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New York, 1938
His slippers are laid carefully by the door, as always. Robert shrugs off his coat and settles on the bench in the foyer to exchange outdoor footwear for indoor.
Simon is in the study. He’s been hovering around the drinks tray, and when Robert enters, he gives a wry smile and says, “There you are! I was going to drink these myself.” No matter how late Robert comes home, he never has.
“There was a breakthrough at the prosthetics lab,” Robert says by way of apology, watching Simon fuss over the two highball tumblers of gin. Ice, a squirt of seltzer, a wedge of lime dragged around the edge of the glass. “They’ve been feeding cow’s blood to a robotic hand and it’s generating its own electricity. I saw the fingers move!” He holds up his own hand to demonstrate, fingers twitching like a heartbeat.
“Sounds like a monster movie,” says Simon, pressing a glass against his raised palm. “Cheers.” Robert closes his hand around the drink, the condensation and the tinkle of the ice and the medicinal scent of the gin. And before each man takes his first sip, as always, they kiss.
London, 1880
There’s pubs where the rich nobs go to bugger each other. They’d never let Robert in; it’s obvious he’s not one of them, even though the lads of Ogre Street have started calling him “The Toff” due to his suits and stuffy moral code. Sometimes, though, the nobs stumble drunk down the street and you can make a bit of coin off them if you let them go between your thighs or kneel down in front of you. Bit of fun, too.
He’s vaguely aware that buggery is illegal, like most of the best amusements, though the coppers never seem to go after the Ogre Street boys for it. His best guess is that it’s a particular problem of the upper classes, that there’d be no more kids to inherit estates if every nob found out how much better sex is with a man. The other lads might talk big about girls, but he’s learned from experience that screwing a woman is interesting, but tedious, but giving it to a man - that’s a real thrill.
New York, April 1906
There’s pubs where men go to bugger each other, so long as they can pay for the beer, and there’s also the bathhouses. Robert prefers the latter, you can get a room in back and a little privacy, and his knee’s been giving him trouble lately; a good soak feels nice. He suspects it’s still a bit off from when Punch bashed it with a fire poker for reasons he can’t remember now. They called him “Punch” because he looked like the puppet, not because of his fighting style - he was more likely to hit you with whatever he could grab at the moment.
Whatever happened to Punch? The last time Robert had seen him was twenty years ago, he’d lost an eye and his arm wasn’t looking so good either. If he could see Robert now, he’d probably say something like “Eh, Toff, you’re a real toff now, aren’t you?” And then Robert would have to explain that America doesn’t have toffs, that’s the whole point of it, though they do admire a man with a lot of money.
The Robert of twenty years ago would have never expected a life like this. If you’d asked him what he’d wanted most in the world, he’d have said “a good meal, and a trip out to the countryside to see the animals.” And now he’d had a hundred incredible meals, and seen animals he could scarcely believe. It’s been a strange life, bouncing between the extremes of “hasn’t a pound to his name” and somehow finding himself one of the richest men in the world. He’d been throwing as much of it as his accountants allowed to research: science, medicine, archaeology - at the very least, he could do something good for humanity. Bridges and public buildings, too, though he was still surprised to see his name chipped in to stone around the city.
He drifts out of his memories and observes the room. Not a lot of customers today - there’s two young men sharing a cigarette on the bench, one man he’s had a few times and one he’s pretty sure he’s gotten it from once. A pale, skinny man he doesn’t recognize across the bath, who tilts his head to the side as Robert meets his gaze. Robert nods slightly, stands and wraps his towel around his waist, and makes his way to one of the small rooms in back.
There’s a cot and an upturned crate that serves as a table, if for some reason a man is in need of a table during the act of sodomy. Robert drapes the towel over the thin mattress, sits upright on the edge of the cot, and waits. A few moments later, this evening’s tryst peeks through the half-open door and slides in, closing it behind him. His eyebrows lift in mild surprise as he approaches, though about what, Robert has no idea, and he’s immediately distracted from that train of thought as, in the process of kneeling between his thighs, the man braces his hands on Robert’s knees and kisses him.
Kissing is uncommon in this kind of encounter, but it’s pleasant. He feels a sense of warmth within that counteracts the cool air on his still-damp skin, and a surge of arousal as the man finishes kneeling and takes him in his mouth. Glorious. But they’re not five seconds into the act when there’s a distinct knock on the door - two quick raps, a pause, and then a third.
“Shit,” Robert hisses in frustration.
The man raises his head. “What?” His voice is lower than Robert would have expected, and lilting.
“That’s the raid knock, the police are outside.”
