowers to ladies.”

  “Maybe.” Jones shrugged. “But, if I did bring you some, your prick probably wouldn’t immediately drop off. Maybe the better question is, do you like flowers?”

  “I’ve never considered it. What kind of flowers would you get me?”

  This was a fantasy far more potent than nebulous revenge against three strangers who had hurt him: Jones, glorious, marvellous Jones, every inch the gentleman, and not one fraction less himself, in a flower shop somewhere, his arms full of bright and beautiful things. Are they for someone special? the seller would ask him. And, he would say, Yes.

  “That’s where I get a bit lost.” Jones rubbed his jaw, the stubble rasping beneath his fingers. “I’ve never bought flowers for anyone. Not much call for them in the sky.”

  Foolish daydreams. “I suppose not.”

  Jones smiled. “Up on the claim, there’s these storms, where water and phlogiston get all mixed up together. Leaves this residue behind, and if you don’t clean it sharpish you get . . . well . . . we call them aetherblooms. They don’t look much like flowers though. They’re sort of like—” he wriggled his fingers expressively “—tendrils that wave on the aether currents, and glow greenish under starlight.”

  Lord Mercury only realised he was crying when the salt from his tears stung his cuts. He hadn’t realised how much he had missed Jones. The sex, in all its savagery, certainly, but he ached for this as well: company, shared laughter, and Jones’s strange, shyly offered stories of the sky. He closed his eyes, just for a moment, fearful of the man’s pity, but the words came tumbling out anyway. “Why don’t you hate me?”

  “Why would I hate you?”

  “Because of how we parted.”

  “Never mind that now.”

  “But I do mind. I remember everything.”

  Jones shifted on the bed, looking about as uncomfortable as Lord Mercury had ever seen him. “I was angry. Hurt. But it’s in the past.” Once again, a patting of hands. Jones did it easily, as if it was simply his nature to be tactile, but all Lord Mercury remembered was the other ways they had once touched. “I’ll always be your friend, Arkady, if you’ll have me. I knew that from the first moment I saw you.”

  It was a kind thing to say. Very kind. He tried to smile, but it hurt, as though there were cracks in his heart as well as on his lips. “I’m not sure friendship was foremost in your mind back then.”

  “Well. No. I didn’t expect to like you. But you were beautiful, and so put together like you were this perfect gentleman, but your eyes said nothing but ‘love me.’” Jones shrugged that shrug that Lord Mercury had failed to train out of him. “So I did.”

  Did. Were. “It would be disadvantageous, now, to have your name coupled too easily with mine.”

  “Disadvantageous to who?”

  “Whom.”

  “What?”

  “Disadvantageous to whom. Here ‘it’ (the disadvantageous thing) is the subject of the sentence, while the unknown person (to whom it is disadvantageous) is the object. Therefore ‘to whom.’”

  Once Lord Mercury had attempted to impress upon Jones the subtleties of the may/can distinction. He had responded by tugging Lord Mercury’s legs apart and dropping to his knees between them. “Can I do this?” he’d murmured, the heat of his breath pooling in a sly caress over the tautened fabric of Lord Mercury’s trousers. “You certainly have the capability,” had been his answer. After the helpless gasp, that is. Lord Mercury had performed this act for many men. Few had been inclined to reciprocate. It had never particularly troubled him, but the idea of Jones doing it, of Jones wanting to, had made him delirious with yearning.

  Yet there he had sat, barely able to breathe, his whole body suffused in heat, prickling with lust, and hearing, as if from a great distance, his own voice saying: “But in a formal context, such as a dance, one should say ‘may I’ and wait for a response before proceeding.” Jones had glanced wickedly up at him, and asked, “Do you suck many cocks in a formal context?” before covering him with his mouth. And, oh God, the heat, the heat and softness, the peculiar intimacy of being inside someone else in that way. He had come undo
ne, in a handful of bright moments, hips thrusting, hands tangled in Jones’s hair—“Oh . . . may I please . . . may I”—and Jones nodding, laughing in a muffled kind of way, as Lord Mercury had spilled into his mouth, crying out his name as if it were the only word left in the world.

  But today, Jones just grinned toothily and asked, “To whom would it be disadvantageous?”

