Muscles Came Easy Read online

  Muscles Came Easy

  Aled Islwyn

  Contents

  Title Page

  Muscles Came Easy

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Muscles Came Easy

  Muscles came easy, I said. Looked like a bulldog at eight, size fourteen collar at thirteen and captain of the senior school rugby team at sixteen.

  He was impressed, I could tell. Shuffled his arse on those pussy-sized stools they have at the bar at Cuffs and offered to buy me a drink.

  Now normally, I don’t. Don’t talk. Don’t look ’em in the eye. Don’t do nothing once I’ve fucked ’em in the darkroom. Them’s the rules. Walk straight out of there. Maybe have a drink on my own, or talk to Serge behind the bar, as I did tonight. Then go back a little later to see if it’s busy in there by then.

  Guess this guy just happened to see me there at the bar. Well! Let’s face it. You can’t miss me.

  French, apparently. From Lyon. A businessman on his way down to Tarragona. Married, I wouldn’t be surprised. But no ring. Not your usual Cuffs customer at all.

  Asked me if he could see me tomorrow. How naïve can you get? Didn’t disillusion the sad fart. Didn’t seem right to, somehow. Said my day job at the gym kept me busy. Wanted to know the name of the gym. And I told him. Said he’d look it up next time he was in Barcelona.

  Yes, do that, mate, I said. But, frankly, I wouldn’t recognise him if he pole-vaulted onto this balcony right now.

  Then – big mistake! – he grabbed me by my upper arm and tried to lean over to kiss me. Jesus, man! How gross can you get? But I still didn’t have the heart to tell him to fuck off, or that Serge paid me to prance around in the darkroom with no shorts on. It’s Serge’s way on making sure the facilities get well-used if it’s been quiet in there for a couple of nights. I start the ball rolling in there if they seem a bit on the shy side. Pick someone I’d normally go for and give him a blow job. Sometimes it develops into a free-for-all. Sometimes not. But they’ve got to feel they’ve had a good night out, these saddos. That’s what they’re there for… supposedly.

  For the most part they’ve got to grope around in the dark for themselves and find their own bit of fun, but Serge reckons someone like me making himself available for a while helps get things going. And it’s always the start of the week he calls me. By Thursday, apparently, they need no encouragement. Never get these club jobs on a weekend.

  Wouldn’t have touched that French guy with a bargepole in my own time. Just didn’t have the heart to tell him the truth. Should have really. I’m just too soft. Always have been, see!

  Got up and left him after the kissing fiasco. Went straight back in there and fucked two more. Condoms worn both times, of course. Part of the game ever since I’ve been at it. Surprised how many of the older ones still ask and check. Guess they remember a time when it wasn’t the norm.

  Seeing the traffic going backwards and forwards kept Serge happy, I could tell.

  Then the last dumb trick I pulled must have had this thing for armpits. Licked me sore he did, the bastard. Not really my thing. But he was good at it, I’ll give him that.

  Glad of that shower though.

  First thing I always do when I come in from these club jobs. Check Mike’s asleep (and he always is) then get cleaned up. Check myself over. Thorough. All part of the routine. Important. Never fail.

  And so’s this brandy. Part of the routine, like. Just a small one. Few minutes to myself out here in the fresh air. Mull things over. How it all went and that. Well-toned body. Well-honed mind. All that shit they pumped into you at college. Well! When all’s said and done, it’s right, like, isn’t it? When you really think it over. Has to be… for the life I lead.

  I refused point blank. Told him straight. I’m not dressing up in cowboy boots and stetsons for nobody – and no amount of extra euros.

  O, si, he said, but line dancing is all the craze now!

  That may be so, I said back, but I told him straight… he’s running a great little health studio there. Raul. Legit. The genuine McCoy. Not some poof’s palace where a lot of poseurs prance around pretending to lift weights and keep fit.

  I’m strictly a one-on-one guy. Personal Trainer is what I’m employed as and that’s what I am. Press-ups. Rowing machine. Circuit training. All the stuff I know really works. I work with clients individually. One-to-one. Assessments. Supervision. Even down to diets and lifestyle choices. A proper trainer.

