Two Backstory Scenes from No One's Boy
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I'm still working on those origfic drabbles, but I'm going to post these two! They're the ones requested by ellenel13 and wizzard890, and both using characters from my No One's Boy canon, aka. the travails and occasional adventures of a certain Graeme Gillespie.
The prompts are your warnings, but I'd like to add in additional caveats for non-explicit sex (in the first one) and use of regional slurs (in the second).
(The one in which Graeme decides he is cool with being a prostitute.)
They said he’d only have to hang about the right places and look like he wasn’t there to buy. That wasn’t a hardship at all, not with his clothing and his looks, neither of which he could afford to keep up. But it’s different for boys, they said, those lasses, it’s not just a matter of showing the right bit of skin.
For an hour or so, he just hung about with the girls, and it was rather like being in the house at rehearsal waiting for someone else’s scene to finish. The girls laughed together and called marks and heckled some of the men. Not so different, not at all. Graeme could even hear some of the same panto calls, “oh yes he did!”, “he’s right behind you!”, “that ain’t what you came for, is it.”
A chap eyed Graeme up, came across the way, made talk; the sort of anonymous man in last year’s hat and coat. Graeme could only see the man’s jaw unless he was looking right at him. The skin around that leer looked like a dark, wasted effort at shaving in the morning to come to this at dusk. Graeme smiled and took him behind a tenement while one of the girls watched for the brass.
Graeme asked him, “What are ye after?”
The man told him.
Graeme blushed, and bit his cheek when he felt a laugh coming. It was so simple. He got to his knees, his back to the roughshod stone wall, and rested his forehead just over the man’s groin while he got those trousers open.
At first sight and first scent, Graeme fought back a wave of nausea-not that there was anything wrong with the man, just that Graeme realized it was his first time doing this with someone who didn’t already want him.
So Graeme thought, Well, then I’ll just have to make him want me.
Bringing him off took longer than it usually did for Graeme, in part because he had to get the man hard, and in part because he didn’t know precisely what would get the man going. Graeme found himself listening, paying attention to every little reaction he got, cataloguing what wound up with him grabbed by the hair, thrust toward the wall, called what he was. Graeme even felt himself rising to the occasion, so to speak, even if it hurt his left knee to stay like this on cobblestone ground. A cushion next time, he thinks, or a jacket at least. It wasn’t a surprise when the man came down Graeme’s throat. Graeme laughed and held in as much as he could.
After a bit of talk-complimentary, if brusque-the man gave Graeme his pay. In the half hour it had taken Graeme to get him off, Graeme had earned half a week’s rent: more than he made in a week at the theatre.
The man went off, smiling, on his own. Graeme cleaned himself off, stretched and cracked his jaw, and considered his options.
---
-
(The one in which Thomas arrives at Harrow.)
It was so clean. The cab drew up in front of a magnificent cathedral, but a cathedral without crosses, more like the wing of a modern castle. Not that Thomas hadn’t seen castles before, but not ones this new, and he thought himself very clever to consider that his Newcastle hadn’t been new for hundreds of years. Harrow was a castle with no countryside, not that there was supposed to be countryside, this was supposed to be school, and school wasn’t supposed to look like a castle town with a city all around it and boys in flat hats instead of serfs. Then again, Thomas wondered if real castles, new or old, were ever so clean as that.
The cabbie let him down with his trunks, out in front of a pile of similar trunks as high as the building’s doors. If it weren’t for the other cabs in the street and the hawkers and the way the grass was all cut into even squares, Thomas would have thought he’d passed clean through London and into Faerie. The adults probably wanted him to think that.
When the innkeeper had asked him where he was going when he stayed over in Manchester last night (taking the train alone had been a bit exciting, but switching was a bit scary), she’d been excited to hear he was going to Harrow. Well, once she got it in her head that he was going. Thomas thought she might have been a little bit deaf or the like. But it had all worked out enough, and he’d gotten on the next train (even if the conductor had pretended not to hear him for a while), and now here he was!
