Category Archives: Charlie

Charlie / I want to create a little chaos on the beach

Charlie didn’t know it, but he turned heads at the beach today. I watched from a bench as he stripped down to his swim shorts and waded into the sea. For a guy who spends more time relaxing on his bed rather than putting in hours at the gym, he looked remarkably toned. His ancestral line is Mediterranean, and despite a Paris upbringing, he had the physique of his Marseilles cousins.

I was a solitary figure and had become the shadow in his life. Inseparable, comfortable, but never lovers in the truest sense. But I was pleased that he was attracting attention from females, and, dare I say it, a few jealous husbands and boyfriends. And yet, strangely, I also felt envious.

He shaded his eyes, scanned the promenade and waved. A few looked to see who had caught his attention and were disappointed that it was only me. I wanted to shout that Charlie was mine, only mine, and that I was proud of him, and that we shared a bed. But all that glitters is not gold.

The North Sea in April is bloody cold, but Charlie went full steam into the surf and threw himself into the water. His head broke the surface, and I could see that his teeth were chattering. I’d tried to tell him that the water would come as a shock, but he knew better, and would never admit to being wrong. He started swimming, long determined strokes, and completed two sweeps of the beach.

I contemplated that hypothermia might set in or that he might be out of his depth, but, after thirty minutes he swam back to shore, and pushing hard through the water, he reached dry land again. By now, I’d smoked several cigarettes and thrown the stone-cold remains of a takeaway coffee into a nearby rubbish bin.

Charlie dried himself on his towel and sat warming himself in the afternoon sun. Only now did he realise that people were looking, and it prompted him to put his tee-shirt on. He rested his arms on his knees and watched the world around him.

He was perhaps thinking about childhood holidays spent on the beach. He once told me that his family had rented a house every summer at Le Touquet-sur-Mer, and that he’d spent hours playing on the sands with his brother. I thought about Thomas, the older brother, and remembered that the tall boy had asked me to visit him in Paris, but not to bring Charlie along. My heart went out to Charlie, alone on the beach, who suspected that his older brother had an agenda, and was frightened that I might buy into it.

Charlie / Why do they all seem to be called Luka?

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Shades of teen. We flicked through pages of photographs hoping to find one to use. The task had become tiresome because there were only so many images of scantily clad guys that you could absorb, and there was a risk that we might choose the wrong one. But we kept looking, thinking that the next page might reveal something better than the one before. “It is like watching gay porn,” said Charlie. “You start watching a video but move on to the next one because you think it will be more exciting but never is.” His reaction caught me by surprise. “This is hopeless,” he continued, snapping the photo album shut, “and why do they all seem to be called Luka?”

Charlie / By the time I am old there will be a long line of people wanting to take me in

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Charlie is reading an old book about an old French actress called Arletty. It was face down on the floor while he painted something that looked like mashed-up graffiti. He noticed me looking at it. “The book is called Je Suis Comme Je Suis – which means I Am As I Am,” he said.

“I’ve never heard of her,” I replied, flicking through its yellowing pages. Lots of tired text and black and white photographs. Charlie stopped painting and looked at me. “A madame after my own heart. Mon cœur est français, mais mon cul est international.”

I asked him to translate because he speaks too fast for me to understand. “It is quite simple,” he smirked. “It means that my heart is French, but my arse is international.”

He was provoking me, a crude attempt to make me jealous, that had succeeded.

I googled the name Arletty and discovered that she was accused of treason and imprisoned in 1945 for her wartime liaison with a German Luftwaffe officer, during the occupation of France.

Charlie’s face became sad. “Did you know that by the nineteen sixties she was almost blind?” He sat up on his knees and began fiddling inside his underwear. This was something he tended to do a lot. “She was blind in one eye but put the wrong eye drops in her good eye and destroyed that one too.”

“What happened to her?”

“She was a recluse, blind, and living alone in a dark Parisian apartment, which is how I will end up.” He peered at me with mournful eyes and waited for me to respond. It was a ploy that he used when he wanted attention.

