Madge

As me old granny used to say – that's the alcoholic one, on my dad's side – “Put your arm out so I can measure the length, yes, just like that.”

Her house always had a peculiar smell, now I recognise it as booze and fags and air that was stale.

Sadly, she died youngish, sixty nine, too much booze and heart break. My grandfather died young and left her penniless and alone, before I was born, before I was even thought of. She smoked menthol cigarettes and always had a brandy on the go. She could play backgammon like a shark, she'd encourage me to bet. 

“It makes life more interesting,” she’d say. “You wait and see.”

She'd sneak me puffs on her cigarette when I was a kid, (no she didn’t, I just like to romanticise it that way) when mum and dad had gone to bed. She always wanted to know if there was a girl in my life. She'd want to know the details, but I knew how far I could go.

She used to knit me jumpers, “Boys need woollens to see them through life.” She’d laugh and pat me on the head. “You’ll understand when you are older and have to travel for love.”

She’d knit jumpers only in kid’s sizes, she’d knit them all day. There was speculation that the booze rendered adult sizes out of her abilities. (I didn't hear that until I was grown up, of course)

Or she’d spend the day at the pub, bringing cream cakes home for tea.

She loved me. I miss her. She’d look after us when mum and dad were out for the night.

I don’t remember if she used to drink when she used to babysit us? I don’t remember anything like that, but I would have been young, of course. But mum told me they couldn’t go into town shopping unless they stopped for a brandy on the way in and on the way home again. So, I don’t know how she would have got on for the evening babysitting without a drink.

I don’t think it would be acceptable to let a drunk babysit your kids now a days, we’re far too uptight to let that happen, but, it was a different time when we were being babysat as kids, and she was my father’s mother, after all, so I’m guessing it would have been more difficult to say no.

A Fine Mist of Rain Fell

I stepped out on to the street and pulled my gate shut. The air was cold, I shivered. I pulled my collar up around my neck as my body vibrated momentarily underneath, shivered. It was early, the full veil of the morning hadn't quite lifted. The light was grey, a fine mist of rain fell.

I had only taken a few steps when I heard, pad, pad, pad behind me. Then whoosh, a jogger whirled passed me. I stepped sideways and out of the way. I mean, he probably wasn't going so fast, maybe I was still on slow, no coffee yet, no heart starter to make my eyes fully open.

I heard him snort and pant, gasp in, exhale. I watched his legs, like springs, propel him past me. I watched his ankles flip up behind him and then push his feet to the ground, straightening as his shoes touched down on the bitumen. The backs of his wide-legged black shorts flapped with each step. The was a hint of his red jocks underneath hugging him tight. His arms swung rhythmically, matching his breaths.

His back was straight, his head was up, he pranced. he was  a fine specimen.

He flipped around the corner at the intersection and was gone. He was nowhere to be seen when I turned that same corner a few moments later.

The street was quiet again, except for my short, sharp breaths sounding in my ears. And the clop, clop, clop of my own feet. The morning air was cold on my face. I yawned. The inhale of breath was cold. I looked both ways on the street, and then I crossed over to the other side and continued my walk. A car drove past me on the street, otherwise it was early and it was only me making my way in the deserted street.

Indigo

Indigo did get pregnant. The girl Jack woke up with a few weeks ago. She was at her most fertile, Jack fertilised her. She knew that, but she’d ogled Jack from a distance for the longest time, so she decided to take a chance, that chance didn’t pay off. Lazy coming down Sunday morning sex. She booked an abortion. Jack accompanied her to the clinic. The Christians got in his face. He ignored them. Indigo and jack waited in the waiting room. By this stage, Indigo was at peace with her decision. 

Of course, there was a time there when Jack wanted her to have it. He said he'd raise the kid. Jack who has no home of his own. Sense prevailed. Jack wasn't that happy about it.

"Man, when all is said and done," said Jack. "She is killing my baby."

We should have seen that coming.

Jack pleaded with her to keep the baby.

Indigo listened to her girlfriends. And eventually she told her mother.

"Why weren't you using contraception?" her mother asked.

Jack drove Indigo, Indigo's mother thought it was good that Jack went in with Indigo. “Take some responsibility,” the mother said. The implication we couldn’t help but translate as he hadn’t taken any responsibility so far. We were ready to defend Jack, you know, because that is what you do.

