The View From Here

July 1976

The following year, Brandon grew out a moustache—Ronnie did too, just to prove he could grow a better one—and started performing in a hotel down on the strip.

It hadn't been in his masterplan—the last time he'd sang in front of anyone was at his sister's wedding—but Ronnie had caught him singing one day, told him he was brilliant and encouraged him to pursue something that made him happy.

"What's wrong with being a bellman all my days?" Brandon had asked. He was lying in bed, naked and on his side. Ronnie had his camera out. "I'm happy as I am."

Brandon had been quietly content with life for a while now; the habitual trips to Las Vegas' gay bars had dwindled, but the number of friends they'd made, despite Brandon's sour first impression, meant there was always a party to be had. Tonight, they'd declined an invitation to go out in favour of satisfying both Ronnie's extracurricular hobby and Brandon's impregnable ego.

"But you could be happier," Ronnie said.

Brandon's body twisted back to look at him. Ronnie always said he had harsh eyes, ones that kept his sensitive soul safe. They were narrowed. "Don't tell me how I feel, Ron."

"Wouldn't dream of it, diva," Ronnie said, snapping a few pictures. "I just think your voice is all pretty. It needs to be heard."

"I'm all all pretty," Brandon muttered, turning back.

He let the idea sit for a while before he did anything about it. Ronnie was a bit more proactive, picking him up an old keyboard to play and always harping on about the bands he'd played in when he was younger. It wasn't a very motivational speech by the time Brandon asked him why he stopped, but at least he was honest about it. At least Brandon now had the image of a twenty-one-year-old Ronnie banging away at the drums, all hot and sweaty like he got when they fucked.

"You're terrible," Ronnie said, laughing as Brandon dragged his teeth up the inside of his bicep.

"You're worse," he retorted.

The worst of all, though, was the nerves. This time as Brandon swallowed some liquid confidence, it wasn't to force himself into a gay bar, but to perform in front of one. They vaguely knew the owner, and she seemed more than willing to give him a slot. Backstage he hung out with a couple of drag queens that were twice his age and threatened to eat him up, but they did his eyeliner up real nice and sent him on stage with a firm smack to his ass.

He wasn't great the first time. He shouted a bit through an Elvis cover but regained a little composure when he stuttered his way to a fairly decent cover of Imagine. Through this until it was over, Brandon kept his eyes on a spot on the floor, screaming in his mind not to be sick. When he finished he heard Ronnie's whoops of celebration and admiration over a smattering of applause.

That was February. By the time May rolled around, Brandon was in a clean fitted suit, singing his lungs out in the red velvet-draped entertainment room of a three-star hotel. He'd given up the cigs but not the booze, still enjoying a drink at the weekend, curled up on the sofa with a beer or shaking his hips to disco trash. Occasionally he went back to the bars he'd played originally, bopping around with a nervous energy that seemed to consume him more without the glitz of his work clothes.

That summer they went to Fire Island, courtesy of an invitation from one of Ronnie's old university friends, Alexander. They were put up in a beach house by some plainspoken friends of Alexander's, an older couple called Jeff and David that worked in television and real estate respectively. If Ronnie didn't know better, he'd think Brandon had some sort of issue with them.

"They're just a bit—gay," Brandon said, pulling up a pair of shorts that just barely covered his ass.

Ronnie scoffed, head shaking. "Says the guy that was sucking my cock last night."

"You know what I mean." Brandon bounced up to cross the room. He ran a flat palm over his stubbly cheeks, the smoothed down the whiskers of his moustache. "I knew things were—different out here, but come on, those dudes are something else."

"You're being a bit of a dick," Ronnie warned him, stepping behind him. He slipped his arms around him, bringing him back against his chest. "Are you going to play nice at the beach?" he asked in Brandon's ear. He felt his body shiver. "Because if you're not, then I'll just have to take you home."

Brandon was well behaved, if not a little sour. A few gin and tonics loosened him up, but it wasn't enough to permanently wipe the scowl from off his face. After dinner, Ronnie asked him what was wrong, but he just shrugged. He didn't really have the words for it, only that it made his spine tingle with something that made him uncomfortable.

"And I don't like all those guys staring at your ass, wanting your cock," Brandon said. He was breathing deep between planting kisses on the side of Ronnie's neck, keeping him pinned against the side of the beach house. Ronnie reached around the back of him, pulling him closer by his ass. "Why can't—why can't anyone accept that? What's so fucking wrong with loving and fucking one person?"

He knew why, sort of. Jeff told them over a glass of wine, about how terrifying and secretive it had been, particularly pre-Stonewall, how he had bypassed his entire youth sexless and under the hang of shame and fear. "Maybe it's a little sad, behaving like this at our age," Jeff said, "but when you've missed out on so much, for almost fifty years, it's hard to deny yourself." Brandon shifted a little where he sat in Ronnie's lap, his arm hooked around his neck, anchoring him close. "It's just a bit of dabbling anyway," he added, waving a hand as David arrived from the kitchen with cocktails. "I always know who I'm coming home to."

Later that night, Brandon stroked a finger through the hair on Ronnie's chest, cheek squashed against his shoulder. "You don't want that, do you?"

Ronnie's fingers were in Brandon's hair. He missed it long sometimes. He hummed in acknowledgement.

Brandon pushed himself up to lean over Ronnie's face. "Like an open relationship. Do you want to fuck other people?"

Ronnie was quiet for a moment, his eyes flitting over Brandon's face. "No, diva, I don't," he said. "Do you—" He was about to ask the same thing in return, but Brandon had shaken his head and ducked down to press their lips together too quickly for him to finish.