“Yeah. Do you want to find out if you’re into men?”
Fuck, yes! I yell internally.
“I… I think so,” I say in a quiet, hesitant voice.
“Then ask me if I’ll do it.” He looks like he’s biting back a smile. But surely not. Surely Giles has lost his fucking mind.
And yet I’m not about to wait and find out.
“Will you… Will you help me find out if I’m into men?” I ask. I don’t know how to phrase it. I certainly can’t ask him what I really want to, which is,will you help me find out if I’m really as into you as I think I am?
As it happens I don’t have any time to think about what I’m not asking Giles, nor do I have any time to think about how my mistruth leaves a bitter taste in my mouth, because Giles is speaking.
“Yes, Marcello,” he says. “I’ll do it.”
Chapter Eighteen
Giles
Windows. Windows. Windows.
I need to clean the windows. Now all my floors and surfaces are clean – all wiped or mopped three times – I should clean the windows. They don’t really need doing. My eyes can see that, but my brain is insistent that they need to be sprayed and wiped down three separate times. My brain is insisting that if I don’t do that, this meet-up, this whatever-this-is will all go horribly wrong. My brain is persistent about me keeping busy rather than just sit and wait for Marcello to arrive like a normal person.
But surely even a so-called normal person wouldn’t be able to sit calmly and wait for their soon to be sex student to arrive. Because that’s what Marcello is, right? He’s coming here to get queer sex lessons, so he can figure out his sexuality. He’s not coming here to hang out, although I’ll be sure to offer him a cup of tea, or a beer if he prefers, and I did make sure my fridge was stocked up with food. He’s definitely not coming here on a date; he made his feelings towards me, or rather towards somebody else, perfectly clear.
He’s coming here to fuck and to do so with one very specific purpose. To find out if he likes fucking men.
It’s at this moment, with my head stuck under the kitchen sink looking for glass cleaner and a clean cloth, that I realise how catastrophically this could go wrong.
What if he hates it? What if he is repulsed by me naked? What if he takes one look at my dick, or he touches it once, and that makes him wantto throw up in his mouth? What if, worst of all, the simple press of my lips to his, makes him want to run away?
I continue to catastrophise like this as I walk across the room and stand in front of the windows. It really is remarkable how many disastrous scenarios I can come up with in just a few seconds. I close my eyes when I stop walking and take three deep breaths.
It helps. A bit
Opening my eyes, I take a moment to look out over the rooftops of North London and smile slightly when I see Alexandra Palace in the distance. I fell in love with this view when I first looked at the flat nearly ten years ago. As the agent showed me around, I stopped moving and became transfixed at the peaks of London’s skyline outside. It didn’t take long for me to imagine what it would be like to share this view with a partner in the future. Back then, aged thirty-five, it all seemed so possible, so inevitable somehow. I would meet someone. I would end up sharing my life, and this view, with them. I wouldn’t be alone forever.
But I got that wrong. A decade later and I feel even further away from finding somebody to share my life with. And honestly, giving queer sex lessons to the bi-curious man I have an all-consuming crush on isn’t going to get me any closer. However, there’s nothing to be done about that now
Nothing but clean my windows – three times – because if I don’t, it will almost certainly result in one of those terrible situations I just imagined.
I start cleaning the large, rectangular windows that line one end of the sizeable space that is a combined living room and kitchen, with a small dining nook just off the kitchen.
It takes less than a minute to realise that none of those terrible scenarios are as bad as a new possibility that charges into my brain with so much force it actually makes me blink. Because the worst-case scenario is that whatever happens today is going to ruin our blossoming friendship, for good.
It’s one thing to still be training buddies after a weird matching erections moment in a shower. It’s quite another to have kissed or touched dicks and then go back to simply being training buddies.
Three more deep breaths.
Focus on cleaning these blasted windows, Giles.
And yet, Marcello doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who would make it weird. Even after I’d accepted his offer, he’d acted like I’d just agreed to go on an extra-long run with him. He was a little surprised, sure. He was grateful. And if anything, he was a little excited.
He’d been the same way on our run yesterday. He’d reminded me that I didn’t have to do it. That I could change my mind. He’d said that he could find someone else to help him. And that was easily the worst thing he could have said. Because immediately I felt horrified at the thought of someone else getting to kiss Marcello. I felt distraught at the idea of Marcello’s naked skin sliding over another man’s. I’d felt almost a little rage at the possibility I wouldn’t be the one to show him how good he could feel with another man.
Not better than being with a woman. That’s not my goal, because it’s an impossible goal. Rather different. Or maybe not so different at all. But either way, still so, so good.
It was in the shower yesterday after our run, after saying goodbye to Marcello, who had had to rush off and do an afternoon shift at the café, that I’d realised exactly what we would need to make this work and I am reminding myself of this now as I finish the third round of cleaning the glass in front of me.
