Stardust Diaries 2007

by Swan, Tarn

  He was in a terrible state, on the verge of nervous collapse. I had to pick him up and carry him indoors. I called his doctor. He needed something to calm him down. In retrospect it might have been better if I'd ruthlessly gone through with my instinct to put him over my knee and given him a good hard spanking followed by some cuddling, but a spanking isn't always an easy, magical and convenient fix it and it doesn't always feel the right thing to do.

  By the time the fire crews, the police, the doctor and concerned neighbours left, it was too late to do anything except fall into an exhausted sleep. The sedatives helped seal the distance between us. They made him numb. He didn't want to stop being numb, so when his doctor proved true to his word about allowing him only a short course as a means of de-stressing, he was even less happy. Twinkles has never liked facing up to things, he frequently goes out of his way to avoid doing so.

  Then came the shattering announcement by the duck pond. Looking back I can clearly see it was his way of challenging me to save us. I was blind at the time, too stressed and shocked to read between the lines.

  The view from the top of the wheel was breathtaking. Swaying gently in the breeze the pod paused for a few minutes to allow a bird's eye view of the Minster, the river and the fields and streets spread out far below. I once thought I had lost Twinks to this ancient city and its fast flowing river. Thankfully I hadn't. He came back to me on that occasion.

  You can never tell where life will take you. You can never know what lies ahead and you can never guarantee lasting happiness. Whether we like it or not there are times when life will make us hurt and bleed.

  The morning after he told me he'd arranged an interview for the cruise liner job I packed some things and travelled down to Northumberland. I went to stay at my parent's caravan on the coast for a few days. I had reached my own breaking point. I was tired. I was depressed. I was pissed off with life and I wanted some space to indulge those feelings on my own behalf, to selfishly put myself first and to try and put life back in perspective.

  I love the coast in winter. On Saturday afternoon I sat by the picture window in the caravan watching snow fall onto lapping grey waves and dissolve. Long after the view vanished into darkness I sat and listened to the wind roar over the ocean. Last year at the same time Twinks and I had been in the midst of another crisis, but then crisis is a byword for life with someone like him.

  The Ferris wheel began its downward descent, returning to ground level. In its way it was a metaphor for life, the ever-turning wheel of fate with its highs and lows.

  Stepping out of the pod I descended the metal steps smiling as I saw him waiting for me looking colourful in a pink duffle coat, pink jeans and his pink sequinned boots. He was holding a heart shaped helium balloon and a single red rose in a cellophane tube. I'd bought them from the flower stall as we left the railway station after seeing Lulu and Natalie off on their quest. Usually we try to break with tradition on Valentines’ Day and abandon the colour red with all its connotations. This year I felt tradition was called for and in keeping with the colour theme set by my pink attired, red-eyed, pink-nosed Valentine I bought and presented him with the balloon and the rose.

  He asked how I'd enjoyed the ride. I said it was wonderful and I was still marvelling that a man who could stand without scaffolding and a safety net on a pair of huge spiked high heels was too scared to go for a ride in a safe sealed pod. I asked how he was feeling. He said he was fine and was his mascara okay? I nodded. His eyes immediately re-filled with tears. There was nothing I could say to comfort him so I didn't try. Wrapping my arms around him and uncaring of the looks we were getting I hugged him tight, as he sobbed his heart out all over again for Lulu's departure. He’d get the job and never return.

  Once he'd composed himself again and refreshed his mascara we took a lover's cruise on the river and then headed into the city and did a little shopping. We had lunch and then came home again.

  He was shocked to the core on the day I announced I was going away to Northumberland. He woke up to find me packing and tearfully asked if I was leaving him? I said of course I wasn't leaving him. I also told him he wasn't bloody leaving me either, certainly not to go sailing off on HMS fucking Drama Queen in a fit of pique because life hadn't danced in perfect step to his desired tune. I told him when I came home I expected to hear he'd cancelled the foolish interview he'd arranged so deceitfully behind my back and if he hadn't I would do it for him.

