I rearranged my features into, I hoped, a serious, empathic expression.

  “Anyway, I was a nervous wreck; my hands were really clammy, and afterwards she told all her mates that I was crap and had a body odour problem. They told all my mates, and I haven’t done it since. That’s it, that’s the sum of my sexual experience.”

  Empathy was not my strong suit. My guffaws of laughter earned me some serious tickling. Wedged on his lap with my head flush against the roof of the car, and the steering wheel digging into my back, I didn’t stand a chance of defending myself. The steamed-up interior and the rocking of the car would have had evening joggers jumping to all the wrong conclusions. Smothering his face in kisses appeared the only way to stop him.

  “Saturday night, then?” he murmured breathlessly.

  “Are you going to try and get your hands inside my bra so you can touch my bust? You need to know, I’m not that sort of girl.”

  He laughed and pulled me down for a final kiss. Half an hour later, he’d driven me home, or rather, to the kerb outside Phil’s house, which he believed was home. I was in no hurry to disabuse him otherwise. The welcoming glow of a television screen peeked through a chink in the lounge curtains. On the driveway, Phil’s dad’s Renault estate stood neatly parked next to his mum’s Mini Metro. Domestic bliss.

  “Looks like your parents are home,” Alex observed. If he was angling for an invite, it wasn’t forthcoming.

  “Yeah. I’d ask you in, but my mum has her book club friends over on Mondays, so she’d prefer if I didn’t. Another night, yeah?”

  I crossed my fingers and hoped Phil’s parents didn’t suddenly take it upon themselves to peer out of the window.

  “Yeah, sure, totally understand. I hate it when my mum’s book club pitch up at our place. Six women, all cackling because they’ve had a couple of glasses of white wine. Bloody goes on for hours. My dad usually takes me to the driving range; we make ourselves scarce.”

  Mollified, his eyes landed once more on my mouth, and he ran his tongue over his upper lip. If he’d been a girl, I’d have reached over for a final kiss—Simon used to snog his girlfriends for hours in the car outside the flat. The unfairness pissed me off, to be honest, but, whatever. I daresay worse things could happen. I settled for an asexual shoulder squeeze and a cheeky grin.

  “See ya, wouldn’t want to be ya.”

  NEAR WILD HEAVEN

  (REM)

  The middle classes were yet to devise a confusing, sophisticated name for shepherd’s pie. To make up for this appalling oversight they called the peas accompanying it petits pois, as if, by magic, fancy foreign words would bestow taste and flavour to them. The only foodstuff capable of doing that was HP Sauce, disappointingly absent from the Valentine dining table and, I expected, the Valentine lifestyle and ethos.

  I managed just fine without the HP, as Lizzie’s shepherd’s pie, with its crunchy cheesy-leek topping was to die for, and made even better because, if I stretched out a toe, I could reach Alex’s legs underneath the table. Every time he tried to join in the witty, intelligent conversation going on around him, I ran my socked foot up the inside of his calf and then watched him turn as red as tomato ketchup.

  After dinner, we lounged around the sitting room, making small talk with call-me-Richard while Lizzie headed upstairs to prettify. I guessed Alex wasn’t a habitual holder of secrets from his parents as by this point, he’d turned practically mute. As if in answering his father’s guileless questions about what film we planned to watch, his libido might hijack his mouth and he’d accidentally blurt out the truth. That we would be too busy writhing around each other on the sofa to give two shits about what played out on the telly. That was my plan for how the evening would pan out, anyway.

  “He’s not going to be much company tonight, Matt,” joked call-me-Richard, throwing his handsome son a fond look. “Go gentle with him, he must have taken a proper pounding on the rugby pitch this afternoon.”

  At that moment, I found the vision of Lizzie bustling into the sitting room, checking her handbag, her lipstick, and her hair, doing all those things women had to complete before actually exiting the bloody house infinitely more fascinating than adding to the conversation around me. Otherwise, my teenage head would explode from immature pent-up sniggers.

  “Ah, here she is,” sang call-me-Richard, turning to his wife. He gazed at her proudly. “The belle of the ball. Ready to tango?”

