Fic: Hands That Are Not There, pet_lunatic, greeny-blue Cortina
Title: Hands That Are Not There
Rating: Greeny-blue(ish) for some sex references.
Characters/pairing: Just Gene, and his memories. His memories, in this case, are het :)
Genre: Wistful-nostalgic!angst . Emotional Gene whumping.
Summary: In hospital after an injury, Gene remembers his first love.
Spoilers: None really, vague spoilers for stuff we know about Gene, but nothing serious or plot-related.
Warnings: Gene being a bit Dorothy? ;) None really, except that unless you really like Gene this will probably be very boring, since none of the other characters are in it :) (Brief mentions only). Er - I dunno where this one came from, even I think it's weird :)
A/N This is sort of set during my fic 'Keeping Demons', but it's not necessary to have read that first. (PS I hope this doesn't double-post, I'm having some weird problems)
"Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there." -- Otomo No Yakamochi
Having a private room at the Manor Hospital was a lucky break for Gene Hunt. It was comfortable and clean, there were no nuisances with hacking coughs to disturb a bloke's sleep, no annoying old beggars telling everyone about their prostates. But the best thing about having a room to himself, Gene thought, was that nobody could see you wanking. Three days alone in a hospital bed, with only visits from pain-in-the-arse Tyler, soppy Cartwright, embarrassed Ray, and wittering Chris had started to wear his patience, and now he was feeling a bit more himself, he'd felt the urge to - well, feel a bit of himself. Now that he could breathe properly - the lung damage was healing with impressive speed considering he'd smoked forty fags a day all his adult life - beating the old bishop might not actually kill him, and it'd been half a week since he'd felt up to doing it. So it wasn't really surprising that, on the fourth day of his incarceration, Gene had settled down to enjoy a special masonic handshake for one as soon as the beady-eyed Matron had finished her rounds for the night.
He had, he reckoned, about two clear hours before pretty Nurse Morris - Sally - came in to check on him and fluff his pillows, do all the usual necessary nursey things. Nurse Morris was one of the predominant reasons for Gene's current state of randiness; not only was she a fine, curvy girl, not like the stick insects that seemed to be fashionable these days, but she was unusual in her colouring: auburn hair, bright blue eyes. She had reminded Sam Tyler of Cartwright, and Gene could see that - the big eyes, the gentle manner - but for him, pretty Sally Morris was reminiscent of a more personal and distant figure. When he looked at Nurse Sally, he saw a slightly younger girl - seventeen - a little plumper, eyes just the same shade of blue, but almond-shaped; hair the same shade of auburn, but longer, cascading down her back; he saw full red lips, and a tender smile that was just for him.
As a schoolboy, Gene had been awkward with both schoolwork and with girls; he had tried to manage a full experience of both, and succeeded effectively with neither. It was difficult to achieve just the right level of work at school - too little, and he failed tests and had to contend with his father's fists; too much, and the other boys would try to beat him up instead. At sixteen Gene was already tall and hefty, a 'brick shithouse of a lad', as his father would sometimes tell his friends from the pub; it was the only nice thing the old man had ever said about his son. Gene got into a lot of fights, and didn't mind doing so - but on his own terms. He liked to be popular; affection-starved at home, he tended to be the friend and protector of smaller, bookish boys, the sort who did too much schoolwork and got trounced for being poofters. The Sam Tylers of the schoolyard, in other words; some things never changed. At the same time, he liked to keep on friendly terms with the big, brainless lads, who accepted him as one of them because he was big, too, and ready with his fists. They weren't astute enough to realise that their combined intelligence didn't come halfway to matching his.
Girls were different; they were much harder to understand than boys. He'd tried his best to want what the other lads seemed to want - a bit of box. Outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs, they'd take what they could get, then brag about it the next day at school. Gene tried to play along with it, as best he could; good-looking in a rough, older-than-his-years sort of way, he'd had no shortage of female interest. The trouble was, those girls scared him; they were demanding, in charge, manipulative; they offered sexual favours in return for chocolate and trips to the pictures, and, in some cases, a bottle of Diamond White behind the bike sheds. And frankly, he wanted none of it. It was...sordid. Like looking at porn, something else the big lumpish lads were so fond of. He didn't like porn. It wasn't a religious thing, or even a moral thing in general, it was just...porn was a bit disgusting. Even at sixteen, Gene didn't think of sex in terms of fumbling in the dark in dodgy pubs where kids could get served. It just didn't appeal to him; he did it, certainly, and boasted and joked about it, like the others did, but it always left him feeling unsatisfied and faintly tainted. Unfulfilled. Until he met Patty O'Reilly.
