Tag Archives: Writing

 My Week, For What It Was Worth

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On playing football with the Boys of Taormina…
I have never been attracted to German boys. They can be among the most beautiful, but the language itself has always struck me as cold and harsh. Yet Severin, from Bremen, changed all that. He has been with me for a week now, sleeping beside me in the small hotel on Via Don Giovanni Bosco. Alfio, the receptionist, seemed rather taken with him and turned a blind eye when I asked whether Severin could stay until he got settled. His new job as a waiter has been delayed for another week, though the restaurant promised that his room would soon be ready.

I learned that Severin had a boyfriend, a Spaniard called Estaban, who had remained behind in Turin. He spent a great deal of time on the phone to him, usually trying to reassure him that, although he was sharing a bed with another guy, nothing had happened.

That was partly true. We had both once been Pietro’s “boys”, and there was a reluctance on either side to go where a dead man had already been. It was as though Pietro still maintained some hold over us; we might almost have been brothers, and anything sexual felt faintly incestuous. Yet every morning, when I woke, I would find Severin with his arm draped around me, cuddling, it seemed, with someone he trusted.

Severin is easy to be around: always a few steps behind me wherever I go, yet never overstaying his welcome. He has told me much about his homeland, where his father taught at the University of Bremen and his mother at the University of the Arts. Bremen, he said enthusiastically, was a working-class city that had built its fortune on its port and shipyards — a fact not lost on the Allies during the Second World War, when the city was heavily bombed.

After leaving school, Severin worked at Beck’s Brewery, but was dismissed after being caught having sex with a fellow worker on the bottling line. His abrupt departure prompted him to travel across Europe, eventually ending up in Turin, where he met Pietro and became, in effect, a kept man.

Pietro had obviously singled Severin out for his Nordic looks — a twenty-first century vision of the Aryan “master race”: blond hair, blue eyes, pale skin. There was also the fact that Severin was athletic, and a devoted supporter of Werder Bremen.

Severin discovered that I too liked football and had once played competitively when I was younger. That discovery prompted him to buy a cheap football and seek out a patch of wasteland where we could have a kickabout. Before long, local boys began drifting over to join in, and soon we found ourselves playing fierce, high-intensity matches, with slabs of concrete serving as goalposts.

It became an Italo-Anglo-German affair, proof that football can be loved by everyone, regardless of nationality. Alas, the Italian boys put Severin and me to shame; too many years of smoking, drinking, and inactivity had rendered us ineffective against the tireless boys of Taormina. But it made me feel like a young boy again – innocent and carefree.

The focus is the big phallus…
Alfio had a night off and promised to take us to Castelmola, a picturesque medieval hilltop village perched directly above Taormina. “It will be the perfect night for you guys,” he said with a wink, though it seemed more likely that he fancied his chances with Severin, who remained entirely oblivious to his advances.

Alfio ordered a taxi, and a journey that should have taken ten minutes was completed in half the time. The dusty Mercedes hurtled up the steep, narrow, winding road, revealing breathtaking glimpses of Mount Etna and the Ionian coast below.

We arrived in a small square, from which Alfio led us up a short flight of stone steps into Bar Turrisi. Judging by the greetings he received, he appeared to know everyone there.

Alfio explained that Castelmola had grown around the ruins of a tenth-century Norman castle, its streets narrow, ancient, and full of charm. Bar Turrisi, however, was something else entirely. Opened after the war and passed down through generations, it was said to have been founded by descendants of families who had migrated centuries earlier from Pompeii, bringing with them the city’s ribald fertility symbols. The restaurant, Alfio told us with evident delight, still celebrated that inheritance.

At first, the significance of this escaped both Severin and me, but we soon understood. Across all four storeys, there were penises everywhere one looked: wall paintings, well-endowed statues, phallic liquor bottles, shot glasses, lamps, mirrors, even the plumbing fixtures above the bathroom sinks. The food menu itself was shaped like a penis.

“I knew you would be impressed,” Alfio said, guiding us towards a table overlooking Taormina below. “The people here never wanted to be part of Taormina. They value their independence. But Castelmola was founded to watch over and protect the town.” Unfortunately, night was already beginning to fall, and the views slowly disappeared. The blue sea darkened into a black mass, though the lights of Taormina still sparkled beneath us.

“They filmed The White Lotus at the Four Seasons San Domenico Palace in Taormina,” Alfio told us. “The cast used to come here regularly. They started calling this place ‘the penis bar’.”

Alfio ordered a Sicilian pizza, its ingredients largely a mystery to me apart from the cheese, though it tasted wonderful. We washed it down with a local almond wine, supposedly an aphrodisiac, which Alfio clearly hoped might improve his chances with Severin. As for me, I seemed excluded from his ambitions, though he nevertheless ordered another bottle — this one in a distinctly phallic shape, decorated with traditional Sicilian artwork — and insisted that I drink a generous amount of it.

As my stupor deepened, I found myself wondering how one might write about an overdose of penises without making it sound tacky — which, strangely enough, it was not. “They are symbols of sexual potency and fertility,” Alfio explained smugly, once again for Severin’s benefit, “and also of the virility of Sicilian men.” Severin, meanwhile, remained blissfully unaware of the attention directed at him.

It was only when yet another bottle of almond wine appeared, and Alfio insisted that I finish most of it, that I finally grasped his strategy: get me drunk enough, and he might have Severin to himself. By then, however, it was too late for me to do much about it.

The next morning I woke with a punishing hangover, Severin’s arm once again draped around me. My head throbbed, and Severin seemed in no hurry to wake himself. Still, I managed a smile. Alfio’s attempt to seduce him had failed.

On hearing a story that amused me…but shouldn’t have
At a restaurant in Taormina, an old man told us the story of his brother, Salvatore, who, back in 1958, had been abandoned by the woman he was supposed to marry. The humiliation drove him into such despair that he swallowed an overdose of sleeping pills. He was taken to hospital in Syracuse, where, still determined to end his life, he hurled himself from a window — only to land on a balcony below. Bruised but alive, he was carried back upstairs. Three hours later, he climbed to the very same window and jumped again. This time he missed the balcony and died.

“Oh,” I laughed awkwardly, “third time lucky.”

The old man responded by banging his walking stick sharply against the table, which suggested that my attempt at humour had not been appreciated.

On not upsetting a Sicilian…
“The Cosa Nostra is still active in Sicily,” Alfio told us. “But these days it is discreet. Drugs, the pizzo, infiltrating businesses — that is where the money is.”

“What is the pizzo?” I asked.

“Protection money,” he replied. “Money extracted through intimidation or extortion. It comes from the Sicilian word pizzu — ‘beak’ in English. To let someone ‘fari vagnari u pizzu’ — ‘wet their beak’ — means to pay them off.”

The warning beneath Alfio’s explanation was perfectly clear: do not offend the Mafia. Fortunately, that seemed unlikely. I would soon be leaving Sicily — and leaving Alfio and Severin behind with it.

“But honour can be dangerous too,” Alfio continued. “Even an ordinary man in the street feels the need to defend his honour. So you must be careful not to insult him.”

Severin then recalled an unsettling story he had once read online, one that seemed to confirm Alfio’s point.

In 1993, a father, unable to bear the shame of having a homosexual son who worked as a prostitute, allegedly paid for him to be murdered. The son was shot in the stomach while soliciting clients in Messina. His father was later jailed for hiring an eighteen-year-old assassin to carry out the attack.

“There, you see?” Alfio said triumphantly. “That old man in the restaurant — the one whose brother needed three attempts to kill himself — was offended by your joke. But he only banged his walking stick on the table, when he could just as easily have paid someone to shoot you.”

And then he laughed.

On finding old illustrations…

On the cute and willing…

Michelange Bédard. Photo by Fernando Landin, 2026

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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The Slow Invisibility of David

There was a conversation David once had with his mother when he was about fourteen. He’d complained about Bank Holidays—that there were too many of them. As mothers do, she agreed. Whatever had prompted the outburst had long since slipped from memory. He was a schoolboy and should have welcomed the extra day off, but Bank Holidays irritated him. They still did.

In truth, they had little relevance to his life. A Monday would be no different from any other. What he preferred were the ordinary ones, when he could go about his business while everyone else worked. Not so the May Day Bank Holiday. If the weather held, the parks would be crowded, and the small café he visited each afternoon would be overrun with snotty-nosed kids.

That, at least, was still to come. For now, David was spending Sunday evening with Joshua and his friends at the King’s Arms, despairing of the whole scene. Bank Holidays drew out all the idiots who would otherwise be glued to whatever rubbish Netflix was serving. A day off work gave them licence to get drunk and be insufferable.

There were advantages, he had to admit. The students were out—released from lectures, granted a day to sleep off the previous night. David liked students. He liked young men who still had their lives ahead of them, who could do things they were too young to regret in the morning.

Joshua noticed his look of desperation.

“At what point does a chicken hawk become a pervert?”

“When he turns sixty-three,” David replied. Only the week before, he had celebrated his sixty-second birthday, and in his mind the label did not yet apply.

Still, he felt uneasy. The handsome boys no longer paid him any attention. They were absorbed in their girlfriends—or boyfriends—and David had become just another older man, regarded, if at all, with a kind of pity.

“Do you see it, Joshua? Do you see that I’m slowly becoming invisible?”

“I fail to see why you’d be interested in anyone else when you should be perfectly happy with me.”

David chose his words carefully. “That I can’t deny. But there is such a thing as window-shopping.”

Joshua turned back to his friends and drifted into a conversation about Madonna and Rosalía. David was tempted to tell them that Madonna belonged to him—that he had grown up with her music, that she was older than he was—but the argument would have been futile. Madonna had long since transcended age.

Once, David had appeared on a television programme with her, shortly after she released her first album—around 1983. He had been introduced as an exciting young writer. She had liked his spiky hair and remarked that he was handsome. For a fleeting moment, he had wondered if she might be coming on to him, though that would have led nowhere. If only, he found himself thinking now.

Joshua’s friends accepted David as his partner, but they had no idea who he really was. It had always been his rule: tell no one he was a successful author. He preferred to be taken for the stereotype—a ‘sugar daddy’ with too much time and nothing to do. Had he told them the story about Madonna, they would have smiled politely and dismissed it as the invention of a fanciful old man. And David, in turn, would have felt guilt at not having anticipated this phase of life—the gradual slowing, the dimming, the uneasy business of growing old.

But David wasn’t that old.

It was a conversation he returned to often with Joshua—usually at Joshua’s instigation, lamenting that he would turn forty in October. David could never quite accept the premise. If anyone had the right to complain, it was surely him. He was still good-looking, his hair thick and intact, though he had to admit he’d filled out around the waist.