“I’m sure that you’ll manage to find somebody who will be dumb enough to take you in.”

His face brightened. “That is correct. I will always be okay.” He jumped up and studied his unfinished canvas on the floor. “By the time I am old, I will be a famous artist, and there will be a long line of people wanting to take me in.” He waved his hand in front of my nose. “Would you like to smell my fingers?”

Charlie / You been down to the bottom with a bad man babe

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I have never been a Bob Dylan fan. Not that I don’t like his music, but he was always from a different era. But there are two tracks that I do like – Lay Lady Lay, and a forgotten single from 1978 called Baby Stop Crying that begins with the marvellous line, “You been down to the bottom with a bad man babe.”

Charlie showed me an image of a young Dylan on his phone. “What a handsome guy he was.”

I am reminded that Dylan may have been extremely attractive, and yes, I would have fallen in love with him, but I had once read that he was rude and obnoxious.

“He doesn’t take his clothes off when he goes to sleep, and the guy doesn’t clean his teeth, horrible breath,” a former staff member had said. And then there was Joni Mitchell who said she hated every moment of sharing the stage with him and blamed this on Dylan’s horrible breath.

I related this to Charlie, and he stared at Dylan with disappointment. “I hope that you realise how lucky you are to have me around.,” he sighed. “Not everybody is perfect like me.”

Tsundoku / That pile of books you glance at every day, but never read

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I once read André Aciman’s Homo Irrealis: Essays, and to be honest, it was a difficult read, partly because I didn’t understand what the hell he was talking about. Aciman’s approach to fiction is different, and I bought The Gentleman from Peru for Charlie, the French boy who once met the author, and wanted it because it was a signed copy. He keeps reminding me that I once had an original copy of Call Me By Your Name that I inexplicably threw away. I read The Gentleman from Peru because Charlie never will. His attention wanders after a few chapters, and that is why we are left with shelves of half-read books with slips of paper showing how far he got. But after finishing this book, I realise that this is more of a novella, and if Charlie is ever going to finish a book, this might be the one.

Charlie / While the cat’s away, the mice will play

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Charlie told me a story. He said that he woke up this morning and found that I was missing. When I didn’t reappear after a couple of hours, Charlie went to the neighbour and knocked on her door. “Have you seen Miles?” “No, I haven’t,” she replied. Charlie went to the other neighbour and knocked on the door. “Have you seen Miles?” “No, I’ve not seen him,” he answered. Charlie left the apartment and walked to the block on the other side of the road. He climbed three flights of stairs and knocked on Mrs Hayward’s door. “Have you seen Miles?” But she slammed the door in his face.

Charlie told the story with such conviction that you almost believed him. But it is a way of saying, “You went out and didn’t tell me where you were going.” At times, he tries to be funny and makes the point with dramatic effect. Other times he can be blunt, like French boys sometimes are.

“Your mobile rang, and the call was from someone called Ben. Who is Ben? How do you know him? Why is he ringing you? Have you slept with him?” I’ll point out that Ben is the landlord of the apartment. “I see,” he would say, “But do you like him?”

For these reasons, I don’t tell Charlie everything, and that can sometimes cause problems. Thomas, his brother, told me that Charlie was insecure, and is frightened that he might lose everything.

I don’t like people reading what I’ve written, which is why most of my work is published under a pen name. Charlie will look over my shoulder and try to read what is on the screen. I will immediately close the laptop, and this infuriates him. “Why will you not let me read it? Is it because you are writing about me?” “It’s not about you,” I’ll tell him, “It is a short story.”

I never show him because he’s right. I often write about him, and if the story wasn’t about him, he would see something to convince himself that it was.

I suppose it’s my secret, rather like Charlie’s mysterious trips to Europe, of which I still know nothing, and now he’s declared that he’s off to Lille again. I’m not invited and in response I’ve decided to go to Italy in November. When I tell Charlie, he assumes that he’s going with me.

