Fuck, perhaps he’s doing some kinky shit involving the dog?
“No,” he admits. “I haven’t found anyone suitable with whom to explore dating, and a while ago, I made a conscious decision to stop having meaningless sexual encounters.”
“S-stopped?”
“Yes. Stopped.” He barks a dry laugh. “My sex life is like Coke—it went from normal to lite to zero. And stayed there.”
“Oh. Wow. Zero.”
So that’s pretty holier than thou. Meaningless sexual encounters have literally been my modus operandi since Miles Townley and I wanked each other off in the sixth form bogs during second break. (He’s married with two kids now.) “Fascinating,” I add.
“Yes.” Gerald nods seriously. “I found I was using sex as physical validation that I was sexually desirable. Doing it because that was my expectation—and everyone else’s—of a young single gay man. Not conforming to that expectation felt like failure.”
Wow, wow, triple wow. Gerald’s dark eyes are locked onto mine. This isn’t filler small talk; he’s not trying to lecture me, impress me, or deliver grandiose psychobullshit. What he’s confiding matters to him. He believes it down to his bones.
And it’s riveting. I’m hearing pieces of Gerald I suspect he doesn’t give away lightly, he’s opening that closed bedroom door a chink and inviting me to peek through.
“So you stopped?”
“Yeah, I stopped. I’d been feeling a bit unhappy with the whole thing for a while. And then I woke up one morning in a dingy flat somewhere near Streatham next to a guy whose name I couldn’t recall. While I was dressing and planning a quick exit, he carefully explained how he ranked all the blokes he slept with on a big chart—like theTop GearStar in a Fast Car chart. Have you ever seen it?”
“Yeah, sure. I guess it’s a fun thing to do. If the only thing you’re ranking is lap times.”
Gerald throws me a wry smile. “Exactly. But this guy bumped people out of his rankings depending on how good the sex had been. And had the dim-wittedness to brag about it.”
I’m intrigued. “How good was it? I mean, how did he rank you? OMG, tell me you bumped someone off the top spot!”
Just a flicker—barely there—but Gerald’s eye catches mine. For a fleeting moment, I find myself wanting to drown in that look a little longer.
“Suffice to say, he asked for my number, so we could meet and do it again,” Gerald answers coolly. “Needless to say, he didn’t get it. As I walked out, I realised what I was doing wasn’t for me. A borrowed bed, borrowed feelings, a borrowed dick. Just skin on skin with no substance underneath. I felt hollow inside. And since I made that conscious decision not be a part of the Friday night pub, club, dick pic on an app, merry-go-round,I… well… I sleep easier. The next sexual relationship I have has to have a tonne of meaning attached to it, you know?”
“Yes, yes. Absolutely yes!”
I try to recall if I’ve ever had sex with even an ounce of meaning attached. Maybe? When I was seventeen with some Spanish dude on holiday? For three nights? At least until I met that scaffolder from Middlesborough with the ginormous?—
“And if abstinence comes with a big slice of loneliness, Alaric? Then so be it.”
“Mmm. Absolutely.”I tilt my head slightly and press my lips together in a tight, contemplative line, an expression intending to demonstrate I am a person of great emotional depth. The same one I adopt when patients in clinic start describing to me,à proposof nothing, the exact consistency of their morning stool. Gerald is opening up, a human is emerging, and I’m not about to crush that any time soon.
But…damn.Damn!Damn on multiple levels. Firstly, about halfway through this super sincere speech, it occurred to me Gerald is hot. Indeed, I’ve unlocked a secret bonus level of hotness I didn’t know I was into: celibate, unshaven men in grandad pyjamas, with big ears, big noses, and suede slippers.
Secondly, Gerald’s stringing more sentences together now, in the small hours of the morning, than the entire time I’ve lived with him. It’s more than insightful—it’s enthralling. And thirdly, most importantly, with his raw certainty, his genuine and open truthfulness… that beautiful, terrifying speech is building a nest behind my ribs. That hollowness stemming from casual hookups? I remember the other night. Blowing Neil in the bogs, then Neil blowing me because reciprocation is expected, and we both like to show off. Blowing his mate too, and the awkwardness and emptiness afterwards, laughed off with more mai-tais and dancing.
All this time I’ve believed my casual sexual encounters are the only thing keeping me sane, and all the time they’ve been eating away at me, making me hate myself. Don’t get me wrong. Plenty of other shit’s muddying the waters, too, but basically, yeah. Gerald. A fucking hot, nerdy genius in tartan jim-jams.
In the dark stillness of the kitchen, he waits for me to say something equally prosaic. Instead, I have one pressing question. “Um… how… when did you make this… uh… resolution?”
Gerald’s forehead wrinkles as he calculates. “Coming up to four years ago.”
“Oh. Crikey.”
Four years?Four fucking (or not, in Gerald’s case) years?
Just like that, the celibacy-waiting-for-Mr-Right thing loses every microscopic speck of its attraction. Though, credit where it’s due, a big well done to Gerald for sticking to his principles. But it’s not for me. No way. I’m a horny little toerag. I think about sex every four minutes. It’s my Achilles’ heel. Actually, no, I don’t have an Achilles’ heel—I have an Achilles’ cock. My balls would drop off after four months if I followed Gerald’s lead. Perhaps his speech isn’t so great after all. Desperately, I try not to let my horror creep into my well-crafted philosophic expression.
Gerald interrupts my internal screaming with a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m stubborn. If I make resolutions, I tend to stick to them. In retrospect, maybe I didn’t think this one through. I guess I didn’t know it would take that long to find another man with whom I could explore something meaningful. My Mr Right.”
“Mr Right,” I say. “Wherever the fuck he’s hiding. Yeah. Um… four years. I mean… is there some kind of support group helping you along with this? Like the Samaritans but for blue balls? Some sort of 24/7 phone line?”
