The Water Is Warm

by Jennifer Stawska

  You say ‘Cheers to General Puff for the very first time.’ Then you take a sip of your drink. Then it’s the other person’s turn to do the same. Then: ‘Cheers to General Puff Puff for the very, very second, second time, time.’ Two sips. Up to twenty, taking it in turns. And if – or rather, when - you make a mistake you have to drink the rest of your glass and start again. It’s lethal.

  Many months later I asked you about that drinking game.

  ‘Odd game to play at the time,’ I said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, General Puff. It was pretty self-deprecating, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Simon, I knew what I wanted. I told you.’

  ‘I’m not following you.’

  ‘I wanted to keep it on the agenda.’

  ‘How do you mean.’

  ‘I was scene setting. Script writing. Keeping sex on the agenda.’

  ‘You mean…’ I got it then – with the wide mouthed smile on your face I couldn’t fail to do so. ‘…You scheming bastard.’

  Well we got smashed together, totally lathered, and by the end everything except my legs seemed perfect. As the drink flowed you stopped looking down and, as always happened when you were drunk, your eyes started to sparkle.

  ‘Josh, what’s it like being gay?’ The script writing had obviously worked.

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Is it so very different?’

  ‘Try walking down the street hand in hand with another man and you’ll soon find out.’

  ‘I’ve never tried it.’ I was being deliberately vague. We were both grinning at each other.

  ‘What?’ You weren’t backing off.

  ‘Walking hand in hand with a man.’

  ‘Well if you ever want to try it…’ You looked down at your glass.

  ‘Josh, I just don’t want anything to spoil this.’

  ‘Take things slowly Simon. We have all the time in the world. I’ve told you why I am here. It isn’t the work or anything else. It’s you. Don’t be afraid.’

  ‘I really need your help with that.’ I rubbed my face and hair with my open palms and then hid my eyes behind my hands. You reached under the table and stroked the side of my knee and I lowered my hands.

  ‘Simon, look at me. Please don’t worry. You’ll get it. I know what I want.’ Then, you laughed and said, ‘another beer?’

  ‘I think that I’m done.’

  ‘Gin then?’

  ‘Puff’s drink. Like you said.’

  ‘I’ll take that as a yes then.’ And you laughed. ‘Come on, time to go.’

  I know that we got a tuk-tuk back to the hotel and that it was only late afternoon when we got back but I don’t remember much of the rest of the day until about ten o’clock that evening when we staggered out for some food. Then we lay down on the bed and slept side by side as we had that night on the beach at Unawatuna. And everything, absolutely everything, was fine. Nothing could have been better – remember that phrase? Well, that comes next.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  The next two days were some of the softest and happiest I had ever known. It was an easy time, full of gentleness, patience and learning about each other. I found myself watching you as you talked, moved, slept or read and realised that I did not want to stop watching. I loved watching you sleep, watching you breathe.

  Eventually Josh stopped testing out whether I was sure that I didn’t mind him coming back and trying to reassure me that he would not get in the way of what I was doing. Eventually also, I stopped asking him if he was OK and telling him that I understood that he also had things that he wanted to do and that I was not trying to take him away from doing them. I knew that his work with the UN mattered and that he needed to find his own way with it.

  Josh opened layer upon layer of his past and I witnessed his gentleness, a gentleness that I had never met before and which meant that I kept wanting to hear more and more of what he had to say. He was a very easy companion to be with and we learnt that we could just knock along together. We drank in bars and strolled the streets. A bit of alcohol, well loads of alcohol, plenty of sunshine and all the time in the world. And your voice and your smile.

  Everything seemed slower. Everything seemed to bear more colour and to make sense and each time you spoke I found myself thinking how I wanted to hear you speak more. It was like wanting to listen to a favourite piece of music and then wanting to hear it again and again. Being with you was fun, a laugh. I have never known anyone who is as positive about things as you are.

  ‘Simon, you’ve fallen in love.’ I made myself admit to that in my thoughts but couldn’t say it out loud. I just held the admission in my mind.

  But, underneath all that, I also knew that the years of suppression had left you seriously undervaluing yourself and that you needed to find your feet in the completely new way of life that you faced. I knew it from your letters, I knew it from that moment’s hesitation; I could interpret the script. I found myself constantly wanting to pump air into the hidden but leaking valve of your self-esteem which so underlay everything that you said. Behind the jokes, the laughs, the ‘I’m gay’ self-deprecation and the kindness, behind the interest in me, it was always there. It lay in the words that you used, your facial expression when you thought you weren’t being observed, the way you held your body.

  I realised that I had to keep asking myself ‘why did he say that,’ to try to bring you back to the surface so that you could breathe.

  That lack of self-worth, that acquired loneliness, that moment’s hesitation before you spoke, was all just hidden from sight and I wanted you to tell me how you felt. I could well imagine how you must have been squashed in the relationship with Edvin because you would not assert yourself in those early days with me either. You asked about me and I really had to push to turn the conversation on to how you were. Did I manage to do that? I don’t suppose that it is for me to say.

