Black Noise by Pekka Hiltunen

watching was enough.
    Gradually he noticed that he was also being watched. A man in a leather jacket off to the side was casting brief glances his way. The man never smiled, Brian noticed.
    That wasn’t abnormal. There were ones who didn’t smile. For some of the customers at the Black Cap bar, keeping in character was important. These men never laughed and were never their true selves at the bars. That was part of the attraction, part of their promise of masculinity.
    Brian never quite trusted serious, unsmiling men who sought company by pretending to be rougher than they were. Generally he considered them insecure, small people in whom there was no point taking any interest.
    But this man in the leather jacket looked powerful.
    Brian Fowler wasn’t sure what kind of men he trusted. Thirty-four years of life hadn’t made it any clearer. He did know what kind of men he liked though, and the man in the leather jacket fitted in that group.
    Brian had come out as a sixteen-year-old, revealing his homosexuality to his parents on Mother’s Day, gifting them with the knowledge of something they had always known on some level but which had been too hard to think about. A week later he crossed another line and started visiting the clubs in Manchester. Later he moved to London, meeting more men than he could remember as he greedily drank in the feeling he got from them, a feeling he could not name. Perhaps it was some sort of precursor to love, the expectation of deep companionship. In due time he swallowed the pain of two long-term relationships that didn’t last. Now, he was more than ready for commitment. Of course he didn’t come to the BlackCap for commitment, but a gay man living in London who spent his days dedicated to his work always had a difficult choice of evening entertainment: going out to clubs or home to curl up feeling like you were wasting your life.
    And Evelyn wanted to go out. Her endurance for partying was in a class of its own. Evelyn always wanted to go out in a twosome, preferably three nights a week, which outpaced her many gay friends’ motivation for clubbing, so Evelyn had to take them in turns. Brian had promised her this night. Sometimes you just had to go even if you didn’t want to, because that’s what he and Evelyn did for each other, create opportunities. A big part of their friendship was pushing each other out of the door to experience the feelings they came here for: the longing for people, the knowledge that anything could happen.
    Brian had put on tight black jeans and, after a brief hesitation, his Vivienne Westwood shirt, the right side of which was completely black and the left side of which was bright red, the collar black and red stripes. He had paid a lot for it, and it was a little too small, but sometimes he just had to wear it. To stand out from the crowd if nothing else.
    The man in the leather jacket didn’t smile. But occasionally, very briefly, he looked Brian in the eyes. There was strength in that look.
     
    Half an hour later Brian had drunk two drinks, lost sight of the man in the leather jacket and realised that Evelyn was also going to disappear somewhere too if he wasn’t careful.
    Bars made Evelyn too boisterous. Brian caught sight of her laughing face every now and again as she appeared in his field of vision always in the middle of some new group of friends, and then disappeared again.
    Feeling a light touch on his shoulder, Brian turned.
    The man in the leather jacket was there next to him. The man was older than Brian had thought. But he was also in fantastic shape, Brian could see through his shirt. Muscles.
    The man did not speak.
    ‘Hi,’ Brian said.
    The man still didn’t say anything. He just looked. Brian had never seen eyes like that before. The man’s gaze devoured him.
    Brian smiled quickly. What was the man waiting for? Was he one of the ones who didn’t want to talk at all? Something was wrong. Instead of telegraphing desire, the man’s eyes