The Sundial Group
an excerpt

Word Count Goal: 100,000

For the second night in a row Charlie found himself in an expensive restaurant with a 'date' sitting opposite him. When Lal had asked him he'd assumed tonight would feel the same as every other time they'd gone out for dinner, just as friends. But Lal had made more of an effort than Charlie could ever remembering him making - crisp white shirt, open at the neck, black trousers and black evening jacket, looking casual and smart at the same time. Looking… good. Really good. Charlie in turn had put the orange shirt Lal had told him not to wear last night over a pair of fairly tight black jeans.

The restaurant was one of Charlie's favourites - Dante's, an expensive Thai on Saint Michael's Street - expensive and exclusive and how Lal had managed to get a table with twelve hours' notice Charlie wouldn't ever know. But he had, and they were sitting in black leather seats in the exposed brick walled restaurant about to embark on the chef's sample menu - seven courses of what would hopefully be a culinary experience to remember.

So much more relaxed than the previous night, despite being out with a man he'd known since he was fourteen, despite Lal being that same number of years again older than him, it felt more like a date too. And Charlie felt like flirting, just a little. That was why he'd worn the orange shirt, after all. It seemed that Lal too was in the mood for being just a little naughty. They were nibbling prawn crackers - real prawn crackers with the prawn stamped in the centre that actually tasted of fish - and drinking sipping aperitifs of warm Sake - when Lal posed his first question.

"Charles, what did you mean when you said that your virginity was only partially none of my business?"

Charlie hoped he wasn't blushing. "I meant… you've been with me half my life. You're closer to me than anyone. If I can't talk about things like that with you…." There was a conflict now though, one just budding inside him. "It's something I know I should be embarrassed about but I'm not. I mean… I've never met a girl or a guy I've fancied enough to consider sleeping with them."

"That's your criteria? You need to fancying someone enough?"

"Absolutely! Otherwise where's the physical need?"

The waitress brought their first course - Kanom Jeab, Thai Dim Sum, a delicious mix of minced chicken, prawn and water chestnut wrapped in a thin wanton skin.

"Aren't you expecting you might one day fall in love? That the physical need might come from a need of the heart?"

He was glad his answer seemed to have amused Lal. "I guess I haven't in the first twenty-six years of my life, although there was Jenny Storer in my second year of High School. She was fifteen, I was nine, and I had the biggest crush on her. She wasn't popular with the boys because she had a flat chest and she kinda looked like a guy, which I guess might have been the point."

"Do I take it your love went unrequited?"

"Turned out she was a lesbian. She had to move schools in the final term after it came out she was having an affair with the Physical Education teacher."

Lal laughed. "I'm sorry, Charles. It always defies reason why people watch soap operas when in actual fact they have soap operas happening all around them all the time."

"It's the old saying, life is a soap opera."

"Yours isn't, Dear, yours is a movie staring Al Pacino and Judy Dench."

"Right, which one plays me and which one plays you?"

"Ooooh. Bitchy." Charlie watched Lal pop a second Kanom Jeab into this mouth and smiled indulgently. "So tell me what you and Iain talked about last night."

Closing up slightly, Charlie shrugged. "Things. He asked about my childhood, I asked about the boy who shot himself when he was at Princeton. We exchanged stories, nothing more intimate than that."

"The sharing of any story with a stranger is an intimacy, Charles. Whenever you share yourself with anyone in any small way it's more intimate than sex."

"Lal… when was the last time you had sex?" He nicked the last dim sum.

His eyes widened. "Getting personal so early in the night?" Their plates were cleared. "All right, if you want to up the ante this early." He crossed his arms on the table, leaning forward. "I had sex two months ago."

Wow. Why did Charlie feel hurt by that? "Two months, that would have been August. The summer conference."

"The conference at CalTech, August 3rd to August 17th. Malcolm Jacks, forty-two years old, Mathematics Professor from Harvard. Five foot five, blond hair, blue eyes, beautiful body. We met on the first night and fucked six times over the first week before he got called back home because his wife was giving birth to their first baby." Charlie took a mouthful of wine and felt like he was seeing his best friend for the first time. "What's the look for?" Lal asked softly.

"I've never seen you as a sexual being before."

"Well… thank you for your honesty." He was laughing gently as their waitress brought their soup - Tom Kha Gai; coconut soup with chicken, spiced with galangal, lemongrass, lime leaves and mushrooms. "And now?" he asked as she left them.

"Now… Jesus, Lal, at the risk of sounding like a bad 1980s love song, the way you look tonight makes me think of you… differently."

Laurence chuckled. "I've got a feeling, Charles, you're seeing me now the way I've been seeing you for the last year." He picked up his soupspoon and took a cautious sip of his soup.

"A year? You've wanted to ask me out for a year?"

"I've… what was your word? Fancied? It sounds like a cooking term but it'll do I suppose. I've fancied you for a year. And before that I probably spent an equal amount of time fighting the feeling, questioning it, unsure if it was right or wrong, if I should be feeling this way about someone I've known since the tender age of fourteen."

