My Big Fat Gay Life (12 page)

* * *

Once situated in a nearby coffee shop I discovered that the signal from the spycam was excellent, however the angle wasn’t quite right. It didn’t quite capture all of his bed. I drank my coffee as I watched him wake up and prepare to go to his morning squash game with Justin. Once Sebastian and I were officially together, that part of his routine would have to stop.

Sebastian left his bedroom and came back in with a cup of coffee, shaking his head slightly with a smile on his face. I could tell what he was thinking: what a sweet man, but he shouldn’t have bothered! Then he looked up as if he’d heard a noise, and his mother entered his bedroom. They chatted briefly, and then Sebastian left for his squash game.

I couldn’t go and adjust the angle of the cam while his mother was in his apartment, so I settled down for a long wait. I’d have to delay going back until after he’d returned from his squash game and then left again to go to work. Finally I was rewarded with the sight of Sebastian coming into his bedroom, stripping for a shower, coming out of his en-suite, and dressing for work.

After allowing fifteen minutes for him to leave the building, I snuck into Sebastian’s building and caught the elevator to his floor. When the door slid open I was surprised to see someone kneeling at Sebastian’s door.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded of the burly man in the tradesman’s clothes.

“Changing the locks,” he replied without looking up.

“Sebastian must have lost his keys,” I said, laughing out loud. “You better give me one of the new keys when you’re done.”

“Who’s there?” came a woman’s voice from inside his apartment. Sebastian’s mother appeared in the doorway. She looked startled to see me, which is understandable - she isn’t aware of the relationship between Sebastian and I. “Bruce! What do you want?”

“A key of course!” I replied testily.

“You’ll have to speak to Sebastian about that,” she said. “I’ll just go and phone him. Please wait here.”

“I can’t stay,” I said, “but I’m having lunch with Sebastian and Kento later. I’ll get one off him there.”

I left Sebastian’s building, fuming at the arrogance of the woman for interfering and denying me what’s mine. When I’m living in that apartment I’ll replace the locks again and make sure Sebastian doesn’t give a key to that hateful crone!

* * *

I arrived at the sushi bar a few minutes late and through the window I could see that both Sebastian and Kento were there already. Their discussion looked quite heated and I became quite concerned for Sebastian’s safety, as Kento was wearing his angriest expression on that hideous black face of his. Sebastian looked like he was pleading with Kento not to hurt him.

As I stood at the door trying to decide what to do, Kento leapt up from the table and stormed out of the restaurant. The door flew open in the face of his wrath and hit me in the nose. The black bastard didn’t even look up at me, yet alone stop to see if I was OK.

Holding my bleeding nose, I noticed that Sebastian was also leaving the restaurant. He looked on the verge of tears and, despite my overwhelming desire to hold him and comfort him, I knew that it would embarrass him for me to see him like that, so I slipped away quickly before he’d finished paying his bill and emerged from the restaurant.

* * *

I’ve had enough of the black bastard: I’m going to leave Kento. I waited until a time I knew he was out with a client before returning to his apartment. I threw my keys and phone on the hall table, then grabbed one of Kento’s suitcases and started to pack my things. I was halfway through packing Kento’s jewellery collection into my bag when I heard a pounding on the door.

“Open up! It’s the Police!” came a gruff burly voice through the door. They must have gotten my letter and finally come for the black bastard. Finally they were going to send his black ass back to Africa and help make this country white again. I smiled. Now there’s no reason for Sebastian to pretend we aren’t in a relationship.

I also realised that technically I was in danger of being shipped back to the U.S. - at least until Sebastian and I could make our relationship official and I had permission to stay in the country. I grabbed my backpack with my laptop in it so that I could continue to protect Sebastian, but decided to abandon everything else: anything else was just materialistic stuff. I rushed to the kitchen and pocketed Kento’s spare cash from the freezer - he wouldn’t need it in Africa - then I opened the door to the fire escape and climbed down into the alley.

It was exhilarating to know that soon Sebastian and I would be together in his apartment. Naturally we’d have to wait an appropriate amount of time after Kento was gone before making our relationship public, but then nothing could hold us back. I went to a park near his apartment building and waited until he was due home from work, then opened my laptop and ran the spycam viewer. What I saw made me flush with rage.

How could he?! He was fucking another man! I couldn’t make out the other guy’s face as it was out of frame, but I could clearly see Sebastian’s fantastic body as worked someone else’s hole. It should be my hole he’s using like that!

I was jogging along the towpath to clear my head. The sun was starting to set, and the sky was ablaze with colours. The colours swirled and shifted into each other, mirroring the thoughts in my head. It’d been a day of revelations, confrontations, and mixed emotions. Attempting to sort through the tangled conglomeration of thoughts and emotions in my head, I grasped at the most recent one to join the party.

Surely it must be a coincidence. There must be more than one swinger in Manchester called Donovan. Deciding that mulling over this thought was futile, I shoved it aside. The question of Tony’s heritage was easily dealt with on another occasion, and if it should eventuate that Donovan is Tony’s father, I can start working my way through my feelings about that later. I shouldn’t put the cart before the horse, as Tony would say. The important thing from today’s meeting with Tony’s mother is to help Tony reconcile his mother’s revelations that she knew about the abuse, and that his father isn’t his biological father.

Similarly, there’s nothing to be gained from dwelling on my concerns for Ruth and Justin. If I’m deemed lucky enough by the Universe to help them in some way through this difficult period, then I’m ready. All I can do is wait for my opportunity to help them, should it arise. I felt privileged that Justin had chosen to talk to me this morning.