The trouble was that David still thought like an eighteen-year-old, without quite acknowledging that age catches up with everyone. While his contemporaries were beginning to slow down, even contemplating retirement, he resisted the idea that anything essential should change simply because the years had passed.

There was also the matter of money.

The royalties from his novels had dwindled, and without a pension sufficient to sustain him, he found himself uneasy about the future. Joshua’s artwork, by contrast, was gaining attention; David suspected he was now earning more than he did. And yet it was still David who provided the house, who carried the financial weight of their life together. Would Joshua care for him when he grew old? An outsider might have answered yes without hesitation, but David was less certain. The age gap unsettled him. Once Joshua was secure, it seemed entirely possible he might choose someone younger, someone more in step with his own life.

Had David voiced these fears, he would have discovered that Joshua had no such intentions. He felt a genuine loyalty, even a debt, and was entirely content in the relationship. The thought of leaving had never crossed his mind. But the unease remained, quietly lodged in David, impervious to reason.

David, too, had grown bored with writing novels. It was becoming harder to find original ideas, and harder still to bring them to a satisfying close. Where once he might have produced two books a year, the pace had slowed; he was fortunate now if he managed one every couple of years. Research, he found, gave him more pleasure than the writing itself. He could spend weeks preparing—filling notebooks with observations and plans—only to discover, when the time came, that the inspiration to shape them had quietly deserted him.

At times he compared himself to Arthur Rimbaud, who abandoned poetry at twenty in favour of a life of action, travel, and trade—if selling coffee and firearms could be called that. Rimbaud had turned away from literature altogether, declaring a need to be “absolutely modern”: action instead of words. After his turbulent and violent affair with Paul Verlaine—an episode that ended with a gunshot wound and a prison sentence—he had likely grown weary of Parisian literary life and the weight of his own notoriety. David sensed a kinship there—though Joshua, at least, had not shot him in the hand—and conveniently overlooked the fact that Rimbaud had been forty-two years younger when he walked away.

It was not lost on him that Rimbaud’s true fame had come only after his death. During his brief career he had been known, certainly—an “enfant terrible” in certain Parisian circles—but his legend was constructed later, through publication and the romantic myth of his life. David found something both comforting and unsettling in that thought.

Whenever he considered Rimbaud, he also thought of Leonardo DiCaprio, who had played him so strikingly on screen. David’s own life had, at moments, been just as scandalous—perhaps more so—but he could not imagine anyone wanting to turn it into a film. And if they did, who, exactly, would be cast to preserve him in youth?

His publisher had offered another, more immediate concern. It had been framed as a warning: reputation alone would not be enough, nor would it guarantee a living. There were new forces at work now. AI was coming, the publisher had said, and for writers it would prove not just a novelty, but a threat.

After a life shaped by “what ifs,” he found himself waiting for the great comeback—if it ever came at all.

He became aware, with a faint jolt, that he had drifted out of Joshua’s conversation with his friends and no longer had any idea what they were talking about. He sat with his drink, half-listening, when a young couple approached, each carrying a glass.

“Do you mind if we sit here?”

David didn’t and shifted to make room. The boy caught his attention immediately—shortish, slim, almost theatrically handsome, with dark hair that fell into something wild and a small cross hanging from one ear. The girl was taller, darker, her face sharply drawn. She might have been strikingly glamorous, if not for the absence of make-up and the careless way she wore her hair. There was something unkempt about them both, a deliberate kind of disarray—grungy, even—which David found compelling.

He felt himself wavering between Joshua and his friends and these new arrivals, uncertain where to place his attention. Had he been honest, he might have admitted to a quiet jealousy—of their youth, their ease, the sense of life still gathering around them.

I’ll write a play, he thought suddenly. I’ll leave London, go somewhere warm, somewhere bright. The idea amused him even as it formed. There was something faintly ridiculous in it—but then, he had always had a weakness for the dramatic.

The young man nodded to David, then lapsed into silence. Neither of them seemed inclined to speak, and the quiet between them grew dense. Had it not been for David’s interest in the boy, he might have left—retreated to the safer promise of a comfortable bed and a good book.

The pub had filled quickly; the bar was now three deep with people waiting to be served. David was nearing the end of his drink and had no desire to join them. Again, the thought of an early night presented itself as the sensible option. But the couple intrigued him—especially the boy, and the curious fact that neither of them seemed to speak to the other. Joshua is right, he thought; I am turning into a pervert.

His days, lately, had been taken up with preparations for the Wilhelm von Gloeden exhibition, and with the uneasy awareness that the photographer was now widely regarded as reprehensible. He thought, too, of Baron Corvo, that notorious writer who had made little effort to disguise his vices. Would he be judged in the same way, after his death? The idea unsettled him, though he could not quite say why—he had done nothing, after all, that he considered wrong.

“Do you fancy my boyfriend, or something?”

David started; he hadn’t realised the girl was speaking to him. He looked at her, puzzled.

“You’ve been sitting there staring at him ever since we sat down.”

“I was thinking, that’s all.”

“Jess,” the boy said quietly, “don’t make a scene.”

Fucking kids, David thought—always on the brink of an argument. And yet, perversely, he liked the boy more for it.

“Well, stop staring at him,” she said.

The boy rose, lifting his empty glass. “I’m going to the bar. Same again, Jess?”

She nodded. David braced himself at the prospect of being left alone with her, but the boy had barely taken a few steps before turning back.

“Can I get you a drink, fella?”

The offer caught David off guard. “Yes, thank you,” he said after a moment. “A white rum and tonic, please.”

The boy disappeared into the crowd. For an instant, David felt a childish urge to turn to Jess and stick his tongue out at her—but he resisted it, not least because she seemed almost to tremble with irritation.

“Have you been together long?” he asked.

“Six months,” she replied sharply.

“You make a very nice couple.”

“We are.”

Within seconds, the boy was back, three drinks in hand.

“How did you manage that?” David asked.

“I don’t hang about,” he said with a grin. “Push to the front and shout the loudest.”

“Thank you,” David replied, taking the glass. “What’s your name?”

“Harrison.” He offered his hand as he sat down, and David shook it.

David became aware that Joshua had noticed. He was watching the three of them with a faint, unmistakable suspicion. David found that he rather liked it—a small reassurance that Joshua, too, could feel jealous when something threatened him. He chose to ignore the look, and before long Joshua was drawn back into conversation with his friends. There would be questions later; David would answer them with an air of innocent mystery.

“It’s busy,” Harrison said, by way of small talk, as though waiting for something more to take hold. Jess said nothing, merely sipped her drink. David nodded, the only one to acknowledge him.

Writers, he thought, are curious by nature. They ask questions. He knew it would irritate Jess further, but he had not come this far in life by holding back. A trace of his old arrogance returned.

“Tell me about yourself, Harrison.”

The moment the words were out, he realised he should have said yourselves. But he hadn’t—and, privately, he was glad of it.

“Not much to tell,” Harrison said, though something in his eyes suggested otherwise.

“What do you do?” David pressed.

Harrison hesitated, then gave a small, crooked smile. “Do you really want to know?”

David nodded, leaning forward slightly.

“The truth is…” Harrison paused, as if weighing the effect of it. “I’ve just got out of prison.”

It was the sort of confession that might have unsettled most people. David, however, took it in stride. He felt, instead, a flicker of interest—something sharper, more dangerous. I’ve always liked bad boys, he thought.

“Go on,” he said, unable to hide his curiosity.

Jess shot Harrison a warning look, but he only shrugged.

“It’s a long story,” he said. “Let’s just say drugs and knives were involved.”

“I don’t see you as the criminal type.”

“I’m just me,” he said with a shrug. “Things go wrong sometimes.”

“He’s a dickhead,” Jess cut in.

“What did you do?” David asked, ignoring her.

“I stole some drugs—top-grade ketamine. The blokes I took it from weren’t best pleased. They came after me, so… I stabbed two of them.”

“And you got caught.”

“Wasn’t difficult for the rozzers. CCTV and all that.”

The revelation should have landed like an apocalypse. Harrison was dangerous—there was no denying that—and yet he seemed almost to relish it. Still, there was something disarmingly guileless about him, as if the weight of what he was saying hadn’t quite settled. David found himself imagining Harrison in prison: too striking to go unnoticed. He was tempted—absurdly—to ask what it had been like.

“Forgive me,” David said, “but you seem too polite—too… innocent—for any of that.”

He felt Jess shift sharply beside him.

“For fuck’s sake,” she snapped. “He’s not right in the head. And if I’m not mistaken, you’re doing your best to get into his knickers.”

Harrison tried again to calm her. “Jess, shut up. He’s just being friendly.”

She turned on David. “What are you, then? Queer?”

David didn’t answer. He simply winked.

“It’s time we were going.”

Joshua was standing behind him. Whether he had heard any of it was unclear, though the timing suggested he had. David finished his drink and rose to join him.

“Nice talking to you,” Harrison said, almost apologetically, standing as well. “Sorry about… all that.”

David waved it off. “Think nothing of it. Enjoy the rest of your freedom,” he added, lightly.

Outside, while Joshua disappeared to the toilet, David lingered and realised he had enjoyed the encounter more than he ought to have. Another one bites the dust, he thought.

The door opened, and David hoped that it was Harrison who was coming after him. But things like that didn’t happen anymore. It wasn’t him. 

The Avid Reader and Those Who Watched Him

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Hollacombe Court was a typical new-build apartment complex just off the Uxbridge Road. Four six-storey blocks stood around a large courtyard, entered through a gated archway at one end or via doors at the base of each stairwell. It was elegant without pretension and suited young professionals who preferred life beyond the city.

Elian—meaning God has answered—was of Iberian descent, though born in Dartford, and he had never considered moving to Spain. He had arrived at Hollacombe Court that summer and quickly became known to residents whose windows overlooked the courtyard. In his twenties, he might easily have been called handsome, and his athletic build drew the curious attention of anyone in search of an eligible bachelor.

He spent most summer evenings in the courtyard, with its cream flagstones, raised flowerbeds, and central water feature. He was often found sitting or stretched across one of the dozen stone benches set into the planted borders. He seemed to favour the one nearest the fountain, where water slipped between the fingers of the Greek god Zeus and fell into a circular pool below. Whether any of the residents could have named the statue, however, was open to question.

This was how Elian came to the notice of those living at Hollacombe Place.

Most assumed he had finished work, eaten, and chosen to pass the remaining hours of the evening outdoors with a book. That, above all, was what people noticed. While others switched on the television, Elian could almost always be seen reading. What he read remained a mystery, as few residents used the courtyard, leaving him—more often than not—undisturbed.