  OK, I do some aerobic stuff with the women clients, I grant you. But they just like to hear the word used often. Don’t think half of them know what the hell aerobics means. And told him that’s all the pampering to fashion he’ll get from me.

  Oh Joel, you not mean it! You think it over, Joel… please… for Raul!

  Love the way Raul says my name. And he knows it. They’re not used to it here – Joel – which is strange, I always find. Spain being a Catholic country and all. You’d think they’d know their Bible.

  He makes it sound like Hywel. Reminds me of home. Our Geography teacher was called Hywel Gordon. Had a hell of a crush on him at one time. He’d been a very promising full back, but some injury had put paid to that. No sign of injury on him from what I could see. But there you go! Guess it was the bits of him I never did get to see which needed scrutinising the most.

  Raul’s been good to me these last four years. Him and his missus. Helped me with my Spanish when I first arrived. Fed me. Gave me a job. I only want best people work with me in my fitness studio, he’d say. And I want you.

  They speak Catalan together. Raul and his wife. And their kid gets taught in it at school. Like they do with Welsh back home, I suppose.

  Not me, of course.

  My nanna could speak Welsh quite a bit. Chapel and that. But I couldn’t sing a single hymn at her funeral. And felt a right nerd. If there’s anything of value to lose, you can bet your life my mam’ll be the first to do so.

  Couldn’t be arsed with all that, really, were her thoughts on Welsh.

  Then one day she lost her purse on the bus. Huge kerfuffle in our house. A whole week’s wages gone. No wonder my dad left. I’d have been OK if it wasn’t for her with the glass eye from Tonypandy confusing me with all that talk about her Cyril! The only explanation anybody ever got from her on that little incident.

  Poor cow has even managed to lose a breast. You’re one nipple short of a pair of tits, Mam! I tease her rotten sometimes. She laughs.

  You’ve got to laugh in the face of adversity, she says… except sometimes ‘adversity’ slips out as ‘anniversary’. It’s a miracle I’m as well-adjusted as I am.

  And I bet Raul has me taking these bloody line dancing classes any day now. I can see it coming!

  Don’t know why you won’t get yourself a tidy job, she said.

  I knew as soon as I picked up the phone she was going to take a long time coming to the point.

  Come back home and be a teacher. Papers always say they’re crying out for them round here. And there’s you there with all them qualifications…

  I already got a tidy job, I said. Why I bother explaining every time, I don’t know. She’d never heard of a Personal Training Instructor ’til I started calling myself one – as she’ll happily tell anyone who’s sad enough to listen.

  Didn’t take a blind bit of notice. She never does. High as a kite ’cos of something. I knew it when she first came on the line. I could always tell, even as a child. Her voice almost croaking with that hysterical shriek she puts on when she’s dying to tell you something.

  Our Joanne’s pregnant again. At last she came out with it. In one great torrent. The washing machine’s on the blink. And to cap it all, the real biggy was her final punch: Oh, yes…! And D
an Llywellyn has cancer.

  Then silence.

  I felt nothing, really.

  Said I was sorry to hear that, like you do without thinking. But I couldn’t honestly say I’d thought of him at all for several years.

  She didn’t know where it was. Somewhere painful, is all she’d heard. The talk of Talbot Green Tesco’s last Saturday, apparently.

  He had it coming, I suppose. But I couldn’t tell Mam that. Wasn’t glad. Wasn’t sad. Felt nothing.

  Still don’t know why you started calling him Dan Dracula. She was chipping away on an old bone, hoping she’d catch me on the hop. Always thought it was cruel of you, that, after all he’d done for you.

  It’s because of all he’s done to me, Mam. That’s what I wanted to tell her. But didn’t.

  He’s also the one who introduced me to weights. Saw my potential. Dan Llywellyn is the one who saw our Joel’s full potential. That’s what he’ll always be credited with. Showed me the ropes. Gave me definition.

  You’re everything you are today ’cos of that man, she declared with conviction.

