Creamy Faces, Hand Jobs & A Taste of Ginger

Along with the usual run-of-the-mill stuff - raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens, that sort of shit - grooming products, wealthy men and free stuff are right up there on my list of favourite things. So, imagine my delight when I was invited by The Canadian to join him last night at a ‘men-only’ evening at Molton Brown in Chelsea. Spending a couple of hours ostensibly perusing the latest gunk pour homme from the gay Boots, with a glass of Asti and a mince pie, in the elevated environs of SW3, had ‘cruising potential’ written all over it, and given that the last time I popped into a Molton Brown I took home a lot more than Vitamin Lip Saver, I rather fancied my chances.

We met up for coffee beforehand to catch up; despite it only being a week since we had last seen each other, The Canadian’s sex life is so dizzyingly active that I knew there would be tales to tell, and sure enough an hour and a half went by before he’d finished bringing me up to speed. It’s hardly surprising that he gets so much action. TC is an implausibly chiselled, tanned, toned, doe-eyed, deep-voiced hunk of gorgeousness blessed not only with Abercrombie-model good looks but also a razor-sharp mind and deeply kind heart. Since coming out in his twenties, TC had been the poster boy for serial monogamy; his first relationship lasted four years, the next eight, the one after that a ‘mere’ nine months, with nary a pause for breath in between. Finding himself single after the last relationship – an intense, emotional-rollercoaster of a half-year with a fiercely intelligent and terribly pretty Turkish student – abruptly ended, TC has since given himself over to the pleasures of clubbing, networking and online-dating, all of which has resulted in his having a seemingly inexhaustible line of suitors beating down his door.

Satisfied that I had been fully apprised of all current inamorati – one American, one German, one Mexican, one Brazilian, one British, a veritable United Nations of anal – off we trotted to the King’s Road for what I hoped would be an evening of, to steal from the play, Shopping and Fucking. Sadly the latter was not to be, for imagine our surprise and disappointment that we were the only people there! Maybe it was the tornado hitting north London (good aim, God), perhaps the miserable drizzle, or just that Chelsea queers are far too well off to want a free facial, whatever the cause we were all alone with just five shop-girls and a roomful of products for company.

And OH how much fun that turned out to be! Complimentary drinks and nibbles; a full facial with amino eye treatment; a hand and arm massage (I was *amazed* at the difference); laughs with the ladies all of whom fell completely under our spell; and to top it all off a goodie bag packed to the rope handles with handy size oddments, including enough of my favourite shower gel to see me through Christmas, a bar of Green & Blacks Ginger (everyone should have a taste of ginger once in a while as I like to tell the boys) and – bizarrely – a golf ball, which made us both feel terribly rugged and macho. Inasmuch as one can be ‘terribly rugged and macho’ mincing arm-in-arm down the King’s Road swinging a Molton Brown bag and pointing at boys screaming ‘Oooh he’s GAWGEOUS!’

Next week TC is taking me to my first gay wedding which should provide fertile ground for getting some rectal pleasure; if it doesn’t I might as well hang up my lube pump and admit defeat. Watch this space!

Annual Report 2006

Wednesday marked the one year anniversary of my becoming single (thirty followed later, and I’ve always been fabulous) and I invariably got to reflecting on those twelve months of bachelorhood and what being single, after so long of being otherwise, had meant to me. It wasn’t a melancholy kind of reflection – I know now as I did then, with absolute certainty, that the divorce was the right thing – but nor was I celebrating my ‘freedom’ or anything tacky like that; I simply gave myself time and space to take stock and produce a mental ‘annual report’ on my year of singledom, and realised contentedly that it’s been a pretty fun year.

For the first few months after D-I-V-O-R-C-E Day, I might as well have checked into a monastery. I had no sexual urges whatsoever (astonishing considering I’d had them pretty much non-stop for the preceding 29-and-a-half years), I felt unsociable and, ironically given my problems with the demon drink in recent months, I was very wary of drinking lest I slip into the same spiral of self-neglect and self-harm as I had after Divorce #1. Christmas and New Year came and went in a blur, and as 2006 began I settled into a blissful domesticity of sorts, sharing Big Sister’s flat while half-heartedly looking for one of my own. Most evenings not spent with her or one or more of The Inner Circle would be spent in front of the TV with a sofa supper and a bottle of red (or two), which whilst being healing for the heart and soul was hardly conducive to finding cock and bum fun. I contented myself with the odd visit to The American, to whom my newly-single status was the green light he’d been waiting for, his own marital status being for his conscience not mine.

