Waiting Game

He had come to think that beauty was only ever a brief interruption in the otherwise indifferent flow of things. Rain painted the red of the traffic light across the street, and for a fleeting moment the austere scent of petrichor made it beautiful. The man pulled his mobile phone from the pocket of his burgundy trench coat to capture an image of it that maybe no one would ever see. But his phone informed him that the storage was full, leaving nothing to preserve. He slid it back into his coat and continued walking. The rain fell harder, and umbrellas appeared instantaneously. Navy, black, small enough to fit in glove compartments. He did not own a car. He held a licence but could not afford insurance or registration. That was why he was walking to the tram stop after finishing work, though not why he walked without an umbrella. At the stop, the glowing screen indicated his tram would arrive in nine minutes. He sat on the bench and spritzed perfume into his hair to mask the wet odour. With chilled fingers, he picked up a peppermint-flavoured lip balm, its lid scored as if run over, and spread it across his parched, cracked lips for the third time that day. In a trice he bent his leg back, retied his shoelace, and looked left despite the screen’s warning of eight minutes now. The tram was not there, yet he continued to look anyway. 

When he realised with sudden awareness that there was a woman beside him staring, he sprang. She leant against the glass with her eyes fixated on him. He tightened his shoelaces again, though they had not loosened. Her uncompromising gaze was not hostile, nor even particularly inquisitive, but its steadiness persisted, which had unsettled him more corrosively than overt aggression could ever achieve. He wondered if she recognised him from some forgotten encounter they could’ve had — a momentary meeting during their lives that had left no impression on him yet remained in her memory. Or perhaps, contrariwise, she did not recognise him at all, and her stare was nothing more than engendered by the untethered mind. Paradoxically — and with a discomposure that he could not rationalise — it was precisely that the latter disturbed the man even more, for it implied either that his ontological presence was contingent upon the fortuitous delusions of another or, more intolerably, that it revealed the fragility and provisionality of his own existence. And yet he could not discern why the possibility was so displeasing: to be remembered by a stranger as nothing beyond the surface her distraction had chosen to occupy.

Then she told him that he looked bored. 

‘I am waiting for my tram,’ he replied to her.

‘That is the same thing.’

‘Is it?’

‘Well, I read that boredom and waiting are neurologically identical,’ she said lightly.

‘Where did you read that?’

‘A bus stop poster. About mindfulness.’

He looked back at the tracks.

‘Do you take this tram every day?’ she asked, tilting her head.

‘Most days.’

‘I don’t. I like to mix it up. It keeps life interesting.’

‘Right.’

‘Once I caught a tram I didn’t need and got off wherever it stopped. It was quite liberating.’

‘Was it?’

‘You should try it.’

‘I should not.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I have somewhere to be.’

She studied him. ‘You don’t like to experiment?’

‘I do not like talking at tram stops.’

‘But you are doing it.’

‘Not for long.’ He put one earbud in.

‘Where are you going?’ she asked.

‘It’s pretty much none of your business.’

‘You have good posture,’ she added. ‘Do the girls you date like that?’ 

‘Random thing to say.’

A tram passed in the opposite direction, empty except for a single passenger asleep against the window.

She crossed her arms, looking down the tracks. ‘How long do you think until it comes?’

‘Five minutes. Because that’s what it says on the screen.’

‘That’s an eternity!’

He glanced at her, unimpressed. ‘You are one of those insufferable people who can’t stand silence, aren’t you?’

‘Not true. I can be silent for hours. Just not with strangers, weirdly.’

‘Then don’t make me a stranger.’

‘What should I make you, then?’

He shrugged. ‘Nothing.’

‘You’d prefer to be nothing?’

‘Right now, yes.’

‘Alright,’ she said, tilting her head again, studying his face like she ought to sketch it. ‘But if you are nothing, then I am talking to nothing. Which makes me strange.’

‘You said it!’

She laughed, a little too loudly. He noticed a man at the far end of the stop looked up from his phone and frowned before returning to the screen.

‘You’ll remember me,’ she said after a pause.

‘Will I?’

‘Yes, I’m very memorable.’

‘Oh, how I highly doubt that is true.’

‘You will. You’ll think about this later, when the tram has moved past and the city is just a vague remembrance. You’ll wonder why you didn’t listen longer or engage with me further.’