  It all took time and there was no miracle cure. The cure could only come from trust, love and acceptance but those first few days paved the way for what followed.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  The desk had to go but, when it did, there was space for another bed alongside mine with the bamboo chair squashed into the shack at the end of my bed. By that time I had been in Unawatuna for three months and, although I had worked hard getting Raja back on his feet, it still needed a great deal of sensitivity for me to introduce someone else into his world. So, to begin with, I asked if Josh could stay for five nights before moving on to his work with the UNHCR in Galle. That allowed Raja to see that Josh was not parasitic and also that his presence did not mean that I would stop helping him to restore his hotel.

  Sri Lanka is hot throughout the year but in March and April, before the first monsoon breaks on the west and south west coasts in late May, it is very hot and Josh really suffered when he came back. Sometimes there was a breeze from the sea but, at other times, the air hung with a depth and stillness that I had become used to but which he found stifling. The shack was particularly difficult for him since there was so little ventilation; during the day, it became unbearably hot and, during the night, it took a long time to cool down. The heat was made worse when there were two people in it.

  The first two nights that Josh and I were there together were spent settling him in and introducing him to the other people of the village. By the time that we got to bed it was late and the locals had filled us full of arrack and stories – they asked endless questions about Josh, Sweden and his views about everything under the sun. So both of us slept as soon as we got back to the shack at night and, by the time that we woke in the morning, it was already so hot that we both made a dive for the sea to cool down. Then there was work and there was Sunil to look after so that Josh and I had no opportunity to spend time on our own during the day either.

  But the third day was different. When we first returned from Colombo Raja was pretty distant and Sunil, who had started to trust me by then, was very watchful of Josh. He was also ex
tremely protective towards me and wanted to show it; he would forget to speak to Josh, to offer him a drink or to acknowledge his presence and clung to me like a limpet. However, on the third day, there was a lull in work on rebuilding the hotel and we managed to palm Sunil off with a group of his friends who were messing around at the other end of the bay. So the two of us went swimming on our own close to the shack.

  Swimming in the sea at Unawatuna is beautiful, I can’t think how else to describe it. The water is turquoise, crystal clear and warm, the sunlight dances across it, the waves are gentle, the sand shelves slowly and there are glinting fish swimming around the shallows. That day was a clear blue sky day. The beach at its best.

  By that time I knew the bay well having spent a lot of my free time over the previous three months snorkelling with a mask and other gear that I had bought in the local market; therefore when Josh came back one of the first things that we did together was to kit him out so that he could do the same. There is a companionship about snorkelling and, like scuba diving, it has its own sign language – thumb and forefinger together in an O shape to signal something good, or just to communicate happiness. Thumbs down for dive, thumbs up for return to the surface, that sort of thing. Snorkelling in the calm sea of the bay there must be one of the most spectacular things that I have ever done and I was really keen to introduce Josh to it.

  Josh had trained as an advanced PADI scuba diver several years before – with Edvin who, of course, had been an open water instructor. Therefore, snorkelling came easily to him and, even though he must have found it somewhat tame, he loved it as much as I did. So we swam next to each other, pointing out the colourful corals and fish that we each saw, diving down to the sea floor side by side, hovering at the surface together as spectators of the world below. But what I remember more than anything else is how, every now and then, we stopped snorkelling and, whilst we trod water, Josh said, time and time again ‘did you see that?’ and then he gave a smile that only – really only - he can. That full faced, unreservedly expressive, totally honest, shining, right off the scale, beautiful, beautiful smile that knocked me sideways and left me struggling for words. I can see it now; it went with his very white teeth and his clear brown eyes to create a picture of perfection.

  However, the sun is strong and, unlike me, Josh needed to get out of it after about an hour having lost his tan in Sweden over the previous three months. So, we returned to the shack and, when we got inside, I suggested that I should put some coconut oil onto his back, onto your back (I want to speak this to you); the top of your neck had burnt where your T-shirt had not protected you when we were snorkelling. You took off your T-shirt.

  The next bit of what I am writing is difficult and I have changed it repeatedly. Why am I writing about it at all? Because it feels good. That’s why.

  Because the shack then was so tiny and cramped we were standing very close to each other as I rubbed oil onto your back. There were rays of sunshine coming in through the gaps under the door and through the slats of the window, casting us in the half-light. We knew that there was no one else around. I smoothed the oil over your back and then you turned around and I knew what was happening. We looked at each other. I put some more oil in my hand and started to rub it into your shoulders and your neck, where you had been caught by the sun. I felt as if I couldn’t breathe. I moved my face closer to yours and could feel your breath and I looked into your eyes as they lifted towards mine and held my gaze. I moved my other hand so that it touched your side and then you reached across to my face, and drew it into yours.

  ‘Do you mind?’ you asked and I said ‘no.’ That’s when we kissed for the first time. There was no abrupt beginning, no wild stripping off of clothes, no groping, just a very soft progression into something that we both wanted and, in my case at least, yearned for.

