The Beginning (Starting Over)

by Matthew J. Metzger

  “Do you get a new car every month?” Chris asked as he got in.

  “Company car,” Aled said. “Be a Ford Focus after this move, and second-hand at that.”

  They’d arranged a weekend of house-hunting in St Ives, but Gabriel hadn’t been able to join them. Surprisingly, Chris hadn’t minded much. They’d talked over the ads by phone, and Gabriel had insisted on coming to see whichever one they picked for himself before they signed any contracts. Submitting an offer was acceptable. Actually signing on the dotted line was not.

  “Do you want to stop for anything?” Chris asked. “Loo break? Drink?”

  “Nah. Stopped at Birmingham for a slash,” Aled said. He nodded at the For Sale sign as he turned around in Chris’ cul-de-sac. “Estate agent were fast with that, weren’t they?”

  “Arrived this morning,” Chris said. “I signed on the dotted line yesterday after I was done at work. They’ve put it online at two hundred and thirty.”

  “Nice.”

  Chris shrugged. “Figured I might as well get a bit more, right?”

  “Definitely,” Aled said. “I don’t know what it’s like here, but where we live, bungalows often get into bidding wars.”

  “Into what?”

  “When buyers compete with each other to win it. It’s good for you. Means you’ll get more money if that happens.”

  “Oh,” Chris said. “I’m just going to stick to her original two hundred and twenty estimate. That’s what we’ll need, right?”

  “Yep. Probably not that much, though. Did you get a good look at the ads I sent you? Most expensive is six fifty.”

  The intimidatingly expensive ads with large, luxurious houses that Chris had never in a million years even bothered to look at, never mind entertain a fantasy of buying? The cheapest had been four hundred thousand. That amount of money just blew his mind.

  “Yeah, but I’ve never bought a house before. I haven’t got a clue what I’m looking for.”

  And even if he did have practice, he’d never have been looking at properties with summerhouses and underfloor heating anyway. At most, the odd time he’d gone hunting for bedsits or roommates, he’d looked at whether the windows were double glazed.

  “Well, what do you like to do in the house? You into cooking or gardening or anything like that?”

  “I’d like to start gardening.”

  “There you go,” Aled said. “Insist on decent outdoor space. That’s one thing to look for.”

  “I guess,” Chris said doubtfully.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aled said. “I’ve plenty of practice in that area. Just see if you like it.”

  “I’ve got low standards,” Chris admitted. “Always lived in bedsits and shit until my mum died.”

  “I get it,” Aled replied. “My student flat was a right shocker. And my ex-wife always used to moan at me that I was more worried about being able to afford a nice car than a nice house.”

  Chris was appreciating the nice car, though. It purred. He stretched out in the roomy passenger seat and found a suitable radio station as Aled rejoined the M5. The southbound traffic was reasonable, and Aled proved that he cared very little about speeding tickets, swerving into the fast lane within minutes and zooming off at a speed usually reserved for racetracks. Chris decided not to worry about it. Instead, they swapped small talk, mainly about Gabriel, until Aled gestured to the glovebox and said there was a wishlist.

  “He’s excited,” Aled continued as Chris rummaged. “Spent all morning on that.”

  “Oh Christ.”

  The list was not only neat—and Gabriel usually had appalling handwriting—but colour-coded into the traffic light system usually reserved for sex safewords.

  “I’m guessing red is the must-haves?”

  “Yep.”

  There were only two red things—a place for Gabriel’s bike, and a bathtub. The rest were a mixture of eye-bleeding orange and fetid green. Chris’ brain hurt just looking at it.

  “Apparently it needs at least five orange and two greens,” Aled said. “And if there’s nowhere to put the hammock then it’s going to be a really hard sell. And he wants photos. So you can tick ’em off and take the pictures if you’re not sure what you’re after.”

  “Sure,” Chris said.