Round about Easter time, Spring having sprung and my libido reborn with it, I got back into the saddle in spectacular style with a threesome that lasted thirty-six hours (including rest-breaks for cigarettes and ice-packs) which was fitting as that had been how I’d got over the last big break up; there must be something about being the guest star that appeals to my raging ego. Then a drunken trip to Pleasuredrome (my pores were looking like they needed a cleansing and I couldn’t afford a facial) led to my meeting a big burly Scotsman who in a moment of madness I exchanged numbers with; while that led to a very pleasurable few days of exchanging frankly filthy video messages, we never made it as far as actually meeting up so he got deleted and purged (though I confess I kept the messages.)

Then followed (in no particular order because to be honest loves I don’t remember) Daniel The Actor, who was absolutely beautiful but with whom I didn’t swap numbers, a fact I kicked myself over for days afterwards; Essex Boy, the very epitome of ‘straight-acting’ with whom I had a very successful date one, a disappointing date two and hence no date three; Mr Fashion, an astonishingly handsome (in fact pretty much Aryan) magazine editor who was great on paper (and between the sheets) but I think in reality I’d have felt in competition with; The Kid From Molton Brown, a 21-year old chunky monkey who I flirted with outrageously over the Warming Eucalyptus Bath & Shower Therapy and thus ended up bedding, certainly the best free gift with purchase I’ve ever had; The Brazilian Munchkin, who picked me up in the street walking home from The Hoist and dropped me home the next morning still in full leather regalia; The Deranged Irishman – about whom the less said the better; The Midget Spanish Hairdresser; and the one with the most longevity, Asda Boy, the closeted son of Sarf London, Irish Catholic gangster parents, youngest of six (one of whom had died of alcoholism) and with a scar on his back from a stab wound, who still makes an appearance from time to time and is very much my protégé.

Then along came Kit.

Until I met Kit I was, inwardly and I think visibly, happily single. But within just a few days of meeting him, a time during which we were all but inseparable, I let down my defences for the first time since the split and, while I wouldn’t say I was planning the wedding, I certainly allowed myself to open up to the possibility that it could turn into something more. When that didn’t happen – Kit suddenly and still, to my mind, inexplicably, got cold feet – I was amazed at how disappointed I felt, the disappointment being totally disproportionate to the length of time we’d known each other. I guess, as the song goes, a taste of honey’s worse than none at all.

BUT – I’m always one to bounce back, and after a couple of months of licking my Kit-inflicted wounds that’s what I have done. One year on and I’m happily thirty, happily single and, happily, fabulous. I’m looking good, feeling great, The Ex is high up on the ‘best friends’ list, the drinking’s under control and frankly, this boy is back in business.

Gentlemen and ladies this is my annual report and I commend it to the house!

Testing My Sobriety

After three full weeks of not drinking – not one single drop, sip or taste – I gave myself permission last weekend to start again, with a view to putting to the test whether, having proved to my satisfaction that I could go totally without, I could drink and keep it under control. During the week I’d had a long and enlightening conversation with Bubble, my Stateside friend who is in AA and has been sober now for 13 months. He – like all of the Inner Circle – has been incredibly supportive of my efforts and gave me some surprising but common sense advice: that the only way to be sure if I had a problem was not to abstain, but to drink.

The rationale behind this is that alcoholism, like all addictions, comes in many guises. Some people are alcohol-dependent; that is, they physically cannot get through a day, an hour or a minute without being drunk. For others, the drinking is the symptom, not the problem; they drink to mask or anaesthetise immediate or deeply-rooted emotional or psychological pain, so while they may not drink all the time, when they do, they do it to excess. Others still – and this is the category Bubble falls into – are alcohol-allergic; one drink, just one, triggers a reaction in the brain which removes the ability to stop, leading them to drink to oblivion for no other reason than that they cannot do otherwise.

Of these three types of alcoholism – and the list is by no means exhaustive – I felt by day 21 that I’d successfully discounted the first (cravings, whilst they occurred, were very few and far between and swiftly passed with a bit of self-coaching and a family-size mint Aero.) I took, several times, a good hard impassive look at my life to see if the second applied and decided that it did not; for all that I have, and have had, trouble in my life, I genuinely could not equate my drinking with being symptomatic of it. That left the third option, the alcohol allergy, and there was only one way to put that to the test. So it was that on Saturday last I tentatively took my first drink in three weeks.