  Before leaving I picked up his wedding band, took his hand and pushed it back on his finger where it belonged. Then I turned him over my knee and spanked him saying if he ever took it off again his ability to sit would be like Atlantis, and lost forever. Copious tears and comforting cuddles followed. We were back together, but still needed a little time apart to put our respective thoughts in order.

  I enjoyed my time away. It recharged my batteries. I walked on the deserted beach watching the breakers roll in and the gulls swoop and dive. It was freezing cold, but I didn't mind. I relished the cleansing wash of winter elements over my muzzy senses. He was never far from my thoughts, or in fact my ear as he called me several times daily to check how I was faring in my 'shop forsaken' corner of the universe.

  I packed up and headed home late on Monday night after a phone call to say goodnight left me with an overwhelming need for more than just his voice. I arrived back in the early hours of Tuesday morning. He wasn't sleeping. He said he sensed I was coming home. The minute he heard my key in the lock he came running to greet me. We didn't sleep much, nor did we have sex. We lay together, kissing, comforting, and reconnecting.

  We talked a lot. He said when Dominic had first curled his tiny hand around his finger he had felt overwhelmed because this tiny human had not judged him. It had accepted him for who he was. It trusted him to care for it and not harm it. It made him wonder what his mother had felt when he was first placed in her arms. Had she loved him? Surely if she had then she wouldn’t have treated him the way she did or rejected him so cruelly. He wanted a baby so he could give it all the love he felt had been withheld from him.

  I understood, but gently said a baby couldn’t be a surrogate for him, it couldn’t change what had happened to him. A child was to be loved for its own sake, for who it was and for whom it would grow into.

  He agreed and said I’d been right about him not looking beyond having a ‘baby.’ What if once he got it he couldn’t love it as much as he thought he could after all? What if he resented it because he couldn’t do all the things he enjoyed doing? What if it liked me more than it liked him? What if I gave it more attention than I gave him?

  Worse still, what if he or she grew up to hate and resent us? People were cruel. They would pick on our child because of the way we were, especially him. It had been bad enough that he had suffered as a child because of who he was. He did not want another child to suffer because of who he was. He was desperately sad, but glad we had been rejected. It was for the best. He said at least we were lucky to have our lovely godson and each other. He sobbed then. I pulled him into my arms and held him tight while shedding a few tears of my own.

  And so we’ve decided we will no longer pursue parenthood. Our family will remain a family of two, he and I, except on the days we’re blessed with visits from Dominic, Janet and Gabby.

  While we were in York today he bought a big chocolate heart and asked the confectioner to ice the words ‘My Heart’ on it. He then presented it to me with all his love and a passionate kiss. Of course he ate most of it himself, but then that's him, my funny, sweet, loving, selfish and complex Valentine.

  24th February ~ Flower Fairy

  I'm just getting over a three-day migraine. It was the full works with vomiting, flashing lights, excruciating pain and the added complication of Twinkles. He has never quite gotten to grips with my migraine attacks. He shakes me awake when I'd rather sleep. He talks when I'd prefer silence. He makes me things to eat when the mere thought of food exacerbates my nausea. Of course it's all done f
rom love and concern, which makes it hard to be cross with him. However, yesterday evening I pushed aside all considerations to be really, REALLY, cross with him. Why? He managed to glue himself to a bunch of pink stargazer lilies that’s why.

  While feeling like death warmed up I had to fight through my nausea and his hysteria to separate him from his floral hand corsage. I confess to nagging him throughout the entire procedure, punctuating my nagging with several well aimed slaps to his rear. He's a menace when it comes to superglue. He seems drawn to it like a moth to a flame or a fly to a honey trap.

  The flowers were a present from my mother. She's been giving Twinks a lift to and from work while I’ve been out of action. She knows Twinks likes stargazers and bought a big bunch when she was shopping in Morrisons yesterday afternoon. I'm not a fan. I find the scent to be overpowering, but what I think is immaterial. I'm a second-class citizen in my own home at times.