Charlie also tried his soup, the flavours on his tongue distracting him for a second. "You're the one person in this whole life I trust, the one person who I know would stand by me no matter what. I've not known too many people like you, Lal, I don't have many people I can call friend. You're so important to me I can't begin…." Lal's hand back on his arm, like at Maxwell's at lunchtime, calmed him. "I would never, even suggest that we do anything to jeopardise our friendship. And I don't believe for a moment that either of us would let that happen. I love you, Charles, you're my friend, my world. This physical need, this is largely unimportant as I proved at the conference in the summer."

"When was your last date, Lal?"

"Date? That would be… some time ago. I'm sorry, Charles, I'm not putting my point across very well. You being my friend is more important to me than you being my lover, and I'm not after a one to one relationship because that really isn't my thing…." He glanced up and Charlie met his bewildered gaze. "What I am saying to you?"

Charlie laughed. "I don't think you should say anything else until the morning, Lal, because this wine and the Sake, it's not a good combination."

"Intelligent as usual." Lal took another mouthful of soup and eased the conversation back on to a safe path. "The birth of comets, Charles. Explain the maths to me, please, or I am going to look like an idiot when they start to ask questions I don't know the answers to."

The next two courses - Ped Nam Tok (Duck Salad) and Gai Pad Ta-Krai (stir fried chicken with lemongrass, chilli, lime leaves and fresh Thai herbs) - were eaten over a discussion about astro Mathematics, which in some weird circle through a discussion about one night, or rather six night stands at conferences, and Lal's apparent predilection for them.

"I've been to conferences with you, Lal, I don't get why I haven't noticed this."

"You haven't slept in my room during the night, Charles. I'm not as obvious as I would throw it in your face, or in anyone's face. I enjoy being with a man and it's a personal, private enjoyment. As I said, the idea of a single partner, of being monogamous, isn't one that sits easily with me, although I'm sure if the right person was to make such an impact on my life I wouldn't fight the feeling for too long."

Over the Som Loy Gow - orange slices on ice with Cointreau shots - Charlie turned the conversation back to them, and to the possibilities awaiting them at the Newton Institute conference.

"You've played your hand too early. Now I know that if I sleep with you at the conference it'll be a one night stand, just like the poor guy with the pregnant wife in California." Charlie sucked a slice of fresh orange between his lips, watching Lal watching his mouth. One night stand or not, it could be interesting.

"It was six nights only because he had to go home. And I assure you, Charles, they were six nights he isn't ever going to forget. There's a conference I attend right here in town every year. There's a professor from Glasgow who attends too, and every year we get together for a night or two to celebrate life, to celebrate being alive, being two men who can bring each other immense pleasure."

"Trying to make me jealous?"

There was genuine surprise in Lal's response. "No! No… I wasn't aware I had that power." Charlie smirked gently. "I'm just trying to explain the way I like to have sex. We've known each other a long time and this has never come up before. I always assumed it would be a difficult conversation but tonight… tonight's been easy, comfortable." He looked up. "I've enjoyed it."

"Me too, Lal."

"More than last night?"

"Were you jealous?" He was amazed. "And here was I… not knowing I had that kind of power over you."

As they walked back through the quieter city centre, too late for shoppers, too early for pubs to be emptying, Lal rested his hand at the small of Charlie's back and leaned into him. "You have to know, Charles, I would never hurt you. I know most of tonight has been about teasing one another but in all seriousness, I care about you more than I've ever cared about anyone else. The last thing I would ever do is risk losing you."

They reached the top of High Street and Charlie linked his arm through Lal's. "You're not going to lose me. I may have been young when we met but I'm an adult now, I'm used to being self-sufficient, and although I haven't actually slept with anyone I am able to make my own decisions around that aspect of my life too and I'll make any decision in that area based on all the facts."

He felt Lal's bicep clench and leaned into him as they neared the college entrance. "Is that a long winded way of saying you're old enough to think for yourself?"

Passing through the archway into the quad, Charlie let his arm drop. Lal's accommodation was at the opposite side of the block to Charlie's, but he wanted to walk him at least to the base of the staircase. "I want to make sure you're okay."

"I thought we just established…."

"You've had a hard day, Charles, a difficult day. The fact that I care for you has no bearing on you being able to take care of yourself. They crossed the quad side by side in silence, and when they reached Charlie's staircase, they stopped, turning to one another.

"Lal…."

"Listen, Charles, it's been fun tonight, we've been free to flirt with each other and that's a very, very good start. But after fourteen years of being your mentor, your friend, as much as I'm attracted to you, I'm going to need a short time to stop seeing you in one light and start seeing you in another."

Charlie could hardly believe how relieved, how warmed he was by that. "Thanks." Lal cocked his head slightly to one side.

"Sure?"

"Yes. I'll see you in the morning."

"For breakfast."

"For breakfast." Reaching for Lal's hand, he squeezed it. "Sleep well."

"And you, Charles. Sweet dreams."