I will enjoy the few days of freedom while he’s away and have already made plans to go out with Levi, the Polish boy with the broad Yorkshire accent, who asked a serious question. “Does that mean that you’ll be wanting to sleep with me?” The prospect is exciting. “If I asked, would you say no again?” Levi smirked. It struck me that although he wanted to move in with his girlfriend, there were few signs of him doing so. “Like I said before, we shall have to see,” he replied, “But remember that you have a boyfriend.” He hadn’t said no, and I took that to mean that there was a possibility, and I started counting the days.

But Charlie doesn’t miss a trick. “Please make sure that you behave while I’m away, because when you’ve had a drink, you have mischief in you. While the cat’s away, the mice will play.” He repeated this to Levi who told him that if he was so jealous then he should consider staying home.

Charlie / It’s much easier to sleep with someone else instead

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A message from Thomas in Paris. “When am I going to see you?” What a predicament? I’d like to see him again, but there is the problem of Charlie, the guy I sleep beside every night. “Hey Charlie, I’m off to Paris, and if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to get my end away with your brother, but hey, it’s more than I get from you.” I’m excited and tempted to go, but I’m afraid of the repercussions.

I love Charlie, and I think he loves me, but the one thing I want more than anything is to make love to him. But he is a strange breed, and sex is as far away as the day I met him.

The other day I was tapping into my phone, and he came up behind me. “What are you writing?” “I’m making notes,” I replied. I saw that look in his eyes. Charlie thinks that mobile phones are for messaging and taking photos. He eyed me with suspicion. “”Who are you messaging?” “Nobody. I’m writing an article for someone.” It sounded as convincing as I wanted it to be. The truth was that I was writing what you are reading now, and he didn’t believe me.

A few nights ago I tried to cuddle him in bed. “No,” he said, “I am very tired.” He put EarPods in and listened to music. That was the biggest fuck off ever. I turned over and decided that I wouldn’t be humiliated again. “If I can’t get it from you, I’ll get it somewhere else,” I murmured, knowing full well that Charlie wouldn’t hear me, but at least I’d said it.

I’ve looked at past sexual conquests and realise that the hardest part was always getting that person home and into bed. With Charlie, the challenging part was easy, but the next stage is even more difficult. The person you desire most is within reach, inches away, and yet you are forbidden to touch.

I compare it to the euphoria of reaching the gates of heaven, and then being turned away because you’re not supposed to be there. Beyond those pearly gates you can see sunshine, utopia, and eternity, but you’re sent to hell instead.

It’s not that Charlie isn’t affectionate. He might give me a peck on the cheek and make me feel like I’m walking on air. But that’s as far as it goes. Imagine how that feels? The person that everybody thinks is your partner, and doesn’t want to make love to you.

I made the mistake of mentioning this to a friend, and he came up with a thousand and one shit reasons why this might be – life distractions, stress, emotional tension, low desire, physical, and mental health issues, sexual pain, and even brought up erectile dysfunction. That last one definitely wasn’t true because I’d seen Charlie walking about the apartment in his underpants with a definite hard-on . “Talk to him about it,” he said. I told him that I didn’t even know if Charlie was officially my boyfriend. “No,” I replied, “It’s much easier to sleep with someone else instead.”

I feel that Thomas is too good a chance to miss. I want him, I need him, and have reason to believe that he wants me, but then I remember Charlie’s temper tantrums after his brother visited.

When Levi came home last night, he sat opposite in just a pair of football shorts, and, at that moment, he was the most beautiful boy in the room. I remembered the drunken conversation we’d had a few months ago when I’d told him that I wanted to get him into bed. He’d graciously turned me down. This time I wasn’t drunk and wanted to say it again. But I didn’t, because a voice inside my head was saying, “At this time, anybody with a penis looks attractive to you.” Sadly, that voice was right.

Charlie / I couldn’t resist saying that I’d never seen so many walking sticks

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The apartment is a confusing place these days. Being in his early twenties, I would expect Charlie to like Chase and Status, Stormzy, Billie Eilish, Charli xcx, or Taylor Swift because everyone insists that we MUST like her. It’s not that Charlie doesn’t like them, but he says that they are “too generic.” The French boy wants to be different and has declared his love for opera.