My heart aches for Justin. I wish I had a magic wand I could just wave over him and heal all his hurts. From our conversation in the sauna this morning, I knew he was dealing well with the loss of the baby, but that didn’t assuage my desire to wrap him in cotton wool and protect him from the world. Unlike Ruth, who had suffered and recovered before, Justin had never had anything truly bad happen in his life. Yes, I was concerned for Ruth and how she was dealing with the loss, but she would work through it and come out the other side a stronger person. I didn’t want Justin to lose his wide-eyed innocence of the world.

The issues of Bruce and Kento are far more pressing matters.

* * *

When I woke up this morning, the first thing I noticed was the aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Patricia had been visiting the apartment a lot recently: laundry was being done, coffee was being freshly brewed in the mornings, and treats for Cujo magically appeared in his bowl. I was content to let Patricia work through this phase: I suspected she had hit menopause and felt a strong desire to be nurturing and caring. However, the creeping around my apartment while I was sleeping had to stop. Just then I heard her come into the apartment, and I steeled myself for a tough conversation.

“Thanks,” I called out to her cheerfully, “but you shouldn’t have bothered.”

“What’re you talking about?” she said, entering my bedroom and kissing me on the cheek.

“The coffee,” I replied. “It has to stop. It creeps me out slightly that you sneak in and make coffee and do my laundry when I’m asleep.”

She didn’t say anything - just stood there with a confused expression on her face.

“I realise you are going through hormonal changes,” I continued, “and I understand that emotionally you have to deal with the fact that you’ll never have any more children. I know that you feel this need to nurture the child you have, but we have to find a more productive and less creepy outlet for you.”

Her expression changed to a more bemused one. But she still didn’t say anything.

“I’ve been happy for you to clean once or twice a week if it makes you feel useful,” I blundered on, “but coming every day is going too far. If you don’t stop, I’ll have to do something drastic like change the locks and not give you a new key.”

I stopped, feeling quite awkward. She’s my mother after all. She smiled and touched my cheek.

“Darling, that’s so sweet,” she said. “You think I’m menopausal and reacting poorly. Well let me reassure you; that well dried up years ago. I stopped being a self-lubricating woman while you were still in your teens. This is my first visit here in two weeks.”

“That’s not exactly reassuring,” I said. “Who’s been making coffee in the mornings? Can you please stay here while I’m at my squash game? You’ll be safe – I’ll make sure the concierge doesn’t let anyone up - but I have to see Justin and make sure he’s OK. I’ll sort this out when I get back. In the meantime, I’d feel more comfortable if you could arrange a locksmith.”

* * *

Upon returning to my building after my heart-wrenching chat with Justin in the sauna, I had a conversation with the concierge.

“Do you know if I have many visitors early in the morning or while I’m at work?” I asked him.

“Just the American chap,” he answered.

I felt a prickle of fear, and a cold sweat broke out on my forehead. “Which American chap?”

“The scruffy looking one with shaggy hair,” he said. “I don’t know his name sorry, but he’s always polite and greets me on his way up to your apartment.”

“How does he get in?” I asked. The palms of my hands felt sweaty.

“He has a key. I can see on the CCTV monitors that he lets himself in.”

Thanking the concierge, I went up to my apartment. Patricia rushed over and grabbed my shoulders to look me in the eye.

“What’s wrong?” she asked. “You’re as white as a ghost and shaking like a leaf!”

“My mystery visitor is Bruce. Apparently he has a key and lets himself in regularly.” I sank into the sofa, feeling totally deflated.

Patricia picked up the phone and rang the police. Surprisingly, the constabulary arrived quite promptly.

“I had a one-night stand with him several weeks ago,” I told the constables, “and he scared my friend Ruth one day a couple of weeks later by telling her he had been following me, but since then I thought things were fine. He’s dating my friend, Kento.”

While I was giving details to the police, the locksmith arrived. Patricia greeted him and set him to work. The police left, promising to review the CCTV footage at the concierge’s desk and to have a chat with Bruce at Kento’s apartment.

Shakily, I went into my bedroom to prepare for work. I hugged Patricia on my way out, leaving her to handle the locksmith.

* * *

I was dreading lunch with Kento. How can I tell him that his boyfriend is stalking me? I took a deep breath and went into the sushi bar. Kento waved at me, and I sat down at the table.

“It’s so nice having you to myself today…“ he started. I held up my hand to stop his rant.

“I need to talk to you,” I said. “I don’t want to, but I have to.”

“What is it?” he asked, confused at this change in routine. Usually I let him talk himself out at the start of every lunch.

“Bruce has been stalking me,” I said. “Somehow he’s gotten a key to my apartment, and he lets himself in.”

“No way!” Kento exclaimed.

“It’s true,” I said calmly. I went on to tell him how I’d used Justin to deceive Bruce and forced him into leaving the night we slept together. I told him about Bruce’s confrontation with Ruth, on the same day that Bruce just happened to bump into my chair and insert himself into Kento’s life. I told him about the CCTV footage and the concierge’s statement that Bruce was a regular visitor to my apartment. I told him about the coffee and the laundry. The whole time, Kento’s expression grew darker and darker with anger, like storm clouds rolling in on a clear day. I wasn’t sure if he was angry with me, or with Bruce.

“You’re lying!” he said after I’d finished, standing up and pointing his finger at me. “You don’t want me to be happy! You’re trying to ruin the one good thing I have in my life! You don’t want me to be happy!”

After his outburst, Kento stormed out of the restaurant. I sank my head into my hands as the staff and customers looked on in bemusement. They hadn’t realised that lunch came with a show.

* * *

Jogging along the towpath helped me sort out my thoughts and emotions. What had started out as a tangled mass was now sorting itself into a series of clear, defined, straight lines.

I could determine the feelings associated with Kento. I was disappointed in his reaction but, knowing him as I do, I could understand it. We’ll resolve the situation soon enough.