Luxor Spring 1995

Luxor Spring 1995 Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Tuesday

Adam

So this makes three. Philip, Devon, and now young Benjamin. Or four, if I count Nigel. But wanking off just the once, at night under a tent in a campground on the Isle of Wight, doesn't count, does it? "Brilliant" was the only word uttered. By him, at the end, when it was obvious both of us had just made a mess of our sleeping bags. And Nigel is my cousin, my deranged, unstable, troublemaker of a cousin. That can't count. I decided the next morning that it didn't. Ten years later, I don't see why it now would. So three men. For eleven women. Twelve, if I count Siobhan twice, as our first fling was a one-time thing, two full years before we actually started to date. But if count Siobhan twice, I'd have to count Devon like, what, six or seven times?

The bus is finally speeding up a bit. We left the Valley of the Queens about thirty minutes ago and the drive back to the hotel seems to take twice as long as the trip to the site. It was dawn, granted. Or at least very early. But people in this country seem to wake up with the sun. I don't notice much difference in traffic. I think the bus is just so much slower. I feel distracted and I am sure it has to be obvious to anyone. It has to be. I can't seem to be able to focus on anything. "This is your trip", Siobhan had said curtly three months ago, when we were at the bookstore and I had asked her if she wanted to buy something on Egypt. It felt like a betrayal. It was indeed my dream to go to Luxor, it had been since I was a kid. But the favour she had done me with the necessary amount of grace when we had made all the bookings had suddenly become, within two seconds inside a bookstore, a begrudged compromise with a capricious bore. So this is my trip, I had decided. This is my trip, I have been reminding myself whenever I hear or see her cross, sunburned, impatient, or bored. It's okay, we're in bloody Egypt, this is fantastic. She's aloof all the time, but the sun will make her beautiful within days; she forgot my biography of Howard Carter, but I've bought a John Grisham at the airport. She finds the people at the hotel boring and snotty, but I think our tour guide is just terrific. She says she can't believe Americans really are everywhere. I can't believe I sucked Benjamin's cock last night. And I can't believe I just said this. But "this is your trip", she had said.

"What am I feeling?" have I been constantly thinking since last night, the way a hypochondriac might constantly check his pulse. Like my dad. I wish I could say I don't feel anything. Or much. I wish I could be that guy. But I'm flustered and distracted, quivered and cracked by feelings. I'm just not sure what they are. Guilt and lust are obvious, but they're not really feelings, aren't they? Cause and effect, my English teacher used to say. Cause and effect.

I should concentrate. Compare and contrast. Rationalize. Shake myself into clarity. The heat is so brutal, though. My polo shirt has been sloppily stuck to my back for the last three hours. The inside of my armpits and groin feel unpleasantly damp, my whole face feels sickly moist. Siobhan is dozing next to me and her sunburned body seems to radiate out all the heat accumulated during our tour of the Valley. Benjamin is sitting a couple of seats ahead, on the aisle like me, but the other side. I can only see about, what, a third of his face? I can see his left ear. His brown hair, a little curly. I can see him fidgeting, crossing and uncrossing his legs, raising his left foot against the seat in front of him. The old Welsh lady sitting ahead turns around and scorns him with a darting look. I can see his hand, occasionally rubbing his thigh, slightly pulling up his green cargo shorts, or his fingers, slowly going through the hair on his calf. I know he knows I'm watching. That's our thing, apparently.

He's been watching me the whole morning, though. Just as he has since he arrived, since this thing started. He's a bit different today, however. I think. He's less menacing, less pressing, less abrasive somehow. There was a lot of walking again today, sites to go through, tombs to sneak in. The Valley of the Nobles and the Valley of the Queens. The Kings are for tomorrow, as if we have to climb the social ladder ourselves. Benjamin smiled a couple of times, looking at me, when the tour guide or his chatty father made some kind of joke. That was nice.

Clarity. Compare and contrast. With what? We agreed Nigel doesn't count. So, Philip. And Devon. Easy, it's nothing like Devon. I didn't really like Devon. He was one of my flatmates at Uni. Buff rugby player, posh but a bit rogue. A blond rich young man with some kind of inherited title, but who liked to play the lad. Heavy drinker, fixed up with Lara Double Surname, average student, party boy. Didn't go home much during weekends, as opposed to Eric, Liam and me, who all lived somewhere in South London, barely an hour away from Brighton.

