Revenant

For DBJ, with love.
****

I have just woken from a dream.

A dream of how things could have been.

I've waited for four years just to say 'Hello' to you, fighting against my feelings of worthlessness, of being unacceptable to you and to the world in general, only to find that my first word to you is going to be 'Goodbye'.

But in my dream, it's so much easier, I can throw off the shackles wrapped around me by my mind, my upbringing, my expectations of how society wants me to behave, I can be myself, I can talk to you.

In my dream, you're with me, walking with me around a big city, we chat, we smile, I put my arm around your shoulders and you lean into my body, your head rests almost against my heart, you must be able to feel, to hear my happy heart beating a firm tattoo, you look upwards towards me, the look of caring and devotion unmistakeable in your eyes, mirroring the look in my own eyes. As if to bless the exchange of unspoken vows between us, the sun breaks through the hitherto unbroken banks of cloud, washing the ground around our feet with golden light and lifegiving warmth, drawing the whole world into our aura of happiness while still leaving us in our own private zone of love, unassailable by the problems of the everyday for ever and ever.

We head back home, to our home, after the convivial day out, spending our evening peacefully sitting together. I sit in the middle of the sofa, while you sit crosswise with your legs over my lap, like a warm and comfortable blanket, we say little, but are just happy in each others' company, quiet music the background to our inconsequential conversation, until you fall asleep, and I take delight in watching your beautiful face in its state of repose, your breathing deep and regular, your contentment so evident that my heart swells with such pride, taking my joy from making you happy, holding your hand and never wanting to let go, wanting to capture this moment and cherish it for all time.

You wake after a while, smile sleepily at me, brush a stray strand of hair away from your eyes. It's late, but we feel no incentive to move, the inertia of our luxuriation in warmth and closeness overcoming any inclination to action. You gently stroke my hand, the touch like silk on my skin, bliss made palpable, I feel myself drifting away, like some out-of-body experience, almost as though I can watch what's happening from a god's-eye view, all the while slip-sliding towards the hypnosis of sleep.

And then I woke from my dream.

A dream of how things could have been.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Valediction

"I don't know how I can tell you this," I said nervously. "I'm...not going to be here much longer, I'm being transferred to a new job."

The look on his face was strange, an unlikely mixture of shock and teenage indifference. "What do you mean? You'll still be living here, won't you?"

I drew a deep breath before I thought of continuing, more to delay the moment of having to speak than for the need of oxygen. "Nicky...I...I'm sorry, sweet boy, I'm...going away." Tears were close, but I was trying to be as strong as I could.

"You are joking, aren't you? This is April Fools' Day, and my calendar is wrong, that must be it." He laughed, a forced, humourless sound.

"There's nothing I can do about it, my job here has finished, the next contract is in Surrey. I have to go where the work is, you know my job is so specialised that I can't pick and choose - it's my fault, I thought this day would never come, even though I knew it was inevitable. I should never have got involved with you, it was a disaster waiting to happen, for both of us. I'm so sorry."

Nicky buried his face in his hands, breathing raggedly - I couldn't tell whether he was laughing or crying. Long seconds passed, building into minutes, still nothing except the gasping sibilance from behind his fingers.

"Nicky..." I began, uncertainly, "Nicky, please say something, even if it's only an insult, even if you want to tell me to go to hell."

"I don't want you to go to hell, Rich, I don't want you to go anywhere. You're the only person in the world who cares about me, my life will be over if you leave. I don't know...I don't know what I would do without you."

I knew his words were coloured by the emotion of the moment, but I also knew he wasn't exaggerating very much. His parents were divorced, his father had left the country, last heard of as a bouncer at a nightclub on the Costa del Sol, his mother had a new partner, another divorcé with two kids of his own, much younger than Nicky, who got the best of everything, material and emotional, while Nicky was seen as an embarrassment to the family, very bright, certainly, but unconventional, not seen as a good role model for his younger step-siblings, never abused, but decidedly neglected, especially in terms of love and affection. I'd first met him, nearly a year earlier, a slight, rather fey figure, with dyed hair and clothes which, on first viewing, seemed not to match, but, on closer inspection, had been chosen with fastidious care, to create a specific impression, that of someone who wanted to be noticed, but in a way that made the observer have to think about what they were noticing. I couldn't have missed him, literally or figuratively, because he walked straight into me, just near the medieval bridge in the centre of his small home town. He'd stammered his apologies, but it was hardly necessary, it was obvious his mind was elsewhere, not least because he'd evidently been crying - it transpired that he'd had another in the lengthy and lengthening series of arguments with his mother, about his appearance, his supposedly uncooperative attitude, his lack of respect, but this particular argument had got far more personal than its predecessors, his mother had shouted that she didn't want anything to do with a son who walked round looking like a rent boy, at which point he'd stormed out of his house and into my life. We ended that afternoon by having coffee and cake in the 'award-winning' local café, finding that we had much in common and arranging to meet again the next day, a Saturday.


One of the things that we had in common was conflicted sexuality. Nicky, at 15, had had girlfriends, he was a more or less averagely good looking boy for his age, no Adonis, but no ugly duckling, either, but wasn't convinced that girls were going to be the story for him, he found them physically attractive but intellectually uninteresting, he told me, and the intellectual was always a big deal for him - he'd been the bright boy at primary school, always at least a year ahead, academically speaking, of his coevals, and had gone on to be the bright boy at senior school, the only pupil in his year who'd been put forward for the regional 'Gifted & Talented' student programme. His intellect was a double-edged sword, needless to say, he'd found what appeared to be friends, but who were only interested in parasitising his intelligence, to do their work for them, while having to also having to contend with snide remarks, often from the same people, about being a 'nerd' and a 'Teachers' Pet'. Partly because of his school experiences, and partly because of his unhappy home life, he'd become an internet afficionado at an early age, and in the course of his random 'surfing' and more detailed research, real research, not simply cruising around the usual teenage haunts online, he became convinced that he might like to at least try a same-sex relationship, feeling as he did that he was far more on the same wavelength with his own gender than with the opposite. My teenage experience was a close parallel to Nicky's, exaggerated still further by the fact that I went to a single sex school - I was almost infeasibly successful academically, but socially gauche, had tried going out with girls, had found the experience unsatisfactory, but didn't know whether that meant I wasn't inclined towards them, or simply couldn't cope with the social situation. I'd gone on to university much the same person as I'd been in my earlier teens, a high achiever, but completely inept in dealing with people. Now, in my mid-twenties and with a master's degree in information system management, I was in Nicky's home town working at the head office of a large company on a contract to completely overhaul their I.T. infrastructure, bringing it from the 1970's into the 21st century, still on my own and still with little idea of where I wanted to be on an emotional level. 


Our relationship was something that we both desperately needed, but it took us some time to both realise that fact, and the fact that it could actually happen. We were both so starved of love and affection that we had to proceed like famine victims saved by an aid convoy, painfully slowly, as though too much closeness too soon could kill us by surfeit. We spent a lot of time together, virtually all of it either in the café in town or at my rented flat, talking about anything and everything, a lot of it on a level that Nicky had never had the opportunity to operate on for any length of time - his intellect was being challenged, and he proved himself more than capable of coping with that challenge. The first time things moved from ivory tower purity to the much messier realms of everyday emotion came as a huge surprise to both of us.


I hadn't seen Nicky for a few days, because I'd had to go to my company's head office in London for a series of meetings about the progress of the work I was undertaking, things, largely, that could have been discussed on the phone, but the etiquette of company politics seemed to demand face-to-face contacts periodically, a kind of 'This is what we do, because this is what we've always done' mindset. I arrived back on the last train on a Friday evening, well after 11:00, the only passenger to alight, although a few weekend revellers noisily boarded, no doubt on their way to the nearest nightclub, in the slightly larger town a couple of stops further down the line. My flat was only around five minutes' walk from the station, and I was thinking no further than heading there, having a cold drink, and going to bed, when I was stopped in my tracks by a voice from the shadows.


"Hi, Rich."


"Nicky! It's a nice surprise to see you, but I wasn't expecting the pleasure of your company until tomorrow."


"Home isn't a good place to be right now, the little angels have dropped me in it again and SHE has taken their side, just for a change." Another row with his mother, undoubtedly. "Can we go to yours?"


Nicky had been to my flat in the evening before, but never as late as this.


"I guess so, but, at the risk of sounding like an old fart, it's pretty late."


My hesitancy was evidently clear in my voice, because Nicky reacted badly to what I'd said.


"Thanks a lot, I sit on this bloody station for an hour waiting for your train to arrive, and you want to send me to bed like a 5 year old. Don't worry about me, I'll find a park bench to sleep on!"


"Hey, hey...Nicky, come on, I didn't say 'no', I just don't want you to be in any more trouble with your mum."


He snorted. "She doesn't care if I live or die, as long as that bloke and his kids are happy. I don't know why she doesn't just sell me into slavery, and have done with it!"


It was obvious that he had no intention of going home, and I knew that he didn't have any other friends that he could turn to, so I had no real alternative, however reluctant I felt about having a 15 year old in my flat at that time of night.


"Come on, then, it's cold here, let's go and get out of the weather."


He smiled, briefly, before lapsing back into his dark mood. We hardly spoke on the short walk to my flat, and not for several minutes after we'd arrived. I made him a coffee, and he sat on the sofa sipping the hot brew while I drank a cold Coke, and regarded him levelly. The tension in his demeanour seemed to ebb slightly, but I was still on edge, as though a single misplaced word could snap the mousetrap of his anger into action again.
He finally spoke.