To those who glanced out, Elian had become a fixture. His presence lent a quiet reassurance. If, by chance, he was absent, it stirred a faint unease, as though something were amiss. Many had even taken to checking for him several times over the course of an evening. When darkness fell, it became customary to watch him close his book and make the short walk back into his block, though no one knew which apartment was his.

But there were those at Hollacombe Court who watched Elian for more selfish reasons. Had you challenged them, they would have denied it, yet it was hard to ignore that they had fallen in love with him—his Mediterranean looks, olive skin, and thick, black hair. On hot, humid days, they took particular pleasure in seeing him in football shorts, his six-pack on show, his long, smooth legs stretched out before him.

Elian enjoyed those evenings because he was an avid reader, with a particular fondness for novels, and for that reason he never felt lonely. He could summon characters from any book he had read; they were his companions.

His favourite writers were Lee Child, Alan Hollinghurst, and Colm Tóibín, and he often imagined himself as the protagonist in their novels. He had also discovered the work of André Aciman and Tim Parks, whose books stirred his imagination in different ways. When he finished a novel, he placed it carefully on his bookshelf, arranged by author and in order of publication. The classics, however, held little appeal; he found them too dour and overly wordy for his taste.

But reading aside, there was another reason Elian liked to sit in the courtyard.

Reading in full view of so many people made him feel connected. He knew they watched him, desired him even, and he welcomed the attention. He wanted to belong to a society that saw only his outward form; his need for acceptance was universal. Being seen confirmed his existence and importance, satisfying a deep psychological need for belonging. At times, he wondered whether this desire to be observed was a way of compensating for a lack of inner confidence.

And he was able to do this without interference. He liked that people looked at him yet respected his solitude. This paradox became a careful balance between the social need for validation and the personal need for quiet, self-reflection, and protection. He wanted the thrill of being in the spotlight, but also the safety of anonymity. When alone, Elian was answerable to no one, and in that freedom he could exist without fear of judgement.

And so the summer passed in a kind of quiet contentment. Elian with his books, and the curious residents of Hollacombe Court satisfied to watch over him.

Gypsy Blood: Some Bare-Knuckle Fighter in his Family

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Colvey said I had something and wanted to know more. I had no fuckin’ clue what he meant. He stepped in close, his face right up in mine, and for a second, I thought he was gonna headbutt me. His eyes were this icy blue—never noticed before—and they had that look that made you feel small. I stared back, like I wasn’t scared, but I was.

I wanted to ask what his problem was, but Colvey always said silence spoke louder than words. So I kept my mouth shut.

“There’s no one here,” he said. “Told the boys to fuck off.”

Just then, a bit of glass dropped from the busted skylight and smashed on the floor. He didn’t even blink. “But they’re still watching,” he said. “They wanna see me cut you.”

I didn’t dare look away. If I did, he’d know he had me. So, I just stared at his face. They said he had gypsy blood—some bare-knuckle fighter in his family. Probably bullshit. There was a scar under his left eye from when someone bottled him once. Bit of stubble, strong jaw, eyes like razors. Eyebrows shaped. Long lashes. Minty fuckin’ breath.

“You tryna stare me out, bro?”

Didn’t answer. Then he blinked. Looked away for half a second. Tiny moment, but I saw it.

Then—slick movement—blade at my cheek. Pressed it in till I felt it cut. Warm blood sliding down my face.

Door creaked open. Metal scraping.

“You cool?” Mason shouted.

“Fuck!” Colvey hissed. He was pissed.

“All good, bro,” he yelled back, easing the knife away.

I could tell he was gutted. He’d wanted to slice me good. Maybe he still would’ve, but Mason was climbing through the mess toward us.

“What’s going on?” Mason said.

Colvey wiped the knife on his T-shirt, leaving a red smear. “Nothin’, bro. Just sorting a few things. Where’s the boys?”

“They’ve gone. Told ‘em to call it.” Mason clocked the blood on my cheek. “Clean yourself up, dickhead.”

They turned to go. Colvey slung an arm around Mason’s shoulders. Whispered something. Kicked a paint can that rattled off into the dark.

My heart was still banging. I took deep breaths. I’d got off lucky. Stood my ground, though. Still here.

At the door, Colvey turned and shouted, “I’ll see you again, pussy!”

Mason flipped me the finger, then did that wanking motion. “Fuckin’ knobhead!”

That’s when I realised I’d pissed myself.

“Bro, answer your fuckin’ phone!” Blake was yelling when I finally picked up. Music blasting behind him. “I’ve been calling loads, you blanked me.”

“Yeah, been busy,” I said.

“Why’s Colvey after you?”

“I dunno,” I said. “Didn’t say.”

“He’s goin’ mental, bruv. Proper mental. Said he’s gonna kill you.”

“Well, he didn’t,” I said. “And I’m goin’ home to sleep.”

“Nah, come Billy’s,” Blake said. “The boys wanna hear what happened.”

I thought about it. But there was a wet patch on my joggers that made me feel sick, and a cut on my face that didn’t bother me at all.

I kept replaying it in my head. I’d done something to piss him off, that much was clear. I just didn’t know what. I hadn’t stolen from him, hadn’t touched his gear, hadn’t said shit behind his back. And I sure as hell hadn’t been with his girl. That was never happening.

Still, this was proper bad. I’d half expected him to stab me, but he hadn’t. Told myself Colvey’d never killed anyone—but who knew? Maybe he just hadn’t needed to.

What scared me most was thinking he might cut me off from the crew. Then what?

The night felt dead. Cold. Empty. And I felt smaller than I’d ever felt before.

Charlie: The Promise of Paris – Partie 3

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Caught Between Brothers, Desire, and Sex
French films—where sex feels real. Skin is just skin, textured, imperfect; faces carry lines; bodies are allowed to be naked, warm, a little unguarded. That was my first thought when I woke the next morning: that I had been inside a film, and now there lingered a soft, satisfied glow, the sense that something good had happened.

We were all naked.

Thomas lay close beside me, his right arm draped across my chest. Ambre was sprawled over our legs, her head tipped over the edge of the bed. Léo’s head was tucked beneath my left arm, one leg thrown across my midriff. I couldn’t have moved even if I had wanted to.

It had been very late when we returned to Thomas’s rooms. We had drunk far too much. And somewhere in that blur, the three of them had shown me something about sex in France—something unforced, unashamed, almost instinctive. The rest dissolved into fragments, but I woke with a lingering, uncertain impression: that, perhaps, I had crossed a threshold I hadn’t expected and shared something new.

And then I thought of Charlie, back home.

The anger I’d felt—at discovering those explicit photographs of him in Le Pénis—had dulled overnight, settling into something cooler, more measured. In its place came the faint, unsettling sense that the balance had shifted. I hadn’t replied to his messages, hadn’t answered the calls he’d tried to make. I imagined him now: alone, uneasy, carrying the weight of a secret no longer entirely his own.

And there was something else.

I had slept with Thomas, with Ambre, with Léo. The thought lingered, complicated and strangely satisfying. That I had been with Charlie’s brother felt, in some quiet, private way, like the sharpest form of retaliation available to me—an unspoken act that tilted things, however slightly, back in my favour.

For it to have the effect I imagined, Charlie would have needed to take the first Eurostar of the morning and walk through the door at that exact moment—only then would he have found us as we were, the four of us bound together by something reckless, unguarded, and impossible to explain away.

“Bonjour,” Thomas murmured into my ear, his voice still heavy with sleep as his fingers idly traced my chest. “How are you today, my English lover?”

Léo was awake too, stretching out beside me. It was only then I noticed the words Esprit libre tattooed along his arm—something I had somehow missed before. “Miles,” he breathed softly, shifting closer, his warmth pressing into mine.

Amid all of this, Ambre slept on, undisturbed, as though the morning belonged entirely to her dreams.

Thomas was the first to get up. The night before, he had warned us that he had work in the morning—that he would come to regret his small indulgences. I watched as he slipped from the bed and wandered, still naked, into the small kitchenette to make coffee.

He moved with an easy, unselfconscious grace—tall and lean, his pale skin catching the soft morning light. There was something quietly inviting in the ease of his body, a softness to him that made it difficult to look away.

I felt, unexpectedly, a flicker of disappointment as he pulled himself from the warmth of us, as though something of the night had gone with him.

Léo took it as an invitation to move closer. He kissed me softly, his lips brushing mine, the faint roughness of his stubble grazing my skin. There was a quiet confidence in him, a suggestion that the night could easily begin again.

But Ambre, roused by the promise of coffee, chose that moment to wake. With a casual gesture, she tossed a crumpled sheet over us both before slipping out of bed and wandering into the kitchenette, where she joined Thomas and helped herself to a stale croissant.

“What are you thinking about?” Léo asked.

“I’m thinking about that Bertolucci film—the one where a brother and sister take in his teenage friend.”

“Innocents,” he said, after a moment. “The Dreamers was the English title. It shows how different French sensibilities can be—more permissive, less constrained. Like Les Enfants Terribles, with its own tangled intimacy between brother and sister. But there are no siblings here.” He paused, a faint smile forming. “The only brother worth mentioning is Charlie, who—if I understand correctly—has managed to embarrass himself rather thoroughly with his boyfriend.”

“Ah, Charlie,” I said. “That’s something I’ll have to deal with.”

Ambre perched on the edge of the bed, finishing the last of her croissant. She retrieved her phone from the floor and began tapping out a message, only half-listening.

“Miles,” Léo went on, his tone light, almost teasing, “you find yourself in a rather enviable position. You’re able to make comparisons—observe what each brother has to offer. Charlie, who, judging by Le Pénis, is… generously endowed. And Thomas, whom you seemed to appreciate last night, is rather more modest. Would you agree?”

Ambre raised her little finger in the air, a mischievous glint in her eye. “I don’t think Thomas is in any position to impress anyone with the size of his bifler,” she said, laughing.

She wasn’t entirely wrong, I thought. Thomas may have come second to Charlie in that regard, but there was something about him—something understated, quietly appealing—that stirred a different kind of interest in me.

As if to underline the point, Thomas reappeared with the coffee and came to stand over me, the morning light catching him in a way that made it difficult to think of anything else.

“What are you going to do about Charlie?” he asked.

“I’ll message him later,” I said.

“Forgive me, Miles,” Ambre added, almost lightly. “But I’ve already messaged him. I told him you spent the night with us—nothing more than that, of course—but enough for him to understand that the four of us may have… misbehaved.”

“Oh,” I said, caught off guard. “Was that wise?”

Thomas came to sit beside me and brushed a quick kiss against my cheek. “Brothers are meant to share their toys,” he said with a faint smile. “And besides, Ambre’s right—after what he did to you, he deserved to hear something.”

