10th April 2005:

 

The Price Of Admiration

 

He’s still in mourning for his Cher wig; it hasn’t been the same since it got trapped in the hoover. Copious amounts of shampoo and conditioner have done nothing to fix the resulting split ends. He sits endlessly combing and stroking it. It looks likes he’s nursing some bizarre, boneless breed of longhaired cat.

I’m pleased to report that all has been quiet on the anonymous hate mailer front since the car incident. Maybe it was the pinnacle and they’ve now sated their hatred against us. We can but hope.

However, what we’ve lost by way of a hate mailer, we, or at least I, seem to have gained by way of a secret admirer. Yes, it would seem I am the object of someone’s desire, besides him in frocks of course. On Saturday morning a bouquet of flowers arrived, the card was addressed to me and stated simply: I love you. X. I thought they were from Twinks and I was really touched, calling him at work to thank him. He icily informed me that he had not sent any flowers and demanded to know whom I was flirting with. I told him it was probably someone playing a joke and he was the only person who would ever have my heart. He said if he thought for a single moment that I was playing away from home he’d carve out my heart and nail it to the floor. He then sweetly told me to leave the flowers in water and he’d arrange them for me when he got home from work.

I have to say he arranged the flowers very artistically in what might be termed a ‘free form’ style. In other words he opened the back door and launched the bouquet into the garden where they free formed all over the lawn. Then he slammed the door and stormed upstairs in tears. I followed, saying I hoped he believed that I would never encourage the attentions of another, because I loved him with every fibre of my being. He said yes, he trusted me totally, but it wasn’t fair that I had a secret admirer and he didn’t. Was he so ugly that no one could secretly admire him and send him flowers? He was jealous, not because someone was admiring me, but because they weren’t admiring him. He has a very fragile and yet exacting ego. It demands star treatment ahead of anyone else, including me.

I was up and about early this morning heading out to a garden centre to buy a bouquet of roses. I left them on our doorstep with a note addressed to Twinks that said: ‘to the boy with the most beautiful smile in the world…from a secret admirer.’ Twinkles was thrilled and with a flutter of eyelashes and a flash of the beautiful smile said he rather hoped his secret admirer had somehow discovered his favourite brand of continental chocolates, and would arrange to have a box of them sent to the object of his desire forthwith.

It’s an expensive business being a secret admirer. I could end up bankrupt. Still, he’s worth it, the boy with the most beautiful smile in the world.

 

 

13th April 2005:

 

Diamonds Don’t Have A Heartbeat

 

Twinkles was high when I picked him up from work this evening, and I mean HIGH. At the very least he expected to get adulation, congratulations and dinner out complete with champagne. He was therefore shocked and furious when he got incredulity, disapproval, dinner in and an early night to think about things. He crowned me the king of all shits and expressed a hope that I get testicular mumps causing my balls to swell to the size of melons. He doesn’t mean it. He’s just upset by my reaction to his news.

Pink diamonds, naturally pink and not those tampered with by science, are among the most rare and expensive of gems. The jewellers that Twinks works for has recently acquired a rather large and beautiful princess cut specimen. Twinkles was therefore very excited when a well dressed man called in at the shop today and made a request to view the pink beauty queening it over lesser rings in the gem window. He was duly shown the item, liked what he saw and decided to have it. A lucrative and exclusive sale for Twinkles and excellent commission you might think? No, it was a robbery. The man squirted pepper spray in Twinkles’ face, snatched the ring and legged it. Despite his streaming eyes, Twinks headed straight after him, motivated by anger at having his mascara made to run and terror at losing the shop’s most valuable piece of stock on the boss’s day off.

Commonsense tells you that you don’t nick a very expensive ring and then get the bus home. You have a mate with a car waiting as close to the shop as he can get without being wheel clamped, as did the diamond thief. He thought he was home and clear when Twinkles who can shift when he has flat shoes on, managed to jump on top of him, holding on tenaciously and demanding the return of the precious ring. In the struggle to dislodge Twinkles from his back the thief dropped the ring and Twinkles saw his chance and went for it, as did the accomplice who had gotten out of the car and was brandishing a knife that looked sharp enough to perform open-heart surgery. It might well have done just that if Barbara and the other girls from the shop hadn’t had the presence of mind to start furiously pelting him with produce from the outside display of the Greengrocer’s next door. The arrival of the police encouraged the thieves to leave the scene of the failed crime as quickly as possible leaving Twinkles a triumphant lord of the ring.