I once came back to the flat a few hours after I had left it, having decided that the weekend alone in Brighton would be more pleasant than enduring my Aunt's surprise visit ("Have my room, please, really, I insist"). I heard loud sex noises as soon as I stepped in. Two men, obviously. Then panicky shuffling. I went straight to my room and heard someone leave. It wasn't before dinner time that Devon acknowledged what I had stumbled into. Detached, blasé, almost disdainful, he stated as a matter of fact that buggery (his word) was cool sometimes. He claimed not to care what I thought (I didn't think anything) but still, not quite casually, suggested I don't tell anyone. "These twats wouldn't get it", he claimed, but he didn't say who these twats precisely were. I assumed he meant the world-at-large, as everyone was a twat to Devon until otherwise proven.

The whole thing was never brought up by either of us for a few weeks until one night, when we were alone in the flat and had ordered pizza. A rather attractive young Italian had delivered it and as soon as he had left, Devon winked and said "This was almost like a gay porn set-up, wasn't it?" I had never seen gay porn and my face must have been blank. He blushed, very much alone in his attempt at coarseness. Which made me feel inadequate, for some reason. After eating, and lounging on the couch, I asked if he still engaged in the "buggery thing". His face closed off, but nodded yes. "Who are these guys? Where do you find them?"

"They're strangers. Real men." He said, with a hint of aggression. He seemed to imply that these men were nothing like me, at least on these two counts. That's how I took it.

"I've fooled around with guys too, you know. Well, one guy in particular."

"Okay", he said, feigning indifference, while his body was slowly shuffling towards me.

"Yes."

He turned off the telly, which we had been distractedly watching. I couldn't read into the silence that followed.

"Well, you want to play?" he finally said, looking straight at me with puzzlement.

And we did. We engaged in what I had come to assume was the typical stuff that went on between two young guys. I was never fully and wholly in the action, however, being constantly distracted by how different sex with Devon was from what I had experienced many times over with Philip. His body especially seemed completely foreign to me. He was blond and tanned, short and beefy, whereas Philip had been, much like me, brown, pale, lean. Devon was a bull, whereas Philip had been a horse. Or something like that.

I came to my senses when I realized Devon was trying to penetrate me. I had not foreseen that, as actual intercourse had not been part of my experience with Philip, except for that one fateful time. I tensed. He couldn't get in. He became limp. And irritated.

"Do me", he simply said and led me to his bed, positioning himself on all fours with an ease and swiftness I recalled, weeks later, when he told me being fucked (in that position) is all he does with all these strangers, these real men. I had never "done" a man before, but I "did" Devon. It felt dirty, debauched, but terribly exciting. I didn't last long, which seemed to renew his irritation. He wanked himself off, still on all fours, isolating his thoughts, attention and orgasm from me, who was left panting on the edge of the bed.

It happened again, a few times over the course of the following two years. Seven or six times is still my estimate. Nothing transpired to anyone, not to our flatmates, not to Lara, not to my own occasional girlfriends, not to any twats Devon had warned me against. Nothing actually changed between us either, as his attitude towards me stayed absolutely constant. But we would fuck every once in a while, always at his suggestion, always in his room, always in the same position. He didn't bother with foreplay, an omission I was fine with, as cuddling, kissing or hugging Devon was never something I had craved. He never said much before, during (except "harder", repeatedly and commandingly) or after. Except that one time, when he was still drunk after we had both climaxed, and he started to confide, without prompting on my part, about his experiences, his lust and his needs. He spoke fast. A torrent of filth, really; a flood of smut. I didn't say anything, listened and kept wishing I could take a cleansing shower.

Benjamin just turned back briefly and flashed me a faint, yet cheerful, smile. Gosh, he is beautiful. To me. Why did he smile? Maybe because we're approaching the hotel. I recognize the row of resorts on this avenue. We're only a few minutes away. I feel so happy right now. And I don't have an erection. That must mean something. What am I feeling?