‘Actually, I’ll be thinking about how much I dislike waiting for trams and how much I dislike waiting for conversations to end.’

‘You intrigue me,’ she said.

The tram’s lights appeared in the distance.

‘Alright,’ he said, ‘well, because I do not know you, I’m going to end this conversation now.’

He put the other earbud in. She continued to stare. She opened her mouth to speak, but a tram arrived. It was not his tram, yet he boarded anyway. The experience she had described prior was now his. Though, was it liberating? Not entirely.

After twenty-five minutes, he arrived at the wine bar on Hardware Lane. The rain had slowed outside, but the glass was still streaked. He moved to a table by the window and dropped his bag. The chairs scraped under the sound of people who were already here, talking over each other. When he checked his phone, he realised that eight o’clock had well and truly passed. Sorry, running late. Be there soon. He read it again, as if that could speed things up. The man sat his phone down and didn’t bother to offer a response. Suddenly, the screen flickered, glitching, the message jumping a few pixels. A weather alert popped up. Nobody had asked for it. He swiped it away. 

The bar wasn’t grand. Old, wobbly tables sat scattered around, each one a little askew and seemingly laced into. The shelves behind the counter were quite crowded, bottles jammed together without order or cohesion. Patrons came and went. They ordered drinks and walked past the bar. They leant against counters like they owned the place, then left. It discommoded him how this place’s clientele talked too loudly and laughed too hard, as if volume could disguise their meaningless dialogue. Seemingly everyone had pretended the rain didn’t exist outside, and he had hazarded a guess that was due to a lack of performative stoicism. 

The man kept glancing at his phone. Fifteen minutes. Twenty. Half an hour. Waiting, he realised, wasn’t about time. It was about noticing. Or noticing that you were noticing. He abominated the very idea of that. He thought about texting, but there was nothing useful to say. Just waiting. Subsequently, he checked his reflection in the window. Rain-smeared lights made the city outside look aquarelle. Glow from the bars and signs ran across the wet street in streaks of pink, green, and blue. He tried to imagine it differently. Instead, he pretended it was a painting rather than a cold, gloomy street. Yet to no avail.

A server walked past with a tray of glasses, balancing it like it mattered more than it did. That — someone taking their job too seriously — was an aversion of his. He imagined the server spilling a drink and the glass shattering and the smell just pervading. 

The server paused suddenly, leaning slightly toward him. ‘Are you waiting for someone?’

‘Yes,’ he answered.

‘Do you know when they’ll arrive?’ 

‘No.’

She adjusted the tray. ‘Well, would you like a drink while you wait? Wine, gin, or whisky? It’s on the house.’

‘Don’t do that.’

She blinked. ‘Excuse me?’

‘Do not pity me in my brief solitude. I’m fine.’

The server raised an eyebrow, muttering something under her breath that was inaudible for him. 

A man came in then, his coat damp from the rain and his dark hair flattened against his forehead. He stopped at the table with a reluctant posture, as if he’d rather not be there at all.

‘Are you here for someone?’ he said.

‘Yes.’

‘Alright. I think that’s me? I’m David. Nelson’s roommate.’

‘I know,’ he said. ‘You’re late. More than half an hour.’

David ignored that. He sat and looked him over. ‘So you’re Panagiotis?’

‘Correct.’

David’s face was narrow, and he spoke without moving much of it. His hands were long and bony, and his fingers were interlacing with each other. He looked older than Panagiotis expected — thirty-four, maybe — and it made him realise he should ask the age of the guy behind the blind date before agreeing to meet.

‘That’s a lot.’

‘Okay.’

‘What’s your English name?’

‘Peter.’

David frowned. ‘Why not go by Peter then?’

‘Why would I? I was born in Greece.’

‘And?’

‘And that expectation — to conform to English standards — is colonial.’

David raised an eyebrow. ‘Colonial?’

‘Yes. To want everyone to speak, behave, and even exist as you do. That is colonial.’

And then David swiftly changed the subject. He asked what Panagiotis did for work, as though everything just said could be filed away under resume conversation. This struck Panagiotis as typical hyper-capitalist pragmatism: assessing life only by productivity, reducing people to occupations,  and practising curiosity in place of genuine engagement. All the while ignoring the absurdities that structure society, the contradictions sitting in plain sight. Panagiotis was twenty-two and already tired of men like this.