Charlie goes to operas on his own and comes back gushing. “It is the sound of the vocalists,” he says. “They have the ability to tell a story, evoke emotion, and provide sensory overload.”

I’ve never understood the appeal of opera and remain convinced that it is a cultural art form for the elderly. Charlie tells me about the people he meets, and I decide that they must be old because young people don’t go to the opera. “I like being the youngest person in the audience and command respect.”

He told me a story about a wealthy Latvian woman who dressed in expensive furs and went to the opera on her own because it was something she did with her late husband. “Tears filled her eyes, and she insisted that I hold her hand throughout the performance.” I didn’t tell him that she was hoping for a shag.

I told Charlie that I once went to see ‘La traviata’ and because it was in Italian, I didn’t understand it, found it incredibly boring, and had stayed clear of opera since.

“That is a classic opera,” Charlie cried. “‘The fallen woman’ by Giuseppe Verdi, but did you know that it was based on a French novel, La Dame aux Camélias, by Alexandre Dumas fils. Strangely enough, I didn’t. “However, French operas are much better than Italian ones.”

I challenged him to name French operas and expected him to flounder. “There are many,” he replied, “and the list of composers is impressive – Rameau, Berlioz, Gounod, Bizet, Massenet, Debussy, Ravel, Poulenc, and Messiaen.”

Last week, Charlie invited me to go to the opera with him, and after enduring days of pestering, I agreed. “Ot is Un ballo in maschera,” he said, “’A Masked Ball’ for the ignorant English, and it is also by Giuseppe Verdi, but this will be sung in your own language.”

The opera was taking place in an old factory unit, and I couldn’t understand why Charlie had dressed in a dark suit and white shirt, and then spent ages styling his thick black hair. “It pays to look smart. I want you to take photos of me while we are there, and I can post the best of them on Instagram.” I wanted to say, “But I thought the best photos involved you being naked.” But I daren’t say it, because, if you remember, I’m not supposed to see Charlie’s Insta account.

Charlie insisted on buying glasses of wine beforehand and was disturbed to find them served in disposable cups. We were seated on the front row, and I couldn’t resist saying that I’d never seen so many walking sticks. At this, he punched me hard on the thigh which I found quite exciting. I browsed through the programme and read the synopsis so that I had a chance of understanding what was about to happen.

The opera wasn’t what I expected. The singing was incredibly powerful, and I understood every word, realising that it had been adapted for modern times. I had to admit that I liked it enormously. Charlie frowned when I told him this, and he confessed that although he too had found it entertaining, he’d struggled to follow the story.

Back at the apartment, we told Levi about our night at the opera, and he looked at us as though we were both mad. “What have you been up to?” Charlie asked him. The Polish boy with the broad Yorkshire accent looked pleased with himself. “I watched Emmerdale, Coronation Street and then spent ages browsing Pornhub!”

Charlie / I think you may have crossed the line from reader to hoarder

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“We have too many books,” I told Charlie. It was true, the apartment was being taken over by books that had been bought at second-hand bookshops and charity stores. They filled the shelves and were now stacked in corners. ”It’s time to get rid of some of them.”

He looked at me with disgust. “They are collectible,” he cried. “These books will increase in value.”

We had a routine, like an old married couple. We would go to affluent parts of the city looking for rare books that people had no use for anymore. Intellectuals lived here, and there was a chance that we might stumble upon old art and photography books. “You will not find a Katie Price autobiography in these shops,” Charlie explained. “These places are full of lost treasures. Remember that book you bought for ten pounds and is now worth a fortune?”

Charlie was referring to Germaine Greer’s The Boy that we’d later seen in an antiquarian bookshop for one hundred pounds. “A very controversial book,” he’d said. “It is almost paedophilic.” Except that Charlie’s French had difficulty translating it and made me smile, and this allowed him to think that I was confirming his opinion.