Patty - or, as everyone else called, her 'Paddy', since she was Irish and her name was Patricia - wasn't like the other girls. She arrived at his school in the last year, only a few months before they were due to leave; her family, Irish protestants, had left to avoid 'the troubles', which had apparently killed her father's brother. He'd never found out exactly what had happened; she didn't like to talk about it. Quiet and demure at school, people considered her a bit of a bore; she was plump and thoughtful, worked hard to pass her exams, had ambitions of being a nurse, funnily enough. Would've made a good one, too. Gene got to know her by accident when he talked one of his big, loutish, not-really-friends out of nicking her bag and throwing it in the canal. She'd been grateful; when he'd handed the bag back to her, her bright blue eyes had regarded him with fascination, as though she'd never seen anything quite like him before. Why do you do it? she'd asked, suddenly, as they'd stood at the edge of the canal towpath, a grey sky threatening rain. Do what? he'd replied. Pretend to be like them when you're better than they are. That had startled him; he'd felt first insulted, then flattered, then just confused; he'd said helplessly, Because...because they're my pals, which was the first thing that came to mind. She'd smiled at that, a gentle smile that seemed to say she knew him better than he knew himself, when they'd barely exchanged two words before today. But she'd been watching him, and he'd noticed her. No, they're not, she'd said. You're nothing like them. And you're nicer when you don't try to be. She'd paused, gazing down the embankment, into the mucky water, then looked up into his eyes, and said in her Irish voice, You can take me out if you want, Eugene.
She'd always called him that; the only person who ever did, including his mother, who'd always called him Genie. In fact, he hadn't even been sure 'Eugene' was what he'd been christened until he'd signed up for his national service and needed to register his full name. But Patty had always called him that, and he'd always called her Patty - which nobody else did. It had been like nicknames, a special code just for them. And, although he'd been taken aback by her directness, he had taken her out, the very next evening - borrowing money from his amused brother - and enjoyed it a lot more than he'd expected. Because she wasn't like the other girls.
She didn't flirt with him, for a start. No bedroom eyes, no expectations of gifts (he'd taken her a box of chocolates, and she'd just smiled, and shared them with him; no cheeky little winks to suggest she knew what he was really after). She'd talked, instead - wanted to know all about him, told him about herself. They went out almost every night; couldn't afford the flicks, of course, so they'd walked, miles and miles through the streets, arm in arm, just talking. He'd never been so forthcoming with anyone, had never learned so much about another person; it wasn't until their fourth week of courting that sex came up at all.
She was the first girlfriend he'd ever had who started off as an actual friend. They'd kissed (close-mouthed) for the first time after they'd been officially going out for a week. He'd introduced her to his mother after the second week, and he'd met her parents - her father, who looked tired and ill, but made Gene welcome enough after looking him over very carefully. Her mother, plump and red-haired like Patty herself, with a full smiling mouth and a hearty laugh. He'd liked them both, which was good, because by the fifth week of courting Patty, he'd known they were going to be his in-laws one day. Nearly thirty years later, Sean O'Reilly was long dead, and Caitlin had gone back to Ireland. Gene sometimes wished he'd kept in touch with her.
With Patty, Gene was softer, gentler, more tender that he'd ever been, or ever would be, with anyone else. She'd wanted to do something special to celebrate their 'anniversary' of one whole month together, so he'd thought it over carefully, and decided to surprise her with a romantic tryst in Lovers' Lane. It was the typical place lads took their lasses for a bit of slap and tickle, but it hadn't felt like that to Gene; nothing so shallow. He'd bought candles, and a picnic, and even managed, illegally, to get his hands on a bottle of very very cheap wine. Not Diamond White cider; that was for young prats trying to get their legs over, not for two grown-ups in love. That was how they thought of themselves; more mature, smarter than the rest, because they'd found something, moved on to something beyond the experience of most people their age. They had something real, and nothing mattered more than that. Perhaps it had even been true, the middle-aged man in the hospital bed reflected sadly. Perhaps he'd understood more about real life during his time with Patty than at any point since. Was it possible to grow down?