Léo shifted closer, his touch unexpectedly intimate, then lifted his gaze to meet mine. “There’s a difference, isn’t there,” he said quietly, “between posing for photographs and actually taking part in something.”

And just like that, I felt it—the subtle, unwelcome shift. The balance, which had briefly seemed to favour me, tilted back toward Charlie.

After showering and dressing, we followed Thomas down to the bar below. We found a table outside and ordered Orangina, which he promptly fortified with generous measures of Cointreau. It might have suited the night before, but just after midday the taste felt oddly sharp, almost unwelcome.

“A few of these,” Thomas said, with quiet encouragement, “will put you in the right frame of mind to speak to my little brother.”

The conversation was interrupted when one of Thomas’s colleagues appeared at the table, breathless with excitement. She spoke quickly, hands moving as much as her voice, pausing only when someone cut in with a question.

Thomas frowned, then glanced at me, unwilling to let me be shut out of something so clearly urgent. He began to translate, his English halting, searching for the right words as he went.

“She… she is saying… a group of American boys, they went into a café nearby, last night. And—how you say—they noticed a very beautiful French girl, sitting with her friends.” He hesitated, brow furrowing. “One of them, as… a kind of bet, tries to speak with her. But she is not interested. She shows this, very clearly. Still… he continues.”

Thomas paused, as if rearranging the story in his head.

“Then a French boy—he does not like this—and he punches the American. In the face.” He gestured vaguely to his own cheek. “And after this… it becomes worse. The American, he takes out a gun. He fires. He misses, but… the café, it is chaos. People shouting, more guns, even knives…”

He exhaled, shaking his head slightly.

“The police are called—the Préfecture. The Americans, they run upstairs, to escape. And then…” He faltered, searching again. “A policeman, he is pushed from a window. He falls—rolls over the awning—and lands in the street below.”

Ambre and Léo both reacted with open disgust, though how much of the story was true remained uncertain. Léo placed a hand on my knee and gave it a small, deliberate squeeze, as if to underline the gravity of what we’d just heard.

But the moment quickly lost its weight.

Outside Bar Dieudonné, Charlie was standing on the pavement.

The others hadn’t noticed him yet, but I had—and for a second, I could only stare, caught somewhere between disbelief and recognition.

He moved towards us, a travel bag slung over his shoulder, running a hand through his thick hair. I tried to read his expression—whether it was anger, or embarrassment—but couldn’t quite settle on either. By then, Thomas had seen him too, his voice cutting gently through the table.

“Charlie. What are you doing here?”

Charlie’s eyes went straight to me, sharp, accusing. “I thought it would be easier to come to Paris,” he said, “since none of my messages or calls were being answered.”

Thomas stood to greet him, pulling him into a brief embrace, but there was something restrained in it—something almost reluctant. I felt it too, that same flicker of disappointment.

It seemed Charlie had a way of appearing wherever I went.

Charlie dropped his bag to the floor and pulled up a chair, his movements abrupt, almost territorial. He made a visible effort to ignore Thomas, Ambre, and Léo, as though shutting them out might simplify things. As for me, I still had no idea what I was going to say.

The waitress slipped away unnoticed, sensing the shift in the air, and Thomas drew up a chair of his own. The five of us sat there, suspended in a strained, uncomfortable silence.

Charlie broke it.

“It seems I have gate-crashed an orgie,” he said, placing deliberate weight on the final word.

No one reacted. Ambre and Léo shifted awkwardly, and Thomas reached for my hand, a quiet gesture of support.

“We were drunk,” I said at last. “I had reason to be. It’s not every day you discover your partner naked in a gay magazine.”

“I wanted to explain that,” Charlie replied, his tone tightening, “but I haven’t exactly been given the chance.”

“Then explain,” Thomas said evenly.

Charlie exhaled. “They were taken a long time ago. I was in Paris, and someone offered me a lot of money to pose. I didn’t tell you, Miles, because I knew it would upset you.”

“That’s true,” I said. “But not as much as it did yesterday.”

“It isn’t something shameful,” he continued. “The male body is beautiful. I liked the idea that someone thought I was worth photographing. And posing for images like that is not the same as…” He hesitated, his gaze flicking toward Thomas before settling back on me. “…what you’ve done. With my brother. And the others.” His glance toward Ambre and Léo carried a trace of disdain.

“It was one night,” Léo said lightly. “It didn’t mean anything.” Ambre let out a small, disbelieving snort.

Charlie shook his head, his frustration now turning toward Thomas. “I can’t forgive you. This happens every time I have something of my own—you take it. That’s why I left for England. And still, somehow, you manage it.”

“Wait,” I cut in. “None of this would have happened if we hadn’t found those photos.”


“That’s not true,” Charlie said, his voice sharpening. “I knew something was going on between you and Thomas. When you came to Paris, I knew you’d see each other. So Ambre’s message…” He gave a small, bitter smile. “It didn’t surprise me. It only confirmed what I already suspected.”

“We are French,” Thomas said, with a faint, knowing shrug. “We do the wildest things when they are expected of us. We have welcomed Miles—made him feel at home. For that, you should be grateful, Charlie.”

Ambre, who had been silent until now, leaned forward, her tone calm but unflinching.

“And we also know that the two of you don’t sleep together. Miles hasn’t even seen you naked.” She tilted her head slightly. “That isn’t natural. The fault is yours, Charlie. You are boyfriends, yes? And yet you keep him at a distance. So he looks elsewhere.” Her gaze shifted to me, softer now. “I hope last night was good for you.”

She had, with disarming ease, landed on the truth.

“It’s true,” I said. “I don’t really know what we are, Charlie. We live together; we get on well—but I’d be embarrassed to explain it to anyone else. That this is all there is.”

Charlie looked unsettled, as though trying to assemble a response that would satisfy both me and him.

“You came to Paris to find him,” Thomas said, more gently now. “That must mean something. Forget everything else—what’s happened, what you think it means. If you came here to make things right, then do it. There is still something between you worth saving.” He paused, then added, without apology, “As for Miles—I won’t pretend otherwise. I like him. And I know he likes me. But I also have Ambre, and Léo. They know who I am. I follow what I feel, while I can. There’s something in that, little brother.”

In a few quiet sentences, Thomas stripped the argument back to its core, leaving little room for accusation.

Charlie drew a breath. “I’ve spoken to our parents,” he said. “I’m staying with them while I’m in Paris. I asked if Miles could stay too—they said yes.” He glanced at me, something softer now beneath the tension. “But if you’d rather stay here… with Thomas… I’ll understand.”

I realised then how deeply I had been pulled into something that had begun long before me—a quiet, unresolved rivalry between two brothers. I hadn’t expected to stand at its centre, still less to feel responsible for how it might end.

I loved Charlie. That much was certain.

But Thomas—there was something about him, something immediate and consuming, that I couldn’t ignore.

And it seemed, whether I was ready or not, that a choice had to be made.

My Week, For What It Was Worth

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On writing a long story…


It was the story that gave this site its name. Perfectly Hard and Glamorous was originally meant to be nothing more than a platform for a single, serialised story. But it didn’t quite turn out that way—other characters and other stories found their way in, and gradually took over.

The journey began four years ago and came to an end yesterday. Along the way, it wandered, stirred a bit of controversy, and at times became unexpectedly difficult to write. But despite all the twists and turns, it arrived where it was meant to—just not quite where I had imagined.

I wrote it mainly for myself. It was a way of proving that I could sustain something long-form and actually see it through without losing momentum. It also gave me space to experiment with different styles. Because of that, it isn’t perfect—but I enjoyed writing it, even if it didn’t always find an audience. I could go back and start again, reshape it entirely, but there are too many other things now that I want to write.

So how does it feel?

Strange, really. A mix of emotions. There’s a sense of achievement—a quiet, personal victory—but also a lingering sense of loss. Almost like a small ending, or a kind of absence. I imagine it’s not unlike what authors feel when they finish a novel.

The characters stay with you. Some you grow fond of, others less so, but they all leave their mark. So, goodbye to Harry, Andy, and Jack. Goodbye to Paolo—who I grew so attached to that I had no choice but to let him go. Goodbye to Tom, who may yet find his way into something else. And goodbye to Park Hill in Sheffield—seen here from its struggles in the 1980s to its later reinvention.

It’s over now.

On finding an old photograph by Herbert List…

In 1945, Herbert List faced the ruins of Munich just as the dust had settled, capturing the wreckage and those who remained to pick up the pieces. The devasted Academy of Arts’ storeroom. The figural group on the left is probably a design for a large motorway monument by Josef Thorak. The seated figure in the middle is a plaster cast of the seated Hermes of the Herculaneum with an aries-relief from the school of German artist Adolph Hildebrand.

On dreaming about Pasolini in Roma…

Short pieces written between 1950, when Pasolini arrived in Rome, and1966.

Whilst in Paris, in brief moments of sleep, I dreamt that I met Pasolini in Rome and he gave me a book to read. It was a collection of short stories about the city which he had written when he was young. I told Thomas about the dream, and he secretly ordered me a book that was delivered the next day by a cute Algerian guy. Reading it, I realised I had subconsciously named a character in one of my own stories after Pier Paolo Pasolini. 

I might be the reincarnation of Pasolini. The more I write; the more shocking it becomes, and soon I shall be left with only gay porn to write about. But Pasolini’s writing career faded and he directed films instead that were also shocking. And Thomas said that the more daring we become, only murder can silence us. My friend, Freddie the Fraud, once told me that when I am in Italy, the ghost of murdered Pasolini follows me, like he wants to get into my shorts.

On finding an old manuscript about William Butler Yeats…

John Singer Sargent, 1908. From a charcoal drawing. Frontispiece to Yeats

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was an Irish poet, dramatist, writer and literary critic. 

He was ‘not available’ to admiring young men. 

“No,” the young Irishman would have said. “Surely the stirrings within me are meant for naught but the fairer sex, and no other creature besides.”

Katharine Tynan, a prolific Irish poet and novelist who was a regular contributor to The Sketch magazine during the 1890s, was one of those who were enamoured by him:

Prominent in the disorder is a book bound like a mediaeval missal in cherry-coloured brocade and tarnished gold. 

What may that fine thing be I ask. He answers with a slight blush. “That is my MS book. A friend brought me the cover from Paris, and I had the book made to fit it.” 

I inspect the book. It is such thick paper as one finds in editions (le luxe, and, one imagines, must be rather uncomfortable to write upon). The fine book is a part of the literary dandyism which rather distinguishes Mr. Yeats. 

In the old Dublin days he was as untidy as a genius newly come from the backwoods. He was an art student then, and generally bore the stains of the studio. 

