Out: A Schoolboy's Tale

by David Brining

  21: Take me to the other side

  NERVOUS all day, I was unable to settle to anything, not to Edward Greenfield's comparison of Sibelius' Violin Concerto recordings, nor to kicking my football against the garage wall, nor to sloshing steaming hot water over the silver Sierra, not even to helping Dad scarify the lawn, tidy the flowerbeds and rake up rust-coloured leaves for a bonfire, although I loved the smell of wood-smoke, and I guessed every fucking tiger in India heard Mum yelling at me for treading mud into the kitchen. Bloody hell, Mum! I didn't want to go gardening in the first place.

  The week had been tense, Mum making these like snarky remarks about Ali and then, imagine this, said I should take a cork (for my bum) when I went out on Saturday and did I want some extra-thick reinforced pants? Just in case. Yes, my mum. I shit you not. I just sighed tiredly and kept my trap shut. I didn't want to give them any excuse to ground me.

  Locking myself in the bathroom, I scrutinized my face in the mirror and decided the downy peach-fluff on my chin had to go so I stripped off my T-shirt and reached for Dad's Gillette. I'd never shaved before but I'd seen it on the telly, so how hard could it be? Lathering my face with foam from this spray-can, I carefully scraped the blade across my face praying I wouldn't cut myself or nick the tiny pink pimple that'd sprouted overnight in the crease of my chin then soused my face in Clearasil and patted my cheeks dry. Looking good, I told myself. Clean and fresh. Except for that fucking spot on my chin.

  I had a dump, cut my fingernails, showered, washed my hair twice and soaped my boy-bits with Imperial Leather several times just in case. I brushed and flossed my teeth, sloshed Listerine round my mouth then sprayed myself liberally with Dark Temptation and splashed some of Dad's Old Spice over my cheeks. It stung like fury and my face contorted into a scream, like Kevin's in Home Alone. Then I danced in my towel from bathroom to bedroom and stuck Bach on the CD player. Gloria in excelsis Deo. Glory to God in the highest. Yeah.

  What to wear? What to wear.

  My favourite white Chinos and dark blue shirt?

  He'd seen that outfit before.

  Black jeans and black shirt? Black socks.

  I thought he'd seen that too.

  White shirt and a tie? Grey socks?

  Possibly.

  I examined my rather paltry collection of ties. The plain red one might be good with a clean white shirt and black trousers. But then a tie might be too formal.

  I could always take it off. Or ring him and find out.

  Dark blue tie? Gold tie? Bow-tie.

  No way. The red one.

  Unless it was too formal.

  Chinos and dark blue shirt. White socks. No, black. No, white. Yes. Trainer liners.

  Again. He'd seen it before.

  Bollocks. I really needed to refresh my wardrobe.

  I went to the kitchen in a peach-coloured slip, ironed my clothes and dressed, turning up the collar of the shirt. I looked really cool, especially when I gelled my hair into a spiky centre-parting. But I still had like ninety fucking minutes to kill, Goddammit, and I didn't really want to get stuck into the rugby cup final between Hull KR and Leeds on the telly so I hit the piano, playing the whole of the Moonlight Sonata then Debussy then Chopin then Bach's D minor invention then, before I knew it, 6.00 had come and, with butterflies in my stomach and a thousand things to say rampaging through my brain, it was time to go and I was tying the laces of my best blue-and-orange Reeboks. Rattling fat, pink, plastic Mr Piggy piggybank, I found last week's fiver and £2.38 in change. The bus-fare was £1.75. £5 would cover a Big Mac, fries, and a milk-shake maybe? The last bus back, £1.75 too. Should just stretch.

  Somewhat lukewarmly, Mum said I looked nice but thought I might've worn a tie then asked all the yaks in Tibet why, when I'd finished the toilet paper, I hadn't put a new roll on the holder. Who did I think was going to do it, the Toilet-Paper Fairy? Dad told me to have a good time and not to be later than midnight and if I came home pissed again, he'd ground me like for a bazillion years. I wondered if he'd give me another fiver. He didn't. Not to worry. I was still going to have the time of my life. Settling the gold cross in the V of my shirt, I crossed my fingers, muttered a prayer for a fabulous evening and closed the front-door.

  Ali was waiting in the bus-shelter. He looked utterly gorgeous, in the black trousers and black open-necked shirt he'd worn to the half-term rehearsal.