  Clicking his fingers, he did a little hip shimmy across the sitting room towards his wife, scooping up the car keys along the way. Alex groaned and slunk down into the sofa but his mum was blushing like a new bride. With her pert upturned nose, swinging blonde ponytail and high heels, even my gay soul appreciated she was pretty as a picture. She reminded me of those drawings of the mother in the Peter and Jane books we read at primary school, always making a cake or a pot of tea, or arranging a picnic on the lawn. In a world where the sun always shone, dads went off to work each day, and mums stayed behind to cherish their kids. I should have hated Alex’s parents for the nauseating looks of sheer adoration that passed between them, but I didn’t—couldn’t, because they were so fucking nice. If Jabba the Hutt and my dad had ever exchanged that sort of fondness, it must have happened yonks before me and Simon ever came on the scene.

  Finally, they were out of the fucking door, and as the sound of the powerful BMW engine faded into the distance, Alex leapt off the sofa to draw the curtains. Oooh, that was a promising sign.

  “I know nobody can see inside the house from the road, but you never know.” He sounded almost apologetic. Yeah, we didn’t want to frighten the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Having arranged the curtains to his satisfaction, he moved towards the switch by the door and dimmed the overhead light.

  “Very romantic,” I observed good-humouredly, as he tripped over the pair of trainers he’d discarded earlier.

  “Not too dark?”

  Bloody hell, he started to make me twitchy as he went back to the light switch, turning the glow up a fraction. “Better.”

  Chuckling, I closed my eyes and rested my head back into the comfortable sofa. Who cared how the evening unfolded? Whether I got a kiss out of it, a hand hold, a quick grope down below, or had to settle for an evening of Saturday night telly with a handsome, albeit antsy boy. I’d take it, because I was here, in the lap of luxury, with Alex Val—

  Fuck me. I opened my eyes to find the man himself hovering in front of me, shirtless. Granted, his gaze skittered about the room as if his parents had tricked him into pretending to be going out when, all along, they were hiding in the cupboard under the stairs, but here he was. My ballsy boy facing the unknown head-on, as always.

  “Nice bust,” I commented softly.

  A slight smile curved the corner of his mouth and he flexed his pecs, first the left then the right. An impressive skill I’d never mastered, the main stumbling block being that I didn’t have any pecs. He sunk onto my lap, a knee either side of my spread thighs, hands cradling my face. Boxing me in. Fuck, he’d totally got the hang of this kissing thing.

  My hands explored; I walked my fingertips down over the swell of his toned biceps, the sharp angles of his elbows, over unblemished skin yielding to firm muscles underneath. As his tongue moved hard across mine, his hands running over my T-shirt wasn’t enough. Our mouths separated, but only for the brief second it took me to yank it off. Then he manhandled me sideways, pushing me down onto the sofa to press his hot bare chest to mine, lips latched together again. The head of my dick strained at the bars of its denim prison, rubbing unbearably against the coarse fabric. A guttural noise escaped my throat.

  “Shit, I’m squashing you,” he panted, a look of concern crossing his face. He eased off me, raising himself onto his elbows.

  “No, you’re not.” You’re perfect, I nearly added, but instead, I pulled him back down onto me, grinding my dick into him. As Alex let out a startled gasp, I broke the above-the-belt rule, my hands roamed under his waistband and over the curve of his buttocks, grabbing two muscular, meaty handfuls of smooth flesh and giving them a squeeze.

  “Shit, Matt. Oh my God.”

  His mouth moved to my shoulder, hot, quick puffs of air blew across my collarbone. He licked, then sucked on my neck as he rutted on top, and I thrust up to meet him. We went at it furiously, as if Alex’s parents were on their way back and would burst into the room at any second. Not pretty or stylish, but bloody effective. I knew the second he came because sharp teeth clamped onto my neck, accompanied by a hissed intake of breath and a gravelly moan of relief. The fucking hottest noise I’d ever heard. My own orgasm barrelled straight through me; I’d Daniel Day Lewis’d into my boxers almost before my brain registered it had happened.

  Afterwards, he slumped down, entirely forgetting his concerns about being too heavy. I didn’t mind. When he dared lift his head from my shoulder and forced his gaze to meet mine, the heat of his embarrassment could have powered a small generator.

