Chapter Nine
Marcello
“You never shower with me,” Giles says as we walk through the changing room after a long, hard and sweaty hour of training. My legs have just about stopped shaking and my breath has returned to normal but my whole body feels warm and heavy and sated.
“Because I don’t normally sweat like that,” I reply.
“And it shows.” Giles looks back over his shoulder and winks at me. He winks at me.
I look down at what he’s looking at and suddenly, I’m naked. Naked and absolutely shredded. I have an eight-pack. Two pectoral muscles that look like freshly baked loaves of bread. And the V is back in my lower abdomen, a sight I haven’t seen since my early twenties.
Wait, where’s all my body hair? When did I shave that off?
“Come on,” Giles says, dropping his shorts to the floor. “Last one in is un’ uovo marcio.”
Che cazzo… Giles can speak Italian? Not that it actually made sense but since when…
But there’s no time to think about this because just as I turn the corner into the shower area, Giles stops and pulls his T-shirt up over his head. Naked, Giles looks every bit like the Greek God I imagined he would.
No, wait. I haven’t imagined Giles naked. I’ve never visualised the lines of his abdominal muscles or the curve in his quads. I’ve never thought about how biteable his ass cheeks were.
I've never thought any of those things, but I’m thinking them now.
Water starts running from somewhere and I look up to see Giles standing under a rainfall shower. Water flows down his hard body, droplets cruising over firm muscle, erect nipples and smooth hairless skin. They pull my eyes lower and lower and lower until…
I wake with a start, my eyes wide and my breath hitched.
What. The. Actual. Fuck. Was. That.
I know exactly what that was. It was the beginning of a sex dream. A sex dream about Giles.
Oh, fuck, no.
I get out of bed quickly and leave my room. I am as light on my feet as I can possibly be, passing my mother’s bedroom door, and I pad down the stairs. In the kitchen I switch on the light and move to the sink. Filling a glass with water, I set it aside and then splash my face with cold water.
Did that really just happen? Did I really just imagine Giles’ naked body under the shower? And – I look down at my boxers, merda – did I really just get hard doing so?
I down the glass of water like I’ve not drunk liquids in days and then fill it once more. After that glass has gone, I still feel no calmer, no clearer on what the fuck just happened.
I haven’t had a sex dream in years. I have also never had a sex dream about a man before.
Not that that’s a problem, as such. I may not have got any A-Levels or degrees to my name, but I know that you can’t control your dreams. I know that it doesn’t necessarily mean anything if you have a dream about one of your male friends.
It’s happened before. A long time ago. And Giles and I have been spending a lot of time together.
In some ways it makes sense he pops into my dreams. But did it have to be a sex dream?
And did I have to enjoy it so much?
I look down at my crotch again and see the outline of my hard dick as clearly as I did a moment ago.
I feel like it’s taunting me with just how solid and heavy it feels.
And how nice it was to feel, well, as horny as I did in that dream.
Be it my ADHD meds or be it simply my age reducing my libido, I’ve not felt that spontaneously turned on in a long time.
I’ve missed it. I’ve craved it. I’ve had moments when I thought it was behind me.
But there it was. No, there it is, in the shape of my erection which refuses to disappear as flashbacks of Giles in the shower continue to pop up behind my eyelids as I close my eyes and take some deep breaths.
*****
The next time I wake up, I’m still hard, I’m still horny and I’m still just as confused.
I’d eventually gone back to bed last night, still erect and turned on, and somehow fallen asleep again after resisting the powerful urge to watch porn and knock one out, but that would have risked doomscrolling on my phone and I needed to sleep.
I’m grateful for that unusual foresight now as I’m doing the early shift again.
I’m doing the early shift and I’m meeting Giles afterwards to head to the gym.
I should be looking forward to it. I have my new clothes to wear, plus a bag I treated myself to once I got to the checkout in that fancy shop.
I finally feel like I have some excitement for training and exercise and moving my body, but now I feel nothing but apprehension for seeing Giles again.