There was an added complication to this story. You might remember that Indigo had a fantasy of having two men together, which she wanted Jack to fulfil with her boyfriend Campbell, which the two boys did.

“Yeah, we did,” said Jack. “We met one Saturday night at Indigo’s place. I got there before Campbell, but he arrived pretty soon after me.”

“What was he like?” I asked.

“Oh, he was a big, solid, handsome guy,” said Jack. “Pretty sexy, well hung, so it wasn’t lack of cock size she was craving.”

“And how did it go?” Liam asked.

“Oh, well, I guess it went pretty well,” said Jack. “She got two big guys who took turns enthusiastically fucking her, so I’m guessing the brief was fulfilled. I didn’t exactly ask her for a review afterwards.”

“Did you enjoy it?” I asked.

“Yeah, sure,” said Jack. “What guy isn’t going to enjoy sex.”

“Was it strange having Campbell there?” Liam asked.

“No, it wasn’t strange,” said Jack. “You know, I knew that was going to happen.”

“So, it wasn’t strange having another guy naked there with you?” I asked.

“No,” said Jack. “He had all the normal parts, there were no surprises.”

“Was it a turn on?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, I guess,” said Jack. “Three dimensional porn.”

“Did you mess around with Campbell?” I asked.

“No, not really,” said Jack. “We touched each other’s cocks. I pushed his hardon back in when it slipped out of her at one point, But nothing really.”

“Would you do it again?” I asked.

“With Indigo and Campbell?”

“Yes.”

“Yes,” said Jack. “I would.”

Of course, the complication arose when Indigo turned up pregnant a few weeks later.

“So, the three of you didn’t use condoms?” asked Liam.

“No,” said Jack.

“The three of you had unprotected sex?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Jack.

“Really? Have you learned nothing?” said Liam.

They had to get a paternity test. Jack and Campbell went together to give their sperm.

“It was kind of a turn on, seeing the two boys going together to provide their samples,” said Indigo.

“You and Campbell went together?” asked Liam.

“Yes,” said Jack. “It was no big deal. Campbell is a nice guy.”

“So, how did it go?” I asked.

“Oh, we got a few looks from the nurses,” said Jack. He laughed at the thought. “Especially, when we suggested we could go in together in the same room to produce the sample.”

“You didn’t.” asked Liam.

“It’s not like I hadn’t seen Campbell cum,” said Jack. “The two of us thought it was no big deal.”

“So, did you?” I asked.

“Nah,” said Jack. “The nurses were a bit weirded out about it.”

So, Indigo and Jack were in the waiting room of the abortion clinic, moments away from their termination appointment, when Indigo’s phone rang.

“It’s Phoenix,” said Indigo. Her older sister.

Jack shrugged at the thought. “I was way too nervous to be caring about a phone call from her sister.”

Indigo’s sister Phoenix was in the last stages of IVF, where nothing had worked. She was pretty much at the end of her fertility journey, pretty quickly having to accept that she would never be a parent.

“Oh, I see.”

“You can see where this is going?” asked Jack.

“I can.”

“Well, it was really curios timing,” said Jack. “But Indigo hadn’t said much about the pregnancy due to the Campbell/Jack complication. And after it was ascertained whose baby it was, it all moved really quickly after that.”

“So, she hadn’t told her sister?”

“No,” said Jack. “She had meant to, as she and Phoenix were really close, but as I said time just got away.”

“So, what happened?”

“So, what happened,” repeated Jack. “Just by chance, really, Phoenix turned up at their mum’s place unexpected for a cup of tea, and at some point in the conversation Annie told Phoenix.

“Unexpectedly met up?”

“Yes,” said Jack. “It was really serendipitous.”

“And Phoenix’s reaction?”

“She called and begged Indigo not to go through with the abortion.”

“At the eleventh hour?”

“The nurse was calling Indigo’s name as she was still on the call to Phoenix,” said Jack. “That is how close it was.”

“Amazing.”

“She got off the phone in tears,” said Jack. “She looked at me saying that we had to go. She apologised to everyone at the clinic, it was really a major scene.”

“And she gave birth to Hugo.”

“Six months later,” said Jack. “Handing him to Phoenix almost immediately.”

“And he’s doing well?”

“He is doing well,” said Jack. He couldn’t help but smile.

Jack & Chris

Then there was Chris. He was the sweetest, nicest, loveliest guy you would ever meet. Everybody loved Chris. He and his boyfriend, Mark, became a part of our party set.

