Namesake

In the middle of yet another meeting where he had no ideas, just a wagging finger to point at everyone else, he'd decided that later he'd take the plunge and declare his love. Like a switch being flicked, he realised with a ping it was time to act. His life floating by in a pool of discontent was making him seasick. His plan came together rapidly in the midst of so many others talking through plans it was his job to dismiss without consideration or explanation. Except when his namesake spoke, then he would coo encouragement and fill the room with belief in all he proposed. The others noticed the bias, but suffocated the struggle to hold their discontent in, knowing questioning his unexplained plans was career suicide. None knew it was desire that fuelled his obvious preference. Thoughts of this were well hidden in the cloak of respectability he wore in marriage and family life.

Marrying a dwarf had shrunk his expectations. It was the only road left unblocked after the lisp had mockingly limited his social abilities. Friends, worried about his visibly building suffocating loneliness, had arranged the blind date where he'd nearly missed her in the bar, hidden by the grown-up sized world. He'd eventually resigned himself to this compromised, scaled-down conformity. But the cracks continued to grow.

It was the small things that were tap, tap, tapping at his ability to continue the masquerade. He never got the meals he liked when the ingredients were on the top shelf in the supermarket. Too high up to reach, too embarrassed to ask. He'd bought stepladders and extending dusting poles but always seemed to spot dust and cobwebs around the house, all at his eye level but way above her reach. He'd tired of helping her onto the chairs at the full size, at his insistence, dining table. Even the sex, where once he found enjoyment in her being at an ideal level to lick his growing breasts, had started to agitate rather than titillate. Sweet nothings could never be whispered, instead shouted down to where she failed to fill the bed.

He longed to hold his namesake, feel the comfort of another bloated, rather than scaled, person in his arms. There had only been one time he had touched a man. At university, it had all ended in shame when he had found himself eagerly naked, then quickly dressed, when Peter had mocked his marble white body revealed under the harsh light of a bare bulb. It had led to him refusing to eat, starving the shame from his stretched skin. That was a long time ago now, forgotten with every unhappy takeaway and the constant drip of treats.

So to the plan and the end of the meeting. His namesake as keen as all the others to leave, only held back by his mumbled request. Have you got a minute? He already knew he had. The first bit was easy, take me through your ideas. Later it would just be take me. But slowly slowly catchee monkey. His prey in his sights made it hard to stay interested at his repeated, dragging, boring explanations. Outside the door he'd quietly closed, a building stream had happily started to leave, rushing away back to real life. No one would be around soon. He upped the interest in the still boring explanations, now, however, glad it was so drawn-out, offering as it did the lingering chance to draw him near.

His namesake was used to the close attention, but like all the others, was blinded by the presented persona as to what desires it hid. Anyway, it was useful to be marked as special, good for his career. A harmless sacrifice that occasionally left him at the mercy of bad breath. He droned on with his monotonous account of a half developed idea, dis-interesting even himself before he reached the end.

The breath coating his namesake was fresh today, planning was everything. A sly shift nearer, an invented reasons to reach over and point at the glowing laptop screen they shared. He thought about the pleasure of saying the name they shared and tried to catch the other's eye, failing to break through the continuing and now unheard explanation being poured out.

A lunge, wet lips muffling the yelp of surprise. A gulp from both then a never completed garbled confession. Incomprehension and a screwed up face edged off along the seat. Rejection, a renewed insistence, anger through words that pointed out limited options. If you value your career. Another failed attempt at a declaration, desperately wanting this to be seduction, not a demand. Hesitating silence clumsily broken by a scraping chair, a door slamming in shame. A blurred figure rushing outside the window in a hurried exit. Tears hidden in the crush of the tube. Reflections, from the cruel dark windows and inside his racing mind.

His key in the door brought a tiny 'hello' out into the hallway. He locked his shamed failure outside the house. Looking down he spotted her running towards him, hugging his thighs on arrival.

"I love you Tony".

Those words that had earlier remained so stubbornly stuck in his own mouth.