So, what’s to disapprove of, after all, Twinks is a hero and I should be proud? And I suppose I should be, but I’m not. I’m cross with him. The ring is basically a lump of coloured carbon. It has no soul or heartbeat and is protected by enough insurance to cover its material value several times over. Twinkles is flesh and blood and his value to me can never be covered, not ever. The strict rule in the shop for all staff is: ‘when threatened, give up the goods, never resist, never pursue, they and their cost are recoverable, human life isn’t.’ Twinkles acted on reckless impulse and it could easily have ended in tragedy. I might have been facing a lonely future and all for the sake of a pretty trinket. Do I have the right to penalise him for his actions though? To be honest, I don’t know. After all, theft is wrong and he was addressing that wrong, despite the clear rules of the Company. I’ll have to give the matter some serious thought.

 

 

16th April 2005:

 

Life On Mars

 

Poor Twinkles. Not only did he get a good dressing down from me over his reaction to the attempted theft, he got one from his boss too. He was reprimanded for unnecessarily endangering himself and for setting a bad example to other staff by ignoring safety rules. Even worse, the owner of the business made a special point of visiting the shop to remind staff that while their loyalty and honesty were appreciated, dying in the cause of the Company was definitely beyond the terms of their contracts. The message was clear. The rules were there for a reason and must be adhered to. Then he took Twinks out for a nice lunch, which took the sting out of his words a bit.

I decided that making Twinkles write out the shop rule, regarding what to do in the event of a robbery, fifteen times every evening for a week, would be an appropriate and effective punishment for his ill conceived action. It would hopefully etch it firmly into his head in the event (God forbid) of it happening again. He hates line writing and complained bitterly and at length the first evening, so much so that I threatened to up them to a hundred if he didn’t just shut up and get on with them. He wisely got on with them.

 

Our poison pen pal struck again yesterday and so did my secret admirer. We got back from work last evening to find a funeral wreath tied to the door. It bore a card with cut out letters that stated simply: ‘The day is coming when the wicked shall be punished for their evil.’ The flowers were not fresh, which somehow made them even more fearful and intimidating. The wreath had obviously been lifted from a grave. The colour drained from Twinkles’ face and I quickly untied the wreath and unlocked the front door intending to get him indoors, only we were halted by sight of a gift-wrapped package, addressed to me, lying on the doormat. It turned out to be a CD of love songs with a note saying: I dedicate every song on this album to you with all my love. The colour that had drained from Twinkles’ face upon seeing the wreath flooded back and after making exaggerated gagging motions he grabbed the CD case, wrenched it open and ran back outside launching the disc frisbee like into space.

He’s convinced that the hate mailer and the admirer are one and the same and that someone has developed a deranged crush on me and is planning to kill him, in order to leave the way free to win my heart. I don’t believe the two are related, for one thing the admirer hand writes his/her messages and our persecutor always uses pasted letters. The police are also convinced that the two are unconnected. I guess some might say Twinks and I are just plain unlucky in having two lunatics on our case.

To cheer Twinkles up, I gave him a present, a pair of high heel pink fluffy mules to replace the broken ones. I was planning on keeping them for his birthday, but what the heck. I miss seeing him come down to breakfast wearing just them and a smile. He was over the moon and I was once again his best and most dearly beloved. He happily tottered around in them, as he got ready to go out.