Panagiotis answered, ‘I transcribe for the courts. People repeating themselves, swearing, and lying on occasion. Mostly tedious work.’

‘Sounds riveting,’ David said. ‘I’m an aeronautical engineer.’

Well, I didn’t ask what you are, Panagiotis thought. But he replied, ‘That sounds uncreative.’

David smirked. ‘Planes are uncreative?’

‘Yes. As you are repeating what has already been perfected, nothing new emerges from you.’

‘Bit rich coming from a transcriber.’

‘Well, transcription preserves truth.’

‘Does it? Or is it just typing faster than people talk?’

‘That’s an intellectually impoverished way of regarding it.’

David set the glass down. ‘Do you respect your transcriptions?’

‘They are not mine to respect. They belong to the state. What’s the relevance?’

‘So you’re just a keyboard with a name badge then?’

‘That is a mindless metaphor.’

‘That’s why it works.’

The server came over and interrupted. David ordered a glass of pinot. Panagiotis asked for a negroni but requested the gin be stirred with a bar spoon of a certain length to “control dilution.” The server nodded politely and walked off. 

‘You like being difficult,’ David said.

‘Rather, I like being correct.’

‘I think the truth is that you’re just unnecessarily being a contrarian.’

‘A contrarian,’ Panagiotis repeated softly, rolling the word in his mouth like a sour grape. He gave no further answer.

After fifteen minutes, the drinks arrived, positioned on a small tray that wobbled slightly with the server’s anxious stance. A different server this time, an inexperienced young man, scarcely eighteen and presumably recently licensed with his RSA. Panagiotis lifted his glass, held it to the light, and gave it a swirl of assessment. His expression collapsed into a slight frown, a look of disapproval as if the world had dared to defy his command. He asked, with utmost courtesy, for a curl of orange peel instead of the clumsy wedge resting against the rim. David rolled his eyes, and Panagiotis ignored his derisive kinesic behaviour. The server inclined his head once more, retreating towards the bar with the obedience of someone accustomed to such refinements by his clients. Panagiotis stirred his negroni slowly. Across the table, David’s hand brushed the back of his chair, lingering on it for too long. It wasn’t quite a touch, but it wasn’t quite absent either. Panagiotis moved an inch away, but David chose not to notice. 

Panagiotis said, ‘Yuko said you were clever.’

‘Did she?’

‘Yes. However, I don’t know if I’d agree. Mistakenly, I assumed you’d have more grace.’

David gave a half laugh. ‘This is going well.’

‘Sorry that I did not come here for optimism.’

‘What did you come here for?’

‘On a dare.’

David looked stunned. ‘Is that true now?’

‘Borderline.’

David tapped his glass. ‘On the other hand, Nelson told me you’d be a bit intense. I didn’t think he meant this.’

‘I do not like Nelson.’

‘He’s my roommate.’

‘Yes. Which is quite unfortunate.’

‘Right.’ David leant back, laughing. ‘I assume you go to the gym.’

‘Not really.’

‘Then you must swim. Your shoulders suggest that you do.’

Panagiotis smirked. ‘Perhaps it’s genetic.’

‘Don’t be boring,’ David said.

‘Well, you are boring me as well. Feelings are mutual.’

They sat in silence for a while. The bar filled with a louder group near the entrance. One of them knocked a chair over, but nobody bothered to pick it up. Panagiotis noticed a woman appearing at the top of the spiral staircase, and for a moment he just watched. Slowly, and almost carefully, she moved down, her hand lightly grazing the railing. The bar’s noise receded without him even trying. The woman made her way toward the bathroom, and for an instant he wondered if the line was long and if she had to wait. That was how bored he had become.

David set his glass down harder than he meant to. ‘You want another?’

‘No.’

‘Alright.’

David lifted a hand for the server and asked for the bill.

Panagiotis frowned. ‘Why? Are you leaving already?’

‘I’m not leaving. We’re just not drinking here anymore.’

‘Where then?’

David’s eyes lingered too long before he said it. ‘My place.’

Panagiotis adjusted his stance, shoulders tightening. ‘That is forward.’

‘So was your critique of my career.’

‘That was honesty.’

‘Same thing.’

Panagiotis turned to the window; the rain had faintly returned. He pressed his finger into the napkin, folding it until the fibres strained.

‘You can keep correcting me when we’re naked,’ David said. ‘Might be more entertaining.’