  ''I guess we both wore our favourite clothes.'' Smiling, he looped his arm round my waist and gave me a gentle squeeze. ''You smell fantastic. And you shaved.''

  ''First time,'' I said. ''I wanted to look good for you.''

  ''Oh, honey,'' he sighed, ''You always look good to me.''

  Why couldn't we just kiss 'hello', like straight couples?

  ''Where are we going?'' I said, trying not to bounce excitedly on the upstairs front-seat like some hyperactive little brat.

  ''Do you like Italian?'' he asked. ''There's a bistro that does this fabulous penne arrabiata, or you could have veal in lemon. That's to die for.''

  I thrilled to be with him. I scorned everyone else on the bus and pitied everyone in the street beyond the big convex window because they didn't have him and I did, all to myself, for one evening, and although I still felt nervous, I also felt seriously exultant. I'd got him and he'd got me, and these people in their little vanilla worlds would never experience love like me. Overflowing with happiness, I pushed my hand into his and asked him about Open Day. He'd spent the morning showing people round the language labs, the model railway Mr Rutherford had built in the engineering workshop, some Sixth Formers doing some dull-arse Science experiments with Dr Moss, a display in the Sports Centre from the judo team (I didn't even know we had a judo team) and Oggie's School Scouts doing endless knot displays. Joe Bainbridge was in the School Scouts, a patrol leader or something. Trent, Paulus and the Chapel Choir had sung like a billion hymns while Driver and Rubenstein played a bazillion chess games and Ash-tray had given the same speech six times. There had been a massive photo exhibition in the Beckwith Hall, mainly of boys on expeditions in exciting places like Scotland and Iceland. I'd thought of going but in the end even the lure of free 'coffee' in the Refectory hadn't been enough to get me out of bed on a Saturday morning.

  Tucked away in a side-street near the Cornmarket where I'd zapped the Cardassian spy, Adriano's looked cosily romantic, candles burning in every recess and alcove, tables covered in red-and-white checked cloths, waiters in black waistcoats and white shirts, long bar stocked with shiny, gleaming bottles of every conceivable colour. Ali looked radiantly happy as a waiter showed us to a round table for two tucked away in a discreet corner.

  ''I feel like my whole life has been building to this.'' He lay his hand over mine while the waiter lit the candle in the table centre. ''You don't know how long I've waited for you, Jonathan. It feels like forever.''

  Smiling through this sudden, hard lump in my throat, I accepted a burgundy-coloured leather-bound menu but when I opened it, my spirits sank through the thickly varnished floorboards. My £7.38 would buy me virtually nothing. The cheapest dish was a green-salad starter, and that was £3.20. Worse, everything was in Italian. I had no idea what any of it meant. I only figured out salsa verde because of Verdi the composer, you know? His name I knew meant 'green' from Fred's music class.

  I could have a spaghetti bolognaise for £6, a glass of water for nothing and like walk home? It was only five miles. Or keep a last 20p to ring Dad for a lift. I shifted uncomfortably. Ali said his parents came here all the time. My parents probably wouldn't know a bistro from Bisto, ha ha. Why had we always been so bloody poor? I flashed back to Belsen Boy, the backstreet-brat who lived on gruel. They weren't so wrong after all.

  ''The scaloppino is to die for,'' Ali said enthusiastically.

  ''Mm-mm,'' I mused intelligently, wondering what on God's earth scaloppino was.

  ''And we must have a gelato to finish.''

  Indeed we must.

  Craning over my shoulder,
I noticed three other couples in the bistro, all straight, holding hands and gazing romantically at each other through the smoky candle-flicker. I wondered where the nearest McDonald's was.

  ''Are you ready to order, signor?'' A tall guy too bald for his age had materialised at my shoulder, pen hovering over his pad.

  ''J?'' said Ali gently. ''What would you like?''

  Suddenly I didn't fancy either the five-mile walk or phoning Dad so I said in my worst Italian accent ''I'll have the salsa verde, please.''

  ''Very good, sir, and for your entrée?''

  Staring at him in confusion, I stammered ''My entry?''

  ''Your main course,'' said Ali softly. ''That's a starter.''

  Someone just shoot me. I couldn't read the menu and, even if I could, there was nothing on it I could afford to eat.

  ''Give us a minute, will you, Mario?'' said Ali.