  After that, the first time I had ever kissed a man as adult to adult, you kept your hand on the back of my neck and looked at me. ‘Are you OK?’ I held your look. I had no words to give but I showed you that I was. I put my hand onto your back and I returned your kiss. I kissed your mouth. I kissed your chest. Every bit of it. You took off my T-shirt then but I continued. When you sat down on the bed, I knelt down in front of you as you held my head, stroking my hair.

  ‘Lie next to me Simon.’

  So we lay down on the beds, side by side, and we showed each other through touch, through giving, the things that we had held back. You took the lead then, you knew what to do, and each step of the way you talked to me, quietly, explaining to me what you were doing, showing me what to do, blowing my mind as the anticipation became unbearable, giving me every inch of your body and gliding across every inch of mine. Showing me and teaching me a new way.

  I can hear your voice now as it spoke to me that night, I can feel your touch, I can see your face as it was over those two hours, I can remember the sense of utter calm, the silence afterwards and, in my mind’s eye, I can lie with my head on your chest again as you stroked my hair that day and asked me if I was alright.

  ‘Nothing could be better,’ was the only reply I could make.

  You got up from the bed then, picked up a towel and bottle of water, both of us were drenched in sweat, you cupped your hand, filled it with water and you rinsed my face, towelled my body as I lay back watching you. You smoothed my hair with your hand and stroked my face. You then tipped the rest of the water over your head, shook it from your hair so that it sprayed across the room, laughed as I smiled and then wiped yourself down with the towel. Then? Then you picked up the bottle of coconut oil and anointed me with it, talking to me quietly, stroking me softly as your hand slid across me, teaching me to allow you to take charge, to relax my body and let go with my mind.

  ‘Tell me how it feels, Simon.’

  ‘It feels wonderful.’

  ‘No, tell me more. Talk to me as I touch you.’ And then I spoke as I had never spoken before about sensation, anticipation, my body crying out for release and then exploding again. Then peace as you stroked my face.

  And then you lay down next to me again, facing towards me. As I stretched for the bottle of oil, you took it from me and put it down beside the bed. You kissed my forehead and said ‘Go to sleep, Simon. Go to sleep.’ And I slept, as I have never slept before. We both slept. I slept, curled up against your body.

  And if I could paint, how would I paint that scene? It would have to be in the abstract with the light sliding under the door and reaching into the shadows of the room through the gaps in the shutters, bringing with it everything that is good, everything that is gentle and everything that is balanced. I would paint peace. I would paint love. I would use background paints that were grey and dark blue. I would paint the light of the sun with its golden whiteness licking its way into the shade, I would paint the white of the sheets on the bed (yes, we each had a sheet), two white towels and an empty green bottle that had held the water. And, stretching across the picture would be the outline of two beds next to each other, two beds that would be empty, as they are now, because I could not do justice to your image even if I were a painter and, anyhow, you could not be there now.

  We called that night our night of madness because there is no logic to what happened and later on we did down most of another bottle of warm gin that I had bought in Colombo and things became somewhat more wild. It was my turn with the oil. This time you lay back and watched as I used it, learning every inch of your body and speaking to you as you had taught me. But it wasn’t madness. It was love, the deepest love I could ever have known and have ever known. And in the silence afterwards, after I had seen the whole of your body shake its release, I stroked your hair as you fell asleep and I looked down at you. There are no words for that moment. Then, I stepped carefully over to what is now your side of the bed, put my arm around you and slept again.

  How am I supposed to live with that memory now?

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  After those five days in Unawatuna the necessities of work kick
ed in and Josh had to sign on with the UNHCR. I went with him when he first went there but then had to leave him to find his feet among his new colleagues and I returned to the camp where I had been working. So, until November when the scheme ended, Josh spent most of the week there although he did come to work with me in Galle occasionally; with the passage of time, he got to know les mecs with whom I worked and became accepted by them.

  Night time for the next few months when we were together acquired a very different meaning. I learnt about having sex with another man, learning not to snatch at it, not to grope or want to be groped. To take time and to understand that what I was doing was not wrong or rebellious – that it wasn’t the door shutting on my past. Josh was an expert in anticipation, weaving it into his talk in a way that was internal to our relationship, using language that only we would understand. ‘Nothing could be better,’ stroking his nose with his index finger when he said it and looking away. Raising one eyebrow in a split second look my way, drumming his middle finger on the table when not quite looking at me, resting his elbows on the table and rubbing the fingertips of his cupped hands together softly and repetitively as if lost in thought and then smiling at me when it was safe, allowing one middle finger to slip between the other.

  Safety only really came at night-time and, although the shack was hot, there was always the sea into which we could run and plunge to cool off when we needed to. We also had our own dugout and would paddle out to sea at night when it was calm, even sometimes in the warm rain, and cool off there, diving into the water from the boat and loafing around in the shallows. We would stretch out, head to head, along the length of the narrow canoe watching the stars, talking, listening to the water lapping against the side of the boat or even sleeping. We only tipped it over once by being too energetic, on 8 August 2005 - my 43rd birthday, thankfully in water that was close enough to the shore and so we retrieved the boat without too much difficulty.