#25

Monday 4th February 2008 was a dull day. The sky was the colour of a cataract eye. The priest read hurriedly as strong winds lashed and battered him. He fought to keep a hold of his book as if the Devil himself was trying to tear it from his grip. Anything that wasn't bound or nailed down was strewn across the cemetery paths. Flowers, newspaper, small urns and memorial cards. Just as the body was being lowered into the ground, the skies opened up and the heavens fell. Large splodges of rain thudded against the disappearing walnut coffin and sounded like a beautiful bass drum. It was at that moment when even the tough men at the back crumbled and let their emotions run. Twenty four streaming faces and each one dressed in black.

As the other mourners slowly broke up and trailed away I remained with my head bowed sobbing uncontrollably. It was his shoes I saw first. New, immaculately polished black Italian leathers. Without even following them, I knew they would lead to someone very smart and very classy. One can just tell.

“Did you know him well?” he asked standing alongside me and looking down in the hole.
“Well??? I didn't know him at all” I replied “I saw the crowd of mourners and my natural reaction was to join them.” He kinda snorted a tragic smile and said: “I'm John, Luke's younger brother.” And then I did look up, and I knew my world was going to change.

*

“Your arse is quite hairy” I told John, looking into the second hole of the day. “I don't normally go for that, but yours is different. It's even eatable.”
“You mean edible!” he laughed, parting his legs a little.
“Maybe that as well” I said
“John?”
“uh-huh?”
“A hard on and white tennis socks just don't go. It's ridiculous. But it kinda looks good on you.”
“Really?”
“Yes, really. Really, REALLY!” I said, working my tongue under the left sock and pushing it down.
“ John?”
 “Hmm?”
“How did Luke die? Was it a terrible car accident where his head got pushed right down into his chest cavity? Young people normally die like that. Something really macabre. Is that how Luke went?”
John kinda woke from his state of arousal and slowly turned his head. For the first time I saw that look in his face that wondered “Who the fuck is this guy?” and “Is he dangerous?”
“You mean you REALLY didn't know him? I thought you was joking!”
“It was no joke John. I'm a tragic figure. Tristram is from old French, it means sadness. Now, would you like me to put my fist in your arse?”
John rolled over and parted his legs wide. He looked like a beetle on it's back. “Cancer,” he moaned scrunching his eyes up as if in pain “it runs in the family.”

Since that day we never really parted. What time we didn't pass together we spent mailing, texting or masturbating via webcams. We walked around with hard-ons in Paris, Prague and Milton Keynes. Then on the 29th of the month, both of us jammed into a supermarket toilet, he said: “Tristram Spencer, now I don't care what you say, I'm moving in!” And with those words, sex gave over to another joy; the joy of being wanted. I flung myself around him in relief, clinging on like a child with my face pressed tightly into his stomach. It was love, and there wasn't a drop of sperm in sight.