* * *

Siobhan and I are skipping lunch again. We only paid for half-board, she pointedly reminds me. She just got out of the cold shower she had rushed to as soon as we had stepped out of the bus. She is never as beautiful as when she dries herself, naked with damp hair. Her sun-blotched body is a little disgraceful right now, but she seems calm, fresh to the touch, soap-smelling, unadorned with make-up or clothes that don't always suit her or fit who she really is.

I know I have an hour or so of respite. Benjamin and his father will probably take a shower too, will surely have lunch (they look like full-board guests, like people who can afford it). It's a time I want to use not to think. I'm ready to step in the shower myself and Siobhan is still standing naked in front of the mirror. I lightly grab her shoulders with both my hands, my eyes meeting hers in our reflection. I lift her long wet hair sideways and plant a small kiss on her neck. She looks at me, intrigued.

I hate it when she meets my gesture of physical affection with puzzlement. It chides me a little. She had that same look, I think, two nights ago, when I initiated sex. It was very dark in the room and I had just turned off the light, but I'm pretty sure I caught it. It was the first night I had seen, and watched, Benjamin from our balcony. He had just essentially stripped for me and stood brazenly naked by his own window. By the time I fully took in the suffocating appeal of his actions, he had abruptly shut his curtains. As I laid in bed seconds later, I put my hand on Siobhan's shoulder blade. The touch of skin felt like a sparkle and despite indications that she might be sleeping, I pulled her gently towards me, caressed her and, in our usual somewhat rapid sequence, entered her.

My mind was buzzing with the fresh image of a naked, peering Benjamin and I imagined him watching us, watching me fucking my wife. This intensified the pleasure and, I could feel it, my own hardness. The fantasy slowly morphed into Benjamin fucking my wife, me somehow floating above them. Then, and I'm not sure I'll be able to aptly describe this, I became Benjamin (Benjamin became me?), that is, I was Benjamin fucking Siobhan. Or rather, and this is accurate I think, I was Benjamin fucking a woman. And I was good. I was really good. I was powerful, and gentle, and skilful. It felt incredible and intense. So did the orgasm that followed, sooner than usual, but not too soon as not to give time to Siobhan to reach her own. I think.

We didn't talk about it. Nor should we have. I don't think it's usual for a married couple to actually discuss and dissect their sex life, is it? Part of me wished she had acknowledged the wonderful moment I believed we had shared; I can use the validation, occasionally. But another part was probably uneasy with what had ignited and amplified it. Some things are better left unsaid.

I step into the shower, caressing on my way the small of her back, and turn on the water. I don't have an erection. That doesn't have to mean anything.

* * *

I wish it was winter. A sunny, briskly cold winter. Benjamin would have to wear layers of clothing. A scarf, rubbing the very light stubble he sports on his chin. A hat, maybe, pulled down just above his dark blue eyes. We could sneak somewhere. Meet in a secluded, quiet, private place. And I could remove all these layers, one by one. Gloves would reveal his strong hands. Coat, sweater, shirt, undershirt would slowly draw the sharp features of his chest and arms. It would take time. I could ease my way into lust.

His constant near-nakedness is unsettling and aggressive. It's only in the evenings that a long-sleeved shirt, actual pants, as well as socks and shoes cloak him with some endurable decency. All day long, however, his tanning bare body parts are free and authorized to unleash their constant assault on my self-control.

"I can't control myself", my friend Liam had tried to explain me, about six months ago, after his wife had left him. He had made no secret to me of his infidelities; he had bragged a bit about his shags with women from work or from pubs in cities he had to travel to. A disgruntled secretary had eventually bitterly spilled the beans to his wife and his marriage was shattered. So was his life, according to him. "I just can't control myself."

Liam opening up was a rare occurrence and when he did finally gut himself apart, after just two Guinnesses at the pub, what he displayed seemed lame and trite. An easy cop out. Control is something I had become excellent at practising. Control was the one obvious thing you have to learn to master when you become an adult, when you commit, when you move forward in life. If I can do it (and endure the pain and tugging and pulling), why couldn't he? If I have to do it, why shouldn't anyone else?