  “I’ve…um…”

  “Yeah, I know you have. It was kind of obvious.”

  “Have you?”

  “Yeah. I’m covered in spunk, and you squashing me and spreading it around is making it feel even worse.”

  That might have triggered him to move, but he didn’t, he just wriggled around a little more, the fucker.

  “At least we didn’t get any jizz on the flowery sofa.”

  He kissed me again, this time more gently, methodically seeking out every corner of my mouth before planting soft, open kisses along my jaw. I felt worshipped and it was fucking awesome.

  “Oops. I’ve left a mark on your neck.” He gave it a tender kiss. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologise.”

  “Someone might see it.”

  And so what if they did? Not a single soul knew or cared where I’d spent the evening, except perhaps Brenner, and he wouldn’t recognise a love bite if it bit him on the nose, so to speak. Let alone jump to the conclusion that it must have been administered by a boy. Alex shuffled off me and lay to the side, but still with his head tucked under my chin. Bringing my arms up, I wrapped myself around him. Cuddling, that was the name for this manoeuvre. I’d never done it before. It was kind of cool.

  “How did you know you liked boys?” he asked, his voice muffled and sleepy-sounding against my chest.

  “Dunno, really. I just know that I always have done.”

  “Yeah, but you must have realised it’s wrong at some point. And started hiding it.”

  “It’s not wrong,” I corrected him. “It’s just different.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  I did. Being gay equalled immoral. Unnatural. Unmentionable. Politicians discouraged debates and protests about it; teachers glossed over it during sex education lessons. School libraries expunged all books alluding to it. HIV had been labelled the gay disease, being gay killed people—gay men were swirling around in a cesspit of their own making, according to one senior copper—so being gay must be wrong. The heterosexual world wanted to pretend homosexuality didn’t exist, Section 28 tried to eradicate it entirely. Except where did all the legislation leave boys like me, who were born this way? Cowering behind a fake persona, walking with a swagger, dropping my vocal tone, making lewd jokes about tits and fanny and faggots. Trying to blend in.

  “I remember watching Top of The Pops when Culture Club were big,” I began, with a faint smile at the memory. “‘Karma Chameleon’ sat at number one, so I can’t have been very old. Eight, maybe?”

  “Doesn’t sound like your sort of music.” Alex’s teasing voice licked warmly across my bare skin. I gave him a brief squeeze. I’d watched countless Culture Club videos over and over again—second only to My Beautiful Launderette. And had orgasmed to the pretty, pretty lead singer more times than I cared to remember.

  “I’ll always make an exception for Boy George,” I responded. “I thought him the most beautiful, exotic, bravest man I’d ever seen. I still do.”

  And me, not even brave enough to hang his poster on my bedroom wall.

  I carried on. “I remember saying how pretty I thought he looked when he came on the telly, and my mum scoffing and telling me, “It’s a fella in a dress, you bloody retard,” and me saying, “Yes, I know.”

  “Did she really call you that?” Alex squawked, his middle-class self-righteousness rising to my defence. I cursed myself. Very cute, but in a post-ejaculation, relaxed mood, I’d fucked up, and nearly given the whole game away.

  “God, no, I’m exaggerating. I can’t recall her exact words, of course.” I quickly regrouped. “It will have been something along the lines of ‘don’t be silly, darling, that’s a man.’”

  Much more acceptable. Alex nodded against my chest, satisfied.

  “What happened then?” He lifted his head and his eyes met mine.

  I couldn’t remember exactly. Individual episodes of my mum and dad’s unique parenting style tended to merge with one another. Some I’d blanked forever, for my own good. It was easier that way, and there had been so many similar episodes since. I’d possibly been ridiculed then cuffed around the head, a phrase which always conjured up images of a benevolent momma bear playing with a mischievous baby bear. The reality couldn’t have been more different.

  “Oh, nothing,” I lied, pressing my lips to the top of his innocent head. “I expect they all just laughed at me. I think though, at that moment, I decided I’d probably better keep my heinous thoughts to myself.”

