Boyfriends: The long dance 

Albert had longed for something in youth and for so long he didn't know what, he was alarmed when all the guys started to chase girls and didn't understand why it couldn't remain the same as it was before. The closeness that was once there lost, the thrill of the thought of something was replaced by the chase of it. His favourite of all his friends in which most his secrets and inner most thoughts had been shared was the first to betray him, they had celebrated several firsts together but this was one that could only be shared by tale, he didn't understand how even though Matt chased girls he would still come to his house late at night and share his bed until that stopped altogether, with Matt hooking up with the local beauty, Albert saw less and less of his buddy until the friendship ceased to exist. 

Lives were lived and love was lost, here and in the the now they found each other and finally found what they were looking for all their lives, wife's came and went children grew and fled the nest, they interacted with others like them with quick fumbles in parks, alleys and bathroom stalls, brief moments of coming together and coming undone, rough kisses, Flys flying down and then up, a grunt and a nod and then disappearance as the guilt engulfed each partner, the lips that just locked had hours earlier kissed the foreheads of their sleeping offspring and pecked lipsticked and glossed  mouths of their brides. For brief moments of ecstasy all of that world, the world forced upon these men was forgotten. 

Albert was different from the others, he loved and loved freely, falling for the hustlers he found here and there and tidied up, this was afforded to him due to his affluent lifestyle, heir to a fortune with steady allowance coming in that allowed him to pursue his pleasure to paint and capture beauty, his work sold steadily and he was acknowledged and accepted into circles that artists fought hard to enter, due to both his connections yet also his talent. 

Albert married of course for fifteen years he was loyal and devout acting out a part he never truly fitted, but he did as he was supposed to and the marriage resulted in three sons all destined for the family business and to carry the name that his siblings and father was so proud of. He loved Lillian dearly but she was a she and he knew he craved something more so he left, he left all that behind, his act selfish but he knew the self was more important than anything else. 

Happiness was what most in life pursued and he needed to do that freely and openly, it was bold and daring for the time but it was a risk worth taking. Nonetheless he was a great father and received and doted on the children. They were raised open minded and accepting that difference came in all shapes and sizes and acknowledged that their fathers dear friend was more than just a friend and something more, they soon realised why he left and agreed that the world shouldn't have shunned and outlawed those who dared to live a life that was different from their own. To Albert's surprise one of his own sons turned out to be of the same kind as he. He was proud of his son for being so open about it from a young age and that he could inherit a world in which love of all kinds could be celebrated the same way that of what was considered normal could. 

Billy was his name but he liked to go by Bill, Albert had found him as he had the others hanging on the street corners, lost, cocky and beautiful.  burning bright with youth yet loosing it with each interaction. There was something about Bill that allowed Albert to want more then just one night and a goodbye, he was sharp, funny, witty and so handsome that it hurt. Albert at first struggled  to capture his true likeness on canvas but as they intertwined and their lives became one he got better and better at it. Billy was 12 years younger than his lover and already he had enjoyed the fruits of the labour of Albert and his rioting lot, there was a long way to go but they had travelled far. They both watched horrified as their friends fell victim to the plague and crisis that dogged the gay scene in the 80's & 90's clinging even more tightly to one another. 

At that moment they felt the need to celebrate and officiate their love they had made it through forty years together and had always wanted to do what they were about to do. They danced the dance they were denied in youth, they found true solace in age and comfort in each other's existence it was beyond a phrase and Bill had watched in horror as Albert fell sick that he wasn't allowed to see him in critical moments but all that had past and now they could sail onto clear skies and calm shores. They wanted to adopt and build a life that they couldn't before and even at 75 and 63 it felt exciting and like it was a new chapter for them both. 

Therapy

Boyfriends:Therapy 

It had been a long time and as we were all once friends disconnected by time, numbers changing and people moving but in these sad circumstances of death we was all united once again. As the sad sap I was I decided to give this old friend a chance and to remember the fallen member of our group we reunited despite his absence he was largely present in this meeting as was about him and for him and as the old saying goes you only truly die when your name and memory is no more. It was here I learned that some people never change or grow up. We had planned to go heaven and I had planned to bump into the boy who I had met on a weekend prior and had been speaking to daily since, I felt a spark, something different, someone who wasn't hungry for 'naughty' pics or asking for fun, it felt like he was a good boy with a simple un fussy life and in my time of turbulence this seemed like a good option, a stabiliser and someone to ground me when I so often wanted to take flight. I had got his number as I said hi out of decency as the first time we spoke he was frank and dismissive of my advances but on this occasion he warmed to the flirting, up popped my drunk friend bored of the back and forth we was having and eager to return to the dance floor from the smokers area that he pulled my phone from my pocket and demanded I hurry up and get his number. 