“Oh hell.”
They join the crowd of men streaming out of the rooms, are separated in the dressing room, and completely lose each other in the crush of bodies leaving fleeing through the delivery entrance in back. Robert returns the next night, but the man isn’t there.
New York, May 1906
There’s been a mixed team of archaeologists and astronomers working on a shard of the stone mask for the past few years, and they’ve come up with some awfully interesting findings that they’d like to publish. The problem is where - the paper doesn’t quite fit in to even the most general science journals, and there’s too much science in it to make sense in an archaeological publication, Finally, Robert settles the discussion by announcing that he’ll just start his own magazine.
As with many of his snap decisions, he curses his impulsiveness when he finds out how many meetings the venture will involve. Today he’s meeting with editorial staff from several of New York’s top publishing houses, tomorrow he hears bids from paper companies, Friday is a meeting with the mask team and a handful of other teams he’s been sponsoring to discuss content for the first issue.
He’s lost in thought during the introductions, and scarcely paying attention when it’s time to shake the hand of a Mr. Simon Tisch, of John Wiley & Sons. “I recognized you from the papers, actually,” says a slightly familiar voice, and the world snaps into focus. The man from the baths a month ago regards him with a wry smile he’ll learn to recognize; Robert senses that he’s alluding to their earlier encounter. “You’re very distinctive,” he continues, miming with his free hand the path of Robert’s signature scar across his own face.
Robert’s heart gives a little jump.
New York, September 1906
“Any plans after work, Mr. Tisch?” Robert asks, after dropping off the first round of drafts at the Wiley headquarters.
“On a rainy day like today, there’s nothing better than a warm bath.”
An hour later, they’re tangled together on a cot, having skipped the bathing step entirely.
New York, 1914
“I’m getting too bloody old for this,” Robert grumbles as they dress in anticipation of another raid. His heel catches on his trousers and he swears under his breath.
“You could come to my place,” Simon offers carefully. They’ve been careful not to be too friendly with one another at work, and not to be seen with one another outside of it. Bathhouses for preference and the occasional saloon, and they don’t talk much during these encounters. He hadn’t intended for this to become a regular arrangement; he’s grown more cautious as he became more of a public figure. The police raids and the rumors and the public trials - he has an obscene amount of money, but not enough to evade the law. And besides, he’ll be moving back to England one day, where his family is; and besides, he’s had his chance at love.
Neverless, they’ve fallen into this comforting pattern of meeting up for sex, and the sex is good. And Robert’s become a little fond of the other man, though he knows little about him - he’s an editor, he prefers gin to whiskey, he can do phenomenal things with his hands. Robert takes a breath and leaps in blindly:
“Why don’t you just move in?”
Simon fumbles his shirt buttons. “Well, that would be a bit suspicious.”
“Hmph.” He makes a dismissive gesture. “It’s suspicious now for me to be living all alone in that house, I’ve read the gossip columns. They act like I have a secret wife locked up in there.”
“Ah, Jane Eyre,” says Simon.
“Not familiar with the lady,” Robert continues, completely missing the reference. “Anyway, you could have an entire floor of that place and I’d probably see less of you than I do now.” I’d like to see more, his brain adds, surprising him.
“Madness.” Simon completes a hasty tie knot. “...I’ll think about it.”
New York, 1938
“Penny for your thoughts,” Simon says, from one of twin chairs in front of the fireplace. Robert rouses himself from recollections, tilts his glass and watches the ice cube drift from one side to the other.
“My mum was queen of the gin palace,” he says, absently.
Simon sips from his own drink. “So you’ve said, and I’m still not sure what one is.”
“It’s…” he waves his free hand to indicate the size of a large room, “just, a real posh place, where they serve gin. Fancy lamps, and all.”
“Intriguing. Do they still have them? That’d make a fine vacation.”
Robert thinks for a while. “I don’t know,” he finally admits.
London, June 1899
It’s good to see his old mum having a bit of fun, even though he’d rather she spend the oil money on nicer accommodations, or on seeing a legitimate doctor for the first time in her fifty-one years. Each night, she trowels on the makeup and holds court at the gin palace, surrounded by slightly perplexed suitors who’ve heard rumors of her sudden fortune. His internal picture of her as an aging washerwoman, still scrubbing her hands raw, has been replaced with one of an unlikely society dame, roaring with openmouthed laughter and giving the palace a chance to count how many teeth she’s missing.
