Listening to Dust by Brandon Shire Read Free Book Online Page A

 
     
    It was a bitter morning in London when Colette called from Aix. She had pretty much laid waste to Stephen’s plans, and had, unintentionally, pushed him out the door with the useless hope that he could get away from his angry memories. She hadn’t meant to injure him of course, but every anniversary she called and spoke of the stipend they had received from Her Majesty’s government and the ‘invaluable service’ his parents had provided the nation before they were blown to hell by some unnamed terrorist organization.  
    What she never mentioned, and what Stephen thought of most on this day, was the silence that same government had over the incident. There had been no memorial, no sound bites. All he had ever gotten was a vague sheet of paper filled with useless platitudes about their service, and immediate assistance for his Gran at getting him out of the country so that he could be properly cared for as he grieved.  
    The reality was that the PM at that time didn’t want a cute little twelve-year-old lad spilling crocodile tears all over the front pages of the Times. It was bad for business, and definitely bad for all the secret oil deals they were trying to make in light of an ongoing war.  
    What his parents did, why they were targets, or even where and when they were killed were still mysteries to him twenty-five years later and probably would be forever. And yet Colette still called each and every anniversary, as if, despite her statements to the contrary, she had never quite gotten over the mysteries of the death of her only child. A misery she felt obliged to share with him.  
    When he finally walked out of the pub that evening the dark sky told him how long he’d been inside. He wasn’t drunk, as least not as drunk as he’d assumed he would be, but he was leaving alone.  
    And, in truth, he hadn’t really expected to be taking anyone back to the flat anyway. The anniversary of his parents’ death, Colette’s familiar call to punctuate it, and the problems he had been having on the current manuscript had left him more miserable than usual, and he couldn’t picture anything more than a good cupper and the cusp of his pillow. Maybe that book he’d bought some months back, but never got to, would provide some leisurely inspiration before he dozed off.  
    The plain fact of the matter was that he had been tired of the drink scene for months, and was well aware that he was getting too old for the courting drama that revolved around the semi- anonymous pickups he dragged home. He also quite readily recognized that the tittering from the half-aged little bum chums in the pubs he frequented was no different than the same desperate duffer’s neediness he’d witnessed and chuckled at some fifteen years back. So yes, if a search for stability and commitment meant a spark of desperation, he would have to plead guilty. He was turning into a desperate old duffer himself, and that, for any single gay bloke was reason enough to be counted among the bitter.  
    A taxi pulled up in front of him just as he was about to step off the curb. He stepped back as the door swung open and stopped to watch a mass of balloons float out and hang suspended in the evening sky.  
    Nice arse , he thought as the passenger crawled out backwards and leaned inside to pay the fare. The bloke withdrew from the taxi and placed his palm on the roof to steady himself just before it pulled off again. They looked at each other for a moment, appraising each other with a quick smile before Stephen decided that he wasn’t up for another disappointment and cast his eyes further up the street to start for home.  
    “Where are you going?” Dustin asked, his southern American drawl immediately identifying him.  
    A soldier? Stephen wondered without turning around. His hair was certainly short enough. But Stephen had taken a few military Yanks home before, and it was always a quick ‘got-to-go-before-anyone-finds-out’ kind of night,