  As the waiter melted away, Ali leaned forward. I tensed myself for the 'you're embarrassing me' lecture but instead got 'you don't eat in bistros very often, do you, honey?'

  The last time I'd eaten out, apart from fish and chips on Marine Drive in Scarborough, had been my 15th birthday when we'd gone really posh and eaten prawn cocktail, steak and chips and Black Forest Gateau at the local Beefeater, all washed down with a nice Blue Nun. Thinking about it now, I wasn't sure I'd ever been in a proper restaurant. Unless you counted Harry Ramsden's. But Ali spoke Italian and even knew the waiter's name. I was so out of my depth I was drowning.

  Scraping the bow-legged chair backwards, I gasped that I needed some air and stumbled onto the pavement choking back tears and glancing wildly around for the quickest way to the bus-stop. The sooner I was home the better. This was not my world. Ali and me were so different. It could never work. This date was a disaster already and we'd only been here like half an hour. He'd think me a total yokel, some ignorant backstreet brat.

  I leaned against the brick wall, sucking the cold night-air deeply into my lungs. Get a grip, I told myself. Go back in, cancel the salad, order the spaghetti – at least I know what it is – enjoy his company, and catch the ten o'clock home. Put it down to experience and see him at school. Apologise. Say you got cold feet. But then he might think I didn't want to be with him, and I did. So go back in, say you just want a burger. Keep it simple. Take control. He'll follow you. 'Cos he loves you.

  But Adriano's was so cosy, so romantic. It was the perfect venue. The waiter, Marius, Mario, something like that, didn't seem to care that we were this like obviously very gay couple, and nor did anyone else. They were as wrapped up in each other as Ali and me.

  Dragging in another lungful of air, I kicked the wall angrily with my heel. Why had I come? Who was I kidding? This is what you get, said God, for disappointing your parents.

  ''Cigarette?'' Ali appeared beside me with a pack of Marlboro Lights.

  Gratefully, desperately, I scrabbled one, leaned into the acrid lighter-flame, sucked in the nicotine feebly saying ''I don't smoke'' before dragging down another deep lungful.

  ''Nor do I.'' Ali placed his left sole against the wall. ''But we're on a night out and I thought you seemed tense, so what the hell?''

  We smoked together silently for a minute then he said ''Is this going too fast for you? 'Cos we can slow it down. We can just go for a walk and go home, if that's what you want.'' The concern in his voice melted my heart. ''Just tell me what you want, Jonathan, and you can have it.'' Now his voice became urgent. ''I'd do anything to make you happy.''

  I smoked the rest of the cigarette and flicked the butt into the street, thoughts and feelings churning in my heart and mind. Slowly I said ''I so much want you to love me. I so much want you to be proud of me, proud to be with me, proud to be seen with me, and I'm so scared I'll embarrass you.'' My shoulders started shaking violently as a sob surged through me. ''I can't read the menu and I haven't got any money and I've let you down.''

  Slowly detaching my body from his, he kissed my tears tenderly.

  ''You will never embarrass me,'' he replied fiercely. ''I am proud of you, proud you're my boyfriend and so happy you love me.'' Lifting my chin, he locked eyes with me then kissed me gently, my face, my eyes, my nose, my lips. ''I love you, Jonathan, and I will never let you down. Don't worry about the menu. Don't worry about the waiter. Don't worry about the money. I want to treat you like the prince you are. You can have whatever you want, my little prince.''

  ''But I don't know what anything is,'' I muttered.

  ''So trust me.'' Smiling, he took my hand. ''I will choose for us.''

  ''I like that,'' I murmured happily. ''You choose for us, Ali. Always and forever.''

  When we returned to our table, Marinus or Martin or whatever he was called simply smiled, murmured something in Italian and poured two shots of grappa, on the house, he said, for young love. It set my blood on fire and I felt myself relaxing at last whilst Ali ordered veal in lemon with fondant potatoes twice and a bottle of chilled Pinot Grigio.

  ''I've only got a few pounds,'' I said mournfully. ''I don't like not paying my share.''

  ''Money left from my summer job,'' he said, ''And I want to treat you. If you feel so strongly, you can get the next one.'' He raised his glass. ''To our first date, and our future.''

  '''Our first date, and our future.'' I touched his glass with mine.

  As the veal arrived, a delicate pale pink in a clear juice speckled with the green of herbs, he said he wanted to be a political correspondent so he could hold the Government to account for trampling over people's lives.