Panagiotis faced him again. His voice was level. ‘You must be superficial.’

David smiled as though it cost him nothing. ‘And you like that.’

Panagiotis finished his drink in one motion, the empty glass clinking down with more force than he’d intended.

David leant in, elbow to table. ‘We should just go. Get out of here. Have sex.’

Panagiotis stiffened. ‘No.’

David chuckled, but the sound was cursory. ‘Sorry? What do you mean, no?’

The laugh didn’t match his steady, unblinking eyes, as though the refusal had slid off him untouched.

‘I mean, I do not want to have sex with you.’

‘But you’ve been staring all night.’

‘Actually, I have not.’

‘It’s just sex.’

His smile faltered, though his voice did not. Panagiotis caught the slip: not seduction but refusal to register refusal. A small fracture in the charm, perhaps?

‘That would be a commitment,’ Panagiotis said, carefully.

‘It doesn’t have to be. It can just be fun.’

‘While you call it fun, I call it empty.’

David leant in further, crowding the air between them. ‘Come on. We’d be good together.’

‘You are not listening. I will not go home with you.’

David tilted his head, a smile still drawn, but it no longer reached the eyes. ‘Why not? You don’t find me attractive?’

‘That is not it.’

‘Then what? You’re scared? Or maybe you like pretending you’re not interested.’

‘Do not tell me what I like.’

David drained what was left of his glass, then set it down harder than needed. ‘Jesus. You’re impossible!’

Panagiotis gave a short laugh.

‘Say it properly,’ David pressed. ‘Say you don’t want me.’

‘I do not want you.’ 

David’s smile stiffened. ‘So you’d rather go home and read?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s pathetic.’

‘Is it?’

‘You’ll regret it.’

‘Will I?’

The silence that followed carried a weight out of proportion to the words. The server arrived with the receipt. David scrawled his signature hard enough that the pen ripped through, then shoved it back.

‘Well,’ he said. His tone was light, but his grip on the glass was white-knuckled. ‘Thanks for nothing.’

Panagiotis pushed his chair back, steady. ‘You’re welcome.’

David stood too quickly, leaning across the table just close enough that his shadow crossed Panagiotis’s face. His voice dropped as he was leaving. ‘You’ll change your mind. People always do.’

Refusal, Panagiotis saw, was a language David had never learned. And men who could not learn a language always found another way to speak.

* * *

On Saturday morning, Panagiotis missed Yuko’s call while in a Pilates class. During the exercises, David infiltrated his thoughts, and he didn’t like it. Between stretches and lifts, his mind circled back to him again and again. When class had ended, Panagiotis wiped the sweat from his forehead, slung his bag over his shoulder, and set off down the street, hands buried in his jacket pockets. He checked his watch, and it was quarter past ten. Still too early in the morning for living. As he adjusted his bag strap, he carried on, thinking of nothing and, despite himself, thinking of David again.

Then, Yuko called Panagiotis again. This time, he picked up.

‘Hello, Panagiotis.’

‘Hi.’

‘How was last night?’

‘Unbearable.’

‘Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t understand why Nelson thought we’d click.’

‘David isn’t that bad. You’re being dramatic.’

Panagiotis didn’t offer a response.

‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I wanted to ask you something. Do you remember Nelson and my friend from Sydney? Her name’s Anita.’

‘Sure.’

‘She just moved to Melbourne. Her housewarming is tonight, and she barely knows anyone. I thought you might want to attend. She needs the numbers.’

‘I’m not interested. And I’m not a number.’ 

‘Why do you have to be like that? So stubborn! It’ll be fun. You’ll meet people, have a drink, chat.’

Panagiotis paused by the kerb. ‘I don’t do “fun,” Yuko. You know that.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘How is it not?’ He glanced at an elderly woman walking her beagle passing by and stepped aside.

‘Panagiotis, please. For once, just attend.’

‘I don’t see why.’

‘Because you’re not going to sit at home staring at the ceiling all night. You’ll survive a couple of hours.’

‘A couple of hours.’ He considered it, as if assessing the exact risk. ‘Still, no.’

‘You owe me,’ Yuko said.

‘For?’

‘For getting you out of your mother’s birthday.’

He paused. ‘Okay, fine. What time?’ 

‘Seven.’

‘I’ll be there at quarter to nine.’