“How many people have you driven here today?” he asked the cabbie, more because he wanted to say something and see if it broke the spell than because he wanted to know.
It didn’t break any spells. But the cabbie asked, “What?”
Thomas tried to say it clearer.
It got through, at least. “Oh, ‘bout ten. More later, I think.” The cabbie accepted his payment (it was less than Thomas’ mother had given him for the purpose, and he thought he could just keep the rest) and Thomas thanked him. “And at least you didn’t try and pet me horse.”
Thomas hadn’t even spared that horse a blink.
When the cabbie left, Thomas stood awkwardly, alone in a growing crowd, wondering if he should keep an eye on his trunk. The other boys in their big saucery straw hats didn’t seem to be keeping an eye on anything but each other. Most of them were talking. He supposed he ought to try.
“Hallo,” he said to the first one he saw who wasn’t talking to anyone else; a thickset, swarthy boy maybe a year older than Thomas. “Are you just arrived? It’s really something, isn’t it?”
The boy blinked, wriggled his nose like he’d just had something nasty shoved up it, and said in the poshest voice Thomas had ever heard, “What in God’s name are you saying?”
Thomas’ breath caught. “I, ah-I just asked about if you were new here.”
“Ask me in English, Geordie.” The boy sneered. “I hope you can learn to speak it before classes start.”
Oh, Thomas thought. It’s going to be that kind of school. “Hope you can learn to read, then,” he said sourly.
The boy laughed and puffed out his chest. “What was that? I don’t speak pidgin.”
“Come a little closer,” Thomas said, “I’ll speak clearer.” The other boy rolled his eyes but he did lean in, and that was enough for Thomas to snarl, “I said, I hope you can learn to read!” and jab his fingers at the boy’s eyes.
Of course it came to a fight and Thomas got knocked down first and the boy stepped on his straw hat, but the boy probably ruined his own sweater crying and snotting all over it. And Thomas was still pretty glad; first, because his big brother had shown him that trick and he’d actually gotten to use it (and if Thomas had gotten better after, so would this boy), and second because he probably did have to work on his accent, and that was good to know.
---
.
I'm still working on those origfic drabbles, but I'm going to post these two! They're the ones requested by ellenel13 and wizzard890, and both using characters from my No One's Boy canon, aka. the travails and occasional adventures of a certain Graeme Gillespie.
The prompts are your warnings, but I'd like to add in additional caveats for non-explicit sex (in the first one) and use of regional slurs (in the second).
(The one in which Graeme decides he is cool with being a prostitute.)
They said he’d only have to hang about the right places and look like he wasn’t there to buy. That wasn’t a hardship at all, not with his clothing and his looks, neither of which he could afford to keep up. But it’s different for boys, they said, those lasses, it’s not just a matter of showing the right bit of skin.
For an hour or so, he just hung about with the girls, and it was rather like being in the house at rehearsal waiting for someone else’s scene to finish. The girls laughed together and called marks and heckled some of the men. Not so different, not at all. Graeme could even hear some of the same panto calls, “oh yes he did!”, “he’s right behind you!”, “that ain’t what you came for, is it.”
A chap eyed Graeme up, came across the way, made talk; the sort of anonymous man in last year’s hat and coat. Graeme could only see the man’s jaw unless he was looking right at him. The skin around that leer looked like a dark, wasted effort at shaving in the morning to come to this at dusk. Graeme smiled and took him behind a tenement while one of the girls watched for the brass.
Graeme asked him, “What are ye after?”
The man told him.
Graeme blushed, and bit his cheek when he felt a laugh coming. It was so simple. He got to his knees, his back to the roughshod stone wall, and rested his forehead just over the man’s groin while he got those trousers open.
At first sight and first scent, Graeme fought back a wave of nausea-not that there was anything wrong with the man, just that Graeme realized it was his first time doing this with someone who didn’t already want him.
So Graeme thought, Well, then I’ll just have to make him want me.