Chris is a handsome boy of Asian heritage, Mark is a handsome boy of Dutch heritage.

Jack and Chris were boyfriends too, to which Jack never really admitted. The beautiful Chris, we were all beguiled by him, so we all understood. 

Not that it was a secret exactly, the last year Jack lived with us, Chris was a regular inclusion on the couch midday Sunday. Dance music playing, the 5am kind of dance music. Jack and Chris would be in the corner of the couch in each other’s arms, having showered and changed, rubbing and caressing each other, looking balefully into each other’s eyes, for hours before retiring to J’s room not seen again till morning.

 “If ever I was to cross over,” Jack always said. “Chris would be the person I’d do it with.”

“At first retiring to Jack’s room was all innocent. We’d get into bed and cuddle until we fell asleep,” Chris said. “Jack and I fall asleep really quickly.” Chris never wanted to tell us the details, he said it was unnatural for his father and step father to want to know the gory details.

“I don’t want to know if he’s any good at it,” said Liam. “I just want to know if he’s happy.”

“I just want to know the truth,” I said. Jack had never really convinced me that the obviously love struck Chris wasn’t going to eventually put a move on his very own Tarzan? It didn’t add up.

Jack and Chris would be out on the weekends at the clubs hand in hand. Seemingly, only with eyes for each other. Chris certainly looked like he was in love, so did Jack, really.

Chris’ boyfriend kind of faded into the back ground. Chris would never really say that he’d split up from Mark, but Mark was also not really seen again.

While Chris was at our place, cuddled up with Jack. Or they were in Marie’s house together.

“Should I be worried about Jack?” Marie stopped me in the street one day.

“Why?” I asked.

“Chris sleeps over on the weekends,” said Marie. “He sleeps with Jack in Jack’s bed.”

“What would you be worried about?” I asked.

“Well.” Marie pulled a face. “You know?”

“No, no I don’t, that is why I asked.”

“What are they doing when they sleep together,” she said.

“Really?” I laughed.

Marie pulled a very stern face.

“Do you really want to know?” I asked.

“Yes, sure I do,” said Marie. “I don’t think it is strange that I want to know what’s going on when my son sleeps with a gay boy every weekend.”

“Well, then ask him,” I said. “If you really want to know.”

“And this has nothing to do with Chris,” said Marie. “If Jack was going to have a boyfriend,” she laughed nervously. “I’d want it to be Chris, he is lovely. But Jack is supposed to be straight.”

“What if they are having sex?” I asked. “What if they are banging each other’s brains out?”

Marie sighed loudly. “Well.” She took a big breath. She shook her head. “I’d just want to know if this is, um, a, um… is Jack gay?”

“Well, he doesn’t have to be,” I said. “Straight guys have sex with men all the time…”

“Don’t give me that, it ruins people’s lives…”

“Jack is single, Marie, he’s not effecting anyone’s life…”

“But, is it a good thing,” said Marie. “Isn’t he confusing himself?”

I shrugged. “Ask him.”

Marie focused her gaze on me. “Ask him? Yes, yes, of course you are right. Ask him.” The intensity disappeared out of her voice like a deflating balloon.

Chris coyly admitted one night when he and I had sat up smoking what seemed like an endless stream of joints, that while it started really beautifully, with Jack, and rather romantically, and it could quite likely have stayed that way was it not for him waking up to Jack’s near naked physical form.

One morning, after Chris rolled over in bed, and took Jack in his arms, with Jack taking Chris in his arms, they kissed. They had kissed before, but this morning the simple kiss turned really very passionate seemingly quite beyond either of their control.

Chris’ body rubbed up against Jack, and instead of the gesture dying away, Jack didn’t let go, or back down. Chris’ and Jack’s legs were entwined as their lips locked and they gently rubbed each other’s hard-ons together before they even realised what they were doing.

Jack’s hands rubbed down the sides of Chris’ torso, his fingers catching in the waistband of Chris’s trunks, 

Chris wasn’t even sure that Jack meant to slide Chris’ undies down his thighs. It just seemed like tender touching, like they had done many times. But suddenly Chris was naked in Jack’s arms. 

Chris shrugged and blushed.

“Well,” I said. “I think you two make a cute couple.”

“We’re not a couple,” said Chris.

I shrugged and smiled.