Yuko laughed. ‘You’re impossible.’ Then she hung up.

Panagiotis stepped on the tram with his earbuds in and an iced chai latte in his left hand. Sliding into a seat by the window, he folded his hands and caught the reflection of himself in the glass: neatly trimmed hair, a hoop in his upper helix, and smooth skin except for the eczema that recently began permeating around his lower neck. Around him, he counted the passengers, wondering how many of them were lying or pretending or waiting for something or someone.

* * *

‘Have you decided if you’re going out tonight?’ Jamie asked from the couch, not looking up from his game of sudoku.

‘I might,’ Panagiotis said. 

His tone was evasive, as if the word “might” gave him sovereignty all of a sudden. He did not add that he was already running mental calculations of how late he could arrive without seeming disengaged, how many conversations he could possibly endure, and how many smiles would feel like obligations. 

Jamie was Panagiotis’ roommate. Once, he thought Jamie was elegant. Now he only clutched at whatever was nearest. They were exes. That word made it sound dramatic, like someone had cried. Nobody had. They simply had just ended their correspondence. Panagiotis said, ‘I don’t think this is working,’ and Jamie said, ‘Fine,’ and then they still had to buy toilet paper together the next day at the grocery store. They didn’t move out. It was easier to keep the apartment than to divide furniture, and easier to keep sleeping together sometimes than to explain why not. The sex didn’t mean anything. At least, not to Panagiotis. It was like taking paracetamol or ibuprofen. Necessary for relief but never memorable afterwards. Jamie probably read more into it. He always did. Panagiotis watched Jamie sitting on the couch, wholly engaged. Nothing about him had changed. Not his hair, not the angle of his jaw. Just the meaning had gone, like looking at a chair that used to be comfortable but now squeaks when you sit on it. 

Jamie turned the page slowly, with intent. ‘You’ve been a “might” for three hours. It’s pathological indecision at this point. You either want to go or you don’t.’

‘Well, I am considering the consequences.’

‘Of what?’

‘Of attending.’

Jamie glanced at him. ‘You mean standing in a room full of people you already dislike, pretending you’re not counting the minutes until you can leave? I think you can survive it.’

Panagiotis smoothed his sleeve. ‘Surviving is not my idea of a worthwhile evening.’

‘Yes, because your ideal evening consists of being superior to everyone in the room,’ Jamie said, eyes still on the page. ‘Which, incidentally, requires you to actually be in the room.’

‘Or,’ Panagiotis countered, ‘I can remain superior in absentia. There’s no expiration date on superiority.’

Jamie laughed lightly. ‘You should embroider that on a pillow or a t-shirt.’

‘I just don’t think waiting is avoidance. It is choosing the exact point at which to act. Never will I dare to act prematurely.’

Jamie finally looked up from his sudoku. ‘So you’re saying if you arrive at this party at exactly — what? Eight fifty-four? — then the universe will reward you with a conversation that doesn’t bore you?’

‘It’s about probability. The later I arrive, the fewer conversations I must tolerate.’

‘Or the fewer conversations tolerate you,’ Jamie shot back.

Panagiotis didn’t respond, letting the silence expand, a knowing and familiar silence for the two. 

Jamie folded the puzzle book, tossing it onto the coffee table. ‘If you’re so set on not going, then don’t. But don’t hover around here, pretending you’re in some Greek tragedy about social obligation.’

‘I’m not pretending.’

‘Exactly my point,’ Jamie said. ‘You’d rather sit here, categorising types of waiting in your head, than risk one imperfect night out. Don’t be so calculating.’

Panagiotis stood, adjusting his pants seams. ‘You actually know nothing of tragedy.’

Jamie laughed. ‘Why do you look sexy while you are tense.’

‘I’m upright.’

‘Same thing.’

‘Not at all.’

Jamie smiled almost to himself. He did not look at Panagiotis for long. They remained where they were, two men suspended in a shared afterlife of a relationship. And waiting was what Panagiotis and Jamie did best. For the lease to expire, for one of them to finally move out, for the arrangement to exhaust itself. And sometimes, waiting meant nothing more than the pause before they fucked again. 