  She was right, of course. And she meant it at face value. Wouldn’t know what irony was. Not my mam. If she can’t get it cheap on Ponty market, she doesn’t want to know.

  Her kitchen floor was completely flooded, apparently. Took three bucketfuls of mopping to clean it up. And today it rained there all day.

  You call me a Muscle Mary one more time and I’ll fucking give you a good hiding, I said.

  I haven’t called you a Muscle Mary once yet, he replied, playing child-like with my left bicep.

  Well! To be fair he hadn’t. Not during today’s debacle.

  Pussy-boys are so predictable, I said. I always know what’s coming next with you.

  You’re just a slave to your ego, Joel, he retorted. And that’s a very subservient place to be for a man of your physical stature.

  On the bed, Mike rolled on his stomach as he spoke, and lowered his voice to that detached level which always places him beyond any further verbal bruising. It’s a ploy he’s mastered to perfection. The aim is to intimidate me and exonerate himself. It’s a tactical illusion, of course, rather than a sign of true superiority. It’s a part of our game. A futile duel fought in a darkened room, while our neighbours, all around us, bathe in a siesta of rest and serenity.

  Maybe that’s why we laughed. Lying there bickering in our Calvin Kleins on that vast double bed this afternoon. It was the only thing to do. Our last hope of not looking ridiculous, even to ourselves.

  We’ve lived together long enough to be both comfortable and bored with each other in equal measure.

  I slapped his arse and told him to go make a cup of tea. And that’s when my mobile rang, just as he opened the door to the living-room and let the light in.

  This guy’s from Valencia, right. The one who rang. Owns a club, it seems, and wants me down there next Tuesday night to work his back room. Personal recommendation from Serge, apparently.

  I jumped off the bed and stood upright to talk.

  Two things, I said. One: Valencia’s too far, man. Must be four hundred kilometres, easily. Don’t know how much that is in miles. Gave up converting long time ago. But then relented when he mentioned the fee. Said I’d think it over. Oh, yes! And the second thing, I said: I’m strictly a top. Hope Serge made that clear. This boy’s arse is an exit only. Period.

  Silence! Think the aggro in my voice had been too much for him. All I could hear was the amount of money on offer being repeated down the line. And the sound of water boiling in the kitchen where Mike was doing what he does best. Being English.

  I’ve tried to talk to Mike. But I can’t.

  The news of Dan Llywellyn’s imminent demise has followed me around for days. Ever since Mam told me. And all the memories slogged me in the guts!

  That’s the last line of this poem by a guy called Harri Webb. We did him at college – You see, it wasn’t all boys running around in muddy fields and pumping iron, I told Mike earlier – and I really loved his stuff.

  Mike’s painting at the time. What I still call the small bedroom is now his studio. Looks more like a clinic if you ask me. I’ve never heard of anyone being creative and so tidy at the same time. Whilst the canvas is awash with colour, Mike remains immaculate. But that’s Mike for you.

  He was only half listening to me. I could tell. He then informs me that he’s never heard of Harri Webb. Another one of your trivial poets, he insists. But inside I know that he takes it as a personal affront to his dignity as an English lecturer that I’ve managed once again to draw attention to a lapse in his supposedly superior education.

  He was still at it when Mam rang in the early evening. Painting that is.

  Things are worse than first thought, apparently. For old Dan. He’s at home. But he’s shrivelled to a nothing and his hair’s all fallen out. Sick every other minute, it seems. All over the bus back from town. So she said.

  And what’s his wife got to say on the situation? I chipped in. The usual fuck-all, no doubt.

  Mam tells me to wash my mouth out with soap and water, but I tell you, that woman should have had ‘I see nothing, I hear nothing, I say nothing’ tattooed across her forehead years ago. She must have know what was going on. Wasn’t deaf, dumb and blind through ignorance, I’m almost sure. And I don’t think it was fear either. Doubt if Dan Llywellyn ever touched her. It was just indifference. She’d sit there like a beached whale in front of the telly, stuffing chocolates in her mouth, oblivious to the tip around her. And all I ever did was mumble some banality as I passed her on the way to the bottom of their stairs. Dan upstairs before me, usually.