  He studied it as they cruised towards Cornwall, curious both about what Gabriel wanted in a home, and about what Chris was supposed to be looking for. Why was the boiler age important? Who cared what kind of wood the floor was made of? Couldn’t they just replace the carpets if none of them were blue? Very little of it made sense—and very little of it was a part of Gabriel he’d seen before. Muddy mountain biking was clearly a very different kind of hobby from house-buying.

  It was dark when they reached St Ives, and Aled seemed to have fobbed off his friends, for which Chris felt guiltily grateful. Instead, they had dinner and a couple of pints in the hotel bar, watching the football on the telly. Neither of them had much interest in the sport, and they flipped a coin to pick teams. Aled’s lost. Gabriel texted just as Aled went to get another round in, punishment of losers the world over, and Chris chuckled when he saw the message.

  Gabriel: You guys having fun? ;) x

  Chris smiled. Surprisingly…

  Me: Yep x

  * * * *

  Chris went for a run in the morning as usual.

  The hotel was right in the middle of St Ives, just shy of the seafront. The salty air was refreshing and he took the opportunity to explore without being blindingly obvious. Several people were out walking dogs in the early morning. He wondered if a woman out with a buggy and a noisy baby was Aled’s friend Suze. The tide was high but the sea calm. Boats bobbed quietly in the bay.

  He could get used to that.

  Aware that they had a busy day, Chris didn’t stop out long. A short run of only four miles later, he jogged up the stairs to the hotel room and let himself back in to find Aled making coffee in his underwear, phone jammed between his shoulder and his ear.

  “I don’t care if Mitchell thinks it’s emergency—”

  Chris left him to it.

  By the time he’d showered, whatever work emergency had been drummed up was gone. Aled offered him a cup, then ducked into the en suite for a quick shower of his own. And, thanks to no Gabriel, they were on their way in half an hour.

  Thanks to Aled, to a local café.

  Aled hadn’t cleaned up his diet, and insisted on a bacon sandwich before they got going. Chris rolled his eyes and opted for a protein bar, but eventually they were on the move, the car stinking up of second coffees and greasy dead pig as Aled wrestled their way through narrow old roads and out to the first property.

  Aled had booked viewings at four houses, all of which blew Chris’ mind on paper alone. Mum had bought her bungalow back in the seventies with her then-hubby. When he’d disappeared with his secretary, Mum had screwed him out of the house in the divorce. That was the only reason they’d ever had one. So gawping up at the enormous red-bricks squatting at least thirty yards back from the road behind manicured lawns and private gates, Chris wondered if he wasn’t hallucinating.

  “You’re sure this is within our price range?”

  “Yep. Come on. Let’s see if we get a hard sell.”

  The estate agent was at least mildly homophobic, going by the startled expression at the sight of them followed by an insistence on calling them ‘boys’ despite the glaringly obvious fact that Aled was well over a decade older than him. So Chris was treated to the amusing sight of Aled’s cold and pompous act, the same arsehole he’d played with the doctors when Gabriel had been in hospital. Chris rather enjoyed it—as long as it was directed at someone else.

  The house was a bit of a bust—Chris knew enough after doing up Mum’s bungalow to know they’d have to spend a fortune on the so-called annexe to make it habitable—but he enjoyed Aled baiting the agent and his insistence on knowing about the quality of the local schools even though none of them had any intention of
having kids.

  The second place was decent, with a better agent, and Chris ticked off enough of Gabriel’s demands—bathtub, bike shed, roomy loft conversion that could become a playroom—but he still had no idea what he was supposed to think. A house was a house was a house, surely? Four walls. Roof. Front door with lock. Done. Right?

  Even the arrangements that would be his went over his head a little. The second had a summerhouse that could be easily converted, the third an extension annexe that could just be bricked off inside to separate it from the main house. But they were just…spaces. Roofs, walls, bike spots. As long as Chris had room for his stuff and keys to the main house so he could come and go as much as Gabriel would, what did he care if the summerhouse could only be accessed by walking through the garage, or if the adjoining annexe was, in Aled’s words, ugly as a pig’s tits?

  He was starting to have doubts about this plan.

  Then the fourth place changed his mind.