Control is discipline and structure. It's a compromise, with yourself, with your spouse, with the potentialities that life throws at your face. It's exercising choice, implementing your decisions, managing their practicalities. I have sex about once a month. With my wife. It works for us. I masturbate once a week. It works for me. I get along with people, with my parents, with my sister, with my in-laws. I tried to have everyone getting along too (my Mum doesn't like Siobhan, though, but there's only so much one can do).

"Are you and Siobhan really happy?" Liam had asked, either looking for advice or commiseration. "Yes, of course", I replied tersely, striving intensely hard not to throw a punch at his pathetic puffed-up face. Fuck you, Liam. Fuck you then, and fuck you now. My self-control is dissolving, yes. I am dissolving. But this is nothing like your shagging your bimbo sluts. They wiggle their tits to tug at your prick; this man, this beautiful man, is stabbing my brains, my heart, my guts. But I am fine. I really am. I can handle this, I have before. Though not quite like this, not when I'm married, not when a man is himself clawing at me.

A loud splashing sound shakes me out of my dozing. I open my eyes, cover them with my hand from the blinding sun. The surface of the pool seems empty but chopped. I can now see a figure swimming under water, moving gracefully and blurrily towards my direction. Then Benjamin suddenly emerges, gasping for air, reaching the concrete edge. He rests both his arms on it, shakes his head forcefully, spreading drops of water all around. He spits some water, breathes in and out, and opens his eyes. He stares at me, briefly, then smiles, then pushes himself backwards, then inhales fully, then slides back into the water, swimming back towards his starting point.

He is sitting on the pool steps, eyes closed, facing up towards the sun, drying up his dripping body, his legs spread wide. On a whim, I stand up and dive in the pool. It's only when I'm moving under water, briskly cooled by the sudden drop in temperature that I need to figure out what I'll do next. I settle for swimming laps, a natural and common enough activity for me. I start going back and forth. From one end of the pool to another, from Benjamin to Siobhan and back. I notice my wife briefly looking up from her magazine, I register Benjamin watching me discreetly, while chatting casually with his father, seated behind him under an umbrella. The swim is actually invigorating. Just as Benjamin's room had felt like a secure haven for us to pretend the rest of the world didn't exist, this pool too feels like a safe vacuum, isolating us somehow from the crowd sunbathing and lounging all around us. The pool is ours, he stretches out, I swim. And I swim some more. I don't want to get out of the water, I want to stay with him, to keep floating in this suspended time.

* * *

Clarity. Compare and contrast. Philip. I liked Philip; I really, really, bloody liked him. He was not beautiful; bespectacled, pasty, rather shapeless. "How come I have a girlfriend and you don't? I mean, look at you, look at me", he once quipped. I got myself a girlfriend shortly afterwards.

Philip was not dangerous, not at first. He was reserved and bookish, yet opened up with me. Only with me, I liked to think. He became vibrant, energetic and luminous. We were both sixteen when we met, eighteen when I last heard from him. For two years, we were inseparable. We didn't go to the same school but belonged to the same chess club at our local library. We spent afternoons cycling, we played board games obsessively, we went to the movies all the time (we once saw "Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom" three times in a row), we went camping often, we slept at each other's places on a weekly basis. We talked about everything: computers, sports, my stiff parents and his separating ones, TV shows, school and the prospects of Uni, the loss of his virginity, our shared inability to keep our girlfriends interested. We did a tour of Europe by train one summer. There was a lot of rain, I remember.

And we kissed. All the time. We held hands, whenever alone. I don't think we ever spent a night together without falling asleep spooning. All of this came naturally and quickly. I don't even remember the first times of any of these mileposts. But I still remember the feeling of squeezing into a single sleeping bag together. I remember the clutch of his hand on mine when we ran through a storm. I don't cringe at the banality of these beautiful moments. They're mine and, yes, I cherish them.

It did become more sexual, of course it did. It was tentative at first. We gave each other blow jobs in the woods once, about eight months after we had become fast friends. He displayed amusement and pleasure, the right attitude to make me feel comfortable and to make us at ease to do it again a month later. It then became a regular occurrence. So did mutual masturbation. The whole thing was lovely, really.