  You go on up, love, she’d urge me. And up I’d go.

  Twp she was, I reckon. Probably still sitting there right now, incarcerated by her cholesterol consumption and jellied in cellulite, flicking from channel to channel in order to shut out the outrages going on around her.

  I reckon our Joanne will go the same way. Already showing early signs of abandonment, despite all this breeding she’s intent on inflicting on the world. In fact, I’m convinced it’s part of it. All these brats of hers are only an excuse for doing less and less. That’s the reality. She has no creative aspirations in her at all. Not for herself. Not for her kids. Never did.

  Leave her alone. She only wants to give me more grandchildren, pleads Mam on her behalf. Since you clearly don’t intend to give me any.

  Joanne and Dean already have three. That was my point, I said. Why the hell would they want more? Going by the evidence so far, the possibility that some hidden pearl of genius is hiding away in their shared gene pool is pretty remote.

  They scream a lot. Mam spoils them. Dean disappears down the pub. And Joanne gets fatter by the day, only admitting when pushed that she doesn’t really care what the hell they do with their lives… so long as they’re happy. This is the happy heterosexual life we’re all supposed to aspire to, as lived halfway up a Welsh mountain. I swear the sheep have more fun.

  It’s all over the Observer apparently. The latest Rhondda bombshell. Dan Llywellyn arrested amidst allegations of child abuse. They’ve torn his house apart. Even removed the telly and the video. So it’s a real crisis as far as his missus is concerned.

  I chuckled to myself, but felt nothing. Said even less.

  You used to spend hours down that gym with him.

  I let her do the talking and grunted in agreement.

  And round his house! Some weekends, you practically lived there.

  Her hysteria was muted for once. I knew there was so much else she wanted to ask, but never would. Some places are too raw for even my mam to venture. I simply coughed. (This cold I’ve caught has made me croak incoherently when I speak, making my silence sound less guilty than it might otherwise have done.) Mam’s voice cracked in unison.

  The mirror by the phone was briefly my only comfort. I flexed my free arm. And smiled at myself in approval. For a moment I remember wishing Mike had been there with me
. But he wasn’t. It was just me and Mam… the mirror and the memories.

  Got a worse drenching that night than I thought at the time. Must have. ’Cos I’m convinced that’s where I caught this lot. OK! I know I said I definitely wouldn’t do that job. But did in the end, didn’t I?

  Fancied the run. That’s what clinched it, not the money. When you consider that it emerged he wasn’t paying mileage for the petrol, it wasn’t really that much. But I hadn’t been for a seriously long run on the bike for months. So, Valencia, I thought, why not?

  The evening went well. Tidy little bar. Changed into my cut-off shorts and leather harness and did a few tricks.

  Hadn’t even realised it was raining until I came out the back at 4am. If I’d had any sense, would have asked that guy for somewhere to stop over. But in my mind, I’d been looking forward to those empty roads along the Costas in the middle of the night. So wiped the seat, got on and revved my way out of there.

  How was I to know the ‘Med’ was due to have its worse storm for five years that night?

  Bloody exhausted by the time I got back here. Had to keep my speed right down, see. Made the journey longer, which meant I got even wetter. Thunder sounding off all around me. Lightning. Hailstones the size of golf balls. Could feel her sliding underneath me. Probably should have checked the pressure before setting out. But didn’t. Could feel them tyres fighting the torrent for supremacy of the tarmac on certain corners.

  Exhilarating at the time. But glad to get home, I can tell you. It was already light. The sun all bright in the sky as though nothing had happened. Mike still asleep, thank God. Squelched my way to the bathroom to strip out of my bike leathers.

  Well! It’s been a week and I’m hardly any better. Still coughing my guts up. Sneezing. But the shivering’s gone. That was the only hopeful news I could give Raul when he called earlier. Wanted to give the man some glimmer of hope I might return to work before the end of the week.