Happy Holidays, a-sentimental-man!
Dec. 30th, 2023 05:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
goe_mod posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
go_exchangeRecipient: a-sentimental-man
Rating: T (I hope)
Notes: Merry Christmas, a-sentimental-man! I hope this is about what you had in mind with your inspiring request and that I got the rating right.
The first time Martin saw the man in the Bentley was on the way to his job interview at a porn shop in Soho. The man was parked in front of a nightclub right across from the shop, just sitting in his car, probably waiting for someone. He was young, expensively dressed all in black and wearing sunglasses, even though it was overcast. Martin might have assumed that he was blind if he hadn't been sitting in the driver's seat.
Martin wondered whether he might be a gangster. He'd heard all sorts of scary tales about what went on in this part of the city. Perhaps it would be better if he didn't get the job. But he'd just moved out of his parents' home, and rents in London weren't cheap. He needed a source of income. Besides, working there probably meant free porn. He'd be the envy of all his friends. And it ought to be a good place to meet young and horny single women. There was something missing in Martin's life and he was pretty sure it was a girlfriend.
Heck, most likely the man in the Bentley was the friend of a customer and too shy to be seen entering the shop. So he was waiting outside and hiding his face behind the glasses. Or maybe he worked security for the nightclub and wanted to look scary. Martin really shouldn't be overthinking it. This was Soho. Everybody knew it was full of weird people and that one had better leave them alone and mind one's own business. Martin had a job interview to focus on.
The interview went well and soon Martin was coming to Soho almost every day, selling porn and sex toys. It wasn't quite as exciting as he'd thought it would be. In fact, once you got used to being surrounded by porn all day, the customers became much more interesting than the goods. The customers and the other people around them. There was a sort of community here full of unusual and fascinating personalities. People with all sorts of interesting hobbies and backstories — from the hooker at the street corner that just wanted to make enough money to pay the rent and provide for her baby girl and pet snake to the successful stock broker that couldn't quite work up the nerve to enter a gay bar.Somehow, however, the most interesting person to Martin was the man in the Bentley. He didn't seem to be part of the community. None of Martin's new acquaintances knew his name or why he came. He was around a lot, though. Not every day, but often enough that everybody recognised him as part of the scenery. Sometimes Martin didn't see him for a week or more. Then one day he'd be back just sitting in his vintage car. He didn't arrive at a regular time nor park in the same spot every time. It was always in the vicinity though. He never got out, never arrived or left with anybody else. Still he always seemed to be waiting. Was he a potential customer afraid to enter the shop? He didn't seem young enough for that, but then there was the example of the stock broker ...
After a while however, Martin noticed that the man in the Bentley didn't park that close to the porn shop every time. Sometimes he picked a spot a little further down the road where Martin couldn't see him from inside the shop and he probably couldn't even see the shop door. It wasn't the shop that he was interested in then. Nor did he seem to care about the nightclub either. Martin took to wandering outside during his work breaks and noting all the Bentley's usual parking spots, and found that the one place that was in good sight from all of them was the dusty old bookshop next door to the porn shop. For a long time Martin couldn't figure out why.
The bookshop was a bit of an oddity in Soho. It didn't even sell any porn. At least there weren't any pornographic-sounding titles on the books in the shop window or sexy looking images on the covers. Nor was there a display of colourful magazines. The business seemed to be mostly in used books, though Martin had noticed a few recent titles as well.One day he went inside and bought a book. Just any old mystery to pass the time.
"Something without any sex scenes," he told the plain-looking middle aged man behind the counter. "I'm so tired of porn."
"I can imagine," the bookseller said. "How about some Wilkie Collins? Or maybe Agatha Christie? I believe she is quite popular these days."
He seemed quite well read, quintessentially English and hopelessly old-fashioned. Martin would have declared him a complete misfit for Soho if he hadn't obviously been gayer than a tree full of monkeys on nitrous oxide. That made him just the sort of interesting character that belonged in this world that Martin loved so well.