"I...I missed you, Rich."


"I missed you too, Nicky - you're my best friend at the moment, the best friend I've ever had, I think."


"I've got something for you." He set down his mug and stood up. I stood as well - there were only a couple of inches difference in our heights, so it wasn't a case of my adult trying to dominate his child, we were equals, and had been from day one. He reached in his pocket, and pulled out a small jeweller's box.


I took it from him, and opened it slowly. Inside was a thin gold chain, long enough to form a bracelet, obviously not too expensive, but still a big investment for him, in more ways than one.


"Nicky...it's really nice. I don't...I don't know what to say."


"I bought it because...because..." His voice faltered, his brain not seeming to have the power to compel his lips to frame his thought. "Because..." Another agonising moment of uncertainty. When he spoke again, it was almost inaudible. "I love you."


I was stunned. No-one had ever spoken those words to me in the way that Nicky just had, I had no words in my vocabulary to respond appropriately. My lack of reaction was evidently been taken by Nicky as bad news, and he looked as though he was about to cry.


"I'd better go, I'm sorry, Rich, I should've known I was wrong. I've ruined everything."


He started towards the door.


"Nicky..." I began. He stopped and turned to face me. "I think...I love you, too."


We stood there, ten feet apart, looking into each others' eyes. Finally, impossible to say on whose initiative, we came together, and each wrapped the other in our arms, his head laid on my chest, my face pressed into his bleach blond hair. Our lives as lovers had begun.


****


For the next nine months or so, our lives seemed to be lived within a cocoon, just large enough for the two of us. Apart from my work and Nicky's school days, we spent virtually all our time together. I've no idea what Nicky had told his mother and her partner, or even if he told them anything - I never once met them. They must surely have known that he was more or less living with someone, but maybe he was right, maybe they didn't care, and were pleased that he wasn't around. Virtually the only time he was at his family home was when I was away on my occasional trips to London, and it was on the last of these trips that the bombshell, which I was too wrapped up in myself and my love for Nicky, and his love for me, to see, fell upon us. Before I'd met Nicky, it would've been 100% good news, the job had gone remarkably well, finished a month ahead of schedule and on budget, the customer was delighted, my boss was delighted, talking about a large bonus heading my way, but all the words clanged against my head like rocks against a suit of armour, because the bottom had just fallen out of my world, with the news that my boss already had my next project lined up, at a large local council office in Surrey. I was just the man for the job, my boss was saying, after the contract I'd just completed, this one should be a walk in the park. 'Surrey' was the only word that registered in my mind, at least 250 miles from Nicky. How could I have been so besotted not to have seen this coming, how was I going to deal with it, how the hell was I going to tell Nicky?


When I saw Nicky, and told him, I had immediate visions of calamity. I was distraught at the prospect of being parted from him, but he seemed to be on the point of losing his reason completely.


"I can't Rich...I can't live without you. I'll come with you."


"Nicky, you know and I know we can't do that, not at the moment. I want to be with you, too, but you're not 16 for another month, I'm not telling you you're too young because I want to reject you, but because it's just not feasible for us to be together yet. Finish your schooling, then we'll find a way to make it work. Two years, that's all, and I'll see you as often as I can in the meantime."


"How can you not understand, you're the cleverest person I've ever known, I CAN'T. I'll die without you, can't you see that. You're my only reason to live."


"Nicky, Nicky, please, sweet boy, please calm down." I was trying desperately to follow my own advice and keep calm, if both of us became hysterical who knew what might happen.


"I thought you loved me, you'd never leave me if you really loved me." He flung himself face down on the sofa and completely broke down, sobbing uncontrollably.


I put my hand gently on his back, but he wriggled violently until I withdrew it.


"I do love you, Nicky, I really, really do. Think about it, and you'll see it's true. I love you more than anyone else in my whole life."


"But you're going to leave me," he choked out, "you're going to say goodbye."


"Not goodbye, sweet boy, just au revoir. I promise you, it won't be goodbye."


He turned and sat up, ramrod straight, and looked into my eyes, almost through my eyes, into the centre of my skull. "If you go, it will be goodbye."


"Are you telling me that you don't believe me?"


"You don't believe me, I told you I'd die without you, but you don't believe that."


"Nicky, I have to work, to earn a living. You have to get an education so you can do the same. It's not a case of loyalty or betrayal, it's just part of the practicalities of life. We've been living a dream for the last year, nearly, we have to bow to real life sooner or later."


"You really don't understand, do you Rich?"


Nicky's tone of voice had changed, had become ominous. He leapt from the sofa, and almost before I had a chance to move, he'd dashed to the kitchenette in my flat, then reappeared in the living room brandishing my largest cook's knife.


"Nicky, please, don't do anything silly." I'd never been involved in anything remotely like this in my life, and if anyone had asked me how I'd react, I'd have expected to panic, but, in the face of reality, I felt preternaturally calm.


Nicky lurched towards me, but I forced myself to stand my ground, even though I couldn't take my eyes off of the blade in his hand, now only inches from my face.


"Nicky, put the knife down, please."


His response was to draw the knife back, and to thrust it towards my chest. I closed my eyes and flinched, waiting for the blow. The blow never came, instead a groan, and a single, strangulated word.


"Goodbye."


I opened my eyes, to see the handle of the knife protruding from Nicky's chest, as he slumped to the ground.


Goodbye, sweet boy.


****


Author's note - I can't seem to get the font size right for this post. Apologies to all


****




Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Selene

Floating up through the boughs of the trees
A disc of butter-coloured light in the dark blue sky
Defining serenity, the stately progress through the night
Drawing the eye of the noctivagent to your cool beauty
Before sinking once more below the horizon
Slipping away before Phoebus holds sway.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Virtuoso

Oozing mastery
Audiences enraptured
Iconic talent

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Beached

How did I come to be sitting there? I was on the shingle of a beach on the Kent coast, not even in my home town, which was 8 miles away, I'd missed the last train home, though that was the least of my worries at that moment. I was sitting just above the high water mark, a line of seaweed and driftwood delineating the boundary between land and sea, although it was only half tide then, I could only just see the edge of the calm sea through the darkness that enveloped my lonely outpost. Even my best friend had deserted me. I'd known him since the first day we started at grammar school, almost seven years earlier, we'd both turned 18 within a few days of each other over the previous week or so, we'd always been there for each other, as best friends are, played football and cricket together, each in its season, watched each other's backs, helped each other with homework, me helping him with the more academic subjects, him helping me with more practical things, according to our different capabilities, but he'd left me alone, because I'd just shared the one thing I'd never been able to share with him before, who I really was. If I hadn't been bigger than him, I think he would've hit me, he accused me of lying to him all these years, but I hadn't lied, it's just that I hadn't chosen to tell him the whole truth, and he'd never asked. If he'd asked when we were 11 and first met, I wouldn't have known the truth, if he'd asked me at 14 I wouldn't have been sure, but if he'd asked me in the previous eighteen months, then I would've told him, told him the truth, but he never did ask, I doubt the possibility even entered his mind.

****

"Morning, Rob."

The boy smiled, a thin line of gum showing above his teeth. "Morning, John."

I'd been waiting at the top of the steps for a few minutes, steps leading up from the railway station to the top of the hill through which the railway line disappeared into a tunnel, the first of many on its way to London. This meeting had become a part of the schoolday routine, I'd get up and do my paper round, back home for breakfast, change into my school uniform, then leave the house five minutes or so earlier than I strictly needed to, to make sure I arrived at the top of those steps before Rob, although I'm sure he would've waited for me had I not been there. But I always was there. The meetings had been contrived at first, contrived by me, made to look like a coincidence, a 'fancy seeing you here' moment.

The first time our paths had crossed at that point had been a coincidence, though. He was looking back, worried, as three boys, slightly older than him, but younger than me, were approaching him from behind, with what were evidently less than benign intentions. It was an occupational hazard of being a grammar school boy, we were 'snobs', 'smartarses', 'poofs', because we had either the native ability or the capacity to work harder, or a little of both, to have risen above the run of the mill, to have been selected to go to a better school where we received a better education than our peers at primary school, who were consigned to what had once been called 'County Schools', but which by our era had been glorified with the title of 'Secondary Modern'. Our school had a Secondary Modern right next door, and there were numerous incidents where boys from our school were beaten up by gangs from the neighbouring school, often by those who had been the friends of the victims a few months or years previously. On this occasion, the 'gang' looked at me, already over six feet tall at the age of sixteen, nearly seventeen, and substantially built with it, wearing the same uniform as their intended target, and decided that discretion was the better part of valour, jostling their way past the boy and I and going on their way.

"You OK?" I asked.

"Yeah, thanks."

"I know what it's like, I got beaten up when I was about your age, someone I knew from primary school and his older mates caught me on the way home, I thought they were going to kill me. Talking of primary school, didn't you used to go to St. Margaret's?" My old primary school.

"Yeah, I've seen you around at school and I thought I recognised you, but I wasn't sure."

"I think your brother and my brother were mates, Dave's your brother, isn't he?"

"Yeah, he's a year younger than me. He goes to Castle Hill now." Another of the Secondary Moderns in the town.

"Same as my brother. Shall we get on, I don't want to be late. What's your name, anyway?"

"I'm Rob."