The results were far from dramatic. It didn’t go ‘straight to my head’ as I’d thought it might, nor did it make me feel at all ill, as I’d feared it might. I felt neither relief nor pleasure; my overwhelming feeling was, if anything, of confusion. Confusion, because after so long abstaining, I’d unconsciously come to dissociate drinking alcohol from being a part of my routine, and so almost like a computer detecting rogue software, my brain struggled to comprehend what exactly a glass of wine was doing in my hands. I finished the glass very slowly, and shortly after went on to a 40th birthday party and from there, on to that classy Sarf London venue Los Dos Brewos, and not a drop further passed my lips. Experiment or no experiment, I just didn’t want to drink! Sure I was getting bored senseless of juice, Red Bull and water, but I wasn’t even tempted to vary it with something hard. (Although I was certainly gagging for something ‘hard’ but failed to find it – two weeks into not drinking, I mentioned to Glenda that on a stone-cold sober visit to Barcode, I’d been amazed at how few guys I’d found attractive without my trusty beer goggles of old. He chuckled and replied with his typical brevity and perceptiveness, “Sobriety is a harsh judge,” and how bloody right he was!)

Thinking it over the next day, I cautiously allowed myself to take the previous night’s abstinence as a good sign. But then I got to wondering, maybe I didn’t want more of the wine because it just wasn’t very nice wine? What would happen if I were to crack open a really good bottle; would I finish the lot? I needed to test this theory so later, invited to Margo and Jerry’s for lunch along with The Agony Uncles and Our Lady of Chappelle, I took with me a corker of a Cab Sauv and when the beef was served let Margo pour me a small glass. I sipped as I ate – interspersing each delicious mouthful with one of Pellegrino – and found that the one glass lasted me through the meal and indeed dessert. Cometh the cheese board, cometh the port, and I partook of a thimbleful; again, I savoured it, enjoyed it, finished it – but felt no urge at all to refill it. I still felt somehow guilty that after three weeks (sounds like nothing, doesn’t it?) I was ‘back on the bottle’ again, but I reassured myself that it was for research purposes and felt a lot better for that.

So where am I with it now? Well, I think it’s too early to say that I’ve got it fully under control. Sure, I managed to stop at one glass of wine; but I have yet to try that test on one beer, one cocktail or – my real Nemesis – one vodka. And try it I will; I need to know that I can control my drinking, as opposed to my non-drinking, for myself, and if I can’t, I need to think again about what I’m going to do about it.

So far, so damn good – I feel great, everyone says I look great, for the best part of a month I’ve not done or said a single thing I’m ashamed of, and as a very pleasant side-effect my money’s going a hell of a lot further. The support I’ve had from the Inner Circle has been, if not surprising, amazing and affirming. From regular words of encouragement and expressions of their pride, to the more subtle gestures such as inviting me for ‘a juice’ after work, the gang have accepted and respected my need to not drink and made sticking to it so much easier. Drinking responsibly though is, I think, likely to be a greater challenge yet than not drinking has been. Watch, as ever, this space!

Answer me this...?

I knew I’d need something to replace the booze and sure enough I have a new addiction – Yahoo Answers. I signed up a week ago and have already answered nine questions, ranging from one word (‘Campanology’ since you’re asking) to several paragraphs, and have now twice had my answer chosen as the best answer by the asker! The idea’s quite simple; you go on the site, look for open questions - or you can pick a category to browse – and if you know, or even think you know, the answer, you type it in and get points in return. If you want to ask a question, you pay with points to do so and just sit back and wait for the answers to start rolling in. The idea is that the bank of resolved questions will build up into a kind of searchable online oracle (or Orac for the Blakes 7 fans amongst you) covering everything from bell-ringing to bell-ends.

Some of the more straightforward questions I’ve answered so far include, ‘What are gay saunas all about?’ (God knows I should know enough about that particular topic) and ‘Where can I buy mens Prada shoes in a size 12?’ (ditto: I have five pairs) One of the more esoteric was, ‘I’ve been seeing a psychic and she told me my mate Scott’s gay. Should I tell him?’ (I said, in so many words, mind your own business; that got me best answer!) There’s a certain pleasure in sharing ones knowledge with complete strangers, as well as an arrogant satisfaction in thinking that you have the answer to someone’s dilemma, be that about shagging or shoes. I’m trying to limit myself to ten minutes or so a day, but as your points start accruing it gets like Nectar – you’ll never actually use the points, the fun is watching them build up. The more points you earn, the higher your level – I’m still a level 1 but believe you me I’m aiming for the top – and as you move up the levels you can rate other people’s answers, post comments…all too much fun for words.

It’s silly, it’s time consuming, but boy do I love it, and it’s a hell of a lot better seeking life’s answers online than at the bottom of a bottle of vodka!