He used to affect scarlet ties, which lit up his olive face. They were tied most carelessly. Ordinary young men who had been at school with him, and resented his being a genius, used to say that the carelessness was the result of long effort but one never believed them. 

Now he wears the regulation London costume, plus a soft hat, and his ties are dark silk, knotted in a soft bow. He is extremely handsome in his strange way; he is very tall and very slender, so dark that he was once taken for a Hindu; by a Hindu, a long, delicate, oval face, beautiful brows, and large, melancholy, velvety brown eyes that see visions.

There used to be a picture of Willie in his boyhood on an easel over against me as I sat. The dusky face had carnations in the cheeks which now are pale olive. If it was at all representative of him, he must have been a beautiful boy, full of rich Eastern colour. I did not meet him till a year or two later, when he had assumed the man’s colourless cheeks, with the silky, dark, very youthful beard he then wore.

William Butler Yeats – The Sketch – Wednesday 29 November 1893

On not giving PSB about The Beatles…

Pet Shop Boys Volume: The complete visual record. Chris Heath, Philip Hoare. Thames and Hudson, 2026

Why does every generation have an obsession with The Beatles? The fucking Beatles. I’m one for old music but I don’t get the hype around them. It wasn’t as if they lasted long. Boring. Give me the Pet Shop Boys. They’ve lasted longer and still hit us like they’re trying to be young again. But the gay one doesn’t/never appealed to gays, while the straight one did/does. Happy 40th Anniversary. 

On watching Before Night Falls…

Javier Bardem and Johnny Depp in Before Night Falls, 2000

Reinaldo Arenas, an exiled Cuban writer suffering from AIDS, took his own life in New York in 1990. It was a dramatic end to a dramatic life—the final escape of someone who had always been in flight: first from abandonment and neglect as a child, then from stark poverty, and finally from sexual and political persecution. Arenas was imprisoned several times in Cuba by Castro’s government, his manuscripts frequently confiscated. On one occasion he was detained on a vague morals charge and subjected to repeated indignities and cruelties, including torture. He arrived in the United States during the Mariel boatlift of 1980, that headlong exodus of more than a hundred thousand people—an event he renders vividly in his memoir, Before Night Falls, published in 1993.

I confess I knew nothing of his story until I watched Julian Schnabel’s 2000 film, drawn from both the autobiography and Jana Boková’s 1990 documentary Havana.

A few things to note. Javier Bardem is excellent as Arenas. But others linger: Johnny Depp—who once took a piss beside me—appears twice, as the outrageous Bon Bon with the big arse and as Lt. Víctor; Sean Penn turns up as Cuco Sánchez; and Olivier Martinez as Lázaro Gómez Carriles. It was Martinez who did it for me. Handsome—absurdly so. Not anymore. He dated Kylie for a while, married and divorced Halle Berry, and somewhere along the way the looks went with it.

On the cute and willing…

Artem. Photo by Archie – Saint Petersburg (2025)

Charlie: The Promise of Paris – Partie 2

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Thomas – Charlie Marseille (2026)

I had assumed that French people’s reputation for being sexually daring and uninhibited was overstated. My relationship with Charlie confirmed it. An observer could have thought that I was more typical of the French than he was. Charlie avoided sexual gratification: my desire for sex could be insatiable.

My reason for going to Paris was not, as I had told Charlie, to review an exhibition at an art gallery, but simply to find Thomas, his older brother, who had urged me to go. Charlie had every reason to suspect that this had been my intention all along. He had watched my contrived journey around the city with scepticism. Every message, each question, was an effort to catch me out.

Charlie knew much more about his unlikely brother than he cared to mention. “Make sure you do not go to see Thomas.” It was a warning that implied something unthinkable might happen if I did. That was the allure. I hoped that something might happen.

My arrival had stirred a buzz of excitement. Thomas had greeted me like a returning lover. But there was still ambivalence. He had rooms above Bar Dieudonné and I had noticed the only bed which suggested that I was going to share it with him.

The arrival of Ambre was the first time I realised that he had a girlfriend, and I confess that I initially regarded her as unwelcome competition. His friend, Léo, added to the uncertainty. After that, I resigned myself to sleeping on the brown leather sofa.

While Thomas worked at the bar, Ambre and Léo took me into Le Marais and we ended up at Joe Le Sexy, a gay sex boutique, where I had discovered naked photos of Charlie in the glossy magazine Le Pénis.

Ambre consulted Thomas and took it upon herself to make me drunk. After drinking too many Vodka-Apples I began telling them everything that was wrong with Charlie. They comforted me in a way I had never known. Ambre kept kissing me and brushing her cheek against mine. Léo insisted on nibbling my ear and letting his lips trail down my neck. I found that I was enjoying the attention.

We encountered Thomas as he was shutting down Bar Dieudonné for the night. He slipped his arm around me. “My brother is an idiot,” he whispered. “But we shall make your stay memorable, and then you might not wish to go back.” He insisted that we go to a late-night café on Rue de Seine where bar staff gathered after work.

It was a small place; tables with candles squeezed into every available space; the walls covered in black and white prints of Paris in the 1960s; chart music turned low. “Brigitte Bardot, Françoise Hardy and Serge Gainsbourg used to come here,” said Ambre.

There was a vacant table in a dark corner.

“Come,” Thomas gestured. “Sit beside me and we can lust over Ambre and Léo together.” His hand rested lightly on my knee.

A young man brought bottles of red wine and fussed attentively over us.

“The waiter who was in charge of that part of the room was a young, handsome fellow, about 23 years of age,” said Ambre, smiling. Her eyes followed the blushing boy and then settled upon Léo.

“Civil, good-natured, and obliging,” Léo interjected. “He was a favourite with both master and son, the latter of whom, black-eyed beauty as he was, seemed to regard him with even affection.”

He signalled for Ambre to continue.

“But he was only a waiter: he was an heir,” she sighed and shook her head in quiet sadness. “Mutual affection is, in civilised parts of the world, a mere folly.”

Everyone laughed.

“The French are crazy people,” the waiter said to me with a shrug.

When he had gone, Thomas restored a sense of order around the table.

“I must see the incriminating photographs that have caused such remue-ménage.”

Ambre pulled out Le Pénis and handed it to him.

Thomas slowly flicked through the magazine, carefully studying each page, raising his eyebrows once or twice. We, the jury, waited until he finally reached the images of Charlie. Léo kicked me under the table while Thomas spent a long time examining the photographs.

“Thomas!” Ambre shrieked. “If you spend any more time looking at them, I shall think that you are becoming aroused by your own brother. What do you think?”

“I think it is a tragedy and a regeneration,” he replied. “Good pictures. Unusual themes—beautiful, dramatic, romantic—exquisitely thrilling and appealing. What more can I say.” 

So far, I had been allowed to wallow in my misery; the quiet spectator who was content to let the others remain the focus of attention. But Ambre and Léo were waiting for me to say something.

“Your critique is interesting, it is almost an art form,” I managed to say, “but, sadly, that is not the way I see it.”

Thomas gave a great sigh and stroked my hand.

“I understand that you are hurting. I understand that you are embarrassed and angry. But we are not talking about war, suffering, or death. We are talking about photographs.”

“Only photographs,” I agreed, “but naked photographs of Charlie with an erection. It was a shock because I had no idea that he had agreed to be photographed in this way. Charlie usually tells me everything. In this case, he didn’t because he knew that I would disapprove.”

“And why would you have done so?” asked Ambre.

“Because,” I stammered, “I fail to see why the world should see him like this when I have not. Why has he allowed this to happen? I feel like a fool.”

My phone pinged again as it had done dozens of times. I looked at my messages, some accusatory, and some, I might add, showing concern. But I had no desire to reply. Among them, I saw that Bianchi had also messaged, and, for once, I did not feel guilty.

“Give me your phone,” Thomas demanded.

I resisted. It was said that a boy and his dog were inseparable, and the same might have applied to a boy and his phone. Especially when you knew that Thomas was about to do something that I might regret.

Thomas held his hand out and waited until I reluctantly handed it to him.

He laid the copy of Le Pénis on the table and took a photograph of it. Then he opened WhatsApp and sent it to Charlie.

It was as simple as that. No need to make excuses for not replying to messages. Make him see that I was angry without saying anything.

Almost immediately, the phone pinged.

“No, monsieur,” Thomas warned. “You are not permitted to look at it and certainly not allowed to answer it… at least not for three years.”

Charlie maintained that Thomas was stupid but, from what I saw and heard, I began to understand that the opposite was true. Thomas was like Charlie in some ways, and, as the older of the two brothers, had been able to refine his instincts in a way that made Charlie seem less complete.

Thomas turned and kissed me. His lips were warm and soft, and I felt the brush of stubble against my chin. When he pressed his tongue into my mouth I yielded, accepting that this had been the moment I had waited for. There was a soft, melodic hum—Ambre’s way of showing that she found this display of affection ‘cute’ and ‘heartwarming’. Léo gripped my inner thigh. “Nous prendrons soin de toi, ami,” he said soothingly.

We were interrupted by the waiter who, satisfied that the occupants of this corner table were unlikely to cause any trouble, had brought more red wine.

We talked for ages: nothing of any consequence.

“Thomas tells us that you are an established travel writer. That must be very exciting.”

“Well,” I volunteered, “Thomas is only partly correct. I am a travel writer who does not go anywhere.”

“And that you are also living in Italy.”

“Again, Thomas is being creative with the truth. I can stay in a room that Signora Bruschi keeps for me. It is not mine, and when I go, which is not often, I am allowed to stay rent free.”

“But you are able to make a living?”

I decided that the truth could wait for another day and nodded. My head spun slightly as I did so.

“Miles must earn money to keep Charlie,” Thomas interjected. “My brother is known for not paying his own way. But I think that they are in love most of the time.”

I pulled a face.

“I am a student at Paris Diderot University,” Léo said. “I study history and one day I shall win a Nobel Prize for my genius.”

Ambre howled with laughter.

“And that means you are always spending your time with friends, visiting cafés, and enjoying the nightlife. Studying is only a small part.”

“And do not underestimate the importance of sleep,” he said “Ambre does nothing worthwhile. She works in a fashion store at Canal Saint-Martin and spends her days complaining about loathsome Parisians with too much money and no manners.”

We talked for ages: nothing of any consequence.

“Where did you all meet?” I asked.

“We do not know when or how we met,” said Thomas. “A French thing. It is usually through a friend, or a friend of a friend, and after we have been introduced, they disappear and we are left with each other. It is a union of those people who are not wanted.”

“Non,” Ambre decided, “it was about sex.”

“What?”

“The French prioritise the art of seduction, and our appetites are natural and normal rather than shameful. We were certainly attracted to each other sexually.”