* * *

Panagiotis stood under the awning, phone in hand. The Uber app had promised arrival at eight thirty-five. Now it said eight thirty-seven. Then eight forty. He tapped refresh, thumb pulsing on the glass screen. Spinning circles, recalculating, rerouting. Nothing changed. He swiped up to check the map, and there was no car in sight. He tapped the ETA again. Seven minutes. Five. Nine. Each fluctuation felt derisive, mocking! He scrolled through notifications that were in Do Not Disturb and ignored them all. He considered cancelling and reordering, but then a new ETA appeared. Rain darkened the pavement, he noticed. He exhaled and tapped refresh once more. 

When the Uber finally pulled up at the kerb, the indicator blinked like it was impatient. Panagiotis slid into the back seat, brushing rain from his jacket. The heater blasted warm air that was fragrant of almond vanilla.

‘Evening,’ the driver said cheerfully. ‘How cold is it out there?’

‘Right,’ Panagiotis remarked, ‘especially when you’re unnecessarily waiting for long.’

It was eight fifty-six when Panagiotis arrived at Anita’s residence. Just late enough to imply disinterest but not late enough to suggest rudeness. Everything he did was intentional and orchestrated. He rang the buzzer and waited, hands in his jacket pockets. The building smelled of wet concrete and eucalyptus, the perfume of Melbourne after rain. Upstairs, the apartment door opened to a burst of sound — laughter, Italian music, and the clink of glasses. Yuko greeted him with an effusive smile.

‘You came!’ she said, as though his presence were a small miracle.

‘It appears so!’ he replied with fake enthusiasm, stepping inside.

The apartment was warm and cluttered with more bodies and faces than Yuko had made it out to be. Every surface claimed by coats, cups, or elbows. Panagiotis scanned the room as if he were entering a waiting room rather than a party. 

‘Drink?’ Yuko offered.

‘If it will make me appear engaged,’ he said.

She laughed, though she looked unsettled, and pressed a glass into his hand. He didn’t ask what was in it.

Nelson materialised beside him, in an oversized shirt patterned with cartoon dogs, for some reason. ‘Panagiotis! You look like someone who wants to leave already.’

‘I’m trying to decide if the act of staying is more tedious than the act of leaving,’ Panagiotis replied.

Nelson grinned. ‘Classic. You know, not everything is a philosophical dilemma, right?’

‘No,’ Panagiotis said, flatly. ‘Everything actually is.’

‘Even this party?’

‘Especially this party.’

Nelson clinked his own glass against Panagiotis’s. ‘Then philosophise later. Tonight is about fun.’

‘Fun,’ Panagiotis repeated, as though testing the word for weakness.

‘I forgot to ask,’ Nelson added, ‘how did your date with David go?’

Panagiotis sipped his drink before answering. ‘It was fine.’

‘Fine?’ Nelson raised his eyebrows. ‘That’s all I get?’

‘Brief, then.’

Nelson laughed. ‘Brief how? Like, good-brief or bad-brief?’

‘Brief as in not worth expanding on.’

Nelson tilted his head, grinning. ‘You’re impossible. He’s charming, you know. You two would actually look good together.’

‘Charm,’ Panagiotis said dryly, ‘isn’t the same as substance. Also, why are you roommates with someone so geriatric?’

‘God, you sound like a review in The Age. One date and suddenly you’re a critic.’

‘I prefer not to waste words,’ Panagiotis replied, already turning his eyes back to the crowd.

Nelson shook his head, still smiling. ‘Well, I like him. And he’s coming tonight, so maybe you’ll get your chance at more words.’

Panagiotis didn’t respond. Instead, he just let the information sit in the back of his mind. So the evening wasn’t merely a housewarming; it actually was a waiting room, and David was the delayed appointment. Undoubtedly, Panagiotis despised the symmetry of all of it, this ugly sense of harmonious and beautiful proportion. The thought of David arriving made his stomach tighten with a mixture of both boredom and anticipation. It was absurd to feel both. Panagiotis had already dismissed David once. Yet here he was, rehearsing dismissals in advance, as though bracing himself for a performance he pretended not to care about. 