That evening in Lovers' Lane had been the first time they'd really touched, beyond a bit of kissing and holding hands. He'd never waited this long with a girl - actually, a girl had never let him wait this long. It had been different because it hadn't been about that with Patty. He'd thought about it, of course, with far more nervousness than for any of the other girls he'd knocked around with before; this mattered more, because it was Patty and it had to be special. They hadn't actually had sex on that night. They'd drunk the wine - hardly any strength to it, but they'd both felt tipsy - and sat in each other's arms, looking at the moon. Then, as though a message had passed between them, he'd slipped one large hand up inside her thin jumper, and closed it gently around the full swell of her right breast. She'd looked at him - just looked, stared into his eyes, as though searching for something, and finding it. Then she'd pressed against him, moving forward, reaching up with both hands and cupping his face, kissing passionately, butt always tenderly. He'd closed his eyes, and she'd pushed against him until he was sinking back into the grass, with Patty above him. He'd moved to cup her left breast with his free hand, massaging, feeling the weight of it; she'd sighed, shifted, reached down to grasp his blossoming erection through his trousers. He'd gasped, almost thrown her off as his hips jerked in surprised reaction.
She'd laughed. And suddenly, everything had gone from being good to being perfect. Because they were comfortable with each other; there were no demands, there was no manipulation, no expectation, no rough words of caution, no bargains. And it all fell into place: Patty wasn't like any other girl he'd known because he hadn't loved any of the others. This was love, real love, not puppy-love or soppy nonsense, as his father and brother insisted. Perhaps his mother had realised, because when he'd told her about Patty, she hadn't laughed or told him to pull himself together. She'd looked almost sad, and had said quietly, Be kind to her, Genie. Be very kind to her, and always be gentle. Women like men to be gentle. He'd almost asked her why she said this, when she'd never experienced any kind of gentleness from her own husband; but she'd looked so old and tired that day, with a fresh bruise on her cheek, that he couldn't bring himself to do it.
In the hospital bed, his right hand lightly encircling his fading semi-erection, Gene shook off the memory of his mother's weary face. Patty. Patty had been laughing...
She was still laughing when she leaned in to him again, kissing the slightly indignant look from his face, stopping her laughter as the kiss deepened. She'd reached down to caress him again and this time he hadn't been startled; he'd tried to relax into her touch, because somehow this felt so much more important than the casual handjobs he'd had from three or four girls who weren't Patty. She unbuttoned his trousers slowly, slipped her small warm hand inside, and after too short a time the world had exploded inside his head, and afterwards he'd felt a kind of peace he'd never known before. Patty had been beside him, lying on her side, arm bent beneath her, smiling down at him as he lay breathless under the stars. He'd looked up at her, sleepily, and she'd taken his big hand and placed it gently on the mound between her legs.
She didn't respond like other girls, either; the two girls he'd touched in this way before hadn't sighed, and rubbed against him, hadn't stroked his face as he caressed them. One had been drunk and impatient; the other had demonstrated a terrible sort of patience, as though her mother had taught her that this was the sort of nasty thing boys wanted to do, but it was best to let them get on with it because there wasn't really any choice. Patty liked it, loved it, but she didn't demand it. And unlike with the others, he was gentle, just as his mother had told him to be. When she'd trembled and shuddered against him, at the end, he'd cupped her chin with his other hand, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her throughout her climax. That same peace he'd felt himself was in her eyes as she gazed, satiated, into his.
They'd spent a long time lying in each others' arms, talking, wondering about the future. Too soon, they had separated to go to their respective homes, expressing longing for a time when home would be the same place for both of them. They were coming to the end of school, and the prospect of getting a job; Gene had his war service to think about, looming in the near-future, and eighteen months away from Patty seemed unbearable. She would start her training as a nurse shortly, and that would take her away from him even sooner. They'd snatched every moment they could together, and by the end of the fifth week, they'd been discussing what their children would look like. Patty had hoped they would have her red hair and Gene's green eyes; then, she'd said, they would look properly Irish. There would be a boy and a girl: Sean Patrick, and Molly Eugenia.
At seventeen, the week before he failed most of his exams and left school, Gene Hunt lost his virginity to Patty O'Reilly, and she likewise to him. How very young they'd been, and how very grown-up they'd felt! Six weeks after their courtship had started on the canal towpath, he took her to his bedroom while his parents were away visiting his grandma in Sheffield. His brother had his own fish to fry in the city; Patty told her parents she was staying with a girl from school; they would have the house to themselves all night.