  It was slightly outside St Ives. A farm must have been sold off and the buildings partitioned into their own plots—a farmhouse loomed just over the hedge, and they passed a barn conversion by the road—yet the gate and gravel drive led to two stone bungalows on either side of a small, open yard. They’d plainly been built together, and the layouts were identical. Both had kitchens and bathrooms at one end, a small bedroom at the other, and an open-plan area between that was a living room, dining room and study rolled into one. The master bedroom in each was in the roof space via spiral stairs in a hidden niche that Chris had assumed to be a linen cupboard between the kitchen and the bathroom.

  “We’re selling them as one property because of the cellar,” the agent said.

  “The cellar?”

  “You’ll see.”

  The cellar stairs were accessed via the kitchen, like an old-fashioned pantry. And when they got down into the empty space, Chris did indeed see.

  Specifically, he saw the matching set of stairs at the other end of the cavernous cellar, snaking up into what had to be the opposite bungalow.

  “Can guess what you’d use this for,” he muttered to Aled.

  Aled just smirked and said nothing.

  But afterwards, when they were sat in the car and the agent had locked up and left, Aled said, “That’s it. That’s the one.”

  Chris hummed.

  “What’re you thinking?” Aled asked.

  That it felt more equal, two bungalows instead of a granny annexe behind a big house. That it would be a great cycle into the town, especially on summer mornings. That he could get that dog he’d been thinking of, with loads of room to run about. That he could be social and antisocial at the same time, with only a handful of nearby neighbours but his boyfriend and his boyfriend’s boyfriend within laughably easy reach.

  “It’s nice,” he said.

  Aled chuckled. “Nice.”

  “Better get mine sold.”

  “Ah, I see,” Aled said, and started the engine. “It’s nice.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  They stayed Saturday night as well.

  Aled had intended to take the time to talk options with Chris and negotiate at least a top two, and let Gabriel cast the deciding vote. But, as it was pretty clear which one they both wanted, he simply emailed the agent with a suitable offer, and they sat back with a pint each in the hotel bar.

  “To moving.”

  Chris raised his glass, but frowned.

  “Think Gabriel will like it?” he asked.

  “How much did you tick off?”

  “All the reds, all but one of the oranges and some of the greens.”

  “Which orange was missing?”

  “No security lights,” Chris said, “but I can fit those myself. I did Mum’s.”

  “There you go, then,” Aled said. “If it ticks the boxes, he’ll be happy. He’s pretty easy-going. Guess being homeless puts a different perspective on things.”

  It had actually been a pain in the backside while trying to find a new house. Aled had expected Gabriel to be as demanding about the perfect house as he was about sex. Instead he’d been so passive and agreeable that he’d agreed to every single viewing. There was a reason Aled had wanted Chris on side with a new house first.

  “I suppose,” Chris said. “I’m still a bit surprised he didn’t want to come, though.”

  “He did, but the gym’s short-staffed at the minute and he’s raking in the overtime. There’s a bug going round.”

  “Ah.”

  “Colours aside, it’s ideal for his coming and going,” Aled said. “He’ll like being able to just flit between us.”

  “So will I,” Chris admitted. “I’ve missed him since he got back on his feet. You too, to be honest.”

  Aled raised his glass, and Chris clanked his against it.

  “Be odd to live down here,” Aled admitted. “Nice, mind, but odd.”

  “You’ve never left Yorkshire?”

  “Never lived outside of it, no. Hell, never even lived outside West Yorkshire. Cornwall’s a foreign country.”

  “Remember to get your vaccines and bring your passport.”

  Aled chortled.

  “You’ll get used to it,” Chris said. “Just remember the right way to do scones.”

  “It’s the South,” Aled grumbled.

  Chris smirked. “Yeah, but it’s not posh South.”

  “Says you, Somerset-boy.”

  Chris flipped him off. Aled snorted. He enjoyed the progress they’d made. This time last year, Chris had been too damn scared to stand in the same room as him.

  “What you going to do for work?” Aled asked.

