On the boy delivering junk mail…
He stopped some distance from the door. He seemed like a prowling cat suddenly aware that there might be danger. He stayed still, contemplating whether to proceed or retreat. His eyes were nervous and suspicious. And I, standing almost naked in the doorway, smiled as if to say, “I might only be wearing yesterday’s dirty Calvin Klein’s but I’m no threat.” But he made his decision and turned away.

On the woman who told me…
“It was a long time ago. I was young and pregnant and very drunk. I went to a guy in Spain who agreed to give me a tattoo on my huge stomach. I chose that yellow, grinning, trippy smiling ‘acid’ face. After I gave birth it looked like a deflated balloon and I’ve had to live with it.”

On resolving Liam’s finances…
Liam the skater boy, who is short, cute, wears round glasses and has hairy legs. He told me that his girlfriend had moved out and now he was struggling to pay the rent. The briefest thought crossed my mind. I nearly suggested that he sell his body, and become my rent boy. But I didn’t. I remembered that I will not pay for sex until I am old.

On buying old homoerotic novels…
My compulsion to buy vintage homoerotic novels – The Loom of Youth, Despised and Rejected, Tell England. The age of innocence… or was it? Those intense male relationships that remained aesthetic, psychological, and slightly dangerous, rather than purely physical. The obsession with male beauty and youth. The internal conflict between desire and morality. The longing that could not be fulfilled.

On meeting the boy with the moustache…
The small skinny student with an angelic face who had grown a moustache. I hated it and resisted the urge to say so because I knew that he already lacked confidence. He, who couldn’t look me in the eye like he was ashamed of something. Who looked slightly scruffy in the careless way that hinted at potential—like a statue still hidden inside the stone.

On getting lots of messages…
Like naughty schoolboys sniggering at other people’s shortcomings, we trade a constant stream of nonsense and casual insults about the world around us. It is the only language we seem to share, the only ground we truly have in common. From boys to men—ten years of a love affair that never happened. And yet each message makes my heart sing, filling me with a fragile hope, and I find myself wondering whether, somewhere on the other end, he might be feeling the same.

On listening to David reminiscing…
An old song came on the radio: Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft. A sci-fi anthem about humanity attempting telepathic contact with extraterrestrial beings. I had never heard it before and mocked the corny American DJ intro.

David frowned. It turned out to be one of his favourites.

“Days at sea,” he said. “I think of a cloudy afternoon on a choppy Mediterranean, sailing from somewhere to somewhere. Feeding coins into a jukebox and drinking weak shandy from white plastic cups. Enough of it that we convinced ourselves we were drunk, though really it was just hormonal schoolboys egging one another on.

“It was a big hit for The Carpenters. Actually a cover of a song by a group called Klaatu, who people once claimed were The Beatles recording under a pseudonym. Absolute bollocks.”