  ''Or you could be a politician, change things yourself,'' I suggested, taking a mouthful of veal. I'd never tasted it before. It blew my taste-buds apart. ''This is awesome, Ali.''

  ''Told you,'' he smiled, ''But I wouldn't be a politician. Your private life gets turned into cheap pornography for the masses. Wouldn't want you on the front page of The Scum.''

  He spooned the fluffiest potatoes I'd ever eaten onto my plate. Lapsing into silence, we savoured the food, the wine, the candles and the atmosphere, soaking it all up, gathering every detail into our memories. After two glasses of wine and a grappa, I felt nicely mellow. Alistair ordered a lemon-flavoured ice to share. There was only one spoon so we shared that too. His warm gaze never left my face and the dreamy, romantic expression that told anyone with eyes how deeply in love I was. The waiter brought another grappa and a complimentary biscotti with the coffee whilst Ali and I held hands across the tablecloth.

  ''When did you first think you were gay?'' I asked.

  ''Thirteen,'' he replied. ''I got this massive crush on Mark Sonning. I just wanted to be with him all the time, but more, you know? I wanted to kiss him and every time he touched me, it set me alight. I'd get these weird electric tingles all over my body.''

  ''I get those with Mark Gray,'' I said excitedly. ''And you. Did you tell him?''

  ''Yes.'' His chuckle was tender. ''He was so polite about it. He thanked me very much but, and he didn't want me to take it personally, it wasn't me, he really liked me, but not like that, just as a friend, and he was flattered but he wasn't like that...''

  I was smiling tenderly too. I could just imagine him saying it.

  ''I fancied the arse off Michael Crooks,'' I confessed. ''I actually did kiss him, at that party. He said he liked it, but I loved it.''

  ''He's very cute,'' said Alistair, ''But is he gay?''

  ''I don't know,'' I said. ''He's got a girlfriend called Katie. But there must be others in the school. Out of eight hundred boys, we can't possibly be the only two.''

  Our eyes met, we laughed and burst out together ''Leo!''

  ''What about Paulus?'' he asked.

  ''Don't know,'' I said.

  ''But you wouldn't kick him out of bed.''

  ''No,'' I said, squirming. ''I'd do him in a heartbeat. Any in the Sixth Form?''

  ''A few,'' he said, stirring his coffee. ''Simon Ayres is gay. I had a fling with him last year. It was fun but…'' The spoon clinked the china. ''You were
always in the background.''

  Ayres was a nice guy. He had this curly brown hair and a pleasantly freckled face.

  ''Did you sleep with him?'' I asked, not sure what answer I wanted.

  ''Yes,'' Ali said simply. ''But he's the only one. So far.''

  I twined my fingers in his. ''You can sleep with me tonight if you want.''

  ''Maybe,'' he said. ''I want to, but…''

  ''But what?''

  He covered his face with a hand. ''You're too beautiful for someone like me.''

  When the bill came, he just slipped something from his wallet into the folder. I felt really low again 'cos I couldn't pay but the concert, man, the concert like blew me away.

