Excerpt: Djinn and Tonic

Valentin Guillaume woke up.
There was a sensitive, almost uncomfortable, straining in his boxer shorts, that lost its urgency even as he reached down under the quilt to take care of it because he had opened his eyes and remembered that he wasn’t at home.
“Fuck,” he tried to mutter through a sleep-thickened tongue. Slowly his life came back to him. Today was Monday. It was the last day of his annual leave, which meant that from now on he had only national holidays to look forward to, with their crowds of tourists who always seemed to want to do the same things he wanted to do. The best of the year was behind them, and it was bloody cold, and would probably rain today. He was in Amiens, staying with Roland before he went back to Lille later today, and Roland would come back with him. He told his colleagues that he’d meet them at the Trois Brasseurs tomorrow after work. But it was still early; far too early to be thinking of going home. Outside the sky was still indigo between the chimneys of the houses across the road.
He ran through it again. All present and accounted for.
Feeling somewhat cheated of a good erection, he burrowed back down in Roland’s spare bed, covers up around his ears, and dozed.
The dream returned suddenly, blowing away the last cobwebs of sleep. Had he been anyone else, he would have wondered at the kind of person who could dream of something as eccentrically deranged as having sex with the Winged Victory of Samothrace (the name floated to the forefront of his mind as soon as he remembered her face) in a shitty Parisian hotel room, while saints (and that was St Sebastian, of course, he remembered, as soon as he heard again the ghost-echoes of the leak against the carpet) bled in the corner. But Valentin Guillaume wasn’t anyone else, and there was nothing he could see that was particularly eccentric or symptomatic of a disturbed mind about a dream that let him relive such treasured memories of his most recent holiday fling.
Recalling the dreamy afterimage of her face, it occurred to him that he was the first human being in centuries to have seen it in all its glory, and probably the first at all to have seen it open-mouthed in ecstasy.
He should go back to the Louvre one day.

Val crept into the kitchen when the lazy autumn sun finally bleached the sky between his curtains. He shrugged on a dressing gown and padded through to the kitchen so as not to wake Roland. It was, he admitted to himself, a little sad that he knew all the creaking floorboards to avoid without even thinking about it. And where the coffee was kept. And the mugs and spoons. And the sugar.
Maybe he came around here too often.
The kettle hissed and bubbled, steaming through the air that was colder than was pleasant because Roland still hadn’t fully worked out how to use the thermostat. Pouring out Roland’s coffee into one of Roland’s mugs, and stirring a teaspoon of Roland’s sugar into it, he meditated on the necessity of returning to Lille and work at all. They could find another secretary. He could stay here. Sorted.
The sound of a door opening and closing again heralded Roland’s arrival. “Tin-tin?” he asked sleepily from the corridor. Roland would probably be the only person in this world or any other who Val would ever tolerate calling him Tin-tin.
“I’m in the kitchen.”
“Yeah, I know. Get me a coffee, would you?”
“Got one.” He glanced over to the kettle, the faded numbers on the side still crystallised with condensation, and satisfied himself that there was enough water still in there for another cup.
“Liar,” Roland mumbled, pushing open the heavy kitchen door with his body and leaning there to yawn. He didn’t look at his best in the morning, and he had clearly just woken up and thrown some clothes on for the sake of decency.
“No, look, it’s right there. In the kettle. And you know where the mugs are.”
“What kind of guest are you?” Roland complained, scratching the back of his head and tousling his hair even more. “After I let you stay in my bed and everything.” He poured his coffee, clearly contented with the familiarity as Val was.
He could easily stay here forever, and they could live happily and normally, like an old married couple or whatever, two friends against the world in their own personal sitcom.
“Tin-tin, go back to work.” Roland opened the fridge and rummaged for the milk, checking a couple of cartons for the use-by dates before pulling one out.
“Oh, Roland, just throw out the off ones!”
“Later.” He came to the table, still stirring his mug.
“And what’s all that ‘go back to work’ bollocks, eh? I’m going back today, aren’t I?” The words sounded more childish than he had intended them too, more like a grudging conciliation than a mature reiteration of plans made long ago.
Roland raised an eyebrow at him and took a delicate sip of coffee.
“Oh, come on.”
“Well if you weren’t so obvious!” Roland grinned. “You feel so loudly, Tin-tin. It’s impossible not to know what you’re thinking.”
“Fuck you,” Val grumbled. There was no getting used to empaths, no matter whether they were old school friends or not. No matter how many times Val had covered for him and white-lied for him, and no matter how many times Roland had come in useful, there was no getting used to the hair-raising chill at his neck at the thought that there was someone in the world who knew what he was feeling. True, it wasn’t as though Roland could read minds, and in a way he wasn’t as perceptive as he could have been because he relied too much on reading the feelings of others rather than picking up on the little social cues that everyone else in the universe knew as the rules of social contact, but he knew if anyone was lying. He could tell rather astutely whether the feeling and the words matched up, and he wasn’t bad at guessing why they didn’t.
“I almost forgot, actually,” said Roland, putting the mug down on the table (which made Val wince, though no matter how many times he’d offered to get a set of coasters for the place Roland blithely declined). “I had the weirdest dream last night.”
“Oh yeah? Bet I can beat you. Go on.”
Roland looked like he was settling in for a story. “This is going to sound really weird.”
“So I gathered.”
“No, I mean really. I have to warn you.”
Val nodded impatiently, as if to say, I’m warned, now tell me your damn dream.
“Well. I was… I wasn’t me, in this dream. And you remember the hotel we stayed in when we went to Paris? The something Gare du Nord?”
Val nodded again, more slowly this time. “The New Hotel Gare du Nord,” he said, his stomach sinking suddenly.
“I was in there. Only like I say, I wasn’t me. I was… I was you. And St Sebastian was there, only he was upstairs of course, and – this was so weird – but you remember the Winged Victory of Samothrace, right?”
“Yes, Roland, I remember her.” Val had to wonder why Roland would want to push these buttons. He knew how sensitive the subject was. He hadn’t seen her in so long.
Roland swallowed, slightly uncomfortable, and Val shut off his thoughts.
“Anyway, we were… you know. She was amazing, by the way. And then it was like the whole of Paris was kind of condensing in to this one point, and the point was the hotel room, and then everything went black. And I woke up.”
It was as Val had suspected. Even though Roland had clearly omitted some rather more personal aspects of the dream (and the awakening from it) there was no mistaking it.
“Roland,” said Val uncertainly. “That… that was my dream.”
There was a brief silence. Roland put down his mug and Val forgot even to wince. “Really?”
Val kind of half-shrugged. You’re the empath; work it out. He wasn’t sure where to even begin dealing with the fact that Roland had not only seen his sexual fantasies – accidental miscommunications of that kind weren’t unheard of, though they were always mortifying – but experienced them. He had been joining in. He knew exactly what the Winged Victory of Samothrace felt like in bed. He had seen that face. Val was no longer alone in that.
Roland looked as embarrassed as Val felt, and then the worry fought its way through. “Do you think-?”
“You’re a fucking empath, Roland,” Val snapped. “Of course that’s what it was.”
Roland stared at the table, one hand up by his mouth, nervous and apologetic. “I didn’t mean to, Tin-tin, really, it’s- it’s never happened before!”
“I know.” It was true. If Roland had been able to dream all of Val’s dreams then things would probably be a lot more awkward between them. You can’t help what you dream anyway, he told himself, and the same went for Roland. He couldn’t help his empathy even while awake.
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“But…” Roland chewed on his lip, forehead creased. He looked as though he was going to throw up. “Shit. Shit!”