Mum was at the PP last night with Priscilla the Preacher/Eric. If someone had told me years ago that one day I would frequent a gay club, famed for its large TV contingent, accompanied by my partner, a gay transvestite, and share a table with my mother and her cross dressing boyfriend I would have requested that they either seek psychiatric help for their strange delusions or that they stop taking tabs, because the trips were getting just a bit too Timothy Leary. However, there I was, with my darling tranny boy in drag queen mode…

What’s the difference between a drag queen and transvestite, surely they’re the same I hear you ask? Well, no, not always. It’s subtle and kind of complex…some drag queens only ever wear drag for entertaining purposes, their femme is strictly a stage persona and an act and they don’t dress femme at any other time, but some, like Twinks, also cross dress in day to day life because it’s a powerful aspect of their personality and thus they are transvestites and drag queens.

…Anyway, getting back to where I started. There I was at the PP with Twinkles who was dressed like Bette Davies complete with fake cigarette and proudly wearing his Miss Springtime crown, sharing a table with my mother and her boyfriend, who were wearing different colour versions of the same dress. In addition, I was watching three big drag queens, six foot plus in high heels, do an impression of the Beverly Sisters singing ‘don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me.’ No drug on earth could induce a fantasy so bizarre. It was like life on Mars!

I have to report that Priscilla’s dress sense has improved since he started going out with mum. She’s been giving him tips about makeup and hairstyles. I complimented him on his appearance, which pleased him. Straight transvestites tend to be less flamboyant than gay ones, their aim being to blend in rather than stand out. That said transvestites in general, just like the rest of us, have many different motivations and reasons for doing what they do. Personality and circumstance plus life experiences will influence the individual in many different ways and it isn’t wise to attempt to pin hard and fast definitions on anyone of whatever persuasion. What seems clear is that it’s a part of what they are, like having brown eyes or red hair. It’s an aspect of their genetic make up and a fundamental part of their sexual and emotional identity.

We got to talking about things and he confided that he feels a great sense of freedom when he leaves behind his male persona and becomes Priscilla. It puts him in touch with aspects of his personality that are somehow closed, or forbidden to him as a man and he feels complete once he’s made the transformation. I didn’t fully understand, but then I don’t understand why anyone can eat prawn cocktail flavour crisps and enjoy them, I just accept that they do and I don’t. He said he feels sad on Sunday evenings, because he knows that he has to leave Priscilla behind and become Eric again for the week ahead, not that he wants to lose Eric altogether. Unlike a transsexual he doesn’t feel trapped in the wrong body, there’s no conflict between his psyche and physical gender. He doesn’t want to stop being a man. He enjoys his masculinity and doesn’t think dressing in women’s clothes emasculates it any way. Mum patted his hand and said she could vouch for that. I think I turned redder than a fire engine at that point. Amazing woman my mother, but you know, sometimes you just don’t want to know that your parents have a sex life. There’s a common filial belief that sex only occurred to produce you and that once you were produced it ceased. It’s more comfortable that way.

 

Got to go, it’s time to lay down my pen so to speak. It being Saturday I’m meeting Twinkles for lunch and then I’m going to collect my car from the garage. It’s been re-sprayed after the acid incident. Twinks wanted me to have it sprayed bright pink, but I refused. I’ll be glad to give the so-called courtesy car back. It has a gearbox that whenever I change gears screeches like a drag queen greeting a friend.

 

 

19th April 2005:

 

Cereal killer

 

Got a dentist’s appointment today. I’m dreading it and it’s not even my appointment; it’s Twinkles. He’s hell to take to the dentist and yes grown man though he is, he has to be TAKEN to the dentist. For one thing he wouldn’t go if you gave him a choice. He’d eat boxfuls of painkillers, weep and wail and neglect the tooth until he ended up needing hospital treatment. For another thing our dentist refuses to treat Twinkles unless I’m there to control him. Poor Mr Tanner, he’s almost lost fingers in Twinkles’ mouth. The man himself, my own bad tooth fairy, is curled up in a chair with a hot water bottle clamped to his face to try and sooth the ache. He’s feeling very sorry for himself, but it’s his own silly fault.