If that were true, then I had been unfortunate enough to have become involved with the only French person who did not follow such principles. But Charlie had allowed strangers to see him in a way that I, his lover, had never been permitted to. I thought back to the times when I had tried to be affectionate and the refusals that followed. And now there was the realisation that, if this relationship was to survive, it might have to be shared through the pages of magazines like Le Pénis.

I slipped away to the toilet, and, with Thomas not there to admonish me, I could not resist the urge to look at my phone. The last message from Charlie had been an hour ago and read: I love you. Really, I do. I had always understood the meaning of a Queen’s silence, or what might now be a King’s silence, and I was not drunk enough to forget it. I did not reply.

When I returned, Ambre was lip-synching to Melodrama. Léo was nowhere to be seen. Thomas had that ecstatic look on his face which suggested that he had taken something. But then I noticed that Léo had slipped beneath the table and was giving him a blow job. When somebody came over to say hello, Thomas shook their hand as he came in Léo’s mouth.

Charlie: The Promise of Paris – Partie 1

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Paris in the spring. The city had emerged from winter into blooming flowers, mild air, and sudden rain showers. Not like England, where winter still clung stubbornly to everything.

If I returned to Paris, Charlie had insisted that he should be the one to take me. It was the city where he had grown up, where his family still lived. But to Charlie’s frustration, he had not been able to come. He had recently landed a job as a nightclub DJ—something he had wanted desperately and had then come to hate.

“No, Charlie, you’ve only been here a few weeks. You can’t take a holiday.”

His anger and frustration were matched only by my hidden delight.

“You cannot go to Paris without me,” Charlie had pleaded.

“It is work, not pleasure,” I told him, adopting a serious tone. “I’m being paid to write about an art gallery.” It was an elaborate lie.

“But you’re not an art expert. I would have been able to tell you what is good and what is bad.”

I shrugged this off, quietly pleased at my good fortune.

“There’s no choice in the matter. I must go, and that’s that.”

Before I left, Charlie looked me straight in the eye.

“You must promise that you won’t see Thomas.”

“Charlie, I’m going to be busy. I won’t have time to see anyone—least of all Thomas.” 

He was not placated.

“Promise me. Cross your heart that you’ll have no contact with him.”

“I promise I won’t see Thomas,” I lied. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Thomas was Charlie’s older brother, of dubious parentage, and I had met him only once, years earlier, when he stayed at our apartment for a few days. Charlie was convinced that Thomas had tried to seduce me.

That part was true.

Nothing had happened, but Thomas had left an impression.

We messaged each other regularly. More accurately, we flirted—quite shamelessly—and Charlie had no idea.

It was the same with Bianchi in Verona. Charlie had no idea that he existed either.

I climbed the steps from the Métro at Rue du Bac and found the bar on Boulevard Saint-Germain. Bar Dieudonné stood on a corner, occupying the first two floors of a traditional Haussmann building. A striped, blue awning ran along the façade, beneath which stainless-steel tables and matching chairs spilled onto the pavement. A handful of people sat outside, lingering over drinks.

This was the bar that Thomas managed, though I couldn’t see him. A young waiter took my order and raised his eyebrows slightly when I asked for a café crème—it was well into the afternoon.

I have always thought the best parts of this neighbourhood were the little streets that slipped away from Boulevard Saint-Germain: narrow cobbled lanes with outdoor cafés and dusty curio shops. But there was no work to do, and there would be plenty of time for wandering. For now, I sat back and watched the passing crowds—bohemians and tourists alike—talking loudly, smiling, drifting past in loose, cheerful hordes.

A small Algerian boy approached and held out his hand.

My French is about as good as my Italian, and I struggled for something to say. In the end I muttered “fuck off,” which only earned me a puzzled look. I waved him away instead, and he slunk back into the crowd, looking dejected.

I assumed I must be close to the house where Jean‑Paul Marat, one of the more notorious figures of the French Revolution, had been stabbed to death while writing in his bath. Yet this elegant corner of the 6th arrondissement had attracted many other ghosts over the years—Oscar Wilde, Charles Baudelaire, Ernest Hemingway, Jean‑Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir, among countless others. Shadows from earlier lives, but still somehow present.

A pair of hands suddenly covered my eyes from behind.

“Ah,” a voice said. “I see my intended lover has finally arrived.”

It was Thomas—tall, slender, delicate, with skin as pale as snow. A baseball cap hid most of his blond hair, which seemed to have been cut short. He kissed me lightly on both cheeks and then pulled me into a hug that felt surprisingly strong for someone with such an elegant frame.

“I hope my brother isn’t hiding somewhere, ready to appear and ruin everything.”

“I’m alone,” I said, “though Charlie has an uncanny ability to know everything that goes on—even when he isn’t there.”

Thomas sat opposite me and smiled, revealing perfect white teeth.

A small pang of guilt drifted through me.

“Where does Charlie think you’re staying?”

“An Airbnb,” I replied. “That way he won’t be able to track me down quite so easily.”

For a moment I wondered what I was doing here. Why was I willing to jeopardise everything with Charlie?

There was only one honest answer: sex.

My friend Levi says I have an addiction to it, and he may be right. On the Eurostar to Paris I had looked up the symptoms, and the similarities with my own life had been unsettling: continuing despite knowing the consequences; using it as a coping mechanism for something missing; an inability to control the urges; risky behaviour; escaping shame through sex; living a secret life to hide things from partners; compulsive pornography; confusing sexual attraction with intimacy.

The list had felt uncomfortably familiar.

I loved Charlie, and I had good reason to believe that he loved me. He was the perfect pin-up boy—French, handsome, with a body people envied. Everyone said they were jealous of us. The perfect couple.

Yet I also knew that Charlie would happily sleep with anyone who offered, while somehow maintaining an aversion to sleeping with me. That hurt more than I cared to admit. It was an awkward conversation we had both avoided.

Which meant I was always looking elsewhere.

Charlie, I suspected, probably was too.

Thomas, I decided, was the next closest thing to sleeping with Charlie. The same genes, the same beauty—though expressed differently. He possessed an allure that was quieter, more evocative.

And impossible to ignore.

“I must work until late,” he said, “but you can stay in my rooms upstairs.”

I slung my bag over my shoulder and followed him through a large doorway beside the bar. We climbed several flights of marble stairs, the walls decorated with faded mosaic patterns, until we reached his door.

“I should apologise,” Thomas said as he unlocked it. “My rooms are untidy. I’m not as particular as Charlie.”

He wasn’t exaggerating.

The place reminded me of the many student apartments I had visited over the years—not dirty exactly, but nothing seemed to belong anywhere.

The main room was dominated by an enormous television fixed to the wall. Beneath it sat what could only be described as a gaming command centre, surrounded by controllers, headsets, and cables. A huge brown leather sofa occupied the middle of the room.

Unopened boxes were stacked in three corners, while the fourth had become a kind of tech graveyard—a tangled nest of charging cables, old headphones, and abandoned power banks. The window ledges were crowded with pot plants, some thriving, others clearly beyond saving.

The small kitchen counters were cluttered with dishes and coffee mugs—clean, but apparently without a cupboard willing to receive them. In one corner sat the remains of several breakfasts: croissants, chocolatines, pain aux raisins, brioche, alongside fresh bread, ground coffee, and hot chocolate.

It seemed Thomas lived almost entirely on whatever the pâtisserie across the street happened to produce.

The bedroom was no better.

A floordrobe of clean and discarded clothes spread across the wooden floor. He had adopted the “bare mattress” aesthetic: no sheets, the bed unmade, pillows scattered in all directions except where they were meant to be.

“Throw your bag in here,” he said casually. “Like I warned you—it’s a bit of a mess.”

The bathroom was clean, though untidy. Half-empty bottles of shower gel and shampoo lined the edge of the shower, alongside an assortment of deodorants and colognes. Toothpaste tubes lay scattered near the sink. Two toothbrush holders stood side by side, each containing a single toothbrush.

The toilet and bidet had been recently cleaned with pine disinfectant, and a full roll of ‘papier toilette’ had been folded into an elegant point, as if in a luxury hotel.

The illusion was spoiled, however, by the pile of discarded cardboard tubes that had accumulated beside the waste bin.

I had the impression that Thomas wanted to impress in certain places, though for the most part the effort had fallen short.

The contrast between the way Thomas and Charlie lived could hardly have been greater. Still, I wasn’t too concerned. I had stayed in places far worse than this.

Charlie had insisted that Thomas had a girlfriend, although the tone of Thomas’s messages to me had suggested otherwise. Flirty, flirty French boy.

But one small detail gave me pause: the two separate toothbrushes.

Almost as if he had read my thoughts, Thomas chose that moment to complicate matters.

“My girlfriend, Ambre, will be along later,” he said nonchalantly. “She’s bringing my friend Léo with her. They’ve promised to take you out this afternoon.”

I was left alone and cleared a small space for my neatly folded clothes. There would be no confusion about what belonged to whom. I also placed my own toothbrush beside the others.

That meant there were now three toothbrushes in the bathroom.

I made myself a strong coffee and waited for the arrival of Ambre and Léo.

They arrived in a burst of energy. Like Thomas and Charlie, their English was excellent, and although they often slipped into French when speaking to each other, they were careful to translate whatever they had said.

Ambre was a slim brunette who seemed to radiate personality. Bright and bubbly, she swept through the rooms with an effortless charm that felt distinctly French.

Léo, by comparison, was quieter.

He looked about twenty: dark-haired, reasonably handsome, with the faint beginnings of a moustache that might have taken months to achieve.

“Thomas was right,” Ambre said with a wink. “You are a very handsome homo boy. So, we must take you to Le Marais and let our boys decide for themselves.”

I couldn’t quite tell whether Léo was gay or not, but he appeared perfectly happy to be included in the plan.

They were easy to get along with, and before long it felt as though we had known each other for years. We wandered through several crowded bars, drinking pastis and mimosas, before eventually stopping at Joe le Sexy—a shop that might best be described as a kinky gay boutique, selling everything from books to toys and explicit magazines.

Ambre bought several bottles of Rush poppers and dropped them into a brown paper bag that did little to disguise where they had come from.

Léo grew visibly embarrassed when I began leafing through several issues of Le Pénis, a magazine that contained exactly what its title suggested. He peered over my shoulder, offering approving or disapproving noises depending on the size and shape of the appendage on display.

Up to this point I had become so caught up in the carefree afternoon that I hadn’t checked my phone. When I finally glanced at it in the shop, several messages from Charlie were waiting.

They followed a familiar pattern: polite curiosity slowly hardening into anxiety once I hadn’t replied.

“Where are you?”

“Did you find the art gallery?”

“What are you doing this afternoon?”

