It Was Thirty Years Ago Today; 4 - Arrival

This is part four of a four part memoir. For part 1 of this memoir please click here. For part 2, here, for part 3, here. Enjoy.

I decided that I had waited long enough. I made as if to leave. Without realising I'd done it, I caught somebody's eye as I left. To my surprise somebody my age started following me, a few yards behind, as I left the toilet, The fresh air smelled good after the wait. Most of the men I had anonymous sex with were not so anonymous that I could say absolutely nothing about them. Most of them had a ring on their finger, which meant that they were married and they had a script which worked for them better than who they went with; if the sex is not with another woman and is non-procreative then they have not committed adultery. That the sex might be non-relational, well that is okay. That makes it less to disown should the need to disown where they had once put their willies later arise. 

Marriage was clearly a very leaky vessel for it to require the exceptions it did. I was one of the men who covertly maintained other men's marriages by meeting the male partners need for non-relational sex. But I was frustrated, less by the sex or absence of it, and more by how I'd become more aware of getting myself into the position of some sexual equivalent of 'The Samaritans' but without the virtue of being recognised as being supportive.

The man who followed me out did not have a ring on his finger, as he followed me into a nearby field, where I knew there was a log to sit on. In relative comfort, in the dark, we talked enough to negotiate the sort of sex we thought each of us wanted. We talked because we could, because we were on our own, well away from the toilet which acted as a sexual library, where, library or cruising site, silence was a given. We undid each other's tight jeans and both had a fumble, attempting to please each other. But between the cold, the dark, and where we had first found each other, our ardour had gone. But we could talk, and we both had beards, something I found attractive. Mine was slowly growing back again after being shaved off the previous November, in the hope of the shave symbolising a change of life. Who knows? Maybe this was the change of life I shaved it off for His beard was fuller than mine and in good light I could see it was ginger against his pale skin. He was not the first bear, gay bearded/hairy man, who I had sex with. There had been a few of them. But he was the first bearded man to remove from me the expectation that gay sex always had to be anonymous.

 I said to him 'Would you like to come back to my house and share some soup and I want to be able to talk to somebody. Would you listen to me?'. Probably somewhat overwhelmed, and not knowing what else to say, he said 'Yes'. He followed me the ten mins walk to the house where I rented a room. Part of me did feel as if I were bringing a stray cat into the house, something that it took no words to say was against the rules that I would not know how to explain if caught. Thankfully, nobody saw me smuggle Russell in and I never had to explain.

I made the tea and warmed some frozen chicken broth from my shelf of the freezer in the microwave, and we sat in my room. He ate and drank but with more interest in my story than the food. I laid out before him where I had come from and what had got me to the point of sitting with him, much as I have laid out the material in the two chapters of this memoir. He listened, and no doubt he thought me strange and wondered where the punchline was, and where story might go next. Much of what I said must have baffled and surprised him. To stop me saying any more he took on the simplest, most practical problems, first.

I told him that I had never been in a gay pub, did not know where they were, and I had been told 'They are very lonely places' by the church leaders who I had hitherto trusted enough to share with who I expected to know anything about such matters. His response was brief and immediate 'Shall we go to The Admiral Duncan, now?'. 

And we went. The walk to the city centre took most of an hour, which was a fine way of giving each other a more general introduction of ourselves before we found the pub. We arrived at The Admiral Duncan at near ten pm, the place was nearly deserted. The house-oriented disco music and fancy light show were both overwhelming. The music I normally listened to was bands like The Grateful Dead, who played real instruments with empathy to how each of them played. The dance music might as well have been the theme to 'The Magic Roundabout' for all I could pick out any empathy in the sounds. A lot of so called 'dance music' sounded like that to me. But The Magic Roundabout was my childhood memory of what used to enchant me on television and I understood how the music was made with the intent to enchant. With the volume of the music, the light show, and so few customers, there was nobody after last orders with a handlebar moustache to say 'Time for bed? said Zebedee' to me.

Russell and I kissed as we left the pub. He had to go his way home and I had to go mine. He asked me 'Will I see you here next Friday?'. Not thinking through what he said for even a moment, including that Friday was Valentines Day, I said 'Yes'.

Postscript; I have left a lot of loose ends here; Did I keep up the writing the therapeutic diary? Was sex ever as anonymous again? What happened to the diary? What happened with Russell? Did I go to The Admiral Duncan on Valentines Evening? Did I ever get the therapy on the NHS? These and other questions will be explored in future short chapters of a life a long time ago. Thank you for reading so far.