Good to see her in general, though the main reason for his visit is to spend time with Erina and George. It was at the former’s request, she feels that as George grows, he should have a man in his life “to teach him things like shaving, and to answer any... questions he might have.” Good Lord, woman, you’re a nurse, he’d retorted, scrambling for an explanation as to why there’s some questions he won’t be able to answer. He’s learned at this point that his preference for men is uncommon, and even unpleasant to many people.
But it’s always a pleasure to spend time with Erina, once his rival and now his compatriot in the country of Grief, the one person who makes him believe that the world still remembers Jonathan Joestar. And he adores the boy, especially as he realizes that his unusual orientation means that he’ll never father his own children. Especially as, for he and Erina, he’s a bit of Jonathan living on.
George is going through a bit of a stubborn phase; Robert lightly asks if his father was the same at that age and Erina shakes her head. “That’s all me, I’m afraid.” It’s true, that as he ages into his own person, he becomes less of an infant copy of Jonathan. He’s quieter, more thoughtful and controlled. It’s clear that he’ll be tall, though, and he has the family birthmark. In his looks, he’s a Joestar through and through.
The real puzzle on this trip is Erina. She’s strangely withdrawn, almost skittish, and Robert is on the verge of asking her what on earth is going on when she takes the initiative and sits him down in the parlor. Still, it’s a few minutes before she gathers herself to speak.
“George thinks that you and I should marry.”
Ah. He’d had a suspicion that this might be coming. Enough that he’d spent evenings practicing his response in the mirror, though he stumbles getting it out now.
“I can be a father to him, if that’s what he needs.” That’s the easy part done. He takes a quick breath before the second phrase, “Though, I can’t be a proper husband.”
Erina looks at him in surprise. “Why, that’s nonsense, Robert-”
“Erina-”
“-you’re one of the finest men I’ve ever known, any woman would be lucky-”
“Erina, damnit!” Shocked silence. “The only person I’ve loved in my entire life was a man.”
Understanding dawns on her poor bewildered face. “Oh. I… might have guessed. You’ve always understood, more than anyone, my love for Jonathan, almost as if your own heart-” She trails off as the second wave of understanding hits. “Oh,” she says, more quietly.
“Not ‘if’,” he confirms.
He’s unsure what to do now that his deepest secret is out, unable to read Erina’s face as she stares blankly at a spot on the carpet, eyes wide and lips pursed. “I might have guessed,” she finally repeats, and she takes Robert’s hand in her own, tears streaming down her cheeks as easily as they did in those early days after the loss.
Their friendship will be closer after this, strengthened by the camaraderie of having loved and lost the same person. He’ll spend two months each year, the summer holidays, with his two dearest loved ones, until Erina makes the decision to join him in New York.
“Uncle Robert,” George says towards the end of his visit. He steels himself for the possibility of a difficult question, but all he wants to know is how to use a fishing lure.
New York, August 1899
Robert receives a telegram, soon after his return, from his half sister. MUM DIED IN SLEEP. MONEY IN FLOUR SACK. Nearly all the money he’d given his mum, stowed away in the burlap bag where she’d kept her few valuables for as long as he can remember. He wires back and tells her to keep it.
London, 1921
Erina receives a telegram from the Royal Air Force. Losing George is even more painful for them than losing Jonathan.
New York, 1915
“You were a real little Dickensian orphan, weren’t you?”
Laughter. “How could I be an orphan with a mum?”
“I meant in spirit. Though I suppose your spirit's more American, all that ‘rags to riches through hard work’ stuff.”
“Nah, it was Joestar money and luck, I’m no story.”
“A shame, you’d be a lovely one.”
“Charmer. What are you trying to get out of me?”
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe a bit of this.”
“Oh… aah!”
“Yes?
“God yes.”
New York, 1938
He falters getting up from his chair; Simon rushes over to help him and to hand him the cane he’s still not used to using. Robert can’t believe he used to feel old at fifty, that was childhood compared to how he feels now. Simon is delighted by his own advancing age (“I grow old, I grow old, I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled,” he often recites), but Simon’s only sixty-eight and never had much of an active life in the first place. Three years retired and he still wears a full suit each day, even if he doesn’t leave the house, because “when Death comes for me, I might as well be dressed for it.”
Robert, conversely, has too much to do to even think of retiring. As he step-taps across the room, Simon says, for the third time this week, “I wish you wouldn’t go to Mexico. Just have a look at the artifacts when they bring them back.”
“That’ll take ages.” Robert stops and pivots on the cane, turns to face Simon. “Besides, you have to see artifacts where they are in the original dig, that’s part of the story. You can’t replicate that in the lab.”