I became visibly anxious early in the summer before university. I was headed to Brighton, he had chosen Hull. I probably became a little needy, enough at least to disrupt the smooth balance of our relationship (a word we never used), to scratch at the bundle of unsaid feelings and unacknowledged implications of our bonding. I noticed he started to talk about girls and heterosexual sex much more, with a gauche bravado.

One night, towards the end of that summer, I let it all out, vomiting my feelings all over him, using as only precaution the systematic substitution of "like" for "love". He was uneasy, but took me in his arms. I used everything I knew about him and his body (and I knew plenty) to work him into an erection. The sex we had seemed perfunctory and half-hearted until I motioned him into a position that clearly indicated my wanting for him to penetrate me. He blushed and frowned. But he then spat on his fingers and translated the meagre inserting skills he had acquired with this one girl to enter me.

My body exploded, its smithereens circling around, crashing and pounding ceaselessly for the twenty minutes that Philip lasted inside me. I had never felt anything like it, I had never felt such a need to possess him so wholly, I had never felt such little control over my own self. I had never loved him more.

He was obviously uneasy when we had finished. Very obviously. A little angry too? He never picked up the phone the next day when I called; his mother kept taking messages throughout the week. I have never heard from him ever since.

Here too control and discipline and structure have helped. I once tried to picture Philip when I was fucking Devon. It didn't work, I felt like sullying the image of him I was struggling to maintain, the image of him I used to suppress the memories of that last, fateful night: Philip smiling, removing his spectacles to kiss me, taking my hand, carrying me somewhere new, nice and lovely.

If I'm gay, I'd be a terrible gay man. A gay man for whom topping is dirty, and bottoming inevitably leads to rejection, humiliation and collapsing pain.

* * *

My arms and shoulders are sore. How long have I been swimming? Siobhan seems to have dozed off again. Why is she always so tired? Benjamin is standing up, telling his father (loudly enough for me to hear) that he's going to the bathroom.

So that's my cue. Do I have a say in this? Can I lead this dance for once? Of course, I can. I just don't. I just lay there, I eat, lounge, watch, swim, just waiting for my cue. Wait, Adam, for Devon to tell you to fuck him. This is the time of the month, Adam, to make love to your wife. You better enjoy this trip, Adam, because "this is your trip"; just don't have lunch, because we're only half-board guests. Gosh, I could just cry, sometimes. Or scream.

I want to scream. Where can I go and scream? Where can anyone scream, just the once, really loud, really long, shattering one's whole body?

I lift myself out of the pool and wrap myself with the towel. I close my eyes and breathe. And I head to the bathroom, leaving a gently snoring Siobhan behind. She could follow me, she could follow the wet imprints of my feet as I march towards where I'm expected to go. Except these traces dry and disappear almost instantly, and I realise my fast pace might just be due to the scorching heat of the concrete burning my soles.

The bathroom is plastered with Arabic orange-brown tiles, with two cubicles, two urinals and two sinks. Benjamin is washing his hands. Or pretending to. His back, tan and strong, is what greets me, then his look in the mirror, showing relief and a bit of excitement.

"I wasn't sure you heard my signal", he smiles, not turning around, looking at me intently in the mirror.

"I didn't, actually", I lie. "But I noticed you were gone and I chose to look for you. I decided to check in here first, though you might have just gone up to your room".

He finally turns around and steps towards me. "You're a good swimmer", he says, looking for something to say.

I reach for his hands, grab them gently and pull him towards me. I turn him so his back would rest against the door, blocking any potential intruder. He looks at me searchingly, a gaze that mellows and softens me instantly. I lean slowly and kiss him softly, my lips grazing his own. I cup his head between my two hands and kiss his ear, his cheekbone, his chin, his neck, then move back up towards his lips. He kisses me back, with a skill and a tenderness that I don't expect. Our tongues roll around and it feels like the best kiss I've ever had. It surely isn't true, but that's what it feels like at this moment. That's what all perfect kisses feel like.

The only sound is the fall of water drops from our soaked swim trunks on to the tiles. I become a bit distracted by my erection. I become more distracted by his own. But it doesn't have to lead to anything. It's actually quite fantastic to feel these two little monsters wiggle around, rubbing each other, having their own conversation down there while our mouths are busying themselves at sealing a tenderness that has been absent so far from our encounters. I grab his hands with mine and squeeze them forcefully, completing a sort of holy trinity: horniness, tenderness, strength.

