The Gilded Madonna, Garrick Jones [best fiction novels txt] 📗

eyebrow. As members of his team checked his face, turning it to show the spectators and pointing, the crowd roared its disapproval, and a large number of men and women left their seats to gather at the edge of the swimming pool, shaking their fists, shouting and spitting at the Russians.

“Your friend’s hurt,” my one-legged pal said.

I glanced at Harry, who was holding a handkerchief to the corner of his mouth. He rolled his eyes at me and shrugged.

“He’s a big boy. He’s had worse than a cut lip,” I said to my new pal, who returned my smile with a hesitant one of his own. “Clyde,” I said, holding out my hand. “Clyde Smith, and this here’s my partner in crime, Harry Jones.”

“Farkas, János,” the man replied, shaking mine and Harry’s in turn. “But everyone calls me Jancsi. It’s Hungarian for Johnny.” He pronounced it Yon-shee. “Thanks for helping me with that policeman. Are you important? He seemed to know you.”

“Life of crime, my friend,” I said. He looked at me puzzled and then shrugged.

“Clyde used to be a policeman,” Harry offered.

“It seems I am in your debt, Mister Clyde Smith, former policeman and man with a life of crime.”

His crooked smile made me laugh.

“Well, Jancsi, how about you do me a favour, and we can call it even-stevens.” I handed him my notepad and pencil, which I’d left on the seat behind me. “Write down what you yelled out in Hungarian, please, and what it means in English.”

“Szabadság Magyarországért! Freedom for Hungary,” he translated, clicking his tongue and passing me a bright white smile. “What else would I be calling out?”

“I could think of one or two things I might have said in your place,” Harry said. “And none of those would bear repeating.”

“I think we have those same things in Hungarian, Mr. Jones.”

“What you called out before about commie bastards? Teach me,” I said.

I knew what he repeated several times was probably not a direct translation, but I gave it my best.

“Oroszok szopd szét a faszomat!” I yelled.

Jancsi slapped me on the shoulder, shaking with laughter. Those who heard mostly cheered me and laughed, and those who didn’t applaud, gasped.

“What did I just say? I bet it wasn’t ‘fucking commie bastards’.”

Accompanied by a few loud whistles of approval and some raised fists punching the air, he informed me that I’d just told the Russians they could suck my dick.

*****

“Ouch!”

“Harry Jones, you know better than to play the sympathy card with me.” He was sitting on the edge of the bathtub while I kneeled between his legs and tried to get a look at where he’d been hit in the face and what damage had been done.

“You know what I’m angling for, Clyde.”

“You know you don’t have to ask.”

“But it’s more fun when I do.”

“Open wide,” I ordered. He waggled his eyebrows. I returned his gesture with an eye-roll.

He’d cut his gum against his teeth when the brawny guy in front had missed me and had landed one on Harry instead. He batted my hand away from his face and wound his arms around the back of my neck and pulled me to him. What was I to do but give in? I kissed him.

He tasted of blood. “Mm …”

“You turning into a vampire?” he murmured into my mouth.

“No,” I said, drawing away to look in his eyes. “I always moan when I kiss you. Haven’t you noticed.”

“Try it again, and I’ll concentrate on listening this time.”

I’d never been in love before. Infatuated? Sure. In lust? More than once. I’d even convinced myself I had strong feelings for my ex-partner, Sam Telford, who’d run off with my best friend, Billy Tancred. But now, with Harry Jones in my arms, I had a comparison. Love was something altogether different.

What I felt for him wasn’t movie romance, or even mushy book love, it was something far deeper. On one hand less tangible, but on the other the connection with him was something I’d never felt in my entire life. And that went for outside the bedroom too.

I’d been afraid that at the age of thirty-six, I’d never find “the one”, and after I’d recognised my feelings for him, I’d fought against my better judgement for far too long. I’d thought myself unworthy of someone like Harry Jones. But then, when I’d eventually given in, it had felt as if my life was finally complete. Poetic way of saying it perhaps … but I was a writer, I used words. Those had been my first thoughts when I’d kissed him in the middle of the night, both of us squashed into the confined space of a phone box, in full sight of passers-by.

My life was finally complete.

The words flowed across my mind in a picture, like those on the screen for a sing-along-with-the-bouncing-ball during a matinee at the cinema.

I loved him far more deeply than the inadequate utterances I managed to stumble through when I tried to tell him how much I cared, so I let my actions speak the intensity of my feelings on my behalf. I gave him bits of the real Clyde Smith in tiny portions at a time. Morsels he devoured without begging for more. He accepted everything about me—both the good and the bad—and I had no fear in opening up my inner being to him without the slightest doubt he’d pass judgement. That was true love, and I was the luckiest of men in the world to have found it in six-foot-two of ginger crew cut, short bristly copper beard, and the yellowest eyes I’d ever seen.

“Do you want to …?” he asked through barely opened eyes. He almost purred, like our shared cat, Baxter.

“I always want to, Harry, and you know you don’t have to ask.”

“Violence makes me amorous.”

“Kissing is amorous, you’re talking of something else,” I whispered.

I kissed both of his eyelids as he began to unbutton my shirt.

“Kissing your mouth is amorous, I’m thinking of osculatory adventures elsewhere.”

I laughed. “So was it