I saw the boy for the first time in a bar, I frequented often with a friends ex who had gone cold and acted callous towards me since their union had ended, the company he kept put me off but something about him captured and caught me, was it his big bright blue eyes?  his sculptured hair ? or his just how he was  undone yet slightly put together, a scruffy appearance that intrigued me or a combo of all of the above that caught me off guard. It had been a long while since I'd wanted a boy at first sight but I wanted him and had to have him. 'I want him' I muttered to my friend DB who smiled and nodded the plan was put into action to occupy his two friends who were known to us through our other friends as goes the law in soho, yet I had never seen this boy before and that also interested me, I wouldn't be entering into incest and stepping on the toes of others. Clearly drunk he was defensive and rude but I did get a name and that he came from a seaside town in the south and was semi new to London. Put off by his rudeness which I interpreted as arrogance, I moved back to DB deflated and defeated and carried on with my night slogging pints and dancing to cheesy pop videos.  

2. 

Dancing, drinking and lounging around in the heat and crisp clear days, when all the nations mood was lifted and as the skirts got shorter and the torsos of all shapes and sizes came out, as we lazed in soho square and gossiped and laughed as we drank cheaply at G-A-Y and partied at heaven, a bond was formed and love slowly entered in the equation it all felt so right at the time like nothing could go wrong. 

Summer turned to winter and I was at first captured by his dedication to work he was nothing big,a sales assistant in a department store in west end but there was a certain sort of dedication to the repetition and routine that I found interesting, so my hunt for a job increased and finally I found one in a local supermarket working weekends. it was so mind numbingly painfully dull smiling and giggling with customers, asking about the regulars days, stamping loyalty cards and messing up orders that it soon became apparent to all parties that the job wasn't for me. Undefeated I stumbled into a six month internship at a east end theatre, painful in its self that due to its thrifty beginnings it was still considered hip but run by fossils and fuelled by the fire it once had when it was located in decrypted premises but had now expanded due to arts councils grants. it was largely sitting at a desk and fiddling with thumbs begging for tasks and getting none so filling days with shopping, bitching, yawning, coffee shots at the bar trying to keep or at least look awake due to a long night out on the previous night, determined not to let working 4 days a week effect the fun factor in my life, running off mid job to Barcelona to celebrate my birthday and valentines both a first of celebrating those occasions truly in love but what did I get from the lover, nothing. In the months of the long and boring waking up to do a 10-6 the red flags first appeared, I never noticed but soon I could see him staring with those eyes, the eyes that caught me, often glossed over staring at others in bars and clubs, it wasn't a glimpse or a glance it was a hard look that continued over a over, a yearning of sorts. 

We moved into together pretty fast, after just six months,  but it felt right as he was always around, cuddling watching the Simpsons, ordering Chinese or cooking for him felt good, it was nice to come home to someone, I guess it was an idea of an ideal union, I craved for the stability and maturity from us both to make it work. House sharing kept us together for a whole while longer, making it harder for either of us to leave as we rode through ups and downs with more downs than ups and when the down was getting too much along came an up that made us continue and before it got too good another down came along until I was a zombie drifting through the relationship not truly feeling any of the many betrayals. Too lost, too weak, too used to the world we had built together no matter how bitter it made me or how cold him it was something and I'd rather that than nothing. 

I guess soon he became entitled to the privileges but cared not for the disadvantages of the life that I led, if he wasn't included in a plan and I wanted some time to breathe he'd feel betrayed and I guilty that I left him alone but in reverse I guess as my world was the dominant world in the partnership that whenever it was his world and his friends he'd feel no way to follow their plans without even an afterthought of me and I guess that extended to thinking about me where as I thought about what I could do or get to excite and make him happy he simply didn't and soon the scaled tipped and the burden became a weight I couldn't carry.  