"I'm John. Do you normally come this way to school?"

"Yeah, it's the quickest way from home."

"Have you seen those kids before?"

"No, it's always been quiet before, I've never seen anyone much - except you sometimes."

We talked about teachers at our old school, a few people we both knew, general chit-chat, for the fifteen minutes or so until we arrived at the school gate.

"Thanks for what you did, John."

"No problem - all I really did was glare at them anyway! See you around, Rob."

I did see him around as well, over the next few days, more than I could remember seeing him in the previous two and a half years that he'd been at the school, and, indeed, in the three or four years we'd overlapped at primary school. Maybe it was just that, having met in the circumstances we had, we were looking out for each other, but, in my case, I began to get an impression that there was a bit more to it than that. As I'd navigated the difficult waters of puberty and on into adolescence, I'd increasingly had the feeling that I wasn't quite like my friends. They were full of talk about girls that they were going out with, and what they'd allegedly done with them, or to them, but I didn't seem to have the same interest. I'd never had a girlfriend, hardly even knew any girls, apart from my younger sister and her friends, but it wasn't something that bothered me. My parents didn't raise the subject, they were very strait-laced, I couldn't have imagined them giving me 'the talk', presumably they expected me to wait until I was married and then know everything I was supposed to know by magic. The only chink in the curtain I can remember was at a relatively early age, 12 or 13, when a friend of my brother's, who was four years younger than me, asked me if I'd ever had a 'wank'. I didn't know what one was, and said so, and he laughed at me, saying I didn't know much. I didn't think much of it until about a year later, when I'd gone to my cousin's house, finding that he was out but that he was expected back half an hour or so later, so my aunt suggested I wait in his room until he came back. He was a year older than me, and his parents were much more progressive than mine, so it shouldn't have been a surprise when I found a sex education book, written by a well-known 'agony aunt', on his bookshelf. I learned more about sex in that hour than I had in the previous thirteen years of my life, including an insight on the question my brother's friend had asked me. Needless to say, that night I had to try it for myself - I was lucky enough to have the privacy of my own, small single bedroom - finding to my surprise and delight how it worked, and like many a pubescent boy before and since, I became an ardent devotee immediately. What the book hadn't said, though, was what was supposed to be in my head while I was practising my new-found skill, so I was more than a little confused when I found most of the mental pictures accompanying my activities were of boys rather than girls. With no-one I dared talk to, and no other obvious source of information - the internet was undreamed-of in that far-off era, and my local, small town library not exactly awash with 'gay' literature - I just carried on being confused. I'd thought of myself as 'different' in some ill-defined way, but I'd never thought of myself as a 'poof' - they talked and acted like girls, and dressed in flowery clothes, like the 'Clarence' character in 'The Dick Emery Show' on TV...didn't they?

Nothing much had changed in the intervening two or three years, I still didn't have a girlfriend, it still didn't worry me, most of my fantasies were still about boys, but I hadn't the slightest idea of what, if anything, I was supposed to do about it. I wasn't the almost total innocent I'd been at 13, but I was, even by the standards of the 1970's, pretty naïve. I covered up my ignorance by becoming something of a loner, watching Open University programmes on TV, going for long bus journeys on my own at weekends, reading voraciously, getting a reputation for being the eccentric class intellectual - a nerd, in modern parlance. I did have a few friends at school, but I hardly ever saw them anywhere other than at school, even one who only lived a few hundred yards away from me. I'd never been in love, even puppy love, apart from a very brief, very chaste crush on a female cousin when I was 11, before she and her family emigrated to Australia a few months later. In the days following my encounter with Rob and his would-be bullies, though, I began to realise that something had changed. As I said, I contrived to meet him on the way to school most days, and found myself becoming frustrated on the odd days when I didn't see him. What did it all mean? Looking back, the answer was there, as clear as if it had been in six foot high neon letters, but I didn't, couldn't see what was happening.

****

It all came to a head during the summer term. One sunny afternoon, we had a games lesson, and were just getting ready to play cricket, when one of the sports teachers rushed out of the gym and jumped into the school minibus, parked nearby. The battery was flat, and the vehicle wouldn't start, so he yelled at us to come over and help him push start it. Between the dozen or so of us there, we easily managed to do what was necessary, he thanked us, and drove the minibus to the outside door of the gym, while we headed off in the opposite direction carrying our cricket gear. We obviously wondered what had happened, and, after a while, news filtered through that a boy had fallen from a climbing rope in the gym and had a suspected broken leg, and that he'd been taken to hospital in the minibus. No-one seemed to know who it was that had been involved in the accident, and it was another day and a half before I found out, and when I did, it was in the living room of my house.

Rob hadn't been at our meeting place that morning, and I hadn't seen him at school either, so I assumed he was ill. His not being around didn't do anything for my mood, so that by the time I got home, I was feeling pretty fed up. The last thing I needed at that point was an intervention from my smart-mouthed brother.

"They should start paying you danger money to go to your snobs' school," Peter said.

"What are you on about now?" I replied, with barely concealed contempt.

"People falling from high ropes and having to be carted off to hospital with broken legs."

"How do you know about that?"

"Dave told me at school today - it was his brother that broke his leg. Lucky git, he's going to get six weeks off school."

I was stunned. "Six weeks?" I said weakly.

"At least. He'll probably only have to go back for a couple of weeks, and then he'll get another six weeks off for the summer holidays."

I felt like the bottom had just fallen out of my world. It had been bad enough not seeing Rob for a day, but six weeks? My mother walked into the room at that moment.

"What's the matter with you?" she asked me. "You've got a face like a wet weekend."

Only one thought was stuck in my mind. "Six weeks."

"What about six weeks?"

"I'm not going to see him for six weeks."

"Who?"

I wasn't thinking very clearly at that point, because if I had been, I'd have made my excuses and just walked away "Rob."

"Who's he?" My brother chose this moment to chime in.

"His brother is in my form, he was in the year above me at St. Margaret's, he goes to that snobs' school that John goes to."

"So he's what, 14?" my mother asked. Jigsaw pieces seemed to be assembling themselves in her head. "What is he to you?" she asked me, sharply, accusingly.

"He's my friend. What is it, am I not supposed to have friends now?" I was close to tears.

"It sounds to me like he's more than a friend, if you're that upset about him."

"Haha, John's a poof, Rob's his boyfriend," Peter gloated.

I tried to grab my brother, with every intention of punching his lights out.

"Don't you dare!" my mother shouted, "John, answer my question, what is this boy to you?"

"Leave me alone," was all I could say as I blundered out of the room and dashed upstairs, slamming my bedroom door behind me before bursting into tears. I heard my mother following me up the stairs, and I didn't have a lock on my bedroom door, so I dragged the chest of drawers across, a barricade to keep the world away from my desolation. My mother tried to opened the door, failed, and shouted again.

"John, open the door this minute!"

"Go away and leave me alone," I sniffled.

"You just wait until your father gets home, you'll be sorry."

I'm already sorry I was born, I thought, there's not much that can make it worse. All the while, though, I was thinking about my mother's question ; "What is he to you?"  What was he to me? I didn't really know myself, hadn't thought about it until then. All I could say was that I felt good, felt happy, when I was with him, and felt disappointed, as though my life was somehow incomplete, when I didn't see him. Was this love? I had no idea, it had never happened to me before. And if it was love, what did that say about me? Maybe my brother was right, maybe I was a 'poof' - I did fantasise about boys, but I'd never fantasised about Rob, not even once. I just didn't associate him with sex at all.

I stayed in my room as long as I could, but eventually I needed to go to the toilet. I'd heard my father arrive home from work some time earlier, and, given that it's pretty difficult to move a chest of drawers quietly, by the time I was able to open the door, he was standing outside.

"Excuse me, please," I said, "I need the toilet."

"You've waited this long, you can wait a bit longer. What's all this about this boy?"

"What about him? He's my friend, he wasn't at school today and then Peter told me that he was the one who had the accident in the gym yesterday. I was a bit shocked, that's all."

"Your mother said that you were nearly in tears when you found out he was going to be off school for six weeks. Why should that be such a big problem for you, you've got other friends, haven't you?"

"I like him, I was upset that he was hurt. Wouldn't you be upset if one of your friends hurt themselves?"

"Not to that extent. I don't think you're telling us the truth about this...Rob."

"What else do you expect me to say? He's my friend, one of my best friends. That's the truth."

"Can't you cope with boys your own age? Why do you have to hang around someone so young?"

"He's only two and a half years younger than me, it's not like he's at primary school. Anyway, Mum is five years younger than you, and that doesn't seem to make a difference."

"Don't be cheeky. Your mother and I were both adults when we first met. Listen to me. I don't think it's right for you to have such young friends. Stick to people of your own age. If I hear that you've disobeyed me, you'll be in serious trouble."

"So you're picking my friends now, then?"

"I'm losing my patience with you, young man. Don't tempt me. As long as you're a minor, and you're living in my house, you'll do as I say. When you're 18, if you're so desperate to live your own life, you can leave school, get a job, and find your own place to live. If you want the benefits of living here, you've got to accept the rules as well."

"Yes, Dad. Can I please go to the toilet now?" There was no point in trying to engage him in discussion, there never was, with either of my parents. They were products of their generation, when children were seen and not heard, and did what they were told or risked a clip round the ear, or worse.

He stepped aside. "Go and apologise to your mother when you've finished in the toilet."