* * *

I have about fifteen minutes to myself. Twenty, maybe? I don't know. The sun is setting, but I can't figure out how much time I have left until it disappears behind the hills across the Nile. I used to be pretty good at that. I am pretty good at that. I'd say fifteen minutes, by the look of it.

Benjamin's left, along with his father. A quick parting glance from him, blushing bliss for me. Siobhan's just left too. I'm actually alone around the pool right now, except for the pool attendant who's started to tidy things up. I may be in his way. But I actually don't care, it can't be appalling manners to enjoy the pool until the sun is actually set.

I can't seem to concentrate on anything, on any thought. Which is fine, except that I feel I should use these fifteen minutes to take stock, I guess, to make sense of it all. I try to think about Philip, feeling that I could actually think about him without the usual piercing pain. But I see my feet and wiggle my toes. I try to think about being Benjamin's age and whether I'd have been so brazenly forward with a man in his late twenties, when I was myself eighteen. I start to compare times, eras really, and what it means - what it feels - to be attracted to a man in the mid-eighties and ten years later, today. But then I look at my hands, close one into a fist, then open that fist, then remember it wrapped around Benjamin's cock. I think about his cock now, of course I do. I try to think about next week, about next month. I dare myself to, as if I ought to face the anguish. But I can't, not really. I look at the small gardens around me and I remember a sunflower.

A couple of years ago, Siobhan had decided to plant some sunflowers in the back corner of our small garden. They had grown rather nicely, thanks to a warm and sunny summer. By the fall, however, she had decided she didn't like them any longer and had quite ferociously slashed and pulled them. I witnessed the following summer that one had apparently survived my wife's wrath. It was a single sunflower, standing rather proud and valiant, even if looking at bit desolate and alone among untended weeds. That summer, however, proved to be one of the worsts, even by British standards. The sun rarely shone and the temperatures were well below the season averages. In this grey and damp environment, the enduring sunflower seemed to be stunted in its development. Its flower was never more than a bulging, unopened round burgeon. Whenever I saw it, which was rarely, I did hope that for its sake alone, summer would finally deliver on its promise of light and warmth, feeding the flower with its essential nutrients, giving it the strength to bloom and realize its own potential. It never did. I kept expecting Siobhan to tear it out, either to end its suffering or to dispense of a useless failure of an organism ("uselessness" was one of her most common, and visceral, aversion). She didn't. She and I both very much ignored the sun-deprived flower and let it rot slowly, still standing.

* * *

Dinners are usually when my wife and I manage to relax and be more comfortable around each other. It has been so for a while now. It may have something to do with leaving work troubles and everyday stress behind, transitioning to a silently cosy evening in front of the telly. Or it is the wine. Siobhan and I have come to drink a lot of red wine in the evenings.

The wine here is quite nice. I like it, at least. And I love the buffet. Siobhan thinks it "not very classy", but I love the variety, the possibilities, and the fact that you're the one who chooses when to stop. My habit with buffet is to stuff my plate with as much food as I can. "It's not like you've been through the war, Adam. You can pace yourself, there's no rationing", she usually chides. I play it differently now, though. I help myself with less and go back often. Because each trip to the buffet has come to mean an encounter with Benjamin. I pass by his table and smile, we walk past each other and discreetly bump, we stand by each other pretending to scan all the dishes but whisper cute things like "you're so hot tonight" or "I really want to kiss you again". I feed off these stolen moments just as voraciously as I do on the more than decent international food that half-fills my plates. Forty-five minutes ago, at the soup buffet, he even made me feel beautiful.

I have to control my giddiness, but the wine doesn't help with that. I have tiny, split-second-long panic attacks about Siobhan potentially launching into a conversation more grave or important than I can possibly handle. Like us having a baby. Although she hasn't brought this up for a long while now.