I was soon this cold and cruel bitch that tutted when he zoned out to his TV shows or left plates in the sink or contact cases scattered around the sink or forgot to take the bins out. the mundane trappings of togetherness that he also opted out on, After a while I couldn't be bothered to nag but would bring it up cuttingly at any given opportunity. In truth, It was never enough from the lounging and laziness, to wanting more but never seeking just simply waiting for something to happen, a follower and never leader, there was no sense of self, no discovering and trying to work on and out problems, There was also the fact of over sharing with his girl friends knowing every detail and every argument, every issue would be think tanked before finally discussing any problem with me. I always thought did he not own or know his mind, was his thoughts always effected and filtered by others. issues would be smoothed and talked out only to arise once again and go round and round on the merry go round until enough was enough and I had to get off, had to let go. Change wasn't going to come and there was simply no fight in me left, he too was tired of the unhappiness and bitterness that he felt either from my mocking, nagging or coldness. I couldn't understand how he just didn't understand romance and it's spontaneity that excited and made the other feel wanted and needed and soon it just felt like I was needed not wanted.

I held on like a fool as I saw someone that could be great, that had a spark but didn't realise it, that had talent but was scared to explore it, I saw beauty and I was in love that I forgave when and where I should have walked away, second chances became third and third fourth and so on and so on. The memories made trapped me as did his familiarity with my world and friends and his understanding of me to some degree, to knowing his family who would always include me in their activities in which I was truly thankful for, I was trapped and lost to love. 

I wanted memories and holidays, he wanted parcels and packages from eBay, I wanted the get up and go he preferred sleeping and binge sessions of reality TV, I wanted to work doing what I loved he cared only for routine and structure. They say opposites attract I guess so but in the opposition there has to be common ground enough common ground for it to be solid and solid enough to turn house into home but that never really came and so inevitably the house came tumbling down. 

Almost there (as felt)

With him it was different, I'd been touched a million times yet never felt it as deeply, his gaze electrified and his existence fuelled me daily to be better and work harder. Depth and insight was what he offered me, a chance to live, love and learn. 

 We met at college, he was the artsy kid that stood out in an elegant manner, cropped trousers that lightly kissed the ankle, shirts poetically  constructed that they seem to form a second skin, hats that added a dimension and jewellery which only he could pull off. He was something other than the rest, different without being cool in a cold handed manner, laid back yet not lazy. The contradictions made him a character and a loveable one at that. He was the one all wanted an opinion from, his blog was popular as was his podcasts and Instagram, he owned the social media platforms in which he contributed to. He wasn't imprisioned  by his creations, it wasn't an outlet that was an after thought, rather than being constructed for the sole purpose to communicate an image often constructed and static, his world was real and he invited others in to see and share. 

Due to this campus celebrity, I asked myself why me? I was casually cool in a weird way, geeky and obscure, put together yet scruffy, I wasn't great looking just a canvas in which I learned to mould into something that became the someone who then represented the me. 

He didn't acknowledge me in school, we were friendship groups and classes apart. I made music alone and uploaded it to sound cloud for fun, somewhere he heard it and featured it on his podcast, within the next month my likes, followers and friends increased and he ended up interviewing me for his next show over dinner, which happened over and over until it was a routine that became a ritual. 

With him it could be about the minute and not the hour,minimal moments we didn't have to dress things up as happenings, sharing time was enough. Doing nothing or next to that could be greater than a holiday, a trip or a thought out experience. We had that something that was so rare that not many people got or understood,  how another could be drunk of the others energy and appreciate their presence without getting hungover or bored. 

When he left I craved him more, in his absence his presence was felt deeper and more acutely, I wasn't needy with him it was just that I needed him. I appreciated the distance when it occurred, it allowed us to talk about experiences beyond those singular yet shared ones we created. 

After graduation and floating from job to job, room to flat and the continuous cycle of the modern day rat race, he decided the city to which we belonged wasn't one he could exist in. 

Long distance was the only option at first, with phone calls, Skype, flirtatious what's app and sexually charged snapchats. Yet no matter what, digital presence could never replace or come near to the physical. Sharing space in silence at times felt more full than a routine phone call with a days debrief for the sake of not breaking habit when all of our other habits had been replaced. I needed a lover not a digital pen pal. 

I let go first, angry that he did this to us, blinded by rage, in a selfish state I ended up on the dance floor, tasting unfamiliar mouths and touching foriegn bodies. I wanted something and received nothing. 

I searched the floor of a room I was welcomed into the night before and pushed straight to the bed. The deed was done and all was lost, something special had been broken. In tears he told me he'd began to appreciate another, that nothing had happened but something would. The fuel that fired our love was purely fossils, relics from the past of a time that was no more and energy that was no longer present, we simply belonged to the past. We'd lost a battle that had began a war.