"Yes, Dad."

I couldn't believe that my parents were telling me that I couldn't be friends with Rob. It was none of their business, in my opinion. I simply couldn't understand why they were making such a big issue of it. Despite what my brother had said, Rob wasn't my 'boyfriend', that thought had never even crossed my mind. But, the doubts nagged in the back of my mind, why was I so upset about the prospect of not seeing him? There must be a reason why I missed him so much when he wasn't around. I was just as confused as I had been when I was 13, and there was still no-one I could turn to for advice. Life stank.

****

Rob did eventually return to school for the last 10 days before the summer holidays, but he couldn't walk to school, coming on the bus instead, so I still saw almost nothing of him. On the last but one day of term, I managed to talk to him for a few minutes at lunchtime.

"What are you doing during the holidays?" I asked him.

"Nothing much. I've still got to have a load of physio, the hospital say I'll be lucky to be walking without my stick by the end of the holidays. What about you?"

"Working, mostly. I've got a part-time job shelf-stacking at that new supermarket near the seafront. At least I'll have a decent amount of money, for a change. That paper round pays peanuts."

"Dave told me that your mum & dad said that you weren't supposed to see me. Why?" Peter had obviously been speaking to Rob's brother.

"I don't know. My Dad said he thinks I should only have friends my own age. I can't talk to my parents about anything, it's like 'We've decided, you do what you're told, end of discussion.' I honestly don't understand what their problem is."

He looked at me intently, seemed to be about to speak, then changed his mind, then changed it back. "My dad...said..." he began hesitantly.

"What?"

"It doesn't matter, I didn't believe him, anyway. Look, I've got to go, I need to go to the secretary's office before the bell goes, I've got to give them a note about hospital appointments next term. See you later, John."

"See you later." I was more confused than ever, what could Rob's dad have said, presumably about me, from the boy's hesitancy - I'd never met the man, wouldn't have known him if I'd tripped over him in the street.

That situation changed shortly after school had broken up, though. I was at work, pricing and stacking tins of cat food. A man and woman, followed by a boy I thought I recognised, came into the aisle where I was working. I heard the boy say "That's him, there."

The man, who wasn't quite as tall as me, but much more powerfully built, came up to me and jabbed a finger into my chest. I glared back at him, although I was pretty scared.

"Listen to me, you poofter. You leave my son alone, or I'll rip your head off."

"I don't know who you are, or who your son is, and I'm not a poofter," I said, as firmly as I could in the circumstances.

"Don't lie to me, you know Robert Rhodes, don't you."

"Yes, he's my friend, he goes to my school."

"Yeah, well I'm his dad, and I'm telling you to stay away from him, or I'll kick your head in. I don't want him around your sort."

"What sort? Intelligent people who want to be his friend?"

"Don't get smart with me, or I'll sort you out here and now." Just then, the store manager appeared at the end of the aisle.

"Is there some sort of problem, Sir?" he asked Rob's dad.

"Not to do with your shop, just with...the likes of him." He jabbed his thumb in my direction. "Just remember," he shot at me, "stay away from my son." As he turned on his heel and left, I saw Rob's brother smirking. Yes, I thought, you'll get your comeuppance, you little shit.

"What was that about, John?" the manager asked me.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Mr Dixon. I've never seen that man before." At least the last sentence was the truth.

****

The encounter with Rob's dad, unwelcome as it was, at least resolved any confusion about what at least one set of parents thought. I wondered if my parents thought the same - I guessed they probably did. Nice to know that your parents thought you wanted to go to bed with a 14 year old boy, I thought, pity they haven't got the bottle to say it to your face. It all seemed so unfair to me - I'd never even thought about doing it, I'd never said or done anything untoward to Rob - as he'd said himself, he didn't believe what his dad had said.

After what had happened, I wasn't in the mood to put myself in the firing line by going anywhere near where Rob's home - I didn't know his exact address, anyway, just the block of council flats that he lived in, near the docks. He knew where I worked, though, and a few days later, I was working near the front of the shop when I saw him limping past the big front window. It was immediately obvious that he was going to come into the shop, and I saw him looking over his shoulder before he came through the doors, presumably to see if anyone had seen where he was going. Given where I was working, he saw me almost straight away, and came over.

"Hi, John. Look, I'm sorry about what happened with my dad - Dave told me all about it, he was laughing his arse off. It was him who told my dad what your brother had said, you know, about me being your boyfriend, and you being...a...poof." He was almost whispering.

"Don't worry about it, Rob, it's not your fault. You know and I know I've never done anything to you, and we're still friends - at least, I hope we are - it's just that some people have got dirty minds, or, like our brothers, just want to cause problems. You'd better go - I don't want you to get into trouble, and I don't particularly want your dad coming after me again. I'll see you when we get back to school."

"Thanks, John, Of course we're still friends, see you around." I was treated to his trademark smile, and my heart felt like it was melting. I could hardly bear the thought that, unless we chanced upon one another in the street, it was going to be another 4 weeks or so before I saw him again. Another element of the confusion in my mind had just disappeared - I was undoubtedly in love, whether or not sex came into it.

****

As I began my A-level year at school, things settled back into a quieter routine. Rob was still going to and from school on the bus for the first few weeks of term, but his limp had almost disappeared, and one Friday, he came up to me at break, smiling broadly.

"John, I'll be walking to school again from Monday - usual time and place suit you?"

"Great, Rob, I'll see you there!"

Needless to say, Monday morning brought heavy rain, but, nothing daunted, he appeared coming up the station steps.

"Great day to choose to start walking, eh?"

"Yeah, lovely," I replied, "let's get going before we drown!"

Christmas came and went, and with it, my eighteenth birthday was rapidly approaching. I would've liked a big party, but my parents had decided - no discussion, as usual - that we were going to go out for a family meal, instead.

"You can invite one friend," my dad told me - thanks a bunch, I thought - "how about that boy you've been friends with since the first year, it's his birthday soon as well, isn't it?"

"Yes, Martin is eighteen about ten days before me. I'll ask him if he can come." No chance of it being Rob, I knew, so no point in causing an argument I could never win. Martin was pleased to be asked, so it was about the best solution I could've expected.

The next day, I told Rob what my dad had said.

"I would've loved to have invited you, but my parents would never agree in a million years, and I doubt if yours would, either."

"I know, it's a pain how they are. John...I've never really asked you, and...I don't know if I should..."

I could feel a big moment suddenly rushing towards me.

"Ask what, Rob?"

"Are you...I mean, what do you really think of me."

"I like you a lot, you're one of my best friends, I would've hoped you knew that."

"I know, but that's not really what I mean...do you..." He ground to a halt, but if he wanted to ask, he had to say the words, I wasn't going to put them in his mouth. "Do you...fancy me?"

I took a deep breath. At least, I thought, I could tell him the truth, I wanted to tell him the truth. "Rob," I said, looking him straight in the eye, "I can honestly say I've never thought about having sex with you, if that's what you mean. I like you very much, though, more than just about anyone, I really missed you after you broke your leg."

"So...are you saying...you love me?"

"I don't know," I said, blushing, "I've never been in love." It was a lie, the first I'd ever told him, as far as I could remember, and I was ashamed of myself, but I couldn't, despite everything, bring myself to say the irrevocable words. His expression was completely unreadable - if I live to be a hundred, I could never say whether he was happy or sad, relieved or disappointed, about to laugh or cry. In the event, what he said next hit me like a bullet in the chest.

"I've got a girlfriend."

"Good, I'm pleased for you." Another blatant lie, and this time he knew it, the wavering of my voice must have given me away.

"I don't think you are, John."

"Not what?"

"Pleased for me. You're in love with me, aren't you?"

I sat down on a garden wall, fighting back tears. It was a fight I quickly lost.

"I'm sorry, Rob, I can't help it."

He didn't say another word, he just walked away, leaving me crying on that wall. I felt that all the pillars of my life had just fallen away in that moment.

****

I didn't go to school that day, the first and only time I'd played truant in my whole school career. I walked up to the cliffs overlooking the harbour, and sat there, all day, even though it was March and freezing cold. The weather exactly matched how I felt inside, frozen - too numb to even cry any more, I couldn't see any escape from the pain that seemed to be eating me alive, from within. My first love, my only love, I thought, had rejected me. Life couldn't get any worse.

Except that it could. I shuffled and mumbled my way through the next three weeks until my birthday, feeling like an empty shell, avoiding everyone, spending most of my time in my room when I wasn't at school or work, especially avoiding Rob - I even changed the way I walked to school, going a longer way round, so I wouldn't accidentally bump into him. No-one at school really took much notice, they were too used to me being a weird loner to think my behaviour especially unusual. Martin was probably the only one who suspected something was wrong, but I wouldn't, couldn't open up to him. Until the day after my eighteenth. He'd come for the meal on my birthday, and during the evening, suggested that, since it was now legal for both of us, we could go out for a beer or two on the following night, a Sunday. I wasn't keen, but he was pretty insistent, so I eventually agreed. He lived in the next town, so I arranged to go over on the train and meet him at 8:00 outside his local, on the seafront. As I walked to the station, I was just about to cross the High Street, when a cyclist came towards me. As I waited at the kerb, I recognised who was riding that bike - Rob. I was just about to say hello, when he looked straight at me, with an expression on his face that I can only describe as naked hatred. I stepped back, as though he'd physically hit me - I'd never experienced anything like it in my life. I went to catch my train in a daze, and was still in much the same state when I met Martin about an hour later. He knew straight away something was badly wrong, and, to his credit, tried his best to draw me out, but I wasn't biting. The whole evening was excruciating, and I don't think either of us were sorry to see the clock ticking around towards 'Last Orders'.