  Being a grubby sort of oik, I’d have happily stewed in my crusty boxers all evening. Alex, on the other hand, wouldn’t countenance it, and lent me a towel, the bathroom, and a crisp, spanking white pair of his own. After that, like the utterly wild hedonists we were, we raided the kitchen for crisps and sparkling water, then settled back on the sofa in front of a film. Alex put his arm around me, as if we were a pair of American teens at a drive-in movie, and it wasn’t the most adorable thing at all. Almost absentmindedly, he fed me cheese and onion crisps and tolerated my oniony kisses every time he did. Those stupid girls who’d made fun of him didn’t know what they were missing.

  The most wonderful evening of my life took on a slight tarnish when he began prattling on about uni and how great studying in towns so close to each other would be, and yes, the train route was good, but he’d probably have the car anyway, so he could pop across to Sheffield and see me whenever we wanted.

  My malevolent self-conscience warned me to tell him the truth, for both our sakes in the long run. My inner masochist however, lapped up his version of our future—one that hopefully would involve a lot of sex. About which I remained a little light on practical detail, but a whole lot more informed than my snowy-white virgin of a new boyfriend. My clever-kid-going-to-study-history-at-uni persona was well-crafted by now and so I slipped into the role as easily as I’d slipped on his fresh boxers an hour earlier. Not long afterwards, we were plotting which gig we’d be buying tickets for first.

  FOOL’S GOLD

  (STONE ROSES)

  I must have been the only student in the history of studenthood wishing exam season would last forever. For six halcyon weeks, the top floor of the multistorey carpark became our secret playground, and the cramped front seats of the Polo our makeshift bed.

  In between revision, lessons, and exams, my disappearance from the social scene barely registered with anyone. At long last, Phil had breached the final frontier with Alison, thus, overnight, the rest of us ceased to exist. Brenner had started work on the production line at MB, and having dreaded no longer having him by my side, his absence had made sneaking away simpler. Denise’s beady eye remained trained on me, but given that she had an emergent delicate situation of her own to conceal—Rachel had picked her up from the café after our last shift—the risk of her stirring up trouble was remote.

  It took two weeks of snogging and accidental ‘oh sorry, did my arm just brush across your penis?’ moments before I got my hands on the goods. Heavy petting and a fuck load of rubbing up against each other, one afternoon on the top floor of the abandoned multistorey, led to me boldly unzipping his school trousers and pulling him out. He followed suit and then it was just a matter of who crossed the line first. All I can say is that the girls who took the piss out of Alex’s clammy fumbling should have had more patience. The guy had big solid hands and very quickly learned how to use them. I now also understood why the borrowed boxer shorts leaned towards the large size.

  Alex still fancied girls, even though we didn’t talk about it. Like I was going to plant even more of those ideas inside his head. Pleasuring me imbued him with confidence; from time to time I caught him gently flirting with Binita and her friends. Shiny, clean girls from his shiny former school. After the first time it happened, I got down on my knees and sucked his cock, high up in the open air of the carpark. Eyes on me, I urged silently. Eyes on me.

  Exams aside, they should have been the happiest days of my life. Young, in love, a daily hand job, and my whole future ahead. Except I didn’t have a future, not one to look forward to, anyhow. With mounting excitement, Alex and his mum prepared for uni and I dumbly played along; smiling at his chatter and planting naughty stolen kisses on his mouth with his mum in the next room, and laughing as his eyes grew wide. I joined the expedition to Ikea to choose new bedding, threw in my tuppence-worth during a lengthy debate about the most robust type of bike lock. We discussed the purchase of fat medical textbooks with incomprehensible titles, had endless conversations littered with unfamiliar words, like halls of residence, campuses, modules, semesters, faculties. As Alex slipped effortlessly into the comfortable language of the privileged classes, my hold on him slipped away.

  Results day dawned. Scheduled for a sunny Monday in June. An annual sadistic and humiliating rite of passage, or a triumphant public glorification. Duplicate boards with student names listed in alphabetical order and exam grades beside them were placed at precisely two p.m. in the school yard. Up and down the country, anxious eighteen-year-old kids crowded around similar lists, desperately searching for their name and the letters from A to E next to it, which would decide their fate.