His Husband: Death and Pleasure
Speed thrills and kills
On the morning of the accident, Tom was woken up by his phone ringing. Odd, he thought, considering Gareth must have only just left for his rugby game — judging by the medicinal smell left in the air by his hangover breath — and that Gareth was the only person who ever called him.
Tom picked up the phone. “Hello?”
“Hello, is that Mr Thomas Smith speaking?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Hello, sir, this is PC Dakin of Somerset and Avon police, I’m sorry to inform you that your husband has been killed in a road-traffic incident. I’m terribly sorry for your loss.”
The policeman continued to talk through with Tom his next steps, whilst Tom sat up in bed in a stupor of grief and shock.
PC Dakin said, “Do you want to see where it happened?”
Tom replied, sardonically, “What good would that do?”
“Well, we find with some people it helps with closure. It’s entirely up to you, of course.”
“Closure? He’s not been dead a week. How can you expect me to get closure now? There hasn’t even been a completed inquest!”
PC Dakin kept ticking things off lists in what Tom thought was an obnoxious little notebook — as if a notebook could help with assuaging the intensity of the grief he was currently feeling.
“How long had he had the motorbike, Mr Smith, do you know?”
Tom shook his head. “I dunno,” he said, disinterested, “like, a couple years, maybe?”
“And what was the cc of the vehicle?”
“The cc? Do I look like I know a single thing about vehicles? Gareth was the masculine, laddy one, you’d be better off asking him — only he’s dead, so you might struggle.”
“I see, sir,” continued the policeman. “And would you like us to put flowers on the place of the accident? It’s a general courtesy of the Police.”
“Whatever,” Tom replied — again disinterested. “You’d be putting them there for me, though, Gareth hates — hated — flowers. Said they died too much to be worthwhile. Didn’t stop him buying them for me, though,” he said through a smile, perhaps the first smile since what was being called the incident.
Tom thought back to the day they first argued about getting that stupid, fateful motorbike; it was not long after Christmas and Gareth said he needed it for work.
“You’ll kill yourself!” Tom screamed. “Those things are lethal! I’ll worry every day if you get one, you know how I am — ”
“Yes,” Gareth said, softly, “I know how you are. You’re an anxious nelly. But I’m sick of getting that bus every day; I don’t think I can do it much more. Besides, I get a pay rise this year, it’ll be nice to treat myself. You know I’ve always wanted one.”
“Yeah, I know you’ve always wanted one, but why can’t you just get a car? Why does it always have to be the most manly and masculine thing possible?”
“Because that’s what makes me tick. You know it is. Just like how sewing and photography and baking and looking after plants make you tick. I love you for your sensitivity, your softness. You love me for the opposite. That’s always been the case.”
“But — ”
“No buts. I need this. Please, it would be like a dream come true.”
Tom finally acquiesced, under the condition that Gareth didn’t go riding every day, and that Tom never, ever had to ride in the bitch seat.
“Did your husband ever take any pillion passengers, Mr Smith?” PC Dakin asked.
“Not to my knowledge,” Tom replied, “but he always carried a spare helmet just in case.”
“Yes, we found the helmet in one of his side bags. It’s why I asked. Only, I’m not saying there was a passenger, only, well…”
“Spit it out.”
“The autopsy showed that before he died he had just…”
“Just what?” Tom demanded, “what are you talking about?”
“Ejaculated.”
“Excuse me? He was riding a motorbike on his way to a rugby match. How could he have just ejaculated?”
“It’s the speed and acceleration. It excites them.”
“Rugby players?” Tom asked, incredulously.
“Bikers.”
“Ah.”
Tom went to the crash site most weeks, leaving behind flowers, and sometimes a note reaffirming to Gareth (and himself) that he still loved him and always would. It became almost a shrine, that spot, to the agony and ecstasy of the incident.
The Police returned Gareth’s biking possessions and paraphernalia after the inquest was over, and Tom got to work sewing his leathers into wallets and purses; he even patched up the old leather sofa using some of the scraps.
He took his helmet and after filling it with soil, used it for growing green carnations — a little homage to them and their relationship. He made sure they never died, and he never cut off the flower heads. Gareth wouldn’t have liked that.
One day, Tom decided it was time to start getting some counselling for his grief. He opened by saying, “I am mourning, but my grief isn’t exactly typical.”
“Grief rarely is,” the counsellor replied.
I wish I’d known that, Tom thought to himself.
Or, maybe — he wished he hadn’t.
This story is a response to Prism & Pen’s writing prompt The Agony and the Ecstasy.