  To be honest my mother is spoiling him in frocks at the moment. He's still a bit down so she’s showering little cheer up gifts on him and making him cakes and homemade fudge (which I like a lot more than the flowers)

  When it comes to flower arranging Twinks is fussy. The flowers have to look just so. He duly arranged his gift of stargazers in a vase when mum dropped him home from work last night. He didn't like them so he rearranged them. He still didn't like them. He swapped vases and tried again, still not good enough, so he put glass pebbles in the bottom of the vase to hold the stems in place. Success. The flowers were arranged to his satisfaction.

  Then floral disaster struck. One of the lilies snapped away from the parent stem, totally spoiling the line of his arrangement. He was most vexed. The lily was still attached by a thread of stem. He had a bright idea. Superglue was the answer. He would glue the lily flower back in place. Simple.

  A soft apologetic, but nonetheless panicky voice penetrated my shroud of pain, as he knelt beside the sofa where I was sleeping to whisper his ‘Tarn, I'm having a crisis and you must attend’ litany. I opened my eyes to be confronted by my very own flower fairy. There he was firmly glued to a cluster of pink heavily scented lilies.

  “It won't come off, Tarn.” He shook his hand this way and that to prove his point.

  I blinked hard a few times, but no it wasn't a weird dream. It was real. He was there, part man, part bouquet.

  “You’ve been at the bloody superglue again!” Crushing an uncharitable urge to stick him in a vase and place him on the mantelpiece I struggled to my feet and set about pruning him. It didn't take long to break away most of the plant and soak off the bits that had bonded to his flesh with a solution of mineral oil. I put the superglue in the bin and collapsed back on the sofa.

  I awoke an hour so later with raging heartburn. The tablets I take for migraine often upset my stomach. I also had a numb left arm from having slept on it. Struggling to a sitting position I rubbed my chest and then clutched my arm, grimacing with pain. He thought I was having a heart attack. My eardrums exploded as a shattering scream assaulted them. Plastering his body to mine he entreated me not to die and leave him all alone. I pointed out that if jumped on me like that again I would guarantee having a fucking heart attack. I decided enough was enough and took us both safely to bed.

  I'm feeling much better today, a bit washed out, but at least pain free. It's been a tough and emotionally draining time for both of us lately. I think the migraine was a reaction to the cessation of stress.

  I turned down the job promotion offer. In view of the circumstances I felt going ahead would put another kind of strain on our relationship as a whole and on Twinks in particular. He isn’t emotionally rock solid at the best of times and with one thing and another he’s even more fragile at the moment. Yes, I very much wanted the job, but not at any cost. The upheaval would be too much for him. He means more to me than anything and as he said in his own inimitable way: “a career is just until retirement, but a partner gets on your tits for life.”

  Sometimes I look at him and I marvel at how I came to be so devoted to this neurotic, complicated, high maintenance man. He's beautiful, have I mentioned that? I'm sure I must have. He’s a very pretty man with his sultry eyes and beautiful mouth and that drop-dead smile. I never had a thing for pretty men. They were not on my 'TYPE' list. To my shame I confess he was the type I often viewed with faint derision: the effeminate gay man tripping around the clubs and bars courting attention. And yet the moment I saw him my breath caught in my throat. It still does. Admittedly sometimes it catches because I'm swallowing an urge to throttle him, but mostly because he takes my breath away. It’s perhaps my punishment for my snotty, ignorant attitude.

  A friend once asked how I could stand to be with someone like Twinks and why didn't I tell him to stop wearing female clothes and makeup. I said it would be like asking someone to change their skin colour or sexual orientation. It was something intrinsic to his being. It was his identity. He is who he is, whether he's in a dress or wearing a suit and why should he deny who he is just to please others.