  “You, most obviously. And anyone associated with you. People would most likely believe that you . . . we . . . that we . . .”

  “But I am. We did. And what’s one more thing for people to say about me? I’m already a whore’s bastard, a commoner, a prospector. You can dress me however you like, teach me what to say and how to bow, but I’ll never be one of Gaslight’s fine, upstanding industrial gentlemen.”

  “You’re the best man I know. And,” Lord Mercury added sharply, “having gone to a lot of trouble to make you presentable, I shall be most put out if you throw it away.”

  “But—”

  “I want you to have everything you need. That family you’re looking for.” He moved, on instinct, to push back a lock of hair, only to realise there was nothing there. “My life . . . I don’t even know what my life is anymore.”

  “Life is more than one street in one city in one country.”

  “For you maybe. All that is waiting for me is a squalid little apartment somewhere on the continent where they look more kindly on English gentlemen with a taste for buggery.”

  “My life is only what I’ve made of it.”

  “And I am what life has made of me.”

  Jones leaned across the space between them, blue eyes and bronze skin, and such conviction it made Lord Mercury feel like tatters on the wind. “Surprise yourself.”

  “I . . . I don’t know how.”

  “I came back to Gaslight because it’s the closest place I’ve ever known to home. But there’s so much else I’d be glad to see if I had someone to share it with.” There was a ragged edge to his voice now, not anger this time, but sadness, a touch of desperation. “I could show you sunrises, Arkady, that set the horizon aflame. I could take you places where there are so many stars you can’t even see the sky. Where the colours of the world are different. You don’t have to be anything to me you don’t—”

  “Stop, oh please stop. You know that isn’t possible.”

  “What isn’t possible?”

  “For two men to be together like that. The world will never allow it.”

  “Why do we need permission?” Jones’s hands curled into fists. “You know, most folk are too busy trying to get by to give a toss where other people find their happiness. Pointless condemnation is a luxury for the wealthy and the bored.”

  Lord Mercury stared at him, hurting and wanting, and torn to pieces on it. “But everything you’ve worked for.”

  “I worked so that nobody I loved would ever have to struggle or suffer or go without again. I want you, Arkady. You know that.” A great shudder ran through his body, and he dropped his head into his hands. “I’m sorry. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this, and here I am, making an arse of myself again.”

  “You’ve never done anything that would make me think that.”

  Jones looked up, dark eyed, a little wild. “Well, you try wanting to kiss someone who won’t kiss you back, and see how sensibly you behave.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be. It’s not your doing. I want things from you that you can’t give.”

  “No.” The word burst out of him before he could properly consider. He only knew he was—somehow—being given a second chance, and that Jones still cared for him and desired him. “I do want to give them. The k-kisses and everything. Please let me give them. Just . . . we’ll just have to be careful.”

  Jones blinked. “Careful?”

  “Yes, we must not be seen together, and you must not come here too often, or without caution.”

  “That sounds more like a conspiracy.”

  Lord Mercury, giddy with terror and elation and relief, stifled a laugh. “Conspiracy to commit buggery.”

  “Conspiracy to be in love.” Jones did not sound amused. He sounded . . . miserable. “I can’t do that, Arkady. Haven’t you understood a word I’ve said? There’s a whole world out there for us, and I don’t care what your pathetic little corner of it thinks.”

  “But I do. I’m sorry, but I do. I realise everyone already knows exactly what I am, but I don’t have to . . . flaunt it.”

  Jones stood abruptly. His height and the breadth of his shoulders tended to give him a slightly daunting presence, but right now he just looked confused and helpless. “I’m not asking you to flaunt it. I don’t want to fuck you in the middle of Lady Copper’s ball. But when I was up there on the claim, imagining having a family of my own to come home to, I never pictured it would involve a discreet twice-monthly arrangement.”

  Oh God, oh God, oh God, it was all going wrong already. He’d barely got Jones back, and he was losing him. “I’m a man, Jones. You can’t marry me, and you can’t—”

  “In the sky, you know who gets married? People in love. So down here I can’t stand next to you in a church and mutter some promises to a God I don’t reckon to be there. But we can still have a life together. We just have to make it for ourselves.”