“Answer me.”

“Make sure you do not go to find Thomas.”

I carefully composed a reply.

“All good, Charlie. Found the gallery. Busy talking. Call you later x”

Almost immediately a thumb-up appeared

I felt strangely comfortable with the small fiction I had created. The sunshine had put me in a carefree mood, and the alcohol had washed away any lingering doubts that I might be behaving like a bit of a skank.

When I put my phone away, Léo was still browsing through Le Pénis. I rested my chin lightly on his shoulder, and he seemed perfectly content for me to share the explicit photographs with him. He smelled faintly of Bleu de Chanel and something musky beneath it.

I decided that I really did like French boys.

He turned the pages idly, but suddenly something caught my eye, and I stopped him at once.

“What is it?” Léo asked.

“Turn back a few pages.”

He flipped slowly through the magazine until I told him to stop.

I froze.

Léo stared at the page, trying to understand what had unsettled me.

Unsettled wasn’t quite the word. It felt more like a bomb going off.

“I can’t believe it,” I said quietly. “These are photographs of Charlie.”

Léo looked puzzled. I later forgave him for not recognising him—he had apparently never met him—but there was no doubt in my mind.

Several glossy colour images showed Charlie completely naked, proudly demonstrating that this magazine truly deserved its title. In Charlie’s case, it might more accurately have been called Grandiose Le Pénis.

The penis was magnificent.

A rush of conflicting sensations flooded through me. Mortification. Confusion. Disbelief.

And anger—enough to make me want to tear someone’s head off.

“Fuck me, Léo,” I muttered. “That’s my boyfriend.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that this enormous dick shouldn’t be in here.”

Léo didn’t seem to know how to respond and called Ambre over for support. He spoke rapidly in French while she gave short replies that sounded increasingly disapproving.

“Let me see,” she said.

Léo held up the magazine while she studied the photographs of Charlie, although what this was meant to accomplish remained unclear to me.

“And you did not know?” she asked.

“No!” I snapped.

“Maybe it is AI,” she suggested thoughtfully. “Maybe this zizi does not belong to him. Maybe it has been… enhanced.”

“The point isn’t the size of his dick,” I said. “The point is that he’s showing it in a magazine—especially when…”

I stopped myself.

“Especially when what?” Léo asked.

“Especially when I have absolutely no idea what size his dick is,” I said. “Because I’ve never seen it.”

Ambre and Léo exchanged a quick glance. Neither seemed to know what they were supposed to say.

“Ça va aller,” Ambre said gently. “We must speak with Thomas. Perhaps he knows something about this. I will call him now.”

She stepped outside the shop and spoke quickly into her phone.

“Poor thing,” said Léo softly.

Ambre returned a few minutes later, slightly out of breath.

“I spoke with Thomas. He knows nothing about it.”

By that point I had slipped into a strange kind of numb shock.

Ambre bought the offending issue of Le Pénis and dropped it into the same brown bag that already contained the bottles of poppers.

“And now,” she announced firmly, “we are going to find another bar and get you extremely drunk.”

But a Heaviness Lingers in his Limbs

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Paolo – Charlie Marseille (2026)

Harry Oldham is writing a novel based on his criminal and sordid past. To do so, he has returned to live at Park Hill, where he grew up, and the place that he once left behind. That was then and this is now, in which the old world collides with the new. (Parts 1 to 20 are available to read in the menu)

Perfectly Hard and Glamorous – Part 21

March 1985

Ice cream was the reason that Paolo came to Sheffield. He was born at Montescaglioso in the Province of Matera; his father from an ice-cream making family and his mother the only daughter of a farmer. Like a lot of Italian families, they believed that opportunities existed elsewhere. His father, Giovanni, decided that Sheffield might be the best place but perhaps hadn’t realised that the city already had generations of Italian ice-cream sellers. Paolo was two years old when the family settled in England. Being around Italian parents meant that he still had his native accent.

“I wasn’t sure when it was that I realised I preferred boys to girls,” Paolo told me. “But one thing was certain and that was that I must never tell my mother and father. If news ever got back to Italy, then I would become an outcast. Gay boys and Catholicism are frowned upon even though they are known for practising in secret” 

We were taking advantage that his parents had returned to Montescaglioso for a holiday. Paolo had wanted me to stay with him for the two week duration and I had been only too willing. We were in his narrow bed facing the crucifix that hung by a nail on the wall. His sheets were crisp and clean and smelt of lavender that showed that his mother took her household chores seriously. Better than my own mother did. We were both naked; Paolo faced the door as though somebody might walk in; I pressed up against his glowing body and licked the tiny black curls on his neck. His body throbbed with pleasure.

“I suppose that we’re both in a similar position,” I suggested. “Can you imagine how people would react if they found out that I was a bum bandit?”

“And a good one at that,” he moaned. “We do what we love.”

The situation was irrational. We had somehow managed to separate our nightly debaucheries from the moments when we were alone together. Our employment with the Rufus Gang meant that I was expected to deflower Paolo in front of an audience almost every night. Hordes of lecherous men cheered as we went through the motions. But these exhibitions had become mechanical, devoid of feeling. Our love was not something meant to be shared with strangers. Our resentment for the crowd only deepened when they demanded to do the same to each of us in turn.

Everything changed when we were alone. Then we could show our love as it was meant to be. But such opportunities were rare. We both still lived at home, and the chance to share a bed was frustratingly uncommon. Most of the time we met in a secluded corner of the park, sitting close together until darkness fell. Once night came, we could never seem to get enough of each other.

“It was always you that I wanted,” Paolo said.

“You only liked the idea of a bad boy,” I replied. “Someone who was always getting into trouble. Someone you thought you’d never stand a chance of having.”

“But I did, didn’t I?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You did. In the end.”

“When did you realise that you loved me?”

I thought about the conversation at June’s kitchen table. 

“It was the moment that June told me that I had fallen in love. Before that I’d resisted any suggestion and thought that I liked girls because they all seemed to fall in love with me. Not Andy. Not Jack. Always me. But I was bored with it all. The thought of sex bored me. But then something strange happened. And then I remembered the time when Frank Smith made us kiss each other on that bench. Something snapped that night. I’d kissed a guy and something inside me stirred. I didn’t know what it was and struggled to understand it.”

Paolo turned and kissed me on the lips.

“Any regrets?”

“What do you think?”

“Ah, that is a good answer. You are my man, Harry.”

I squeezed him hard. 

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “Maybe we should go on holiday. I’d like to take you to my hometown in Italy.”

The suggestion caught me off guard.

“Is that a good idea?”

“Why not? We’ve made plenty of money. We should spend some of it. Go somewhere we don’t have to keep looking over our shoulders. And you’ll like Italy.”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “Where would we stay? What would your family think?”

“We could book a hotel.”

Even so, I had my reservations. The farthest I’d ever travelled was Ingoldmells with the boys, and that had ended badly: a fight with a group of lads from Nottingham and a night in a Lincolnshire police cell. The thought of going abroad unnerved me. There was also the small matter that I didn’t have a passport.

But what would you tell your parents?” I asked. 

“Harry, we need to get away and spend some time on our own.”

Another problem occurred to me then. What would I tell Andy and Jack? We’d always done everything together. If they heard I was going on holiday, they’d expect to come along. And I couldn’t tell them I was travelling with Paolo.

As far as they were concerned, Paolo didn’t exist.

The thought hung between us like an elephant in the room.

“I’ll think about it,” I told him, before leaning over and licking his ear.

*****

For weeks afterwards I wrestled with the problem. I knew that, sooner or later, the day of reckoning would come. I just hadn’t expected it to arrive the way it did.

We were playing pool at Penny Black. I was lining up a shot when I saw Billy Mason walk in with something tucked under his arm.

“Fuck,” I muttered.

I fluffed the shot and passed the cue to Jack.

“Don’t look now, boys,” I said quietly, “but look who’s just walked in.”

They both turned immediately.

“Who the fuck are we looking at?” Andy asked.

Then it dawned on me: they only knew Billy Mason by reputation, not by sight.

“I think we should leave,” I said.

Andy set his pint down on the edge of the pool table.

“We’re not going anywhere.”

Jack sank his shot and wandered over to sit down, but I was already planning a hasty exit. Billy seemed to know half the people in the place and spent a few minutes chatting to them. I hoped he hadn’t noticed us.

Then, the next minute, he came walking over—smiling, easy, friendly.

In our world, when a man walked up like that, you braced yourself for the worst.

Andy rolled his shoulders and clenched his fists. Jack got to his feet and began prowling around the table. I tightened my grip on the cue—something that could pass for a weapon if it came to it.

Three against one. Easy.

Except that every other cunt in the place would be on Billy’s side.

“Boys, boys, boys,” he said lightly. “Easy on it.”

Billy gave me a quick nod, but I didn’t return it.

“Harry,” he laughed. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friends?”

I said nothing.

“Let me guess,” he went on. “This must be Andy and Jack. I’ve heard plenty about you both, though we haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Who the fuck are you?” Jack asked.

“Billy Mason,” he said. “I thought Harry might have mentioned that he and I recently became acquainted.”

Andy and Jack turned to look at me, puzzled.

“I did a nice little number on him a few weeks ago,” Billy added cheerfully. “Call it payback for the trouble you lads caused my girl.”

Andy seemed to grow an inch or two and stepped forward.

“Don’t try anything,” Billy warned calmly. “There are men in here. Not boys who only think they are.”

“Get the fuck out of our faces,” Andy snapped. His expression was dark—partly because Billy Mason and his lot could wreck us if they wanted to, and partly, perhaps, because there were things I hadn’t told him.

Billy only smiled.

“I’m sure you know I’m a big man in Sheffield,” he said. “I don’t take kindly to people messing with me.”

“That robbery was ages ago,” Jack said.

Billy’s smile faded.

“Oh yes,” he said quietly. “It was. But in my line of work, it pays to remember the people who’ve caused you trouble.” He paused, then shrugged. “Still, I’m not here to settle old scores. Far from it. Let bygones be bygones.”

I’d been so caught up in the moment that I hadn’t noticed what he’d been carrying under his arm. Then he dropped my black Adidas bag onto the table.

“I’m only returning lost property,” he said casually. “I believe this belongs to you, Harry.”

I froze.

“Shall we check that nothing’s missing?”

I lunged for it, but Billy was quicker.

“Oh no,” he said brightly. “I insist we make sure.”

Before I could stop him, he tipped the bag over and began emptying the contents across the table. When he’d finished, he held it upside down to show it was empty, then let it fall to the floor.

My mind was racing. Everything was spread out in front of us. I thought about walking away, but I knew that would only raise more questions.

Andy and Jack edged closer to Billy, though not in any threatening way. They were too busy staring at what lay on the table.