Sex hadn't been intended, hadn't been mentioned, but in retrospect it had been inevitable, Gene thought, tracing his thick fingers idly over the white hospital bedding. That occasion also held the import of involving his first blowjob. He'd been shocked when Patty trailed her wet kisses down his stomach - hard and flat, back then - and took his stiff member carefully between her lips. It had been...enthralling, there was no other word. More intense pleasure, in a purely physical sense, than she'd given him before. But it had worried him; surely this was wrong, something people did in pornographic pictures, or in real life with whores? He'd asked Patty, Don't you find it a bit...dirty? Her reply had stayed with him all his life, for its simplicity and its sweetness. She'd looked up, blue eyes loving, and said, Nothing can be dirty between us. And it was true. That night, they kissed and caressed and loved like never before, and she'd surprised him again before the night was over; she'd asked him to make love to her. Just like that - I want you to love me, Eugene, she'd said. I do love you, don't be daft, he'd answered, confused and so innocent. She'd smiled, and showed him what she really meant. When it was over, a whole new world seemed to have opened up before him; he could really see their children, for the first time - Sean and Molly, auburn-haired and green-eyed. He could see his mother crying at the wedding, hugging Patty, calling her daughter; later, doting on the grandchildren, spoiling them. He could see his brother, taking the piss but inwardly proud, accepting his role as godfather. See himself making enough money for them to have a good place to live, for the kids to go to a good school and have a better start in life than he'd had, and they wouldn't have to live through a war. Lying in his parents' bed with Patty in his arms, damp with sweat, half-asleep, he'd lived a whole life with her, and it had been beautiful.
They always called it making love. It was a phrase he'd never used with anyone else, but it was the only phrase that fit, for him and Patty. Not 'having sex' or 'doing it' or 'rock 'n' roll'. Those words were too crude; they didn't given any indication of the beauty of the act. They'd been able to make love twice more before that drunken kid, riding around in his dad's posh new car, had driven up on the pavement, out of control, and taken Patty away forever. Lying in his hospital bed, Gene remembered the last time he ever saw Patty - dying in hers, on a ward in the hospital where she would have trained. Her red hair had been tangled, and he'd been angry at that, because she'd been proud of her long, pretty hair. He'd combed it for her. Held her hand. Kissed her closed eyes. Even sung to her some of her favourite old Irish songs, unmindful of the other patients' stares. But she'd never woken up, and in the end, his mother had come to gently draw him away, to let Patty's weeping parents say goodbye to their daughter.
For five years, he'd mourned her, and done nothing else; not in his mind, at least. His body had carried out its obligations; he'd begun his career as a police officer, because the bastard who'd killed Patty had got away with barely a slap on the wrist, due to some technicality of law. Gene knew he could never be a lawyer, but policing was the next best thing, and he did it well. Sometimes, when he lost his temper and beat some idiot scrotum to a pulp because he couldn't get hold of the one who taken Patty, he thought that she wouldn't have wanted him to be like this, but he was beyond the ability to care. He did his national service (the war was over by then, and he was almost sorry for it), and that took away a little of the anger, but none of the grief. Gradually, though, even that began to fade; he started to take interest in things again, though it felt like a betrayal of Patty. For the first four of those five years, he lost all interest in sex; every time he touched himself, he remembered her, and the pain of her loss took away any pleasure he might have felt. The few times he'd managed to reach climax, he'd wept afterwards.
But it didn't last. His father died, and somehow that unlocked something in Gene, something he'd put away in a deep dark place when he'd lost his first love. Being strong for his mother, who, incredibly, had broken her heart over the abusive drunken swine who'd made her life such a misery, gave him strength for himself. His mother worried over him, wanted to see him courting again. So he did, to please her; he went out with girls, usually only once or twice before realising they weren't what he wanted; then he met Cath, and she was what he wanted. A woman so different from Patty that being with her didn't seem like such a betrayal.
He'd married Cath two years after meeting her, and she'd refused to sleep with him until their marriage. Cath saw sex as a way of conditioning her husband; she offered it as a reward, and witheld it as a punishment. Not to be malicious; she simply believed that women weren't supposed to enjoy it, unless they were whores. She wouldn't be told otherwise, and Gene didn't want to talk very much about Patty with his wife. Cath slept with him as a kind indulgence, with that same kind of patience he remembered from some of the girls at school. She didn't see the act as involving anything emotional; he doubted she'd even care if he slept with other women, because she didn't realise that for some people, sex was more than a male physical need, to be endured by women as a sign of fidelity. So, gradually, they stopped having sex at all. At no time during their marriage had they ever made love. She couldn't have children; that wasn't her fault, of course. There were times when he dreamed about a little boy or girl with his green eyes, but he only ever felt a vague and passing sense of loss at not having brought a child into the world with his wife. A child who would have had Cath's dark hair.
Slumped against the thick pillows, fluffed so nicely by pretty Nurse Sally, Gene felt the last of his desire slip away, and let his hand fall to his side. Had Sam Tyler been there, he probably would have quoted Tennyson; Gene, never having been one for poetry, merely fell asleep, and dreamed of auburn hair and laughing Irish eyes.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘T is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.
