Belle Morte Bites (Belle Morte 4.3)

Jerry: Part Three

Afterwards, Gideon had to remember to pretend to breathe so Jerry wouldn't notice anything was wrong. Jerry's own breath was blissfully ragged, and the sound of his heart pounding was like sweet music.

"That was amazing," he said. He rolled over to face Gideon. "Was it okay for you?"

He sounded so anxious in that moment that Gideon had to smile. Jerry had been so confident when he approached Gideon in the club, but there was another side to him, and Gideon liked it.

"It was great," he said.

"Good. That's good." Jerry sounded relieved.

"Why did you have that note in your pocket?" Gideon had to ask.

"I always carry a few with me, in case I meet someone who needs a place to go."

"So you don't normally use them for inviting men back here?"

"Not in that way, no."

"Then why me?"

Jerry studied him. "I don't know. You're special, I suppose."

"You can't know that yet. We barely know each other."

"I think we know each other a little better now," Jerry teased, draping one leg over Gideon's under the blanket. "And we can continue to get to know each other, if you'd like."

"I would, yes," Gideon said.

Maybe this was foolish.

Relationships had never worked for him in the past, so what made him think that this time would be any different? Except that neither of them had made any promises of a relationship. They'd had sex, and it had been great, and they both wanted to do it again, but that didn't necessarily mean anything.

Was it a not relationship until either of them decided to start calling it that?

That was a bridge that Gideon would cross later.

For now, he just wanted to enjoy the present.

Over the next couple of weeks, Gideon started visiting the squat regularly, though neither he nor Jerry ever discussed exactly what they were doing, or defined their relationship as being . . . well, a relationship. Jerry introduced Gideon to the other men who lived in the squat. They were all ages – the oldest was fifty-five, and the youngest only eighteen – and all of them so openly gay and so defiantly unapologetic about it that it made Gideon's heart sing. Maybe this openness could only exist in the little spaces that the gay community had carved out for themselves, but it was like getting a taste of the world as it could be.

As it might one day be.

Sometimes Gideon thought of Paul and Simon, the B&B owning couple he had met when he lived in Brighton, and how much they would have approved of this.

Some of the men living in the squat were prostitutes, others were drag queens who practised their makeup in a broken mirror they'd found in the shop downstairs. Some were flamboyant, others were shy, and some were so stoic they wouldn't have stood out in any crowd. They came from all over the country, from varying backgrounds, but it wasn't hard to see why Jerry called them a family.

Sometimes they argued, like any family, but it was never serious and it never lasted. Sometimes they drank together, or smoked joints until the squat was a smoky haze that affected everyone but Gideon. Most of them didn't have jobs, owning to the legal discrimination against hiring gay men, and money was always tight, but somehow they made it work. They all pulled together and took care of each other, and even though they were only in this place because the world outside was hostile towards them, they took this abandoned little shop and turned it into a place of hope and love.

There were occasions when Gideon visited the squat not to sleep with Jerry, but just to feel part of this.

They could become his family too.

If he let them.

But always, always, there was a nagging fear at the back of his head, the bleak knowledge that this couldn't last because it never did.

It would fall apart, like everything else, because that was what happened to people like Gideon. Vampires didn't get to have the things they wanted.

But sometimes he thought of Esther and Sarah, and how they had found each other.

Maybe there was a vampire out there for him too, waiting to be found, and Gideon should be looking for him rather than wasting time with a human that he couldn't keep.

But Jerry made him laugh.

His life hadn't been easy, but he never let it get him down. If one of the other men in the squat had had a bad day, Jerry was always there to try and cheer them up. If this group had a heart and a soul, then it was Jerry.

There were times when Gideon felt guilty about being with him, wondering if he was keeping Jerry from finding a human partner that he could have a proper life with. He reasoned that this was Jerry's choice too, and Jerry wasn't pushing to make their relationship more concrete, so he must be happy with things the way they were, but that wouldn't last forever, would it?

Gideon was wrestling with the problem as he walked to the squat one day, fully aware that he wouldn't reach a resolution, just as he hadn't any of the other times he had thought about this, when he suddenly caught the smell of smoke. He looked up.

A thick black plume was filling the air above the streets of Brixton, and Gideon's heart turned over.

He knew.

He knew.

He started to run.

The shop was on fire. Flames leaped out of smashed windows, turning bricks black and devouring exposed wood, and bright cinders cascaded from a smoky sky.

Several people stood around watching, and a police car had just pulled up to the kerb. Two uniformed officers got out and stared up at the blaze. One of them was smiling.

Gideon ran to them. "What happened?" he cried.

The taller officer shrugged. "Looks like the place was firebombed."

A window exploded with a loud shatter, and glass fell to the pavement outside.

"Is anyone still inside?" Gideon said, staring at the squat with a growing sense of horror. Where were his friends? It was too early for anyone to have gone to the clubs, and no one was standing out on the streets, watching their home burn . . .

Another shrug.

"Aren't you going to do anything?" Gideon cried.

The shorter officer smiled again, and it was a cold, hard thing. "It's just the queers. Who cares?"

The taller officer laughed. Then they climbed back into the car and drove away, as if the squat wasn't burning down with who knew how many people still trapped inside.

Jerry and all his friends could die, and no one here cared. They hated gay people so much that they truly believed they deserved to burn to death, and the raw fury that exploded in Gideon's chest was hotter than the fire itself.

Pulling off his coat, he threw it over his head to protect himself from the flames, and then he ran into the burning building to save his friends.

3/5

A/N: Most of this story is pure fiction, but sadly Part 3 was inspired by the real life account of an arson attack on a gay squat in Brixton, during the 70s. The reaction of the police at the time is also based in reality.