* * *

The front door opened with a rush of cold air, and suddenly the room tilted on its axis. David entered as if he had been expecting it at that very moment, though no one had been looking at the door a handful of minutes earlier. His laugh arrived first before any salutations began and conversations could veer into his sphere. ‘David!’ Yuko cried, her voice pitching upward. Panagiotis didn’t know it could reach any higher. She crossed the room to embrace him, her movements uncharacteristically ungraceful, as though his presence had turned her into this gauche individual. Nelson was next, waving with both arms. Anita abandoned her monologue mid-sentence to watch him shrug off his coat. Someone turned the music down without being asked. It was obscene, Panagiotis thought, how quickly equilibrium had dissolved. How spellbinding and enthralling one’s arrival could possibly be! How suddenly everyone was waiting for his words and his preaching. David dispensed greetings all around as if he were the pope at a papal mass. A kiss on Yuko’s cheek, an embrace for Anita, a clasp of Nelson’s shoulder; he made everyone feel personally chosen, as though their night was ameliorated by his acknowledegment. Panagiotis dawdled by the balcony door, watching the scene unfold with the protective distance of an anthropologist. Panagiotios had become anthropogenic in this very moment, observing and noting how people leant closer when David spoke and how laughter erupted way too quickly, desperate to remain in his trajectory. It was not charisma, Panagiotis decided. It was choreography that David must have prepared and planned and rehearsed for days on end for gatherings like this one. He had seen this performance before by many: in bars, in cafés, on dates. Panagiotis believed himself to be so well accustomed to such operations by men that he was able to discern David’s act without much mental effort at all. In fact, every smile David conjured up for patrons was just practised right in front of a mirror for hours and days on end, and every anecdote was rehearsed and refined and eventually mastered. Still, Panagiotis could not deny his effect. Even he felt the violent, sudden shaking of the ground catastrophically. He felt as if the room itself propelled him to turn, to listen, to participate in this production David put on. Nelson caught his eye and mouthed, I told you so. Panagiotis ignored him, looking away and refusing such an invitation. His glass was nearly empty; he pretended to study it. David, meanwhile, was telling a tedious story about getting caught in the rain on his way there, his hair dripping onto the tram floor, and how an elderly man who sat across from him kindly offered him tissues. Nothing remarkable, yet the room was fucking rapt and enlightened! Somehow he had transfigured inconvenience into comedy, and Panagiotis wondered if this was what it meant to be alive — to offer yourself up constantly as entertainment, to demand and deserve attention at any given moment. If so, he was a poor actor then. And David had mastered the importance of being in this world. But as his laughter broke again across the crowd, Panagiotis felt the sting of being outside the circle, of being deemed as irrelevant. The night had begun, and already David was ahead. 

* * *

Panagiotis pushed through the sliding glass door and stepped into the rooftop air. The space smelt of damp concrete, a reminder to him that the city was still soaked from the storm. Below, trams glided through the streets, some almost completely empty and others not in service. He lit no cigarette but held one anyway. He waited, again. Waiting had become his only honest comportment. Waiting for the cigarette he wasn’t smoking, for the city to dry up, for himself to decide whether to leave. Bitterly, he thought that he had spent his life rehearsing departures, yet never once left at the right moment. Always too early or too late. 

The door clicked open then. Footsteps padded across the wet surface in an instant. They were David’s.

‘There you are,’ he said, his voice almost jovial at his discovery.

Panagiotis didn’t turn. ‘You’ve found me.’

‘Not hard. You’re the only one who sneaks out of a party like your attendance is prohibited.’

‘It isn’t my party,’ Panagiotis replied, eyes fixed on the city skyline.

‘Still. You vanish, and suddenly everyone wonders where you’ve gone.’

‘Did they, now?’ Panagiotis let the scepticism sharpen his tone.

‘Well — Yuko,’ David admitted, smiling. ‘And maybe me.’

That made Panagiotis turn. David was leaning against the railing with superfluous poise. His hair was still damp, curling faintly at the edges; his shirt clung in uneven patches from the rain. He looked irritatingly alive, as though God had chosen him for his centrepiece. 

‘You seem to enjoy yourself downstairs,’ Panagiotis said.

‘Enjoy myself?’

‘The crowd. The laughter. The attention that arises from your effortless charm.’

David tilted his head, studying him. ‘So you were watching.’

‘I observe,’ Panagiotis corrected. ‘Everyone was. You aren’t subtle whatsoever.’

‘Same thing.’

‘No, observation implies intentional distance. I refuse to be proximal to you.’

‘And yet —’ David took a step closer, his grin infuriatingly soft. ‘Here you are.’

Panagiotis’s mouth tightened. ‘You followed me here.’

David laughed. ‘Do you always talk like this? Like everything’s warfare?’