"Come on," he said, "I'll walk up to the station with you."

"I'd rather go for a walk on the beach."

"OK, whatever, Don't forget it's Sunday, though, the last train's earlier tonight."

"Yeah, thanks."

We walked across the road to the beach, crunching our way over the shingle.

"Are you going to tell me what the problem is, John? I've known you for years, and I've never known you to be like this."

"I don't know if I can - I don't know if I can even explain it to myself."

"It can't be that bad, surely."

"It seems that bad to me."

"What's happened? Has someone died?"

"Only my heart."

"Oh, God. I didn't know you had a girlfriend, have you been dumped?"

I hesitated - once again, irrevocable words seemed to be lurching towards me. "I didn't say anything...about a girl."

He stopped dead in his tracks. "Are you trying to tell me...tell me you're joking, please."

Now he 'knew', there didn't seem to be any more point in prevarication.

"I'm in love...with...Rob, and he hates me for it." I gave him a 90 second potted history, up to that dreadful look earlier that evening, before slumping down on the pebbles, tears streaming down my face.

"You're a queer, is that what you're saying? You've lied about yourself, all the years I've known you."

"I haven't lied, you've never asked me. You've just assumed I'm the same as all the rest of you. Anyway. I didn't even know myself until I met Rob, and that was only about 18 months ago, and, even then, I didn't know straight away. It wasn't until he broke his leg in that accident in the gym and I didn't see him for weeks that I realised how I felt about him."

"You're a joke, pathetic. Go to hell." He stormed away across the shingle, leaving me...

Beached.

****

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Blue

Cerulean sky
Arching above the summer
Lifting the spirit

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Ethereality

Clouds, layered, contra-rotating, lower to the right, upper to the left.

Gulls, swoop and bob, duck and dive, defying gravity with insouciance.

Leaves, flick and flutter, react to currents of invisibility.

Eyes, through veiled saccades, build images in the brain.

Love & best wishes to all

Sammy B

Insomnia

I've been sitting here for hours, watching the reflection of blackness on the dark glass. Sitting in a high-backed chair, mostly as still as the trees whose silhouettes loom, dark on dark, on the riverbank a few hundred yards from my room, still as statuary on this windless summer night. The clock on the wall tick-tocks inexorably on its way, always trying to step into the future, but always locked in the implacable present, never able to turn back, even for a moment, every passing tick and tock consigned for ever to that frozen, unreachable realm that is the past. As I look from my window onto the slumbering street below, nothing moves, no sounds reach my ears, all life seems to have sucked from the earth as though by some alien force, which for some unknown, unknowable reason, has passed me by, left me alone as the sole survivor of the once teeming hordes. Finally, I have to shift and stretch, before immobility strangles my muscles into ropes of cramp, but it's only a spasm, I soon resume my vigil, my sentinel position, watching for any sign that the night will come to an end, that I will be released from this netherworld of plangent silence, given a last hope of resurrection from this oblivion of sleeplessness, but no vestige of even a false dawn manifests itself, the stygian gloom marches on relentlessly, by the second, by the minute, by the hour. I know that this torment must surely come to an end, surely the ink-black sky will be suffused with that almost imperceptible lightening towards the darkest of blues, surely sometime soon, before I lose my reason, my mind ripped to shreds like Pentheus by the maenads, Hypnos, I beg of you, save me from my curse, this curse of wakefulness.

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lucent (Part 4)

That August Sunday morning, over two years ago now, was the start in a new phase of my life, a phase where things really started to go my way. Alex and Lawrence did begin to learn to surf during that holiday, and while neither of them are ever likely to cause too many sleepless nights for the professionals over at Fistral Beach, they both really enjoy it. They spent many weekends at Guillemot Cottage, even more after Alex passed his driving test a couple of months after his seventeenth birthday and they could get down in about 4 hours rather than the 6 or 7 it took by public transport - my weed-strewn parking bay was finally seeing some use! I even travelled up to my old home town to visit on odd occasions - Malcolm and Jackie were very generous with their hospitality - and I got to know Jayne, Alex's mum, although our dealings were characterised more by politeness than any real warmth. I also caught up with Vickie, the art teacher who'd done so much for me in the early days after my injury, and took her and her husband out for dinner - it was the least I could do in the circumstances.

****

As far as my own career went, the spring after the Alex and Lawrence fortnight was when it all began to take off. I was in my dealer's gallery in the village, chatting and showing him a portfolio of the work I'd been doing over the previous couple of months, when a guy I thought I recognised, but couldn't place, came in. He gravitated towards one of my seascapes which was hanging in the gallery, at which point my dealer, with his salesman's instincts, intervened.

"Excuse me, Sir, if you're interested in that particular canvas, you might like a word with this gentleman - he's the artist."

I chatted with the potential customer for a few minutes, he asked to have a look at my portfolio, we chatted some more, and then he went on his way.

"Do you know who that was?" my dealer asked.

"He looked familiar, but I couldn't quite place him."

It turned out that he was a TV celebrity chef who owned a chain of high class restaurants around South West England, and the upshot of our chance meeting was that I was commissioned by him to paint both conventional seascapes on canvas and a series of murals for several of his restaurants. The murals were a problem on two fronts - firstly, I had almost no experience of painting them, although, as luck would have it, I seemed to have the knack when it came to the crunch, and, secondly, I still didn't have any transport of my own to get to the various places where I needed to work. The school Easter holidays were approaching, which gave me an idea. I rang Alex.

"How do you fancy a holiday job in Cornwall?" I knew Lawrence was due to be away on a language exchange trip during the Easter break.

"Sounds good. What would I be doing?"

"Driving me around to various posh restaurants so I can decorate their walls with my expensive daubs!"

"Any posh food thrown in?"

"You never know your luck!"

"I'm there! You haven't got a car, though."

"I'll buy one - I'd hire one, but you wouldn't be old enough to drive a hire car yet. With a bit of luck, my accountant should be to offset it against tax as a business expense."

"Free food, and a tax dodge, you'll be a millionaire yet!"

We had a great couple of weeks, got lots of work done, and did get some gourmet seafood for free, although not as much as Alex would've liked. We were sitting in the studio late one night, after a long day driving and painting - it was a bit chilly for the patio.

"Back to school on Monday, then."

"Thanks for reminding me, Dan. Still, this time next year, I'll just be getting ready to start my A-levels."

"Got any plans after that?"

"No, not really. I've kind of drifted into doing the subjects I'm doing, without thinking too much about what happens next. Media Studies seems to be going the best - I like photography, and then playing about with the results on the computer. It's not exactly much that you could put on a C.V., though."

I'd seen some of his graphics work, and it was pretty impressive. "Unless you want to be a photographer and computer graphics artist, of course."

"I guess. Not the sort of thing you find much in the local Job Centre, though."

"Why don't you come up with a portfolio of some of your stuff? I'm starting to get to know a few people here and there who might be interested in looking at the sort of thing I know you can do - I've seen some of the work on your laptop, don't forget."

"Maybe. It won't be tonight, though," he yawned expansively, "I'm knackered! You're a slave driver!"

"Last day of work tomorrow, and it's pretty local, only in Padstow, then we'll have a chill-out day on Saturday, go for a meal - even if we have to pay for it ourselves! - before you have to go back on Sunday."

On the Saturday afternoon, the weather was as warm as it had been that spring, so Alex took the opportunity to surf for an hour or so. He arrived back at the cottage, and was soon out on the patio, wrapped in sweat gear and towels.

"I'm glad this is a suntrap, Dan, I'm freezing."

"Well, if you will go surfing in the North Atlantic Ocean in April, you impetuous young man, what do you expect?"

"You're warm enough, dressed like that." I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts.

"That's because I'm not so daft as to go in the sea."

"I could do with a hug, that would warm me up more quickly."

"Your hug bunny is on his way back from France, though - it looks like you're out of luck."

There was a pause in the banter. I wondered what was coming next.

"You could give me a hug, Dan."

My first instinct was to carry on with the light-hearted repartee of the last couple of minutes, but the tone of Alex's voice had changed, and I knew another airy remark wasn't what was called for.

"You're right, I could. There are all sorts of things we could do in life, but they're not all necessarily a good idea."

"You do so much, have done so much for me, Dan, but I never seem to do anything in return."

"Of course you do. You're my friend, probably my best friend, although Lawrence would be a close second. I don't want anything else from you, that's more than enough."

"Maybe...maybe I want more from you, though. I'm very greedy."

"Alex...I could recite a litany of reasons 10 feet long as to why I shouldn't get involved with you, I'm old enough to be your father, my health is pretty fragile, it would be breaching the trust of your mum, after she's let you stay here with me, and numerous other things, but, when it comes down to it, there's only one word I want to say to you...Lawrence."

"Do you think we haven't talked about it? Lawrence has known for weeks that I was coming down here to stay with you, he doesn't expect us to be like monks."

I'd reached the point where I'd been in my dream, but this time the question was far from unspoken, and Alex wasn't a child any more.

"I don't think I can, Alex. You're very special to me, more than anyone in my life apart from Lucy, but that's different, she's my flesh and blood. But Lawrence is special to me as well, and you two are way beyond special to each other. I could never forgive myself if I did anything, or allowed anything to happen, that would jeopardise that."