Rating: Greeny-blue(ish) for some sex references.
Characters/pairing: Just Gene, and his memories. His memories, in this case, are het :)
Genre: Wistful-nostalgic!angst . Emotional Gene whumping.
Summary: In hospital after an injury, Gene remembers his first love.
Spoilers: None really, vague spoilers for stuff we know about Gene, but nothing serious or plot-related.
Warnings: Gene being a bit Dorothy? ;) None really, except that unless you really like Gene this will probably be very boring, since none of the other characters are in it :) (Brief mentions only). Er - I dunno where this one came from, even I think it's weird :)
A/N This is sort of set during my fic 'Keeping Demons', but it's not necessary to have read that first. (PS I hope this doesn't double-post, I'm having some weird problems)
"Better never to have met you in my dream than to wake and reach for hands that are not there." -- Otomo No Yakamochi
Having a private room at the Manor Hospital was a lucky break for Gene Hunt. It was comfortable and clean, there were no nuisances with hacking coughs to disturb a bloke's sleep, no annoying old beggars telling everyone about their prostates. But the best thing about having a room to himself, Gene thought, was that nobody could see you wanking. Three days alone in a hospital bed, with only visits from pain-in-the-arse Tyler, soppy Cartwright, embarrassed Ray, and wittering Chris had started to wear his patience, and now he was feeling a bit more himself, he'd felt the urge to - well, feel a bit of himself. Now that he could breathe properly - the lung damage was healing with impressive speed considering he'd smoked forty fags a day all his adult life - beating the old bishop might not actually kill him, and it'd been half a week since he'd felt up to doing it. So it wasn't really surprising that, on the fourth day of his incarceration, Gene had settled down to enjoy a special masonic handshake for one as soon as the beady-eyed Matron had finished her rounds for the night.
He had, he reckoned, about two clear hours before pretty Nurse Morris - Sally - came in to check on him and fluff his pillows, do all the usual necessary nursey things. Nurse Morris was one of the predominant reasons for Gene's current state of randiness; not only was she a fine, curvy girl, not like the stick insects that seemed to be fashionable these days, but she was unusual in her colouring: auburn hair, bright blue eyes. She had reminded Sam Tyler of Cartwright, and Gene could see that - the big eyes, the gentle manner - but for him, pretty Sally Morris was reminiscent of a more personal and distant figure. When he looked at Nurse Sally, he saw a slightly younger girl - seventeen - a little plumper, eyes just the same shade of blue, but almond-shaped; hair the same shade of auburn, but longer, cascading down her back; he saw full red lips, and a tender smile that was just for him.
As a schoolboy, Gene had been awkward with both schoolwork and with girls; he had tried to manage a full experience of both, and succeeded effectively with neither. It was difficult to achieve just the right level of work at school - too little, and he failed tests and had to contend with his father's fists; too much, and the other boys would try to beat him up instead. At sixteen Gene was already tall and hefty, a 'brick shithouse of a lad', as his father would sometimes tell his friends from the pub; it was the only nice thing the old man had ever said about his son. Gene got into a lot of fights, and didn't mind doing so - but on his own terms. He liked to be popular; affection-starved at home, he tended to be the friend and protector of smaller, bookish boys, the sort who did too much schoolwork and got trounced for being poofters. The Sam Tylers of the schoolyard, in other words; some things never changed. At the same time, he liked to keep on friendly terms with the big, brainless lads, who accepted him as one of them because he was big, too, and ready with his fists. They weren't astute enough to realise that their combined intelligence didn't come halfway to matching his.
Girls were different; they were much harder to understand than boys. He'd tried his best to want what the other lads seemed to want - a bit of box. Outside, inside, upstairs, downstairs, they'd take what they could get, then brag about it the next day at school. Gene tried to play along with it, as best he could; good-looking in a rough, older-than-his-years sort of way, he'd had no shortage of female interest. The trouble was, those girls scared him; they were demanding, in charge, manipulative; they offered sexual favours in return for chocolate and trips to the pictures, and, in some cases, a bottle of Diamond White behind the bike sheds. And frankly, he wanted none of it. It was...sordid. Like looking at porn, something else the big lumpish lads were so fond of. He didn't like porn. It wasn't a religious thing, or even a moral thing in general, it was just...porn was a bit disgusting. Even at sixteen, Gene didn't think of sex in terms of fumbling in the dark in dodgy pubs where kids could get served. It just didn't appeal to him; he did it, certainly, and boasted and joked about it, like the others did, but it always left him feeling unsatisfied and faintly tainted. Unfulfilled. Until he met Patty O'Reilly.