Bringing him off took longer than it usually did for Graeme, in part because he had to get the man hard, and in part because he didn’t know precisely what would get the man going. Graeme found himself listening, paying attention to every little reaction he got, cataloguing what wound up with him grabbed by the hair, thrust toward the wall, called what he was. Graeme even felt himself rising to the occasion, so to speak, even if it hurt his left knee to stay like this on cobblestone ground. A cushion next time, he thinks, or a jacket at least. It wasn’t a surprise when the man came down Graeme’s throat. Graeme laughed and held in as much as he could.
After a bit of talk-complimentary, if brusque-the man gave Graeme his pay. In the half hour it had taken Graeme to get him off, Graeme had earned half a week’s rent: more than he made in a week at the theatre.
The man went off, smiling, on his own. Graeme cleaned himself off, stretched and cracked his jaw, and considered his options.
---
-
(The one in which Thomas arrives at Harrow.)
It was so clean. The cab drew up in front of a magnificent cathedral, but a cathedral without crosses, more like the wing of a modern castle. Not that Thomas hadn’t seen castles before, but not ones this new, and he thought himself very clever to consider that his Newcastle hadn’t been new for hundreds of years. Harrow was a castle with no countryside, not that there was supposed to be countryside, this was supposed to be school, and school wasn’t supposed to look like a castle town with a city all around it and boys in flat hats instead of serfs. Then again, Thomas wondered if real castles, new or old, were ever so clean as that.
The cabbie let him down with his trunks, out in front of a pile of similar trunks as high as the building’s doors. If it weren’t for the other cabs in the street and the hawkers and the way the grass was all cut into even squares, Thomas would have thought he’d passed clean through London and into Faerie. The adults probably wanted him to think that.
When the innkeeper had asked him where he was going when he stayed over in Manchester last night (taking the train alone had been a bit exciting, but switching was a bit scary), she’d been excited to hear he was going to Harrow. Well, once she got it in her head that he was going. Thomas thought she might have been a little bit deaf or the like. But it had all worked out enough, and he’d gotten on the next train (even if the conductor had pretended not to hear him for a while), and now here he was!
“How many people have you driven here today?” he asked the cabbie, more because he wanted to say something and see if it broke the spell than because he wanted to know.
It didn’t break any spells. But the cabbie asked, “What?”
Thomas tried to say it clearer.
It got through, at least. “Oh, ‘bout ten. More later, I think.” The cabbie accepted his payment (it was less than Thomas’ mother had given him for the purpose, and he thought he could just keep the rest) and Thomas thanked him. “And at least you didn’t try and pet me horse.”
Thomas hadn’t even spared that horse a blink.
When the cabbie left, Thomas stood awkwardly, alone in a growing crowd, wondering if he should keep an eye on his trunk. The other boys in their big saucery straw hats didn’t seem to be keeping an eye on anything but each other. Most of them were talking. He supposed he ought to try.
“Hallo,” he said to the first one he saw who wasn’t talking to anyone else; a thickset, swarthy boy maybe a year older than Thomas. “Are you just arrived? It’s really something, isn’t it?”
The boy blinked, wriggled his nose like he’d just had something nasty shoved up it, and said in the poshest voice Thomas had ever heard, “What in God’s name are you saying?”
Thomas’ breath caught. “I, ah-I just asked about if you were new here.”
“Ask me in English, Geordie.” The boy sneered. “I hope you can learn to speak it before classes start.”
Oh, Thomas thought. It’s going to be that kind of school. “Hope you can learn to read, then,” he said sourly.
The boy laughed and puffed out his chest. “What was that? I don’t speak pidgin.”
“Come a little closer,” Thomas said, “I’ll speak clearer.” The other boy rolled his eyes but he did lean in, and that was enough for Thomas to snarl, “I said, I hope you can learn to read!” and jab his fingers at the boy’s eyes.
Of course it came to a fight and Thomas got knocked down first and the boy stepped on his straw hat, but the boy probably ruined his own sweater crying and snotting all over it. And Thomas was still pretty glad; first, because his big brother had shown him that trick and he’d actually gotten to use it (and if Thomas had gotten better after, so would this boy), and second because he probably did have to work on his accent, and that was good to know.
---
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