Seeing Giles in his gym gear. Seeing Giles head to the showers like he always does after a session.
He’s asked me a few times if I was showering, but I’ve always said no.
It’s not that I don’t need to. Nor do I want to get on the Tube all sweaty and smelly, but I’d rather do that than face my fears.
Because they are fears. It’s one thing for Giles to see me in my gym gear – the ill-fitting stuff before yesterday and the stuff I’ll wear today – but it’s quite another to get naked in front of him.
I avoid mirrors so I don’t have to look at myself.
The last thing I want to do is impose that on him.
Not that I care what Giles thinks.
Do I?
Getting out of bed, I’m pondering on exactly this as I get ready for work.
I jump in the shower, brush my teeth, realise I need to dig out an ingrowing hair in my beard and so spend far too long on that.
Then I rush to my bedroom in my towel, as I forgot to bring my clothes into the bathroom with me, get half-dressed and then remember I didn’t take my meds so run back to the bathroom, swallow them down and then remember I need all my gym clothes so still with just my jeans on I pack that bag, then I finally finish getting dressed and make my way downstairs for a much-needed coffee.
I’m pondering so much, so heavily, so laboriously that by the time I’ve drunk my espresso, I’ve got a tension headache stretching across my forehead.
I can’t figure this out. At least not on my own. I need help.
And I know exactly who can help me.
I pull my phone out of my jeans pocket and tap out a quick message to my good friend Kris. If I’m lucky she’ll pick it up on her way to work and message back.
I pocket my phone and move to wash up my cup but then feel the device buzz in my pocket.
It’s Kris.
I roll my eyes but also re-read my original message and realise it was a little direct. I’m about to type an apologetic reply but another message from Kris appears.
I sigh and realise I’m going to have to come clean.
Her reply is quick and should be reassuring.
I text back.
Then she leaves me hanging, her three dots teasing me.
Her reply finally arrives and it makes my stomach both sink and flip.
I tut and type quickly.
Is her blunt and very unhelpful response.
I point out and glance at the clock in the top corner of the phone’s screen. I need to get moving.
I see Kris’ reply as I put my trainers on.
I type out before picking up my bag, grabbing my keys and heading out of the door.
We’ve joked about it before, several times.
Me turning her gay is always one of our most shared jokes.
But we’ve never actually sat down and discussed it.
We didn’t even break up because Kris said she was gay.
We just realised we were better off as friends, and that much has stayed true.
I type as I walk down the street, enjoying how light and cool the early morning air is. Birds are singing in the trees above me and the light is both bright and pale, like a bulb warming up. Kris’ three dots appear for a long time.
I read her message twice, three times and find my eyes warming with tears. I blink them away as I type my response.
We both text each other several rows of laughing emojis.
Kris' next message says.
My stomach does that flipping and sinking thing again.
Kris adds several heart eyes emojis.
My stomach finally settles.
Bisexual.
I could be bisexual.
For some reason this possibility doesn’t alarm me the same way I felt in the middle of the night.
I do still find women attractive. I’ve even shared some messages with a few on the dating app Giles forced me to download in front of him.
I found their photos interesting, enticing even, and one of the women has suggested we meet up.
I’m still keen to do so. So yeah, there is comfort in knowing I don’t have to swap one for the other.
It feels like such an obvious observation and yet, I hadn’t even considered it.
The panic of having that kind of dream about Giles, and the reaction I had, made me automatically think I was gay.
But bisexual, rightly or wrongly, doesn’t feel as dramatic, or as peculiar.
I can’t say it feels like me, but it does ease a little of the confusion I woke up with.
As does Kris’ next message.
Don’t be scared. Okay, yes, I can be brave. I can face this fear. Explore your sexuality. Why didn’t I think of this? Why was my first reaction to shut it all down? To make it go away? Why not explore it… I mean, I don’t know exactly how to do so yet, but at least I can be open to it.
Once you’re kissing a man… you’ll know...
I come up blank to that one.
I text Kris just as I see the London Underground sign ahead of me.
Kris drops the eye roll emoji before her following reply.