Patty - or, as everyone else called, her 'Paddy', since she was Irish and her name was Patricia - wasn't like the other girls. She arrived at his school in the last year, only a few months before they were due to leave; her family, Irish protestants, had left to avoid 'the troubles', which had apparently killed her father's brother. He'd never found out exactly what had happened; she didn't like to talk about it. Quiet and demure at school, people considered her a bit of a bore; she was plump and thoughtful, worked hard to pass her exams, had ambitions of being a nurse, funnily enough. Would've made a good one, too. Gene got to know her by accident when he talked one of his big, loutish, not-really-friends out of nicking her bag and throwing it in the canal. She'd been grateful; when he'd handed the bag back to her, her bright blue eyes had regarded him with fascination, as though she'd never seen anything quite like him before. Why do you do it? she'd asked, suddenly, as they'd stood at the edge of the canal towpath, a grey sky threatening rain. Do what? he'd replied. Pretend to be like them when you're better than they are. That had startled him; he'd felt first insulted, then flattered, then just confused; he'd said helplessly, Because...because they're my pals, which was the first thing that came to mind. She'd smiled at that, a gentle smile that seemed to say she knew him better than he knew himself, when they'd barely exchanged two words before today. But she'd been watching him, and he'd noticed her. No, they're not, she'd said. You're nothing like them. And you're nicer when you don't try to be. She'd paused, gazing down the embankment, into the mucky water, then looked up into his eyes, and said in her Irish voice, You can take me out if you want, Eugene.
She'd always called him that; the only person who ever did, including his mother, who'd always called him Genie. In fact, he hadn't even been sure 'Eugene' was what he'd been christened until he'd signed up for his national service and needed to register his full name. But Patty had always called him that, and he'd always called her Patty - which nobody else did. It had been like nicknames, a special code just for them. And, although he'd been taken aback by her directness, he had taken her out, the very next evening - borrowing money from his amused brother - and enjoyed it a lot more than he'd expected. Because she wasn't like the other girls.
She didn't flirt with him, for a start. No bedroom eyes, no expectations of gifts (he'd taken her a box of chocolates, and she'd just smiled, and shared them with him; no cheeky little winks to suggest she knew what he was really after). She'd talked, instead - wanted to know all about him, told him about herself. They went out almost every night; couldn't afford the flicks, of course, so they'd walked, miles and miles through the streets, arm in arm, just talking. He'd never been so forthcoming with anyone, had never learned so much about another person; it wasn't until their fourth week of courting that sex came up at all.
She was the first girlfriend he'd ever had who started off as an actual friend. They'd kissed (close-mouthed) for the first time after they'd been officially going out for a week. He'd introduced her to his mother after the second week, and he'd met her parents - her father, who looked tired and ill, but made Gene welcome enough after looking him over very carefully. Her mother, plump and red-haired like Patty herself, with a full smiling mouth and a hearty laugh. He'd liked them both, which was good, because by the fifth week of courting Patty, he'd known they were going to be his in-laws one day. Nearly thirty years later, Sean O'Reilly was long dead, and Caitlin had gone back to Ireland. Gene sometimes wished he'd kept in touch with her.
With Patty, Gene was softer, gentler, more tender that he'd ever been, or ever would be, with anyone else. She'd wanted to do something special to celebrate their 'anniversary' of one whole month together, so he'd thought it over carefully, and decided to surprise her with a romantic tryst in Lovers' Lane. It was the typical place lads took their lasses for a bit of slap and tickle, but it hadn't felt like that to Gene; nothing so shallow. He'd bought candles, and a picnic, and even managed, illegally, to get his hands on a bottle of very very cheap wine. Not Diamond White cider; that was for young prats trying to get their legs over, not for two grown-ups in love. That was how they thought of themselves; more mature, smarter than the rest, because they'd found something, moved on to something beyond the experience of most people their age. They had something real, and nothing mattered more than that. Perhaps it had even been true, the middle-aged man in the hospital bed reflected sadly. Perhaps he'd understood more about real life during his time with Patty than at any point since. Was it possible to grow down?