‘Only when everything feels like an ambush,’ Panagiotis said.

David’s eyes flickered, curious. ‘Is that what this is?’

‘You tell me,’ Panagiotis replied, his voice hoarse.

David studied him for a moment. ‘You don’t have to resist me.’

‘Says the man who hasn’t stopped performing since he got here. Literally five fucking minutes ago!’

‘You don’t know me,’ David murmured, brushing Panagiotis’s arm. ‘But maybe the difference is that you like my performances. They make you feel something.’

Panagiotis should have pulled away. He told himself so. But the touch lingered, and in it was the simple, infuriating fact that David drew him in. Not with brilliance nor with depth, but with sheer undeniability and confidence. The rain began again, a fine mist at first, then heavier, until it was a downpour. Raindrops struck the tiles, the railing, and the shoulders of the men. The city dislimned beneath the storm.

Panagiotis laughed, tilting his face up to the sky. ‘We should go inside.’

‘No,’ David said. ‘Stay.’

David’s thumb brushed the corner of Panagiotis’s mouth, catching his lower lip before pressing his thumb inside. The rain slicked their skin, amplifying every touch.

Panagiotis withdrew at once. ‘What are you doing? Stop that.’ 

David smirked and then kissed him. It was sudden, bold, and insistent, and Panagiotis let it happen. He let himself be pressed against the wall, let David’s hands tug and pull as he entered inside him. The sex was inevitable. But Panagiotis told himself it was easier not to resist, easier to give in and get it over with, than to stand alone in the storm. Panagiotis tolerated this until David’s hand closed around his throat at once. Sudden. Clamping. Merciless! Panic tore through him, and Panagiotis clawed at the grip, nails scraping damp skin. ‘Stop!’ His voice cracked, mostly devoured by the rain. David only grinned. ‘You don’t mean it.’ Panagiotis shoved at his chest, twisting against the weight, but David pressed harder, squeezing until every breath came shallow and ragged. ‘I said stop!’ Rain blinded him. His lungs heaved, chest burning. His voice broke into gasps. ‘I can’t—’. ‘You can,’ David whispered, lips brushing his ear. ‘And you will.’ Panagiotis shook his head violently, trying to wrench free. The pressure grew tighter, the world narrowing to the vice around his throat. Fear bled into every nerve, seizing him from within. ‘Please!’ he choked, the word barely audible. David laughed softly, mockingly. ‘Please what?’ His fingers dug deeper, as if testing how far he could go. ‘Say it again. But louder!’ Panagiotis thrashed, his palms slapping uselessly at the wet tiles, his loafers scraping against the slippery surface. His body betrayed him, trembling, and his throat screamed for air. ‘Stop!’ His voice cracked to nothing. For a moment, David only watched him — eyes gleaming, storm flashing across his grin — as though the suffering itself was a pageant. Then, abruptly, David released him. Panagiotis staggered, hands at his throat, coughing into the rain; his knees almost gave out. David smoothed his hair, buttoned his shirt with an implacable composure and said, ‘Thanks,’ as though it had been a jest, as though Panagiotis’s objection had never existed. The word struck more agonising than David’s grip on him. It was a dismissal; a theft reduced to banter between two men. Panagiotis stayed on the ground, coughing against the rain. His throat anguished, his body shook, and all he could taste was David. The storm diluted the world into grey abstraction, but it couldn’t blur the essential truth: David had extracted what he desired and stood there smiling and unscathed. There was no misunderstanding; just a man who enjoyed breaking someone else apart. A man who thought cruelty was charming! David, then, crouched slightly, letting his face hover near Panagiotis’ drenched cheek. ‘Honestly,’ he said, voice soft but piercing. ‘You’re quite boring.’ That was a verdict rather than an observation. The pronouncement resonated with a disquieting exactitude, reverberating through Panagiotis’ mind. He pressed his forehead to the tiles, yearning for the water to carry him off and wash him into the gutter where he conceived he belonged. Instead, Panagiotis sat there, trapped inside his skin, replaying every second until it excavated him further. The storm descended, and he was swept under. And yet, while laughing and shaping the rain into something eternal, David remained impervious at the storm’s eye, standing untouched within its centre. Only then did Panagiotis grasp the irony: he had treated waiting as control, yet became the one controlled by it. David had made him wait from the beginning. 

Waiting had always been the game, and David was the winner.