Several tubes of KY jelly—some half used, some still sealed. Two bottles of baby oil. A couple of pairs of clean boxer shorts, and one dirty pair. A grubby T-shirt. A small bottle of poppers.

And a cock ring.

Billy looked straight at me.

“What a curious collection, Harry.”

Now it was Andy and Jack’s turn to look at me. Neither of them spoke. Andy frowned, his brow creasing with confusion. Jack held my gaze for a few seconds, then looked down at the floor.

Billy looked smug.

“Isn’t it funny,” he said to the others, “the things we don’t know about our friends? If I didn’t know better, I might think these belonged to someone who’s a bit of a woofter.”

“Fuck you, Billy,” I shot back. “You’ve planted those to make me look bad. I swear I’ll get my own back.”

It sounded plausible enough, and I thought I might salvage something from the wreckage.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Andy said quickly. “You’d do anything to settle a score. Harry’s not a bum-bandit. Not even close. I suggest you piss off now, because you’re starting to get on my nerves.”

He picked up his pint, drained it in one go, then held the empty glass loosely in his hand.

“Leave,” Jack said, taking the cue from me. He gripped it by the thin end, ready to swing.

“Thought you might say that,” said Billy calmly. “But before I go, there’s something else you ought to know.”

I fixed him with a stare, daring him to say another word.

“You see,” he continued, “there are other things you don’t know about Harry. Me? I know everything. I’ve got eyes and ears everywhere.”

“Go on then,” Andy said.

“Well, for starters, Harry’s in cahoots with a copper. Lucky for you, really. Thanks to him you only got a slap on the wrist for that robbery.”

“And?”

Billy smiled.

“The next bit’s a little delicate, isn’t it, Harry? I’m guessing he hasn’t told you what he gets up to in other people’s houses.” He blew me a kiss. “Handsome Harry’s quite the favourite with the blokes.”

He gestured lazily at the things spread across the table.

“And I suppose all this rather proves the point, doesn’t it?”

Andy and Jack said nothing.

“You’re a fat bastard, Billy,” I said.

By then I didn’t care if he beat the shit out of me. He’d already done enough damage. Getting knocked unconscious almost seemed like the better option. All I could think was: why me?

“I’ll be off then, boys.”

Billy turned as if to leave, then paused.

“Oh—nearly forgot. How’s your Italian boyfriend, Harry?”

Andy smashed the empty glass down on the pool table.

“So long, fellas,” Billy called over his shoulder. “And watch your arses while Harry’s around.”

*****

My head was resting in Paolo’s lap, the tip of his cock pressing against the side of my neck. He stroked my hair gently, his delicate fingers tracing the old scars that ran across my face.

“Andy and Jack went to the bar and bought themselves drinks. Not for me.

“While they sat there staring, I gathered everything from the table and stuffed it back into the bag. That was the worst part of it all—the silence. Not one fucking word.

“In the end I left them sitting in the Penny Black and came straight here.”

“Povero ragazzo mio,” he murmured softly. “Ti amo.”

I didn’t understand but it had a soothing effect.

I’d disturbed Paolo on one of the few nights that we weren’t working. The Golden Girls played out in front of us. He’d turned the sound down low. He drank strong coffee from a tiny cup and offered me some. It tasted vile but I wasn’t Italian.

“I’m finished, Paolo. I’ll never be able to show my face again and I’ve probably lost my two best friends.”

He made shushing sounds.

“And now it’s got to stop.”

“What do you mean?” Paolo asked with concern.

“I’m going to tell Frank that we’re not doing it anymore. That shit has cost me everything.”

“But if we hadn’t done so, we would never have met.”

“There is that, but we have each other now. Honestly, Paolo, we’re in serious shit and we need to get out. We can go and live in Italy. We’ll get jobs. We’ll build new lives.”

Paolo didn’t respond. He was probably thinking the same as I was. It was never going to happen. But I had to think of somewhere that was as far away as possible.

The telephone rang.

Paolo got up to answer it. 

“Pronto.” It appeared that anybody who rang here was going to be Italian. But then Paolo started speaking in English. “When? Where? I shall tell him. Arrivederci.”

“It was Frank,” he said. “He is looking for you and wants us to go to June’s house.”

The David Problem: Notes from a Life

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An Afternoon at Kennington

F Scott Fitzgerald often used seasonal change to reflect the emotional trajectory of his characters. In The Great Gatsby, the narrative opens in the optimism of spring, reaches its fevered climax on the “hottest day” of summer, and concludes amid the quiet decay of early autumn. A similar pattern might be observed in David’s work. It has been noted that in almost all his books he refers to a particular season in the opening paragraph—yet, once established, the season is never mentioned again.

He pondered this as he walked through Kennington Park with Joshua. He was trying to compose the opening paragraph of a new book yet found himself unable to begin without invoking spring. The task was made more difficult by Joshua, who insisted on talking without pause.

Joshua waved a hand across the grass toward the flowerbeds, where the first signs of growth were beginning to appear.

Spring again.

“Freddie told me a weird thing. He was walking through the park and saw Bob Marley playing football with some guys from the Rasta Temple.” Joshua waited for a reaction, but David was still wrestling with the seasons and didn’t respond. “Are you listening to me?”

“Don’t you think it’s strange that Freddie was at this spot when he saw Bob Marley playing football?”

“That would have been impossible because Bob Marley died in 1981, and what year was Freddie born in?” 

Joshua had been prepared for this and guessed that Freddie was a millennial child. “That’s why the story is so spooky, but he swears that it was Bob Marley playing football, and that he waved to him.”

David had long decided that Freddie was kooky.

“I’ve told you before,” Joshua continued. “Freddie is a ‘ghost whisperer’ and sees things that we can’t.” 

“Like the ghost of Bob Marley?”

“Well Freddie did research and discovered that Bob Marley used to stay at house in St. Agnes Place and that he was photographed playing football here.”

David did not believe in the afterlife and regretted that Joshua seemed so easily taken in by it all. He was reminded of the time Freddie had visited Cleaver Square and claimed it was haunted by a man—someone who had murdered his female partner, a widow who made her living selling greengroceries.

“I can’t believe you can’t smell the cauliflowers,” Freddie had shouted.

Not long afterwards, while researching for a book, David came across a newspaper article from the 1960s that described Cleaver Square as “a square for the dead.”

“Freddie talks bullshit,” David sighed. Yet he could recall once seeing a photograph of Bob Marley playing football.

“There was that time we were walking along Kennington Lane,” Joshua went on, “and Freddie said he could see a man playing a barrel organ. I couldn’t see anything. But Freddie described two barefoot boys running out of a nearby house to collect pennies from passers-by. The man shouted, ‘’Ere you two—hop it!’ Do you know who he said one of the boys was?”

“I’ve no idea.”

“Charlie Chaplin—as a boy.”

David was not persuaded.

“How interesting.”

“And another time we were outside the Tankard and Freddie said he saw Charlie Chaplin peering in at the men from the vaudeville—dressed in chequered suits and bowler hats.”

David knew well enough that Chaplin had grown up around here. It had once inspired him to begin a short story about the time Chaplin destroyed an entire film rather than pay taxes on it. The incident was true enough, but the manuscript had never been finished and was still languishing somewhere.

Joshua had no idea, but David had once slept with Freddie. It had happened at a New Year’s Eve party near Elephant & Castle, when David had been in his forties and Freddie an irritating little twink. As the years passed, he had only grown more annoying—though also better looking. Now that David was in his sixties, he occasionally toyed with the idea of feigning an interest in the paranormal in the faint hope that past conquests might somehow be revived. But he had been with Joshua for eighteen years, and the thought of the “ghost twink” was quickly put out of his mind.

David sat down on a park bench.

“This is where Gay Pride began,” he said. “It was 1986. I was twenty-two and not brave enough. I came a few years later, when there was a big demonstration for gay rights. Thousands turned up. I remember Ian McKellen urging everyone to be open about their sexuality—to come out. I also recall Sandie Shaw singing.”

“Sandie who?”

David had forgotten that Joshua was still in his thirties, and the generation gap seemed to widen the older he grew. These days, while Joshua championed the big gay events, David preferred to avoid them. The crowds and the screaming queens were banished. The last time Pride had come around, he had spent the day rereading Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story instead. It had been the first gay book he had ever read, and he had kept it hidden beneath his mattress in case his mother found it.

Later, at the White Bear Theatre bar, David sipped a white rum and tonic. It was about all he could drink since being diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes—the small indignities of growing old, though it seemed these days that everyone was diabetic. Joshua, meanwhile, drank a pint of Madri, blissfully unaware of the perils that lay ahead in later life.

“I once saw a play in the theatre behind here,” David said. “I can’t remember what it was called, but it had something to do with a ring that had belonged to Leonardo da Vinci. It passed through a group of frequently naked gay men in America at the end of the twentieth century. My straight friend went to the bar during the interval, and someone asked him, ‘You watching the football?’ It turned out a match was being screened in the pub.

“‘Nah,’ he said. ‘I’m watching the queer play out the back. Mind you, I probably won’t stay if there are any more cocks showing.’

“That was it—that was the title: Leonardo’s Ring. Which said it all.”

Joshua had wanted to take David to see a Henry Moore sculpture on the Brandon Estate, but the older man had dismissed the idea.

“If there are two artists I hate most, it’s Henry Moore… and Barbara Hepworth. The whole world seems obsessed with Barbara fucking Hepworth.”

Afterwards David felt a twinge of guilt, because Joshua was also an artist. These days everyone seemed to be a fucking artist. Joshua made contemporary work too—it was his passion—but to David it often appeared absurd. Of course, he would never say so and accepted that the pieces had to be displayed around the apartment.

Joshua had also begun attracting the attention of collectors. Works that once sold for a few pounds now fetched thousands. Occasionally it crossed David’s mind that one day Joshua might become more famous than he was—and under his own name. David, despite being a well-known writer, had always published under a nom de plume.

“I would have liked to have been young and gay in the eighties,” Joshua said.

“Are you kidding?”

“But it was so pioneering—gay rights, marches for equality. Groundbreaking stuff.”

“And it was also miserable. There was nowhere to go. Queer bashing. Cottaging. Rent boys in dirty bedsits. Plucking up the courage to buy a copy of Gay Times at the newsagents. And, of course, AIDS.”

That generational divide again. Joshua had never lived in a society more backward than the one he knew now. In fact, David believed things were infinitely better. He had grown weary of people who complained endlessly about discrimination, forgetting how bleak the past had often been.

“There’s something else you should consider,” David added. “If you had been young and gay in the eighties, then now you’d be old and gay in the ‘roaring’ twenties.”