So I make her talk. And she does, gradually more open and engaged. I make her talk about her dad (one of her favourite subject), I make her talk about her job, I make her talk about her childhood (also something she loves dwelling on). And I find her lovely and beautiful. And it breaks my heart, also for a split-second. I feel inadequate and undeserving. Then I excuse myself to go quickly to the buffet ("Hold that thought, my darling, I'll be right back") and I get a fix of my drug, of Benjamin's carefree and luminous flirtation. I come back, recharged and ready.

Tonight is the first night that Benjamin and his father leave the dining room before we do. I am not scared. I'm curious and excited about what will happen. Soon. As soon as Siobhan empties her glass and wraps up this story about her uncle. She does and we both make our way out, she obviously a little tipsy. I don't even have to tell her I want to relax a bit out there; she knows well enough that this is part of my ritual, every night, my own transitioning exercise, the buffer between the day and the night. Fifteen minutes (sometimes more, sometimes less) that belong just to me. She's always asleep by the time I've brushed my teeth, slipped on my pyjamas and joined her in bed.

She cursorily waves me goodnight, yawning. I head slowly to the pool, by now our traditional rendezvous point. I shudder. I remember last night, blurrily. I remember losing myself in the moment, surrendering to an unmanageable lust. "I can't control myself", Liam had said. The floodgates opened last night. I see myself with Benjamin's cock in my mouth; I see my tongue darting into his bellybutton; I see my hand clutching the muscles of his arms; I see my fingers kneading into his thighs; I see my lips playing with his testicles or sucking on his ankles. I can still feel drops of his semen on the tip of my nose.

Clarity. Compare and contrast. Well, no. I'm heading out. I'm meeting him. He is right there, by the pool, in the dark, standing up, waiting. I stop. Are we going up? He starts moving, but not in my direction, not in the direction of the stairs leading to his room. He's walking slowly, making sure that I follow him. So I do.

There are a few steps after the pool area and the bushes of laurel. There is a patch of grass and flowers, then a wall. But I know there's a door in that wall, which you can open with your room key. Behind that door, behind that wall, is a whole other world. The real world, I guess. A dusty large path, forming some sort of bank for the Nile. There is a small wooden dock there too, where a bunch of feluccas are stationed. I've glanced at it in my short exploration on the first day here.

Benjamin is holding the door open for me. I pass him and step out, apprehensive and dumbfounded.

"What are we doing here?" I whisper. There is nobody around and it's almost pitch black, until my eyes slowly adjust.

"This is a bit more private. We can talk here. We could just sit down and talk. We're in Egypt, we are steps away from the fucking Nile. It's amazing." He knows I'm not convinced. He is either perplexed or irritated.

"Yes, indeed", I say, looking around, hesitant and uneasy. Instead of sitting next to him, I take a few steps towards the Nile. It's so dark. It's bloody scary. I don't know why my breathing starts to be arduous. I am sweating. It's maddeningly silent, but I keep expecting people, locals, to emerge from the darkness and start shouting at us in their incomprehensible language. We could be mugged here, lynched or mobbed. We're two men, alone in the night; I wear a double scarlet letter on my forehead: I'm an adulterer and a faggot.

This is all wrong.

Let me go back inside, I scream silently. We could have gone by the pool if it wasn't so exposed. The pool is nice, it works well for us. Let me go back to our bathroom, because, yes, it's our bathroom now. Let me go back to his room, to his dimmed, safe, tantalizing room. Let me bury my face in his groin again, in his armpit and in his neck, blinding myself and suffocating with the sweet, musky smell of his youth. Let's leave and hide, lock ourselves in and shut the world out, hold each other tight.

I'm violently startled by Benjamin lightly grabbing my arm. I hadn't heard him get up and close in on me. "Shit! Sorry. You bloody scared me. Sorry. Fuck, this is so creepy."

"Creepy?"

"Yes. I mean, you know, it's weird. It's so silent and dark."

"Are you okay?"

"Of course. Yes. I don't know, I don't feel well. Let's... Is it all right if we go?"

"Where?"

"Anywhere. Inside. On the other side of the wall."

"We can't really talk in my room. My father's just next door."

"I understand, of course." Was he testing me? Was he setting a trap to scold me about being only interested in shagging him? I do want to talk. I'm fine with talking. Just not here.