"It wouldn't, I promise. I can prove it to you." He pulled his mobile phone from his pocket, pressed a few buttons, and handed it to me. "Press the 'Play' icon, and watch."

I pressed, and watched. It was a short video, lasting about two minutes, and had been made, according to the date and time stamp in the corner of the screen, that morning. After the video finished, I pressed the 'Replay' icon and watched it again. Then a third time. Then I closed my eyes. Alex's light footsteps sounded on the wooden decking. I felt his hand rest gently on my shoulder.

"You see, Dan. That's what we want. Lawrence can't tell you personally, because he's probably on a Eurostar at the moment, so he recorded the message earlier and e-mailed it to my phone. But we've been thinking and talking about it for months - it's what we really want."

"What will your parents say?"

"Malcolm and Jackie will be fine with it. We know, we've already spoken to them. My mum will hate it, but she hates me being with Lawrence, although she'd never say so. She'll just have to get used to it."

What was in that message? In effect, the words that Lawrence spoke, on behalf of himself and Alex, constituted a 'marriage' proposal. From both of them, jointly, to me. The last two sentences, spoken by Lawrence looking directly at the camera, as though he was looking me straight in the eye, were "You've given Alex his life, and me mine through Alex. We want to live with you, happy ever after."

"Can I have my hug now, Dan? I'm still cold."

****

Later that evening, we were back in the cottage after having had a long, slightly boozy dinner in the nice restaurant in the village. Neither of us were drunk, but we'd shared a pleasant bottle of wine, and I'd finished with a brandy, so we certainly weren't 100% sober.

"Thank you for this evening, Dan, I've really enjoyed it."

"Me too - it must be the company."

Alex smiled broadly. "Time for bed, then?"

I knew from the way he'd said it that it was a question rather than just a statement.

"Yeah, you know where your room is."

He looked up at me - surprised?, disappointed?, relieved? It was difficult to tell.

"Dan..." he began hesitantly, "I thought...maybe I could sleep..."

"With me?"

"Yes...please?"

I heaved a huge sigh. "This is difficult for me, Alex."

"I know - it's what I want, though...what Lawrence and I want."

"Did you speak to him earlier?"

"Yes, I managed to get a signal on my mobile in the village, for once. I rang him from the Gents at the restaurant."

"Very romantic! How is he?"

"He's fine, tired after that long journey, though. And very nervous...about how you'd react, I mean."

Yes, I thought, I can relate to that. I was feeling like I had when I was a teenager, approaching my first date.

"When I say this is difficult for me, Alex, I don't mean just about the ethics of the situation - I mean about what's inside me, what I am myself. I haven't been to bed with anybody since I split up with Liz, but more than that, I've never been involved with anyone of my own sex before - as far as I can remember, I've only ever even kissed two males in my life, my dad when I was a little boy, and you. When you kissed me in my dream, it felt straight away as though something had changed in me, but that was, after all, just a dream, even if the kiss was real. This is difficult in another way, as well - as I'm sitting here talking to you, I'm desperately trying not to say the wrong thing, I don't want to you think I'm rejecting you, because I'm not, but it's such a big step for me, for us - all three of us - that I'm...afraid to make it. Once that step is made, there's no going back, ever, and I'm not ashamed to say that the prospect frightens me."

Alex moved from the armchair where he'd been sitting, and plopped down beside me on the sofa, close, but not touching. We looked at each other.

"There's nothing to be frightened of, Dan. It's only love, you love me and don't want to hurt me, I love you and don't want to hurt you. Lawrence feels the same way about you, and I think you feel the same way about him. Nothing more or less than that."

He leaned towards me and laid his head on my shoulder, I tentatively put my arm around him.

"How about a boring compromise, Alex. A halfway house that I can cope with as I am at the moment. We'll sleep together tonight, but just that, sleep. Keep our night clothes on, maybe just a hug or two. Then the next time you're both free, you and Lawrence come down for the weekend and we'll talk everything through. I'm sorry if that's not quite how you saw this evening panning out, but that's the best I can manage for now."

"Dan, that will be absolutely great. Come on, I'm getting cold again, you can warm me up!"

****

The boys came down to Guillemot Cottage for the May Day bank holiday weekend, which gave us an extra day for our conclave. The weather was rotten, cold, wet and windy, but it hardly mattered, because we spent virtually the whole weekend talking about their proposal, and what it would mean for all of us. By the Sunday evening, we'd got pretty much everything sorted out. Alex would turn 18 in November, Lawrence in the following February. They both had just over another year of school to complete, up to their A-levels, due the summer of the following year. After they finished school, Alex was going to come and work with me in a company we would set up to market our art, while Lawrence was aiming to go to university to take a degree in Business Studies and Modern Languages, hopefully at Plymouth, after which he would manage our company and leave Alex and I to look after the 'creative' side.

"I've got some good news on the commercial front, as well," I told them. "Mr TV Chef liked the murals we did for him so much that he's planning to use the designs on a range of merchandise, crockery, placemats, coasters, that kind of thing, and all at the top end of the market. We'll get royalties on every cup, plate and tea towel that he sells! We won't be rich overnight, but it'll get the company off to a flying start. It's a good job, too, because if we're all going to live together in our little commune, we're going to need something a bit bigger than poor old Guillemot Cottage."

"I like it here, though," Alex said.

"So do I, but it's a bit small for three adults to live in permanently. Don't worry, though, I'm hopeful, with this merchandising money on the horizon, that we'll be able to keep the cottage - it's all paid for, don't forget, we haven't got a mortgage or anything like that to worry about - and still be able to afford to buy a new, bigger place as well. Then, when we get sick of the sight of each other, we'll have a bolthole to escape to!"

"What are we going to do about telling the world about us?" Lawrence asked. "My mum and dad and Alex's mum know about some of it, what about your family, Dan?"

"Well, my family pretty much consists of Lucy, period. She's coming down here for half term at the end of this month, so I'll talk to her then. I'll speak to Liz just as a matter of courtesy, but I don't think she'll be too interested - she's too busy making money with her travel firm. As far as the rest of the world goes, how does a joint 18th birthday and commitment party, around the time of your birthday, Lawrence, sound?"

"Well, it would certainly be different from the average 18th party - 'We'd like to thank you all for coming, and, by the way, we're spending the rest of our lives with this eccentric artist' - should catch their attention, at least!" Lawrence laughed.

"Seriously, though, would you rather wait until you've left school before telling everyone anything quite so radical - I wouldn't want you to have problems because of me."

"It's not because of you Dan, it's what we want. It was us that proposed to you, don't forget," Alex said. "Anyway, Lawrence is a black belt now, they won't argue with him, and I'm big enough to look after myself as well."

The only issue that still hadn't been resolved was what, if any, physical relationship I was going to be involved in. As I'd told Alex at Easter, it wasn't something I was going to find easy to deal with. It had been nice sharing a bed with him for that one night, I'd enjoyed the warmth and closeness after so long sleeping on my own, but when I'd woken the following morning with him snuggled up to me and visibly aroused, I felt a nagging sense of wrongdoing, as though I'd taken advantage of him. It was a barrier that had to be crossed in some way, or it would risk driving a wedge into the heart of our interactions with each other. If we were going to make this unusual relationship work, it would have to be as equals. Lawrence was the one who made the decisive move.

On their last night of that weekend, Alex made his excuses and went to bed early - he had to drive back the following morning, Lawrence had only just started taking driving lessons. Lawrence and I talked for a while about details of how we would set up our joint business and how it would be run. As the time passed 11:00, the conversation started to flag a little.

"I think that's about as much management-speak as I can manage for one night, Dan. There's something else we need to talk about, anyway."

The purpose in his voice was obvious. I braced myself for what I guessed was coming next.

"We've agreed that we're all going to be equal partners in this relationship, Dan, but you're evading one really big issue. I'm sorry to be so blunt, but we need to 'talk about sex, baby', as the old song goes."

"I know, I did talk about it with Alex the last time he was here, we slept together."

"Yes, slept, and when he woke up with a hard-on, he said you left the room so fast, he couldn't see you for dust."

"I don't want to sound patronising, or worse still, prejudiced, but you've known you were gay since you were a boy, this is all a bit new to me. I also really care a lot about you and Alex, and I don't want to do anything to hurt either of you, in any way."

"You still see us, especially Alex, as little boys sometimes, don't you Dan?"

"I never knew you as a boy, Lawrence, I just had a picture of you in my mind's eye. I never really knew Alex, either, but I did have a real picture of him, lying on the ground, hurting, terrified, while his dad attacked him. And my dream, that was how I remembered him, the real life, frightened Alex was suppressed, I only thought of the pretty, blond boy who'd kissed me in my dream. I know you're not little boys, of course I do, but sometimes images are so deeply ingrained in your mind that it's hard to get past them."

"That's why it should be me you should go to bed with first, Dan." He smiled. "No ghosts in your head. Come on, I'll look after you, I promise."

He took me by the hand, and quietly led me upstairs.

He was so gentle with me that first time - he was gentle by nature anyway, and all the more so because he knew how fragile I was in this regard. I think he was afraid I'd run away if he showed any passion at all. Even then, I cried for at least half an hour afterwards, Lawrence was so patient with me, he just let me cry on his shoulder, as though I was the little boy who needed comfort and reassurance, which, in a way, I was. In the morning, Alex tapped quietly on the door, before coming in and sitting on the bed beside me.