  Chris shrugged. “I’ll find something. Done all sorts.”

  Aled envied his relaxation. “That’d have me up at night.”

  Chris just shrugged again. “Always the dole and the army reserves. There’s always something. What’s Gabriel going to do?”

  “Probably end up manning a reception desk in one of Tom’s hotels. Suze is scouting out some suitable arrangements for him. Long as there’s no alcohol around, he’s not fussed. Though I think he’d like to find another gym job or something like it. He likes where he is now.”

  Chris wrinkled his nose. “Urgh. Gyms. Not for me.”

  “Urgh. Running. Not for me.”

  “Lazy.”

  “Fitness freak.”

  The waitress interrupted by delivering their food then, when she retreated, Chris raised a surprising question.

  “Will you need to make a—a room? For you and him? Like Kevin does? I mean, I was kind of kidding about the cellar but…is that really what you’ll need to do with it?”

  “Make it into a playroom?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Could do,” Aled said, but the phrasing nagged at him. “Why would we need to?”

  “Well, no more Kevin.”

  “Less Kevin,” Aled corrected. “Gabriel has new rules. Visits every six weeks or so.”

  “Oh, right.”

  Aled eyed him, wondering whether Chris needed to talk something out. He could need coaxing if that were the case. But, to his surprise, Chris opened the issue without further prompting.

  “Guess I’m a bit…I don’t know. Worried he won’t be getting what he needs once Kevin’s a few hundred miles away.”

  “Ah.”

  “He’s not pressured me or anything, but…you know.”

  “Yeah,” Aled agreed. “But I wouldn’t worry about it. He’ll want to meet other men for a bit. Find some playthings of his own. Scout out the territory. If he’s feeling a gap, he’ll find someone to fill it. Always has.”

  “Like he does with Greg?”

  Aled made a so-so gesture. “Sort of. Greg’s a social thing as much as a sex thing. I can’t stand those bloody gigs they go to, and Kevin’s not available in the evenings thanks to having a horde of children. The sex isn’t anything special, from what I gather.”

  “Well, Kevin, then.”

  “Yeah, I guess like that.”<
br />
  “What gap do you fill?”

  “Sexually? None, really,” Aled said. “I’m a bit more suitable for certain things, but he could still get those things from Kevin if he really wanted to, I suppose. What gap are you getting at?”

  Chris coughed. “Erm.”

  Aled waited.

  “Well, uh. Was—um…”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Er—do you always—” Chris glanced around, but they were alone in their little corner. Still, he lowered his voice. “Do you always top?”

  That’s it?

  “Yeah,” Aled replied.

  “You ever tried it the other way?”

  “Not with him. Already knew it didn’t do anything for me before I met him, and he’s never asked to shake it up. Why? You curious?”

  Chris went red, but cleared his throat and answered anyway.

  “I guess. Wondering if—you know. Might like it better.”

  Aled rather suspected Chris had never had his prostate nailed.

  “Fair enough,” he said. “I know Gabriel used to top with one of his former playthings. Won’t say boyfriend, seeing as how it was over once Jason found a steady partner.”

  “Why, er…”

  Aled took a leisurely sip of his pint, waiting out the flustered attempts at questions.

  “So, um, why don’t you like it?”

  “I don’t not like it,” Aled said. “Just doesn’t get me going like a good game does. Feels bloody amazing, don’t get me wrong, but it’s just physical. And if I’m going to the effort of having sex with someone else, I’m not all that interested in it only getting me off physically.”

  He liked the mind games as much—if not more—than Gabriel did. He liked to play. To hunt. There was as much of a mental pleasure in sex with someone else as a physical one. If Aled just needed to get laid, he could have a wank. Why bother going to the effort of bottoming for someone when a quick ten minutes into his own hand would have the same result?

  But Chris hummed. Plainly unconvinced, he sat rolling his half-empty glass absently between his palms.

  “I just wonder if it’ll do more for me than just…” He made a wanking motion, and Aled snorted with laughter.