Page 39 of The Elements

In the end, it took almost a year before I made it into the first team.

My fitness levels were nowhere near the standard needed and I had little understanding of how to treat my body to prevent it from sustaining injuries.

Alongside this, I had to learn how to operate as part of a team.

But the coaches stuck with me. Fitness could be worked on, they knew, but talent was innate.

The sports pages picked up on my signing and were puzzled that a complete unknown, at the age of nineteen, would be signed by a Championship club, even one that seemed at no risk of promotion any time soon.

There was interest in what might happen if I found my way into the first team.

Finally, during our eleventh home game of the season, I was brought on in the fifty-second minute and scored two goals, one of which was pretty good, while the other was a fluke.

But flukes win games, and we won that one, which brought us up to tenth in the table.

The following weekend, away from home, I scored a hat trick, and suddenly my name was everywhere.

A few weeks later, the manager of the Irish team came to watch me play, and soon after I got called up for the qualifying rounds of the Euros, scoring against Denmark and providing an assist in a one–all draw with Germany, although, as my father was fond of pointing out, I missed a crucial penalty against Greece.

Dad attended all the Irish home games and, after my debut, tried to force his way into the changing rooms at the Aviva to offer his supposedly expert analysis to the players on what we’d done right or wrong, but, to my relief, security kept him outside.

Embarrassed, I told him never to do that again, that no one other than the manager, coaches, medical staff, and players were allowed in there, and he grabbed me by the neck, pushing me up against a wall, and told me that I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for him and I should show a little fucking gratitude. I apologized and crawled away.

It was around then that the club sorted out the apartment for me, and I was pleased when I was told that I would be living in the same development as Robbie.

Following our first encounter, we’d become close.

I’d cultivated the friendship, of course, for my own purposes, but it shocked me how drawn I was to him.

Of course, it didn’t hurt that he was a defender, while I was a forward, so I didn’t threaten him in any way.

In time, he introduced me to his agent, Neil, who approached me with relish.

“You’re the dream,” he told me. “Young, good-looking, a great player. Do you want to be rich?”

“Sure, why not?” I said with a shrug.

The way I looked at it was that in fifteen or so years’ time, I could retire, go wherever I wanted in the world, and never have to return to the island.

And if that meant having to spend those years with my studs planted in the earth, then so be it.

Within a month, Neil had signed two lucrative sponsorship deals for me and promised more ahead.

A boy from the reserves, only a year younger than me, started hanging around, and I knew he was cruising me.

We didn’t speak, but when we passed in the corridors our eyes always met, and I recognized his desire.

I asked around about him and learned that his name was Wojciech and that he’d come to the club from a team in eastern Poland.

Two days after I moved into my apartment, he tracked me down as I was leaving the cafeteria.

“I hear you’ve found somewhere to live,” he said.

“Just give me your phone,” I replied, uninterested in small talk.

He took it from his pocket and held it to his face to unlock it before handing it across. I opened the Contacts tab and entered my name, address, and phone number.

“Nine o’clock,” I told him.

Back home that evening, I showered and changed into sweatpants and a T-shirt.

I hadn’t had sex in a year, since my rent boy days had come to an end.

After my London experiences, I’d avoided all physical intimacy, felt little interest in it, but, since meeting Robbie, I’d started to feel that buzz again.

Shortly before nine, I stepped out onto my balcony and leaned against the railing.

At the same moment, on the other side of the courtyard, a door opened, and Robbie appeared.

Below us, a taxi pulled up. Wojciech got out and glanced at the fountain and the perfectly manicured lawns, probably wondering whether he too would get to live in a place like this one day.

I looked across and saw Robbie watching him, then looking back at me.

He was too far away for me to read his expression.

The buzzer sounded, and I went back inside and pressed the button to give Wojciech access, leaving my door ajar before going into the kitchen and chugging a bottle of beer in one go.

When we were done, I took another shower, expecting him to be gone when I emerged, but, to my irritation, he was sprawled on the sofa, one hand resting casually inside his boxer shorts, watching football on the enormous television set that came with the apartment.

“You’re still here,” I said, and he nodded, pulling a face when a player I vaguely recognized from the Northern Ireland squad was tackled and tumbled dramatically to the ground.

“Who else have you fucked?” he asked, glancing toward me as I knotted the towel around my waist.