"OK, Dan?" He must have been able to see I'd been crying.

"Yes, I think so. I still feel very emotional, though, I feel like I might burst into tears at any moment."

"There's no need to take it so seriously, it's supposed to be fun."

"I know, just give me a little while to get used to things, I'm sure I'll loosen up soon."

"I hope so, it's my turn next time!" He almost dazzled me with the brightness of his mischievous smile.

****

The final piece in our jigsaw fell into place just before Christmas. We'd been doing a bit of house-hunting, mostly online, but nothing we really liked had come on the market. Then one afternoon, I was working in the studio when the phone rang. It was Lawrence.

"I think I might have found one, Dan. It's a bit expensive, though." He gave me the details of the estate agent's website, and I told him I'd have a look when I'd finished what I was doing. The house he'd seen was indeed at the very top end, price-wise, of what we could afford, four bedrooms, large garden, sun terrace with sea views and a separate garage and workshop block which could be adapted as a studio. It was in a large village on the south coast of Cornwall, not as touristy as where the village where Guillemot Cottage was, close to one of the restaurants where we'd worked on the murals earlier in the year.

Alex and Lawrence came down the weekend before Christmas, immediately after school had finished for the holidays, and we went to see the house on the Saturday morning. As it had been with me and Guillemot Cottage, it was love at first sight for all of us. Estate agents' descriptions usually exaggerate the charms of a property, but this one, if anything, undersold how good the location was. From the sun terrace, you could see something like 10 miles of coastline, arcing away in both directions. We put in an offer the same day, rather below the asking price, and after a little bit of haggling over valuation of fixtures and fittings, had a slightly higher offer accepted, which still left us with enough in our 'property fund' to afford to have the workshop converted to a studio for me, with a small computer suite for Alex as well. Everything was ready by the end of January, a few days after Lawrence had passed his driving test at the second attempt, and I moved in just under two weeks before the night of the big party.

****

We were all getting extremely nervous as the week of the party progressed. It was on the Saturday night of school half term holiday week, towards the end of February, a couple of days after Lawrence's actual birthday, and almost three months after Alex's. Malcolm and Jackie, and to a lesser extent Jayne, had made most of the arrangements, so I stayed in Cornwall until the Friday morning, using new house duties as an excuse. Lucy travelled down from the Midlands on the same day, and we met up in, of all places, the station buffet, just yards away from where Alex and I had been attacked, four and a half years earlier.

"Hi, Dad".

"Lou, lovely to see you, how are you?"

"Fine. How's the new house."

"Just about liveable now, although we've only got two of the bedrooms set up at the moment. We've got some more furniture due next week. You'll have to come down and see it soon, it's in a great spot."

"I will. How are the rest of the triumvirate?"

"Fine, thanks, they're running around getting stuff ready for tomorrow. We're going to meet up later on and then going out for a family meal tonight with the various parents, I don't think you've met Jayne, have you?"

"Alex's mum? No, she's never been down to Cornwall, has she?"

"No, she doesn't really approve, to be honest, but, to be fair to her, she's always polite, if not exactly overflowing with warmth. Come on, let's head over to Lawrence's house, that's where we're both staying this weekend."

As the day went on, everyone gradually got together - Lucy and I arrived, then Alex and Lawrence returned from their separate missions, and finally Malcolm got back from work. It was a convivial day all round, with everyone catching up on everyone else's news, before we went out for the evening meal to a local pub, within walking distance for everyone - Alex had gone home to walk his mum to the pub shortly before the rest of us set out. It all went very well, the only awkward moment coming when Malcolm made an off-the-cuff remark about me enjoying my last night as a single man, which Jayne didn't find very amusing, but, that apart, a fine time was had by all.

Then the night of the party, and I was as jittery as a kitten as we arrived at the function room, a feeling that got worse as the guests started to arrive, and rounds of introductions were made. Apart from a scattering of older family members, most of the guests were Alex and Lawrence's school friends and their assorted girlfriends, and people they knew from their self-defence classes and the like. A few of them remembered me from the local press and TV coverage after the attack, but most of them didn't, some regarding me with curiosity bordering on hostility. Lucy stayed close to me for much of the night, as she didn't really know anyone apart from our immediate circle, and helped to keep me on an even keel.

Alex, Lawrence and I hadn't really spent too much time discussing how we were going to phrase things when the time came to say our collective piece, and we found it hard to get together for more than a few seconds at a time at the party, with so many people wanting to speak to the boys, so, in the end, we decided to make it up as we went along.

The DJ started things when he announced  "Can I have your attention please, everyone. There are three gentlemen here who would like to say a few words to you."

Lawrence spoke first. "Four and a half years ago, some of you might remember, something happened that changed our lives. If it hadn't been for the way chance works, at least one, and probably two of us, wouldn't be here tonight. All I can say is that I'm glad that chance did work out the way it has, because I've found not one, but two wonderful people to love. Thanks."

Alex was next. "Some scientists say that at every moment, the universe takes one or other of two paths, probably pretty much at random. I'm glad that those random paths have led me here, I couldn't imagine being happier. I love you, Lawrence and Dan. Thanks a lot, everyone."

Then it was my turn. "On that day outside the station, my old life ended. Thanks to two very special people, my new life is even better. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say to Alex and Lawrence, I love you both very much, and I expect us all to live HAPPY EVER AFTER!"

****

Love & best wishes to all
Sammy B

Lucent (Part 3)

Saturday was the changeover day for the rental cottage next door to Guillemot Cottage, and most weekends in the season, and sometimes even in the middle of winter, there would be a flurry of activity in the morning as the outgoing tenants departed, then the cleaners would arrive at around lunchtime, followed by another session of car door slamming and luggage transference in late afternoon as the new people arrived. This particular Saturday, the first in August, the lady who organised the cleaning service tapped on my door as she was leaving.

"I'm sorry about this, but the landlord has asked me to let you know that the people taking Puffin" - the next door cottage - "this week are going to be arriving very late tonight, something about having to work today and not being able to set out from home until early evening. If it's any consolation, they're here for two weeks, so at least you won't have to put up with the hubbub next Saturday!"

"Thanks for letting me know, I'm sure they won't make too much noise - if they do, I'll let their tyres down!"

We parted laughing. In the event, their arrival must have been very late indeed, as well as very quiet, because I didn't go to bed until almost midnight, I hadn't heard them by that time and they didn't disturb me at whatever time they did eventually turn up. Arrive they had, though, because a fairly new and fairly upmarket estate car had appeared in the bay across the road, next to my unused and uncared for parking space, when I got up at 8:30 on the Sunday morning.

Not surprisingly, there were no signs of life from Puffin Cottage, even though it was a spectacularly beautiful morning, not a cloud in the sky and crystal-clear visibility as I looked out across the bay and out to sea. Far too nice a day for an artist to waste, so it wasn't long before I'd set up my easel on the patio and was setting about what was probably about the hundredth version of the view from my garden since I'd moved here, nearly two and a half years ago. After about an hour, next door began to stir. I heard the back door open, and, to judge by the voices, two teenage boys emerged into the garden, brothers, presumably.

"Wow, Lar, that's some view! It was too dark to see last night.".

"Great, isn't it. Is anyone surfing yet?"

"Nah, there's no wind, the sea's as flat as a pancake. I want to try surfing while we're here."

"You, surfing! You have trouble standing up when you're walking down the street!"

"Sod off! I'll be better at it than you, I bet! Hey, look, Lar, that guy next door is painting the view."

"Sshh. You'll disturb his concentration."

I was used to people watching me paint from over the fence, as my patio was a few feet lower than the garden of Puffin Cottage, and didn't find it a problem, unless someone fancied themselves as an art critic and started pontificating about technique.

"That's really good, look. He must be a professional. I wonder if he does portraits, I'd love one of you, Lar - as a sexy surfer dude!"

Oops, not brothers, then, or probably not, anyway! At that moment, I found I needed something, I can't remember what, from the studio. As I got up, I turned towards the right and faced towards the two previously disembodied voices next door. Two boys, both about the same height, head and shoulders above the top of the low fence, which meant about my height, 5 foot 9 or 10, as I knew from previous experience, one with fair hair, the other slightly darker. As I glanced towards the fair haired boy, on the right as I was looking, his mouth fell open and he looked like he was going to faint. I looked again, more closely, and then I saw the eyes, eyes I'd seen before, in reality and in an submerged, but now reawakened dream.

"Xan, what's the matter," the brown haired boy was saying, "Xan, talk to me, sweet."

"It's him," he whispered, almost inaudible to me, although he was only about six or seven feet away, "it's him".

"Who, sweetheart, who is it?"

"The man from the station, the man who saved me."

Five seconds later, we were both in floods of tears.

****

"It's unbelievable."

"My love, you've only said that 15 times in the last 20 minutes."

"That's because it's true. It must be more unlikely than winning the lottery three weeks in a row."

This exchange was between Malcolm and Jackie, who I'd met about 20 minutes earlier, when they dashed into the garden of their rented holiday cottage to find their son's boyfriend crying his eyes out, and a strange man in the next door garden, also sobbing uncontrollably. We were now sitting around the kitchen table in Puffin Cottage, while the two boys were snuggled in a rocking chair in the corner of the room, the dark haired boy cradling his friend's fair haired head against his chest.