Martin was fully part of it by then. He knew everybody that was anybody in the community and everybody knew him. Only the bookseller had eluded him so far. He didn't seem to care to interact with his neighbours much and Martin supposed his customers must be a different group of people from those who frequented the porn shop and nightclub or came here for the hookers. All Martin knew was that his name was Mr. Fell ... and that the man in the Bentley was watching him.
It made Martin a little uncomfortable. He liked Mr. Fell, and the man in the Bentley looked like he might be dangerous. What if he was planning some crime against the kindly bookshop owner? Martin considered contacting the police. Increased police presence in the area might keep the man in the Bentley away. It would also keep away many customers and the hookers, though. Nobody except maybe Mr. Fell would thank Martin for that. And Mr. Fell had to be able to take care of himself somehow. Apparently he'd never even had his shop broken into yet. Few other business owners in the area were that lucky. So Martin decided to do nothing except keep a closer eye on the Bentley whenever he could. He'd call the police when there was something concrete to report so they could arrest the man in the Bentley and be done with it.
Months and years went by. Martin got several pay raises and went through a number of successive long-term girlfriends, but still never saw the man in the Bentley do anything other than sit in the car and wait. Until the day after the breakup with the third girlfriend, that is.Martin was rearranging the display in the shop window to draw more attention to some underappreciated soft porn movies and contemplating just what might have gone wrong. The sex had been great. He thought he'd always been considerate of her needs and said all the right things, brought her all the proper gifts and plenty of sex toys as tokens of his love. Still something had always been missing in their relationship, just as it had been in the ones before.
He sighed, reached for the next tape, cast his habitual casual glance towards the Bentley and froze. The Bentley was empty! The man in the Bentley, or more properly now the man from the Bentley, was crossing the street heading straight for the door of the bookshop. A moment later he disappeared inside.
Martin stood in his shop window staring at the closed door and not knowing what to do. He couldn't well call the police because someone had entered a shop through the front door during its opening hours, could he? The police certainly wouldn't consider that any cause for action. But what if the man from the Bentley was threatening Mr. Fell? What if he was beating him up or destroying his books?
Martin stayed in the shop window for over an hour until the man from the Bentley finally came out of the bookshop again and got back into the Bentley, once again becoming the familiar man in the Bentley. He started the car and drove off at a speed that really ought not to have been possible in such dense traffic.
Martin hopped over the window display, back into the shop proper and informed the store manager that he was going on his break a little early. He was feeling slightly light-headed and needed to eat something, he claimed.
Instead he went into the bookshop to check for damage. There was none to be seen. Mr. Fell came out of his backroom as always and looked perfectly happy. Almost unusually happy, in fact.
"Ah, Martin," Mr. Fell greeted him. "What can I do for you this fine day, my dear? Another mystery?"
"No," Martin decided on the spot. "I don't think so. I think I'd like to try something new for variety. Mysteries are all very nice, but not quite ..."
"I see," said Mr. Fell. "How about some romance then?"
"No, thank you," Martin said. "I hear enough about sex during my working hours. I want something different for my spare time reading."
"Not sex, my dear," Mr. Fell corrected. "Romance. A good old-fashioned love story. There are plenty of fine romance novels that don't include a single sex scene. Try this one for a start."
And moments later Martin found himself back on the street returning to the porn shop carrying the sort of book he'd thought only stuffy old housewives read. Quite to his surprise, he even discovered he enjoyed it when he started reading it that evening.
The man in the Bentley returned the very next day and this time turned himself into the man from the Bentley immediately. Martin only just caught a glimpse of him long enough to notice he was carrying what looked like a bottle of wine before he disappeared into the bookshop.A bottle of wine? Oh!
How could he have been so blind! All this time he'd been worried that the man in the Bentley might be planning to do Mr. Fell some harm, when the poor guy had just been trying to work up his nerve to ask him out! How ridiculously shy, cute and endearing that it had taken him so long.