  “But there’s so much that you would lose in trying to be with me.”

  “What about what we’d have? Oh, Arkady.” Another gesture—flying hands that suddenly seemed not to know what to do with themselves. “I know I’m a simple man, a common one, but can’t you be proud to be loved by me?”

  Lord Mercury gazed up at him pleadingly, wishing he could make Jones understand. “You’re the least common man I’ve ever met. I just . . . It’s me. I don’t know how to be proud of me. And I don’t know how to do what you want me to do.”

  There was a long silence. Then Jones nodded. Bent to pick up his coat. “There’s so much I want to give you, so much I want to share with you. The truth is, I want you to be free, Arkady, but I can’t make you.”

  Lord Mercury’s heart turned to ash in his chest. “Don’t—”

  Jones stood for a moment, looking at him, then leaned down and kissed his brow, very gently. “I love you, but you make me ashamed. And freedom is something you have to find for yourself.”

  Then he was gone.

  Again.

  And it hurt just as much the second time as it had the first.

  The days trickled by. Lord Mercury’s ribs healed slowly, his cuts closed, his bruises turned like autumn leaves, from scarlet through purple to yellow-green, though his body—rather like his life—still felt distantly not quite his own. But his sense of reality was, finally, beginning to settle: it had really happened, all his greatest fears had come to pass, and there was to be no reprieve, no change that did not come of his own making.

  He had been so certain Jones would be the ruin of him, but here he was, ruined anyway. If he had found the strength to be only a little bit honest, a little bit brave, he would likely have been with him now. He could have been his lover, his catamite, his mistress, his wife, what did it matter what one called it? He would have been touched, kissed, safe, loved.

  Not long before his mother had left, one of the poets had called him a beautiful Ganymede. Kissed his lips. And Lord Mercury hadn’t stopped him, hadn’t even been afraid. He had liked the way the gentleman looked at him—the same way gentlemen looked at his mother. His mouth had been sweet and soft with honeyed wine. And Lord Mercury’s body had answered. In the confusion of grief, he had sometimes wondered if that was why his mother had fled him. Because she had known he had solicited kisses from the poet. With adult understanding he had put such ideas to rest.

  But the loss had remained. He had known it was all his nature could possibly bring him.

  Except it had also brought him Jones.

  A man he so desperately wanted, but did not know how to have. And in whose arms Lord Mercury had lain, bewildered with intimacy, wondering
how such joy could possibly be wrong. But it was hard—on the brink of impossible—to find pride in such absolute capitulation to the part of himself he had always known to hate and to fear.

  And so he had lost the man he loved—for what else was it, if not love?—twice over.

  Compared to that, disgrace was a mere shadow of pain. And brought with it the unexpected consolation of relief, for he was no longer waiting. No longer afraid. Instead of myriad imagined possibilities, infinite opportunities for shame, for failure, for dishonour, there was only what was. A simple set of truths.

  He crawled out of bed and limped to his dressing room. To the looking glass, where he found himself staring at a reflection that was at once stranger and more familiar than it had ever been. His body was still a mottled mess of marks, and without the framing of his hair, his face looked . . . starker, more exposed. He could hardly articulate what he had expected to see there, what he had thought would be revealed. But there was nothing. No particular deviance or effeminacy, not a mouth made soft for sucking cock. Only him. Pale skinned, green eyed, freckle dusted, beautiful to some and to the one who mattered, no different from any other man.

  Was he really less worthy of the things that other people took for granted, or more capable of living without them? Simply because he desired other men. Found love with men. What would it mean if he wasn’t? What would it mean to be free?

  As he stood there, looking at himself, thinking of Jones, he realised there was an extent to which he already was.

  If he chose to accept that freedom.

  What did it matter if whatever he would have with Jones looked nothing like what anyone else would consider decent or right or real? Nothing he had done before his disgrace had been decent or right or real either: it had all been pretence. Increasingly it was his past, rather than his present, that felt unreal. Everything he had believed, everything he had done and failed to do, was beginning to seem close to incomprehensible. Acts committed by a stranger who wore his skin, in flight from monsters he now realised were only shadows on the walls of a prison.