I secretly admit to enjoying these days out, and then retiring to a favourite cafe – the one that sold fish finger filled croissants – and examining what we’d bought. Charlie would carefully display the books on a table alongside cups of coffee with flowery patterns in the froth and take a photo that he posted on Instagram.

“I think that you have become a bibliomaniac,” I told him.

“That word sounds French,” he replied, “but I do not understand it.”

It means that you are an addict, and one day the floor of our apartment will collapse under the weight of the books.”

There was another point I wanted to make, but chose not to, because it would end in an argument. Charlie had a habit of starting novels and never finishing them, and I repeatedly found bookmarks after thirty pages or so. He denied this, but I had yet to see him read a book from beginning to end.

Charlie believed I had more books than him. This might have been true once, but I had learned to thin them out. I’d started putting them in the recycling, because it was a quick fix, but this always felt unacceptable. And then I chose charity shops to dispose of them, the same ones that we visited now. The drawback was that my friends shopped in them as well, and often gave the same books back to me. But no, I’d decided, Charlie had more books than me.

“We need to categorise the books,” Charlie explained, as if this was a compromise. “We can put art books together, likewise photography books, and so on. Then our visitors will realise how sophisticated we are.”

“There might be a short term solution,” I joked. “Levi is moving out soon, and we could turn his bedroom into a library.”

Charlie looked doubtful. “I had thought that we might rent the room out again.”

“I didn’t think that you liked anybody else living here, and I remember the fuss that you made when Levi moved in.”

“That was different,” he replied, “I didn’t know him, but now I will miss him when he is gone. And besides, the extra money is useful.”

This was a point of contention because somewhere along the way, Levi’s rent money had found its way into Charlie’s bank account, and had yet to confront him about it.

Charlie / I could use it to paint and take photographs / That room might make me famous

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Charlie moved into the apartment without being invited. He’s now moved into my bed without being invited either. The fact is, I could have said no on both occasions, but I didn’t. I was caught up in the excitement of having him around.

The room has filled up with his belongings, the wardrobe full of his clothes, and I’m no longer the master of my own bedroom. The other day he lay in bed and decided that the walls needed repainting. “We must paint them white,” he said. “White is clean and bright. It becomes a blank canvas, and is a colour that can be influenced by light.” And then he went back to sleep because he comes to bed late and sleeps until late morning.

He’s also bought an old metal trunk that is a relic from World War Two. It is black with the name of ‘Charles Finch’ stencilled on it, and conjures up images of being shipped around the world. Charlie paid sixty quid for it in an antiques shop and thought it would be ideal to store bedding. The top of it has become a place to display his books, those that he never reads, and are a statement to show me that he is an intelligent artist.

I mentioned that his old bedroom was spare and that it might be utilised as a store room, or rented out for extra money, but Charlie insisted that he had plans for it. “It would make an excellent studio,” he said. “I could use it to paint and take photographs. That room might make me famous.” The following day he dismantled the bed and stripped the room bare, but he continued to paint sitting in his underwear on the floor of the living area, or, if the weather was sunny, on the terrace outside.

But Charlie eventually turned his attention to the ‘studio’ and set up a camera and tripod facing a bare wall that could be reinvented as stonework in the Vatican, the alter of a Basilica, or any place that looked remotely Catholic, where he could pose half-naked. Every shot was taken using a timer but occasionally I’d be asked to focus the camera and take the photos.

The other day, Levi, the Polish boy with the broad Yorkshire accent, made a rare appearance at the apartment.

“I want to know what’s happening between you and Charlie. I see that his room’s empty and that you’re sleeping together. You’ve got to admit that Charlie’s special. I’m so fucking jealous.”

I’m glad that Levi’s jealous, and it makes me feel good, but I don’t have the answer. I’ve no idea. Charlie shares an apartment, and a bed, but I can’t say that we’re lovers because we aren’t. Not once have we engaged in sexual activity, and there are no signs that we will. I’ve decided that this is one-sided love, and I will be the one who will suffer.

“Nothing is going on,” I tell him. “And considering that you’re a straight guy, don’t you realise that you sound very gay.”