Martin shook his head about himself. He really ought to have at least suspected the truth when he'd realised that Mr. Fell was gay. And come to think of same-sex relationships, perhaps he ought to try it himself sometime. Perhaps what was missing in his life wasn't a girlfriend but a boyfriend. That very same evening Martin accompanied the no longer quite so shy stock-broker to his favourite gay bar.
Over the next few years Martin dated a variety of men, but it didn't prove much better than it had been with the women. It seemed to be working out fine for Mr. Fell and the man from the Bentley, though. Martin saw a lot less of the latter these days, but the Bentley was spending just as much time in the area as it used to, perhaps even a little more. And there were occasional lucky glimpses of the man from the Bentley arriving or leaving. Sometimes Mr. Fell would even come outside to see him off or get into the passenger seat and ride off with him. Martin hoped they were having great dates. They never seemed to go to the nightclub across the road or the gay bars Martin frequented, but then those also didn't quite seem fitting places for Mr. Fell. The man from the Bentley would have blended in just fine, but ...Maybe they were going somewhere a little more old-fashioned, Martin decided. A Jazz club or music hall might suit Mr. Fell. Or perhaps they were going to some lovely secluded place only they knew to be alone together. There couldn't be a lot of those in a metropolis like London, of course, but one never knew. Martin liked to daydream about them actually going to the man from the Bentley's home and ... well, somehow instead of drawing on the hottest scenes from the porn magazines and movies, those imaginings always seemed to end in formal meals, candlelight and both men remaining fully dressed. Nevertheless they were oddly satisfying.
The evident durability of the odd couple's relationship was satisfying as well. They had come together long before Martin had been promoted to assistant manager and they clearly still were an item on the day he became branch manager. He saw them come out of the shop together just as he was contemplating whether to have a celebratory lunch out or order take-out on account of the heavy rain. Mr. Fell opened a tartan umbrella and handed it to the man from the Bentley and then they both huddled close together under it as they crossed the street to the car.
The man from the Bentley opened the passenger side door for Mr. Fell ... and then they stood there for a moment, probably realising the seat-cushions had gotten wet. Then Martin must have blinked or gotten distracted for a moment, because the next moment the cushions had changed from black to tartan. Mr. Fell got in, and the man from the Bentley closed the door and went over to the other side.
Martin blinked a few more times and then decided that Mr. Fell must have brought a tartan blanket from his backroom to sit on. Martin just hadn't noticed it in his hands, because he'd been focussing on how sweet the couple looked sharing the umbrella.
Or maybe his imagination had run away with him. It tended to do that when Mr. Fell and the man from the Bentley were involved. Once when he'd left work late at night in winter he'd even imagined he could see the two of them on the roof with huge bird-like wings sprouting from their backs! What tricks one's imagination could play, when one was tired and lonely.
For a long time the loneliness wasn't all that bad. Martin had plenty of friends and his work, after all. But as the years moved on, things started changing. At first Martin barely noticed it. This or that old customer would suddenly stop coming or tell him they were moving away. The familiar hookers on the street corner were gradually replaced by younger unfamiliar faces. Martin didn't mind that at all, because in many cases he knew that they had found husbands, had children, moved to a nicer neighbourhood or found new and better jobs. He was happy for them.It was a little strange that he never grew to know the new hookers as well anymore, though. Nor did the newer regular customers seem to care to chat with Martin as much as the old ones and when they did Martin didn't quite understand their vocabulary or mentality. They seemed so much younger and less mature these days, even though the age restrictions hadn't changed. Once Martin even overheard one refer to him as a "creepy old man" and started wondering whether it might be time to retire. But what should he retire to? The porn shop and the community around it were the centre of his life.
The shop was changing as well, though. More and more people got their porn on the internet, so the focus changed to bringing in more sex toys while the magazines, and DVDs got fewer and fewer. The good old VHS cassettes had long since disappeared entirely.
Even the street itself was no longer the same. One by one the store fronts got renovated and modernised, businesses closed as owners retired and were replaced by different unfamiliar ones. The nightclub even stood empty for a while until eventually scaffolding went up in front of it and when it came down again there stood a brand new supermarket.