That evening in Lovers' Lane had been the first time they'd really touched, beyond a bit of kissing and holding hands. He'd never waited this long with a girl - actually, a girl had never let him wait this long. It had been different because it hadn't been about that with Patty. He'd thought about it, of course, with far more nervousness than for any of the other girls he'd knocked around with before; this mattered more, because it was Patty and it had to be special. They hadn't actually had sex on that night. They'd drunk the wine - hardly any strength to it, but they'd both felt tipsy - and sat in each other's arms, looking at the moon. Then, as though a message had passed between them, he'd slipped one large hand up inside her thin jumper, and closed it gently around the full swell of her right breast. She'd looked at him - just looked, stared into his eyes, as though searching for something, and finding it. Then she'd pressed against him, moving forward, reaching up with both hands and cupping his face, kissing passionately, butt always tenderly. He'd closed his eyes, and she'd pushed against him until he was sinking back into the grass, with Patty above him. He'd moved to cup her left breast with his free hand, massaging, feeling the weight of it; she'd sighed, shifted, reached down to grasp his blossoming erection through his trousers. He'd gasped, almost thrown her off as his hips jerked in surprised reaction.
She'd laughed. And suddenly, everything had gone from being good to being perfect. Because they were comfortable with each other; there were no demands, there was no manipulation, no expectation, no rough words of caution, no bargains. And it all fell into place: Patty wasn't like any other girl he'd known because he hadn't loved any of the others. This was love, real love, not puppy-love or soppy nonsense, as his father and brother insisted. Perhaps his mother had realised, because when he'd told her about Patty, she hadn't laughed or told him to pull himself together. She'd looked almost sad, and had said quietly, Be kind to her, Genie. Be very kind to her, and always be gentle. Women like men to be gentle. He'd almost asked her why she said this, when she'd never experienced any kind of gentleness from her own husband; but she'd looked so old and tired that day, with a fresh bruise on her cheek, that he couldn't bring himself to do it.
In the hospital bed, his right hand lightly encircling his fading semi-erection, Gene shook off the memory of his mother's weary face. Patty. Patty had been laughing...
She was still laughing when she leaned in to him again, kissing the slightly indignant look from his face, stopping her laughter as the kiss deepened. She'd reached down to caress him again and this time he hadn't been startled; he'd tried to relax into her touch, because somehow this felt so much more important than the casual handjobs he'd had from three or four girls who weren't Patty. She unbuttoned his trousers slowly, slipped her small warm hand inside, and after too short a time the world had exploded inside his head, and afterwards he'd felt a kind of peace he'd never known before. Patty had been beside him, lying on her side, arm bent beneath her, smiling down at him as he lay breathless under the stars. He'd looked up at her, sleepily, and she'd taken his big hand and placed it gently on the mound between her legs.
She didn't respond like other girls, either; the two girls he'd touched in this way before hadn't sighed, and rubbed against him, hadn't stroked his face as he caressed them. One had been drunk and impatient; the other had demonstrated a terrible sort of patience, as though her mother had taught her that this was the sort of nasty thing boys wanted to do, but it was best to let them get on with it because there wasn't really any choice. Patty liked it, loved it, but she didn't demand it. And unlike with the others, he was gentle, just as his mother had told him to be. When she'd trembled and shuddered against him, at the end, he'd cupped her chin with his other hand, tilted her face up to his, and kissed her throughout her climax. That same peace he'd felt himself was in her eyes as she gazed, satiated, into his.
They'd spent a long time lying in each others' arms, talking, wondering about the future. Too soon, they had separated to go to their respective homes, expressing longing for a time when home would be the same place for both of them. They were coming to the end of school, and the prospect of getting a job; Gene had his war service to think about, looming in the near-future, and eighteen months away from Patty seemed unbearable. She would start her training as a nurse shortly, and that would take her away from him even sooner. They'd snatched every moment they could together, and by the end of the fifth week, they'd been discussing what their children would look like. Patty had hoped they would have her red hair and Gene's green eyes; then, she'd said, they would look properly Irish. There would be a boy and a girl: Sean Patrick, and Molly Eugenia.
At seventeen, the week before he failed most of his exams and left school, Gene Hunt lost his virginity to Patty O'Reilly, and she likewise to him. How very young they'd been, and how very grown-up they'd felt! Six weeks after their courtship had started on the canal towpath, he took her to his bedroom while his parents were away visiting his grandma in Sheffield. His brother had his own fish to fry in the city; Patty told her parents she was staying with a girl from school; they would have the house to themselves all night.