He feels a bit cruel lying to Simon about the real reason for his trip, but after George’s loss, he and Erina and Straizo made a pact to never reveal what really happen in England in 1889. As far as Simon knows, Robert’s first love was killed in a boiler explosion midseas.
“I’m not going to die in Mexico of a sore knee,” he assures Simon. “I can’t die, someone has to be here to keep Joseph Joestar from burning down Manhattan.”
Simon laughs. “That bad, eh?”
“He’s a good kid at heart, but... reckless. Doesn’t look before he leaps, he’s all energy and no sense."
“Wasn’t that you as a child? Your chickens are coming home to roost.”
“I was never that big. He’s running poor Erina ragged.” She’s nearly Robert’s age and successfully managed to raise this whirlwind of a boy to adulthood; he hopes that New York will grant her rest she’s earned. “Listen,” he continues, more serious now, “I promise I’ll be careful. I’ll be coming home to you.”
New York, mid-1920s
Loving Jonathan was like burning alive. Robert was consumed immediately, his world narrowed to encompass only the two of them. He followed Jonathan as if in a fever, wanting only to be by his side, and when it became clear that Erina had won the man’s affections, swung between wanting to fight for their happiness and wanting to drown himself from heartbreak. Loving Jonathan was the worst pain he’d ever felt, and he never wanted to feel otherwise.
Simon Tisch is almost entirely unlike Jonathan Joestar, and Robert couldn’t have entertained the thought of loving him if the resemblance was any closer. Where Jonathan was dark and towering, Simon is slight and fair. Jonathan faithfully attended Anglican services each Sunday, Simon was raised Jewish and has recently been considering Atheism. Jonathan was loud and boisterous, commanding attention wherever he went; Simon is retiring and reminds Robert, “let’s speak softly,” when he gets carried away and raises his voice with excitement.
He’d thought that, like Erina, he’d never love again. That the inferno of Jonathan had burned through all the love he’d been given at birth, and the rest of his life would be hollow. He’d be content enough to care for Erina and George, and later, Erina and Joseph, he’d had his moment of true passion.
Loving Simon didn’t happen all at once, but as a series of small epiphanies. Traveling abroad and missing the weight of his body on the other side of the mattress. Mentally filing away every amusing remark he heard so he could tell Simon that evening. Seeing him silhouetted against the window before bed and suddenly being overwhelmed by the beauty of his form. One day, Robert realizes that not only does he love Simon, but that he has loved him for some time and could love him even more in the future.
They’re an unlikely pairing, to be sure. While Robert was following Jonathan, Simon was studying literature at Princeton; he’d graduate with honors before Robert had even read an entire book. Robert sweated away hunting oil in Texas while Simon was living a bohemian lifestyle in Paris (“in the Gay Nineties,” he’ll say pointedly when the term comes into fashion). Simon speaks three languages fluently and has reasonable knowledge of several more; Robert is still sometimes unsure about his own command of English. Nevertheless, he loves Simon, and if the paths their lives have taken have wildly diverged, at least they’ve crossed here.
SImon has taught him to think of himself not as a person who performs homosexual acts, but as a man who is gay. It’s a term he quite likes, one that describes not only the ecstasy of sex with another man, but the pure joy of loving one. There’s many like them in New York, as it turns out, a secret community of men who love nothing better than other men, artists and musicians and the occasional public figure. They hold grand balls (Robert is sure they're the most handsome couple on the floor - how that man can dance!) and dine in groups at the Oak Room; they teasingly call Simon a pansy due to his fastidious nature and the fact that he irons his handkerchiefs and sprinkles them with rosewater. They call Robert “His Lordship” due to the accent and the money, unwittingly echoing his nickname from half a lifetime ago.
He didn’t set out to love SImon, but his life is richer for it.
New York, 1938
Simon helps him into the bath, slides the bath caddy within reach and takes a seat tubside. They’re going to need to hire an attendant if his arthritis worsens or if Simon’s health declines; he hopes they’ll be able to find someone with the discretion not to reveal the nature of their relationship. He’s spent too much time in public pretending that he doesn’t love Simon, he won’t do it in his own home.
Langston Hughes is tonight’s poet. Simon gleefully collects authors he thinks are “one of us”, this unlikely fraternity of men who love men, and has been reading poetry to Robert in the evening for years; Hughes, like Whitman and Rimbaud and Wilde, sits at the intersection of both pursuits (“Oh, I’ve heard things about him.”) Robert adjusts his shaving mirror and lathers up the brush while Simon picks up the volume entitled “The Dream Keeper”, removes the bookmark, and begins to read:
We buried him high on a windy hill,
But his soul went out to sea.