Only Mr. Fell, his bookshop and the man from the Bentley always seemed the same. Odd how the bookseller had seemed middle-aged when Martin had first met him and now appeared almost young. It must be love keeping him spry and light-hearted. A young energetic lover like the man from the Bentley would probably do that for one. Funny how he too didn't look a single day older than the day Martin had first seen him sitting in the Bentley when he himself had been just a kid looking for a career. Now Martin was an old man contemplating retirement and the man from the Bentley was still young and handsome. Only his clothes had changed along with the fashions and he'd acquired a new pair of more expensive-looking sunglasses. Sometimes Martin even wondered whether he had a picture of himself hidden away in an attic somewhere.
He clung to his job for a few more years, but it didn't relieve the loneliness the way it used to. When he realised it was only making it worse anymore, he took the plunge. On his last day of work he cleared out his locker, handed the store keys to the new branch manager and promised he'd stop by from time to time to see how they were doing. Deep down, he knew that he wouldn't, though. He wanted to remember the shop and the community as they had been in his younger years, not see further changes.His way home took him past the bookshop one last time. The Bentley was standing right in front of it, and just as Martin was about to reach the shop door, it swung open and Mr. Fell and the man from the Bentley came out smiling and happy. What luck to see them one last time!
"Good evening, Mr. Fell!" Martin called out.
Mr. Fell stopped while the man from the Bentley moved on and got into his car.
"Ah Martin! Retiring at last, I hear," the bookseller said with a glance at the box of belongings in Martin's hands.
"Yes," Martin said. "It was time."
"Come on, Angel!" the man from the Bentley called impatiently. "The Ritz is waiting!"
"Just a moment, Crowley!" Mr. Fell called back.
So the name of the man from the Bentley was Crowley! Funny how he should only learn that now after watching him for so many years.
"I've got to go," Mr. Fell told Martin. "We're in a bit of a hurry. Happy retirement, though. And do stop by if you are ever in town and in need of a book."
"I will," Martin said and somehow knew deep down that it was true. "Have a good evening out, Mr. Fell."
He stayed and waved after them as they drove off. Dinner at the Ritz. How classy! Martin hoped that there'd be candles and maybe a nice romantic walk hand in hand afterwards.
Only a little later when he was sitting in the tube did he remember what Mr. Fell had said: if you are ever in town. Yes, Martin thought, that was it. He'd leave the city, get a nice little cottage in some small village and take up gardening. And perhaps knitting. Those places usually had knitting clubs, didn't they? With most of the members being nice retired ladies who'd led interesting lives and loved to chat. That should fix the loneliness, and with a little luck, some of them would be single, too. Perhaps with one of them Martin would finally find the sort of deep, enduring love that Mr. Fell and Crowley had. True love, not the boring old sex and lust. He'd leave those behind with the porn shop.
With a happy spring in his step Martin got off the train and walked away into a new life.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-30 11:25 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-30 11:56 am (UTC)Gentle and lovely
Date: 2023-12-30 01:53 pm (UTC)Re: Gentle and lovely
Date: 2024-01-04 11:44 am (UTC)Roughly 80s to present, but I never fixed any dates.
I hadn't quite thought of someone like Madam Tracy either, but yes, I do believe he will find the right woman in his new life.
(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-31 05:23 am (UTC)Gotta learn about Romance, my boy :)
Omg and the STOCK-BROKER. The TWIST!
The tartan seat cushions XD
Nice Dorian Gray reference!
This was so sweet. Them being an inspiration to him for all those years, just like they are to us all :)
(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-04 11:47 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2023-12-31 05:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2024-01-04 11:52 am (UTC)Love this!!
Date: 2024-01-02 10:00 pm (UTC)Re: Love this!!
Date: 2024-01-04 11:59 am (UTC)I'm so glad you liked it! I was a bit worried about the rating, but Martin and the porn shop have been next to Aziraphale's bookshop in my mind for years and your prompt seemed so perfect for them in every other way. I hope it didn't detract from your reading experience.
Re: Love this!!
Date: 2024-01-05 11:14 pm (UTC)