Sex hadn't been intended, hadn't been mentioned, but in retrospect it had been inevitable, Gene thought, tracing his thick fingers idly over the white hospital bedding. That occasion also held the import of involving his first blowjob. He'd been shocked when Patty trailed her wet kisses down his stomach - hard and flat, back then - and took his stiff member carefully between her lips. It had been...enthralling, there was no other word. More intense pleasure, in a purely physical sense, than she'd given him before. But it had worried him; surely this was wrong, something people did in pornographic pictures, or in real life with whores? He'd asked Patty, Don't you find it a bit...dirty? Her reply had stayed with him all his life, for its simplicity and its sweetness. She'd looked up, blue eyes loving, and said, Nothing can be dirty between us. And it was true. That night, they kissed and caressed and loved like never before, and she'd surprised him again before the night was over; she'd asked him to make love to her. Just like that - I want you to love me, Eugene, she'd said. I do love you, don't be daft, he'd answered, confused and so innocent. She'd smiled, and showed him what she really meant. When it was over, a whole new world seemed to have opened up before him; he could really see their children, for the first time - Sean and Molly, auburn-haired and green-eyed. He could see his mother crying at the wedding, hugging Patty, calling her daughter; later, doting on the grandchildren, spoiling them. He could see his brother, taking the piss but inwardly proud, accepting his role as godfather. See himself making enough money for them to have a good place to live, for the kids to go to a good school and have a better start in life than he'd had, and they wouldn't have to live through a war. Lying in his parents' bed with Patty in his arms, damp with sweat, half-asleep, he'd lived a whole life with her, and it had been beautiful.
They always called it making love. It was a phrase he'd never used with anyone else, but it was the only phrase that fit, for him and Patty. Not 'having sex' or 'doing it' or 'rock 'n' roll'. Those words were too crude; they didn't given any indication of the beauty of the act. They'd been able to make love twice more before that drunken kid, riding around in his dad's posh new car, had driven up on the pavement, out of control, and taken Patty away forever. Lying in his hospital bed, Gene remembered the last time he ever saw Patty - dying in hers, on a ward in the hospital where she would have trained. Her red hair had been tangled, and he'd been angry at that, because she'd been proud of her long, pretty hair. He'd combed it for her. Held her hand. Kissed her closed eyes. Even sung to her some of her favourite old Irish songs, unmindful of the other patients' stares. But she'd never woken up, and in the end, his mother had come to gently draw him away, to let Patty's weeping parents say goodbye to their daughter.
For five years, he'd mourned her, and done nothing else; not in his mind, at least. His body had carried out its obligations; he'd begun his career as a police officer, because the bastard who'd killed Patty had got away with barely a slap on the wrist, due to some technicality of law. Gene knew he could never be a lawyer, but policing was the next best thing, and he did it well. Sometimes, when he lost his temper and beat some idiot scrotum to a pulp because he couldn't get hold of the one who taken Patty, he thought that she wouldn't have wanted him to be like this, but he was beyond the ability to care. He did his national service (the war was over by then, and he was almost sorry for it), and that took away a little of the anger, but none of the grief. Gradually, though, even that began to fade; he started to take interest in things again, though it felt like a betrayal of Patty. For the first four of those five years, he lost all interest in sex; every time he touched himself, he remembered her, and the pain of her loss took away any pleasure he might have felt. The few times he'd managed to reach climax, he'd wept afterwards.
But it didn't last. His father died, and somehow that unlocked something in Gene, something he'd put away in a deep dark place when he'd lost his first love. Being strong for his mother, who, incredibly, had broken her heart over the abusive drunken swine who'd made her life such a misery, gave him strength for himself. His mother worried over him, wanted to see him courting again. So he did, to please her; he went out with girls, usually only once or twice before realising they weren't what he wanted; then he met Cath, and she was what he wanted. A woman so different from Patty that being with her didn't seem like such a betrayal.
He'd married Cath two years after meeting her, and she'd refused to sleep with him until their marriage. Cath saw sex as a way of conditioning her husband; she offered it as a reward, and witheld it as a punishment. Not to be malicious; she simply believed that women weren't supposed to enjoy it, unless they were whores. She wouldn't be told otherwise, and Gene didn't want to talk very much about Patty with his wife. Cath slept with him as a kind indulgence, with that same kind of patience he remembered from some of the girls at school. She didn't see the act as involving anything emotional; he doubted she'd even care if he slept with other women, because she didn't realise that for some people, sex was more than a male physical need, to be endured by women as a sign of fidelity. So, gradually, they stopped having sex at all. At no time during their marriage had they ever made love. She couldn't have children; that wasn't her fault, of course. There were times when he dreamed about a little boy or girl with his green eyes, but he only ever felt a vague and passing sense of loss at not having brought a child into the world with his wife. A child who would have had Cath's dark hair.
Slumped against the thick pillows, fluffed so nicely by pretty Nurse Sally, Gene felt the last of his desire slip away, and let his hand fall to his side. Had Sam Tyler been there, he probably would have quoted Tennyson; Gene, never having been one for poetry, merely fell asleep, and dreamed of auburn hair and laughing Irish eyes.
I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
‘T is better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 'In Memoriam'.