  Sitting in that pink and gold Town Hall auditorium once again, this time in the seats where our folks had sat, this Szymanowski Stabat Mater had these weird, unpredictable progressions, distant rumbling percussion and unearthly unaccompanied voices. The second movement rose to this massive, deafening climax culminating in big bass drum, cymbals and a gong! Parts of it were thrilling, parts of it were strange, but Szymanowski was gay, so I decided I liked it and wanted to hear more of his music. Anyway, this was just the warm-up for the Mahler. The Birmingham orchestra's awesome young conductor coaxed the most amazing performance of anything I had ever heard, even Rowicki's Tchaikovsky 6. The idea of the symphony is that [SPOILER ALERT – really? Hopefully…] we go on a journey from death to resurrection, so the first movement is this funeral march with brass fanfares, menacing lower strings and blood-chilling downward scales. It's about 20 minutes long, and after it, when you're breathless and shattered, Mahler said there should be like this massive pause for reflection, 'cos what he'd depicted was Death itself, right? Anyway, I'd been gripping Ali's hand so tight it was a relief when the second movement, this lilting, gentle but somehow sinister dance on pizzicato plucked strings came in. Then there's this crazy dance based on one of Mahler's songs, St Antony preaching to the fish (huh? Yeah. Fish. Right? Weird, see? Who says music's boring?) with this fabulous perky clarinet solo and it's just kind of jogging along before it goes into this like mental blast of noise and before you know it everything's absolutely still and this woman's voice comes quietly from the wreckage singing 'O Röschen rot! Der Mensch liegt in größter Not! Der Mensch liegt in größter Pein! (O little red rose, Mankind lies in greatest need, Mankind lies in greatest pain) before an angel from God leads us to the finale, the massive, awe-inspiring fifth movement. This time the floor under my Reeboks actually shook with the timpani and cymbals. Dies Irae, dies illa, day of wrath and doom impending… I squeezed Ali's hand again as the mayhem crashed round our ears and under our feet and the choir, sitting where I and he had sat just five days earlier, hushed, reverent, awestruck, came from the wilderness, the desperate lashing of brass and strings and death and grief to whisper Klopstock's' poem, that 'Aufersteh'n, ja aufersteh'n, Wirst du, Mein Staub, Nach kurzer Ruh'! (Rise again, yes, rise again, will you, my dust, after a short rest). By the time the choir swelled into the final lines, that I die to live, and my heart, which has suffered, will soar to God, I was actually crying. Crying? Crying. Holding Ali's hand and crying. What is to say? Music can do extraordinary things in the hands of a genius. That's why I loved making it, listening to it, writing about it. Music is God's greatest gift to His children.

  Outside, next to one of those bloody great bronze lions, Ali wordlessly looped his arm round my waist. There was nothing to say. We kissed. It was quarter to ten.

  ''All right,'' he said cautiously, ''There's a bar behind the Cornmarket that's really popular with people like us. I went with Simon a few times. You can get in but you'll have to keep a low profile.''

  Floating down this old cobbled street past this swell-bellied building and towards the grimy canal, we smoked another cigarette and reached LEGENDS. The name was picked out in pink and gold over a large, brick-edged double-door through which loud dance-music was blasting. A tatty rainbow-flag drooped limply overhead. The bouncer, a shaven-headed guy with cricket-ball biceps and some type of tribal tattoo, gave me a quick glance and demanded £2 each. I kept behind Ali and kind of looked nonchalantly away, like I went there every Saturday, while he secured orange bands round our wrists and wished us 'a good one.'

  The noise was deafening, all heavy beats and thumping bass, and the light-show was an intense array of multi-coloured lines zig-zagging round a black-painted dance-floor. There was a mix of people, mostly men, with an even distribution of ages ranging from the white-haired man in his early sixties propping up the bar through couples in their forties to single students in their twenties, all dancing and kissing each other. I, of course, was the youngest by far. As I approached the bar, someone wolf-whistled. Another sang ''I feel like chicken tonight, chicken tonight'' while others laughed.

  ''Chicken's gay-slang for a virgin,'' Ali explained, ''Especially one who's very young.''

  I hauled myself onto a bar-stool, tapped my foot to the rhythm and, drinking in the atmosphere along with the Foster's, reflected that nearly everyone in this bar, and there were about sixty, was just like me. We fancied people of the same gender. Out there, no-one was like me. No wonder I felt I didn't belong in their world. It was because I didn't. When 'Titanium' came on, I grabbed Ali's hand yelling ''I love this. Let's dance.''

  We went utterly mental, jumping with our arms in the air, roaring ''shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am Titanium, you shoot me down, but I won't fall, I am Titanium...'' Then we went up up up with Euphoria, walked like Rihanna, found Love in a Hopeless Place, Felt the Moment and ran to the Edge of Glory, singing Born That Way into each other's grinning faces. Sweaty and panting, I collapsed into his arms and, in that safe, safe place, pushed my hands into the back pockets of his jeans and gave him a kiss that lasted forever. I didn't care what we looked like. Here we were free. Here we could express ourselves. Here we could show our love for each other and nobody cared and nobody judged 'cos nobody thought it weird at all that two guys were snogging each other. Everyone was doing the same, or wishing they were doing the same. They were like us, just like us. We had found our tribe.

  Some drinks arrived, two small glasses brimful with clear liquid, a salt-shaker and some lemon slices on a saucer, compliments of the gentlemen in the corner, four middle-aged men who said my arse was fabulous. I grinned at them, seriously flattered, and ran a hand through my sweaty hair.

