My Dear I Wanted to Tell You Read Online Free PDF Page B

dumplings in a while. There’ll be plenty to go round – she’s good that way.’ Riley was glad to hear that people of his type were capable of generosity as well as sensitivity. Oh, stop it. Terence is all right. It’s not him you’re angry with.
    ‘People are saying it’s awfully romantic and noble,’ Terence was going on, ‘to fight for your country, for something you really believe in, and it is, of course it is . . . but of course the real joy and breakthrough of the romantic movement was that it means it’s no longer necessary to be hidebound by the rules of classicism, and tradition, which means, it seems to me, that all rules are there to be questioned, and all kinds of behaviour should now be considered on their own merits, not simply in the light of traditional rules and models . . .’
    Riley took one of Terence’s cigars, and said: ‘I’ve always thought that one should do exactly what one wants, as long as it doesn’t hurt people.’ At this Terence smiled his very wide blond smile, and pressed Riley to another glass of smoky red wine, which Riley accepted. Hark at me! One!
    ‘The problem is, it does hurt people,’ he went on. ‘There’s always someone who is going to be hurt by one not doing what they want. Or by one doing what they don’t want one to do, like—’ and he had had no intention of using this example, but it leapt out, as the things uppermost in our minds tend to, unexpectedly and unwelcomely ‘—loving someone they don’t want you to love . . .’
    Terence understood com plete ly . Riley was glad to be understood. His fury and hurt about Nadine’s removal were beginning to surge and shovel around inside him now, fuelled no doubt by the wine, so he accepted another glass, as a result of which he accepted some whisky – quite a lot – as a result of which he found himself an hour or so later spreadeagled across a green chenille blanket on Terence’s single bed with Terence’s mouth around his tumescent dick.
    He liked it. Oh, God, it was magnificent, the wonderful warmth, and surging . . .
    At least, his dick liked it. His dick absolutely loved it.
    Riley lurched from the bed, pushing the blond head aside. Terence called out to him but already Riley was staggering like a clown in his falling-down trousers; with his shirt-tails flying he was down the many flights of whirling stairs, out into the storm, hurtling up Exhibition Road, making distance, his heart battering, his chest tight, clambering the black railings into the park. He flung himself breathless on the turf on his back. The rain was pouring down, punching his face.
    A big girl’s blouse, a posh man’s plaything with a fake posh accent, nancy boy to a nancy posh artist in nancy fucking Kensington smoking fucking cigars. Sensitivity, my arse. Artistic temperament and fucking sensitivity.
    Fucking posh fucking
    But they’re not all . . . said a sane little voice beneath his fury.
    Was it all based on that? Bloody Terence – and Sir Alfred? He’d never even noticed Sir Alfred wasn’t married – it had never . . .
    Nadine –
    Nadine . . .
    Bloody Waveneys, bloody bloody posh bastards all the fucking same.
    Not good enough for their girl, only fit to be used by their boy.
    I should just go round there and . . .
    Fury was consuming him. The first person – other than himself – to touch it had been a man. The first time he came off – other than by his own hand – a man. A man he liked. A coming off he liked.
    Do I go to hell now? To prison, certainly, if anybody found out. Or I’ve got some horrible disease . . .
    And now he would have to lie to her all his life.
    What life? What life, exactly, was he imagining anyway? How could he imagine any life with her? How would that ever come to be? Nadine will spend her life with a gentleman. You are not a gentleman. It’s been made perfectly clear .
    Maybe, but I’m not like Terence either . . .
    Yes, you are. You did it, you liked it – you’re one of them.