“You want my entire sexual history?” I asked. “Seriously?”

“No, I meant on the team.”

“No one.”

“And on the reserves?”

“No one.”

“Why not?”

“No one’s offered. And I assume most of them are straight.”

“Come on,” he said, laughing a little. “No one’s straight these days.”

He named a couple of people. A kid who still hadn’t signed his papers and a left back from the first team who spent more time on the bench than he did on the pitch. He mentioned an older man on the coaching staff too who’d tried it on with him, without success.

“We could do this again if you like,” he suggested.

“I’m tired,” I said.

“No, I meant another time.”

“Sure.”

“What about Robbie Wolverton?” he asked as I collapsed into an armchair, wishing he’d just gather his shit together and leave. I knew how Rafe had felt now, on that first night when I’d outstayed my welcome.

“What about him?” I asked. “Robbie’s into girls.”

“Yeah,” said Wojciech. “But, you know, he has his kinks.”

I tried not to appear too interested. “What kind of kinks?” I asked.

“You haven’t heard?”

I shook my head.

“He likes to be watched. Needs to be watched.”

I reached for the remote control and lowered the television volume until it was almost mute.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

“He let me watch once.”

“When?”

“Soon after I got here. We were at a party, and he was hooking up with some girl. He asked if I wanted to watch. Kind of insisted on it. He wanted me to film him.”

I raised an eyebrow, skeptical.

“And you did it?”

“Yeah. When they went upstairs, I followed them. The girl started complaining, saying she didn’t want me there, but he told her to shut up or he’d just go downstairs and choose someone else.

It’ll take me less than two minutes , he said, I’ve got my pick of them .

She wasn’t happy about it but didn’t want to lose out.

He arranged the lighting, told me exactly where to stand.

It was like a master class from Steven Spielberg. ”

I felt myself growing hard again.

“Did you join in?”

He shook his head. “I couldn’t,” he said. “Not with a girl. But he wanted me to.”

I thought about this for a while. I remembered how I’d asked Rafe to close the curtains in his apartment on the night of my audition and how he’d refused. He wanted the city to watch us as he fucked me up against the window. They were so alike, both of them. Father, son; son, father.

“Do you still have the video?” I asked.

He shook his head. “No, I shot it on his phone.”

“So I just have your word for this.”

“Why would I lie?” he asked. “You know what they say about him, right?”

“What?” I asked. “What do they say?”

“That he can only get it up when there’s another guy there.

It’s not that he wants to fuck the guy, or maybe he does, he’s a freak anyway, so who knows, but he has to be watched.

They’re all like that, these English guys.

They spend all their time in these academies from the time they’re five or six years old.

They hit puberty together, and God knows what goes on between them then.

In the end, they can only perform when there’s other players in the room.

They’re literally playing to the gallery, like they do every Saturday afternoon.

They need eyes on them, need someone to watch them score, to make them feel like gods.

All those videos, you’ve seen them, players sharing a girl, watching each other, cheering each other on.

They can be pretty homophobic, some of them, but most of them are gayer than we are, only they don’t realize it.

In Poland, players don’t act like that. In Ireland? ”

“And the girl,” I asked, ignoring his question. “The girl you filmed him with. What happened to her?”

He stared at me, baffled by the question. “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Why? What does it matter?”

When he reached for the remote to turn the volume up again, I made a grab for it and switched the television off.

“Tell me what he did to her,” I said, walking over and standing before him. “In detail.”

He smiled. He had a hold over me now.

“I’ll show you if you want,” he said, loosening my towel.

Afterward, I knew I would see Wojciech again. Not for himself, but for what he could do for me with these stories.

When he left, it was almost midnight, and he tried to kiss me at the front door of my apartment, but I pushed him away.

“Please,” I said. “We’re not dating.”

“You won’t tell anyone, will you?” he asked.

“Not if you don’t want me to.”

“Cool. I won’t either.”

“I couldn’t care less whether you do or don’t.”

“Yeah, sure,” he replied. “Until the fans start calling you faggot, and the sponsors don’t want to work with you anymore.”

“I couldn’t care less about the fans,” I told him. “And as for the sponsors, let’s face it, they’d make even more money if I came out publicly. They’d kill to have a poster boy like me.”

“So why don’t you, then?” he asked. “If you’re so brave.”

“No one’s ever asked,” I said.