I know, for I heard, when all was still,
His sea-soul say to me:
Put no tombstone at my head,
For here I do not make my bed.
Strew no flowers on my grave,
I’ve gone back to the wind and wave.
Do not, do not weep for me,
For I am happy with the sea.
“Bit bleak,” Robert says, guiding the shaving razor over his jawline. Something about it has made him think of Jonathan, though he can’t put his finger on what.
New York, 1933
"Il dit : "Je n'aime pas les femmes. L'amour est à réinventer, on le sait. Elles ne peuvent plus que vouloir une position assurée. La position gagnée, coeur et beauté sont mis de côté : il ne reste que froid dédain, l'aliment du mariage aujourd'hui. Ou bien je vois des femmes, avec les signes du bonheur, dont, moi, j'aurai pu faire de bonnes camarades dévorées tout d'abord par des brutes sensibles comme des bûchers..."
“That’s beautiful.”
“How much of that could you understand?”
“Not a word, but you read it so well.”
New York, 1938
“Simon’s room” is a fiction, he hasn’t slept in it since that first year (though Robert did during the two weeks when Simon had the influenza, lonely and worried out of his mind). They’d fallen asleep in Robert’s bed after sex one night, and from that point on, it’s been their bed, with as little discussion and fanfare as their original cohabitation.
There is a point at which the body will no longer cooperate with sex, but that doesn’t preclude intimacy. Each night, they retire to bed, Robert on the left side and Simon on the right, and spend time holding one another. This body Robert knows so well, the slender arms and sharp elbows. The narrow chest and waist, the sharp jut of hipbone and soft rise of cock against Robert’s thigh. The heartbeat… heart…
“Did you take your heart pills today?”
“Damn.” The blankets rustle as Simon gets up, Robert hears, in the darkness, water being poured from the pitcher, the rattle of the pill bottle. Back to bed. “What would I do without you?” says Simon, softly stroking Robert’s cheek with the backs of his fingers. Then, tracing the scar, and with the worst Cockney accent Robert’s ever heard, “Oooh, help us, it’s The Toff.” He laughs. Simon takes this as encouragement and continues on, “Ah, the bally old blighter,” which makes him laugh even harder.
“What is that, we never talked like that,” and Simon’s laughing now, too, giddy and sleepy and wonderful.
If Jonathan Joestar appeared before him right now, healthy and whole and promising to love him, and if by some miracle, the years were stripped from him and he was young and vital again, Robert would cede him once more to Erina. He's been very lucky in love, after all.
London, 1937
“Your boarder,” they call Simon. Sometimes, “that pal of yours,” and one gossip column devoted a memorable installment years ago to the tale of these two eligible bachelors, too busy with their jobs to find love.
“I’m looking forward to meeting your, ah…” Erina stumbles.
“Simon,” says Robert. “He’s my Simon.”
New York, 2010
“... and please burn our letters after I’m gone, I can’t bear to do so myself.” Jotaro Kujo studies the return address on the envelope in his other hand.
“Hey, gramps, who’s ‘Simon Tisch’?” He has the unenviable task of helping his grandfather get his papers in order, one complicated by the fact that Joseph Joestar’s primary method of filing was “put it in a box at sort it out later”, and further by the fact that “later” is when the old man is half-blind and fully senile.
“Hrm?” says Joseph. His grandson hands him the letter, which he slowly brings to his eyes, hand trembling with age. “Ah” he says finally, “that was Uncle Bob’s husband. Always liked him.”
Jotaro is surprised, a first for this ordeal. “Did you burn the letters?”
“Had to. We didn’t talk about that kind of thing back then. Still illegal.” A rare breeze of clarity blows through his ancient skull. “I envy Shizuka and, erm, Jolyne, growing up in a world that’s much more kind.”
After the old man falls asleep, Jotaro powers up his laptop to catch up on work email. Faculty meeting moved to another room, student wants an extension, you have been selected to submit a paper to predatory e-journal. He closes his email and does a Google search for “Simon Tisch”.
Dentist in Fort Worth, genealogy site, ah, Wikipedia. “Simon Tisch was the founding editor of the SPW Journal, and a longtime friend of Robert E.O. Speedwagon. This article is a stub, you can help Wikipedia by expanding it.” He hovers over the Edit link, but declines to click it. If the Wikipedia editors had problems with him submitting his own research to the Asteroidea page, they definitely wouldn’t accept “Joseph Joestar said so” as a source.
He clicks on the link for Robert E.O. Speedwagon, scrolls down to the Personal Life section and reads “He never married.” He closes the laptop and wonders how to tell the story of someone who never wanted it told.