I fumble in my pocket to find my key and shakily open the door. Once I'm safe within the gardens again, I wave him to follow me.

"Why don't we go have drink at the bar?" I say. Then, it suddenly dawns on me, with a surge of terror. "Oh my god, how old are you? You drink, right? I saw you drink wine with your father, right?"

"I'm eighteen", he said, nonchalantly, perhaps even defiantly. "So, yes, let's have a drink".

* * *

It's time to go. To leave naked Benjamin behind, to close the door of his room with cautious quiet, to tiptoe in the hallway, go down a couple of flights of stairs, walk through the lobby, go back up other stairs, creak open the door of our bedroom, forego brushing my teeth, undress carefully, and noiselessly slip under the sheets. Then try to fall asleep. How can I? I am so wired. I really am. Everything that happened today is jolting my brains alive; everything that could happen tomorrow is stirring my body awake.

We had a nice drink, a nice talk. It was endearing to realize that, for all his swagger, I think Benjamin actually needed to tell me that he hadn't "really done anything like this before". Have I? I told him a little bit about myself, improvising along the sharpness of the features of the man I wanted to be for him. Uncertain, maybe, but not wounded. Cautious, but not scared. Intrigued, but not desperate. Benjamin's quiet warmth made it deceptively easy to lie. I am that man, I even thought for a moment.

I left Devon out, or at least downsized him to a "bloke with whom I fooled around occasionally". "Nothing major", Devon was. And he really wasn't. But I talked about Philip, thinking the teenage sweetness, innocence and organic sensuality of that story could appeal to an eighteen year-old, could ease his way into what I hoped the rest of the evening could offer, the way you arrange nicely a guest's bedroom to help him feel welcome and settle. I didn't mention that last fateful night with Philip, and got away with vagueness about the outcome of our teenage dalliance: "Oh, you know. Life." He didn't. He wouldn't.

Benjamin is surprisingly reserved. Not shy, but guarded, a little intense. A little blunt, too, when it comes to sex. "I like knowing your cock gets hard when you see me". Or "I have this friend, we often jerk off together", which made me bring up Nigel and the Isle of Wight, thinking this is a sort of connection we have (I do think I saw a slight cringe when I added Nigel was my cousin). Benjamin is graceful too: he never brought up my wife, my marriage, or my plans for the future.

I noticed he kept shaking his legs throughout our conversation. Was he nervous? Impatient? I was time-conscious. My little private breaks before heading to bed never lasted that long. But I waved these concerns away. I'll put the bill on my room, I will tell Siobhan I ran into "the young American" and had a beer with him at the bar. We talked about, I don't know, about something the Adam she knows and expects would talk about with a young man: computers, sports, Star Wars.

"You're so beautiful", I blurted out, without thinking. He stopped and threw me a piercing gaze. I waved the old Egyptian bartender to pay for our drinks. This is the same guy who works at the pool. What kind of shifts are these people on? Benjamin stood up first, and started to walk towards his room, knowing that I would follow him, that there wasn't ever any doubt about where we were going next, never any discussion about what we would do.

The sex was splendid. More of the same as last night, yes. But completely different at the same time. We rolled around for what seemed like hours, touching and caressing and grabbing every part of each other's bodies. The kisses were tender and passionate and hungry and sweet. We smiled, we laughed. He tickled me once. He tickled me!

I was so delirious with joy at some point that I wanted to stop. I wanted to bring him back downstairs, to get another round, to start over and talk some more. Really talk. I wanted to hear to sound of his voice, beyond the "this is so good" and other similar utterances I was getting drunk on. I wanted him to tell me about himself, his hopes and fears. I wanted to impress him, to make him laugh. I wanted to hear him say "Really?" or "I can't believe this" or "Oh no, you didn't".

But we rolled around some more. "I'm gonna cum", he then said, which sounded crude, and alarming. He did. I did. And I got scared. And he kissed me. And I felt happy. I felt so happy I could cry. I think I actually did. Or something close to it. But he didn't see me, because I turned him over, tucked him in, hugged him and spooned him, until he fell asleep. Until now. And now, it's time to go. What am I feeling?

Coming soon : Chapter 4, Wednesday

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