  ''This is tequila,'' said Ali. ''There's a thing about drinking this stuff. Hold out your hand. No, not like that, like this.'' Crooking my hand into a claw, he sprinkled salt on the mound between my thumb and index finger, then did the same to himself. ''Now,'' he ordered, ''Pick up your glass.'' I obeyed. ''We lick the salt off each other's hands, down the shot and suck the lemon. Ready? Three, two, one, go!''

  I licked the salt from Ali's hand, threw the tequila down my throat and shoved a lemon slice into my mouth before gasping ''Oh, fuck. That was horrible.''

  The men in the corner cheered. Everyone in the bar seemed to cheer.

  ''You two,'' said this well-muscled gym-hound in red jeans and a white vest, ''Are so into each other it's painful,'' and sent for two more shots so we could do it again.

  It was still horrible but everyone in the bar cheered as I snogged Ali, my head reeling and my heart soaring as someone gave me poppers, a small brown bottle of amyl nitrate liquid I sniffed deeply, like Ali, and my head kind of exploded, you know? Then 'Dancing Queen' came on, and we just had to return to the dance-floor, for this was us: ''You can dance, you can jive, having the time of your life, oooh, see that girl, watch that scene, digging the Dancing Queen…'' Poppers, tequila and lager made my heart race faster. Raising my arms above my head and clasping my own wrists, I sang loudly ''See the sexy look in your eye… so tonight… kiss me like it's do or die... Take me to the other side… We're going all the way… tonight take me to the other side…'' I was like surrounded by all these men who wanted to fuck me but hey, I was gay, I was sexy and I was fifteen. Of course they wanted
to fuck me. I defy anyone in Legends that night to say they didn't want to fuck me. I felt utterly fantastic and so sexy it hurt. Maybe tonight I was gonna get fucked. Tonight. At last. I was gonna get fucked. If not by Ali, by someone, and suddenly I didn't care. As I danced with my arms in the air, I just wanted someone to do it with me. Tonight, as The Weather Girls rained men on my head, I would come of age, you know?

  Ali smiled as I sashayed towards him at the bar, looped my arm round his waist, yelled ''This is awesome. Thanks so much, my darling, darling Ali,'' kissed his lips then, slumping on the next stool, shouted ''Man, this is so fucking wonderful! Jaegerbombs for me and my boyfriend!'' I reworded 'Chicken Tonight', to an appreciative crowd ''I feel like fucking tonight, fucking tonight, fucking tonight… Jaegerbombs! Please!''

  The barman squirted Red Bull into the tumblers then dropped shot-glasses of Jaegermeister into the Red Bull. Clinking glasses, top-and-tail, we drained them in one go.

  Ali was sitting with a nice-looking couple in their twenties. Slipping in next to him, I nuzzled his neck. The guys, Patrick and Dominic, were art students, both twenty-one, both a little bland, mousy-haired, sporting ear-studs, both sipping vodkas and black. They'd met at university, had been going out for a year, were living together in a flat near the campus and had rescued Ali from disaster. They were the guys with the poppers.

  ''He looked so miserable,'' said Dominic. ''His little face was all weepy and pouty.''

  ''Broke our hearts,'' said Patrick, ''And when we saw that gym-hound Rufus sidling over, well, we just had to jump in and save him.''

  ''My heroes,'' said Ali, kissing them both on the cheeks. He too was on vodka and black and clearly scorning my sharp-tasting Foster's as childishly unsophisticated.

  ''But,'' said Dominic, ''We didn't know you'd brought your gayby.''

  ''Which kindergarten did you steal him from?'' asked Patrick.

  Glowering, I fired at Dominic ''Where did you get your clothes? Marks and Spencer?''

  ''Where did you get yours? Mothercare?''

  I was seriously annoyed when Ali laughed. ''You should be wearing beige slacks and a cardy at your age,'' I snapped back, ''Not green jeans.''

  ''At least I'm not still in Pampers,'' he returned. ''Say, Ali, is your gayby a dribbler?''

  Ali cuddled me. ''Shooter, definitely. Like a Yellowstone geyser.''

  ''I didn't mean when he comes,'' grinned Dominic maliciously. ''I meant when he eats. Do you have to mash it up or is he still on Cow and Gate? Don't worry, honey. Your baby-teeth'll soon break through. Do you have to burp him before you take him to bed?''

  ''Spit or swallow?'' asked Patrick.

  ''Swallow, every time,'' choked Ali. The bastard was almost crying.