  He's missing Lulu so much, and his archenemy Natalie. They had their interview, passed muster and went away to sail the mighty ocean as part of the entertainment crew. It feels strange not seeing them at the PP and even stranger not having Lulu drop in all the time trying to sell us stuff. I miss him too. Twinks has had a few phone chats with him, a few text messages, but they've been brief. Lu is obviously busy acclimatising to life at sea and a new job. Twinks has a cry over it every day. It breaks my heart to hear him. Life has been not so much a lady as a real bitch for him of late. He doesn't adapt well to change.

  We're going out this evening for a meal with Brian and his new boyfriend Martin, who we’ve met but briefly. Twinks isn’t keen on him. I said he has to give him a proper chance. It can't be easy trying to move into a space that's still in part occupied.

  I’ll finish this entry with a snippet of news. The business with my car was a case of mistaken identity. The intended target was the car of the man who lives directly across the road from us. He was allegedly having an affair with the wife of the man who paid the yobs that did it. Relationships are complex that’s for sure. I was glad to know our anonymous hate mailer hadn’t further upped the ante from burglar to arsonist. It doesn’t bring my poor car back, but it was a relief all the same.

  Twinks asked me what I'd do if he set fire to Brownlow's car or even Stuart Cramer's car by way of warning them off. I said I'd purchase a very large paddle and use it to set his bottom alight. It's time to hop in my new car (a frigging boring blue Toyota Yaris. Of all the cars in all the frigging world I had to pick an unglamorous Yaris. It’s like driving around in a frigging golf buggy) and go pick his majesty up from work.

  25th February ~ Twinks Goes Commando

  Twinkles and I had a slight difference of opinion while shopping in Tesco this morning We fell out over a little matter of pizza, not over toppings, but bottoms, and I don't mean we had a contretemps over thin or deep pan bases either. Let me explain.

  He was wearing one of the few items to escape the Christmas cull, his little red kilt. He’d teamed it with a black sweater and a pair of knee length high heel black boots. We got a few looks, some of them wide-eyed, as we moved around the store, which is par for the course and I didn't pay too much attention to them, until he bent over the pizza freezer.

  My eyes did one of those cartoon character actions and popped out on stalks as his mini skirt rode up and I copped an eyeful of his bare arse. Thankfully he had tucked his bits and there was no sign of his man sac. God knows his bare bottom and I are hardly strangers, but coming face to face with it in the supermarket caused me to flush just about purple.

  Hauling him upright I put my mouth to his ear and fiercely demanded to know why the hell he wasn't wearing any knickers? He giggled and said he wondered when I'd notice and didn't I know knickers were out of fashion for girls and boys? Going commando was the order of the day. Paris Hilton and Britney Spears did it all the time. All the size zero m
odels, male and female, were cat walking without knickers this season. It was haute couture, darling.

  I hissed a statement into his shell like. I didn't care if it was horse manure, darling, he wasn't Britney Spears (poor sad little girl) and he wasn't Paris Hilton and he wasn't on a catwalk. He was in a Tesco store on a Sunday morning and it was totally inappropriate to be bare arsed. In fact it was downright indecent. He could give some poor old lady heart failure.

  Putting his hands on his hips he made a statement of his own. “You’re such a frigging prude sometimes, Tarn. It’s like being hitched to Mary Whitehouse.”

  I pointed at my face. “Do I look like I care?” I held out my car keys. “Keep your hands on your hem and go and wait in the car for me. We’ll be discussing this further at home.”

  He sighed, rolled his eyes and took the keys. I watched him walk off down the shop and then groaned as guess who exited from the pet food aisle just ahead of him? It was none other than the Brownlow's. I cursed under my breath as Twinkles clocked them and went straight into provocative mode, swinging his hips as he sauntered past them, looking back over his shoulder smiling and pouting.

  I could see Brownlow’s bull neck go red from where I was standing. My heart rate stepped up a notch as Twinkles deliberately dropped my car keys on the floor. I knew exactly what the bad boy intended to do. He was going to bend over to retrieve them and moon our illustrious neighbours. Brownlow would have a fit. He’d kill Twinks or at least call a security guard who would probably call the police. The situation could get very nasty.