Excerpt from Counterpoint: Dylan's Story

Dylan, in Paris to study music without his father’s knowledge or approval, gets reacquainted with the teacher he had secretly fallen head over heels in love with his last year at The Venerable Bede School for Young Gentlemen. Laurence Northcliff, the teacher, had left the school to pursue writing in Paris. Since they are no longer teacher and student, Dylan sees nothing to stop him from seducing Laurence. All he has to do is come up with a scheme to get his way. Though he doesn’t know it yet, he is planning to seduce someone who doesn’t need seducing.

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Dylan’s life settled into a pleasant, productive routine. Mondays and Fridays, he went to Naszados. Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, he worked alone, concentrating on his music until his head pounded. Rob, though still as mystified as ever by Dylan’s devotion to his dream, persuaded the hotel manager to grant Dylan the use of the ballroom piano. Dylan told himself that Rob was a good friend and he didn’t appreciate him nearly enough.

Friday nights and Saturdays, Dylan and Laurence attended a play, opera, symphony, ballet, or sometimes just joined an informal gathering of Laurence’s friends. He knew an astonishing number of people of all kinds: rich and poor, painters, musicians, shop girls, poets and barbers, and people without identifiable occupations or discernable morals. Without exception they had great affection and respect for Laurence. Dylan gradually became at ease among them, and though he liked Madame Daumier well enough, he wished she were not present nearly everywhere they went. He knew his first impression had been right: Ivy Daumier was in love with Laurence.

So was a woman who lived at 58 Rue de Savies. She was a plain woman, with a loud, coarse voice, a demimondaine, as Laurence delicately put it. Laurence treated her with the same kindness he treated everyone. The woman, Josephine Marie, brought well-meant but inedible cakes to Laurence every Saturday and looked accusingly at Dylan whenever she found him there.

On sunny Sundays, he and Laurence went to the Bois de Boulogne, where they rented horses and enjoyed the miles of bridle paths. Rather, Laurence enjoyed them and Dylan faked enthusiasm; Dylan and horses had never been on good terms and it was damnably difficult to maintain one’s dignity when one’s arse felt as if it had been beaten raw and one’s thighs had turned to quivering gelatin.

Dylan thought often of Laurence’s statement that their new status was “not very” like the old days. There seemed to be only one thing they never talked about; with every hour they spent together, Dylan became more determined that they would talk about it. And he intended to do more than talk. They went one night to see Lucia di Lammermoor, and the tragic beauty of the acting and the music left a residue of emotion.

In the gig, in the darkness, Dylan put one hand on Laurence’s knee, crossed the fingers of his other hand, and said, “I have to tell you something. Will you promise to listen?” Laurence said he would. Dylan’s heart pounded as he blurted, “You said yourself I’m not your student anymore. I’m a grown man and I know what I want from life. I know what I want from you. I’m not putting it very well, but… damn it all, do you know what I’m trying to say?”

“Yes.” Laurence’s voice was low, calm, serious.

Dylan moved closer on the seat, until he felt the heat of Laurence’s thigh against his own. “What is it about you that makes me persist in making a fool of myself?”

There was the hint of amusement in Laurence’s voice. “Dear boy, you don’t need my help to make a fool of yourself. You’re more than capable of doing it all alone.”