"Don't you think it's unbelievable beyond words, Dan?" Malcolm asked me.

I'd only just about calmed down enough to be able to speak, so that coming up with a coherent answer to any sort of question beyond my name, rank and serial number was almost beyond me at that moment.

"I don't know what to say. It certainly wasn't what I was expecting when I got up this morning."

Malcolm turned towards his son. "How is he, Lawrence?"

"I think he'll be OK in a few minutes, he's stopped crying now." He stroked the fair head gently, lovingly.

"I'm alright now, I think." A muffled voice from the depths of the rocker.

The boys unfolded themselves from each other and from the chair, and inched towards to the table.

"I don't think we've been introduced," I said gently.

"I'm Lawrence, and this is Alex."

"And I'm Dan."

There was a moment of complete stillness, as though everyone in the room was afraid to even breathe. Then Alex took three purposeful steps, bridging the gap of time and space between us in less time than it took to think it, put his arms round my neck and, yes, he was kissing my lips in that familiar but somehow unknown sweet way, flavoured this time by the salt of his tears, feeling as though he was going to melt his way into the centre of me, that I was going to melt into him, and then he was gone, I opened my eyes half expecting to find myself in that hospital bed with my head swimming with pain, but, no, I was still in the kitchen of Puffin Cottage, Alex was just a step away from me, grinning from ear to ear.

"That wasn't the first time I've kissed you, Dan."

"I don't know how or why, but I know you're telling me the truth - tell me the story, please, soon."

"I will. Dan, thank you. Thank you for my life."

****

The five of us spent the most of the day together, I gave them the guided tour of the village, which took all of about ten minutes, before the boys wandered off to have a look at the beach. I gave Malcolm and Jackie a potted history of how I'd come to be living in Guillemot Cottage, sitting at a table outside the beach café, before asking them if they minded some questions about Lawrence and Alex.They assured me that they were happy to tell me pretty much anything, trusting to my discretion that I wouldn't ask anything too personal.

"Did you know Lawrence was gay before he met Alex?"

"Yes, we were pretty sure about Lawrence from when he was about 11. His cousin used to sleep over quite often, they were the same age - actually, they were in the same class at primary school," Jackie said. "One Friday night, I wasn't feeling well, so I went to bed early, only about ten minutes after Lawrence and Tim had gone upstairs. Lawrence's bedroom light was still on, and the door was ajar. I was going to tell them to settle down for the night, but as I got to the door, I could see what was happening - the boys were kissing, and had their hands down the front of each other's pyjamas. I talked to Malcolm about what I'd seen, and we decided to ask Lawrence about it gently."

"It seems odd, looking back," Malcolm added, "when we asked him, after Tim had gone home, about what had happened and how he felt about it, he seemed surprised that we'd had to ask. He just said 'I like boys, I don't like girls like my friends do', as though it was simply an everyday thing, like we'd asked him what his favourite flavour of ice cream was. We found some books, sex education books, appropriate for his age, and talked about the subject with him, but his outlook never changed. He just wasn't interested in girls, only boys. Then shortly before his 13th birthday, he came home from school one day waxing lyrical about this new boy who'd just started in his class, could he come to his birthday party, could he come for a sleepover, Lawrence showed every sign you could think of that he was head over heels in love."

"And that was Alex?"

"That, indeed, was Alex."

"Do you know anything about what had happened on the day I was...attacked?"

"The first we knew of it," Jackie said, "was when the phone rang at about 9:00 that morning. It was Jayne, Alex's mum, asking if I'd seen Alex. She sounded really agitated, but, of course, I couldn't help her - it was the school holidays, as you know, Lawrence was still in bed. She asked...if we knew Alex had a crush on Lawrence. I said, I don't know if I should have, but it all happened very quickly, that yes, we knew the boys were fond of each other. Then she asked, straight out, if Lawrence was gay - all I could tell her was the truth, I said yes, we think so, she called me a bitch, and slammed the phone down."

Malcolm continued. "Jackie rang me at work, I'd only just arrived. My office is quite close to the station, and I saw a police car and then an ambulance heading that way, blue lights flashing. It was obvious something was going on, though, of course, we had no idea what at that point. Jackie said it looked as though something had happened with Alex, but she didn't know any more than that. Then about 15 minutes later, she rang again, telling me I'd better come home straight away, Alex had turned up on our doorstep, absolutely hysterical, saying that his dad trying to kill him and that he was going to kill Lawrence as well. We called his mother, we called the police, and. for the rest, we only know what was in the local papers and on the TV."

"But the boys stayed together, even after what had happened?"

"It was pretty difficult for a while, as you might imagine," Jackie replied, "Jayne was being pulled all over the place, her husband was under arrest, then collapsed at the police station and was rushed to hospital - I believe he was in the same Intensive Care Unit as you, at one point - her son was refusing to go home, refusing to visit his dad in hospital, he basically just hid in Lawrence's bedroom and wouldn't budge for anyone, not even Lawrence, then they had the diagnosis, that Derek, Alex's dad, was almost certainly going to die within weeks, at which point Alex demanded to be taken to the hospital - it was all very fraught for quite a few days. As time went on, Alex pretty much moved in with us - his mother had all the problems with her husband, and his illness, and then his death - he lasted about six weeks, in the end - and, on top of that, having to come to terms with the fact that her only son, her only child, was probably gay. Officially, Alex was still living at home, and still does, but, in reality, he's probably only spent, in total, a couple of months' worth of nights sleeping in his own bedroom in his family home in the last three years. He has his own room at our house, we're pretty strict about the boys not sharing a room, certainly on schooldays, but now that they're both 16, in legal terms, at least, the choice is theirs as to what they do. They've been together for well over three years now, and, as far as we can tell, they've made a long-term commitment to each other. They're still very young, of course, and no-one can predict the future, but we certainly wouldn't be surprised if they spend the rest of their lives together. Jayne, I think, has come to terms with what Alex is and what he wants, even if she doesn't like it very much, but we think, ultimately, that she'll take the same attitude that we have towards Lawrence - what's important is not what would make us happy, but what makes his life happy."

"That is such a wonderful, magnanimous attitude to take towards your child and their life - thank you both for sharing that with me."

As that Sunday came to its end, I found myself sitting on my patio with Alex and Lawrence, Malcolm and Jackie having retreated to Puffin Cottage to read and relax. Lawrence's parents had said it was OK for the boys to have a couple of bottles of beer, in which I joined them, and we sat and chatted about anything and everything that came to mind. I told them about my life and work in the cottage, about my daughter and how I missed her, while they told me about the joys and difficulties of their lives - they got by at school, most people knew they were a couple, although they never flaunted the fact - they didn't want to be expelled, apart from anything else - they had to put up with a certain amount of verbal abuse and the odd veiled threat, but that was as far as it went, although they had both taken self-defence classes, just in case. What came through above all, though, was the fact that they genuinely loved each other, and the fact that they were young and both male was irrelevant to that fundamental point, their love was just as real and sincere as anyone else's.

"Alex, I don't want to you to think I'm being a nuisance, but you owe me a story."

"Story?"

"About a kiss."

He grinned self-consciously, and blushed a little. "Oh yeah." His smile suddenly vanished, as though another, much darker, memory had intervened. His change of mood was so obvious that Lawrence immediately took hold of his hand.

"Sorry, Alex, I shouldn't have asked."

"No, Dan, I want to tell you. It just reminded me of my dad, that's all."

"Only if you feel you can, Alex. I don't want your holiday spoiled by bad memories."

"I'm fine. There's not that much to tell, really. I didn't want to go to the hospital at first, after what happened, but when my mum told me that my dad was...as ill as he was, I changed my mind. I was really scared, but I thought that it was the right thing to do. Dad was in the intensive care place, all sorts of tubes and monitors everywhere, but he just looked like he was asleep. Then someone said, kind of in the background - I think it was one of the nurses - how it was strange that all three people who were involved 'in that business at the station' had ended up in the same room the next day. I realised you must be there as well, but I didn't know why, I didn't know you'd been hurt when you helped me, so I looked round, and saw you - well, I guessed it was you, you were so smothered in bandages and equipment, but the only other patient in there was a lady, so I knew it must be you, you were there all on your own, no visitors or nurses or anything. So I went over to your bed, and you were lying there with your eyes closed, but your face was kind of twitching, you reminded me of our old dog, he used to twitch a lot in his sleep, my mum used to say that he was dreaming of chasing rabbits. That made me think you must be dreaming, and because you'd saved me, I wanted you to have nice dreams, so I leaned down and gave you a little kiss, like my mum used to give me sometimes when I was small. It looked like you smiled a bit when I did that, so I gave you another one, a bit like the one this morning, and this time you really did smile, but then my mum saw what I was doing and told me to leave you alone. So that's it, that's how I'd kissed you before today." He blushed again, but his dark moment seemed to have passed, and he even had that little enigmatic half-smile I remembered from my dream.

"You were right, I was dreaming, a really vivid dream - I was dreaming of you, or, at least, that was how I remembered it afterwards, and I dreamed you were kissing me as well, and that they were the nicest kisses anyone had ever given me." He lowered his eyes, and really did blush, deeply. "Sorry, I shouldn't have said that, I didn't mean to embarrass you. I was right about one thing in my dream, though - I told you to save yourself for Lawrence, and you have, and it's turned out to be the right thing for both of you, from what I can see."

****