THE DAILY MALE - continues...

MLP stretches languidly and tells me that his back and legs are aching. I lay a towel out in front of the fire and he undresses down to his boxers and I sit astride his beautiful body and give him a long, slow massage. I could baby-oil his skin all night: it is so smooth and soft and I feel at one with him in the firelight. Dionne Warwick is warbling on the iPod and when she sings I know I’ll never love this way again… I think that maybe I won’t.

I roll down off his back onto the floor alongside him and we begin to make love, gently at first and then as intensely and passionately as we ever have. I snatch at the sands of borrowed time but they slip through my fingers as I know they must. When we finish, we lay together naked stroking each other tenderly and talk until way past midnight. He says he loves listening to my stories and the way that I tell them. That he tries to express himself better when he’s with me, to use a wider vocabulary and articulate more. Yet again, I wish I could stop the clock, but I know it’s ticking towards the time when he says:

‘Sorry baby… I just can’t do this any more.’

I put on his discarded t-shirt which I shall not give back as I wish to sleep in it forever, and I get up to make him some tea. After he drinks it, he puts on the t-shirt I bought him in Paris and gets ready to leave.

‘I have one more question,’ I say as he goes to open the front door.
‘Is it a serious one?’ he asks narrowing his eyes.
‘Yes’ I reply. ‘I need to know when I’m going to see you again. I need to know when we say goodbye, when will be the next time we say hallo.’

I can't believe, with all my age and experience, that sometimes I can be so uncool.

He looks relieved that it’s not that serious and says maybe Sunday – he’ll let me know.

Thursday. I’m due to visit Eurotrash’s gallery again with my business partner, who couldn’t make it last time. I text him to tell him I’ll be there at 1 p.m. to which he replies ‘Great’.

When we arrive, exactly on time, his colleague tells me he’s popped out for an hour. I am not amused. What a coward, a loser, a prat and a wanker. I make a mental note to cross him off my list, glad I have other contenders to fall back on.

I call MLP for a chat in the evening before I go out to films with a girlfriend, and I text him ‘Goodnight’ when I get home. He replies ‘Goodnight babe. Speak to you tomorrow xxx’ which makes me smile, but I wonder if he will or if he won’t.

Just as I’m falling asleep Flash Gordon from the toyboywarehouse website texts to say he’s ‘drooling to meet me.’ As I’m a sucker for a drooler and am feeling so insecure about MLP, I give him a quick call and we agree to meet up for coffee tomorrow if we can both fit it in.