  Just as I was about to tell Dominic to go get shagged, he kissed my cheek and said I was really cute then wrecked it by adding I probably looked cuter in a knitted bonnet and matching bootees. Whilst I sulked, the other twats started discussing some article they'd read in Attitude magazine about gay sports-stars and why there weren't any, this new boy-band I had never heard of, then this new orange-blossom moisturiser they all loved.

  ''I didn't know you used moisturiser,'' I sulked.

  ''I suppose you still use Johnson's baby lotion,'' said Dominic. He was such a twat.

  We went out to this courtyard, a concrete rectangle with four wooden tables and some scruffy, plastic chairs. The muffled thump of music carried through the windows. Leaning against the wall in a light drizzle, I smoked one of Dominic's Menthol cigarettes.

  ''Menthol?'' I said, trying to sound like an expert. ''What? Like mint?''

  ''So?'' he shrugged, lighting it for me. ''I'm gay. I smoke menthols.''

  ''I got footie boots called Patrick,'' I told Patrick. ''They're really cool.''

  He blew a condescending smoke-ring at me.

  ''The England footie captain wears them. Well, not mine obviously, but like mine. Your shoes are sooo cool!'' Red Converse hi-tops. I had to get some.

  ''Thanks,'' Patrick replied. ''How old are you anyway, Jenny?''

  ''JONNY! JONATHAN! Eighteen! Like Ali!''

  ''He said he was nineteen,'' said Dominic.

  Ali rescued me. ''Does anyone know if Liverpool won?''

  Patrick affected a yawn and blew another condescending smoke-ring. ''What's this?''

  ''I gather there was a football match today,'' said Dominic, making 'football' sound like 'a dose of the clap.'

  ''Which one's football?'' Patrick asked. Man, the smoke-ring thing was sooo cool.

  ''The one with the wickets,'' said Dominic.

  ''You,'' Patrick said to me, ''I got you sussed. You'd be the bar-bike if you could. You've just learned about yourself, you're madly excited by it all, so you're trying out different roles, the flirt, the tramp, the brat, the helpless little girl…''

  ''The Kindergarten Kid,'' added Dominic to general laughter. ''Man, you are sooo under-age it's untrue.''

  Before he could tease me further, Patrick passed over the little brown poppers bottle and my head burst again.

  ''Is it true,'' asked Ali, sniffing the aroma deeply into his nostrils, ''That poppers make your anus bigger so getting fucked doesn't hurt so much?''

  ''Yeah,'' said Patrick. ''Makes the muscles relax.''

  Man, I took another deep, deep sniff, made my way to the Gents and pissed long and hard into the metal trough. What a fantastic night! But, to make it perfect, I wanted sex with Ali. I wanted him to fuck me, you know? I spotted some packs of lubricating jelly and some bowls of condoms on the wash-basin counter. Ha! Some of the condoms were flavoured, like strawberry, cola and pineapple, so you could do oral sex and not get sperm in your mouth. Like what??? I wanted his sperm in my mouth. More than anything in the world. But anyway, maybe he didn't want mine. Though he'd had mine. Twice. But anyway, now we had proper protection, like grown-ups, yeah? Ha! Free condoms! Ha! No excuse now. He would have to do it with me. I mean, really, properly do IT with me. Yay. Ticket to Heavensville, right? Anyhow, as I was pocketing a fistful, he slipped into the Gents behind me.

  ''Hey, honey. You OK? You seem a bit pissed.''

  ''I'm great, my love.'' I snuggled into him, left hand on his right shoulder, left cheek on his chest, as he wrapped his arms round me protectively. ''I really want you, Ali. Thank you, my love, for the greatest night of my life. I will never be happier than I am right now. At least…'' I clambered up him a little, blushing like a Ferrari. ''Until the night you make love to me. Then my life will be perfect.''

  ''Do you really want that?'' he said.

  ''More than anything in the world,'' I answered. ''God, I love you so much, you know? So much, my darling, darling Ali. Please fuck me, please. I'll do anything. Anything. I want to know what it's like, and I want to be your boy, yours...'' I heard the breath catch in his throat. Ha. I manoeuvred him towards a cubicle and, grinning, waved a sachet of lube in his face. ''Come on, Alistair. We can't stay virgins forever.''

  Kicking the door shut, I unfastened his belt and followed him down onto the seat.