I was awoken at three a.m. this morning by an almighty scream followed by bangs and crashes and then Twinks yelling, and I quote: ‘you bastards, you evil, evil bastards, I’m going to kill you!’ I was startled to say the least. Pounding downstairs I expected to find Twinks wrestling with armed intruders, only to find him kicking a box of mini fruit and nut weetabix around the kitchen, while verbally abusing them. Never has a breakfast cereal been so maligned, or so scattered. It was everywhere. I stopped him as he began stamping every little biscuit into crumbs and demanded to know what the Hades was going on. It transpired that he’d broken a tooth and apparently it was my fault! How come? Well, he’d woken up feeling peckish and thought he’d slip down for a snack. Only he couldn’t find where I’d hidden the chocolate biscuits and had thus been forced to go for the healthy option and eat cereal (which he eats in handfuls from the box) only it hadn’t turned out to be healthy in his case because he’d cracked a molar on one of the hard little bastards. So much for fibre being good for you. After primly reminding him that I’d hidden the chocolate biscuits at his request, because he was on a diet, I had a look in his mouth. Part of his tooth had sheared straight through. If he’d put milk on the cereal, like you were supposed to, the biscuits wouldn’t have been so hard. After sorting out some pain relief, I took him back to bed and cuddled him until the painkillers kicked in and he fell asleep.

I woke up this morning to find him quietly whimpering into my chest, the poor love. His tooth was throbbing again and his face was all swollen. He’d be fine, he said, he just needed stronger painkillers. I told him he was going to the dentist, no arguments and that was that. The dismay in the dental receptionist’s voice when I called to make an emergency appointment for him was tangible. She even asked if I were sure it was an emergency? I confirmed that he needed to see the dentist today, at the earliest possible opportunity.

Right, it’s time for me to sign out. The appointment isn’t actually for another hour and a half, but it’ll take me at least half an hour to coax Twinkles into the car, and longer to coax him back out when we get there. I’m not looking forward to this at all. Wish me luck.

 

 

24th April 2005:

 

Royals Fall Out

 

The dental visit wasn’t as bad as I feared. There was a mild altercation between Twinks and another patient in the waiting room when they both reached for the same magazine to read. A stern look from me persuaded Twinkles it would be wise to concede defeat and let the other patient have it. After all, she was only five years old and I knew for a fact he’d read that copy of ‘Twinkles’ the magazine for little girls, before. His interest stemmed from the fact that it bore his name, little Narcissus that he is.

When his name was called he made his usual bolt for it, but the dental nurse and the receptionist are wise to him now and went into action like a well-oiled machine. They each taking a hand and pulling and me bringing up the rear with a hand placed firmly between his shoulder blades, pushing him into the treatment room. Usually Mr Tanner needs some persuasion and reassurance from myself that it’s quite safe to approach Twinkles and that I have him firmly in hand. There was something different about him on this occasion.

Snapping on a pair of surgical gloves with a distinct air of aggression, the normally mild mannered man thrust a finger at Twinkles and barked: ‘get in that chair and open your mouth. I want no bloody nonsense!’ It was like seeing a kitten metamorphose into a bulldog. Twinkles face was a picture, but he did as he was told, and with some alacrity. It turns out that Mr Tanner had given up smoking and wasn’t taking to it kindly. His nurse told me she was thinking of swapping her white coat for a flak jacket, and she hoped he got past the craving stage soon. Still, it made for a much easier visit all round. Twinks got his tooth fixed and Mr Tanner retained full possession of all his fingers. I was the only casualty. Twinks held my hand so tightly throughout the procedure that he cut off the circulation. It couldn’t have been any number if the dentist had injected it with Novocain.

I can’t indulge my newfound penchant for writing for too long this afternoon, as we have visitors due for tea. My father is coming over with Gill, his wife to be, and also her mother, whom we’ve yet to meet. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it, not because I don’t enjoy seeing my dad or anything, but because the love of my life is in a foul mood on account of having rowed with Lulu this morning. Lulu was trying to teach him a new dance routine and by way of encouragement told him that he danced like a straight guy with prosthetic legs. Twinkles told Lu that he was turning into a queen bitch and obviously his lack of a sex life was starting to make him bitter and he ought to get out and get some, even if it meant paying for it. He offered to organise a whip round at the PP to pay for a rent boy. I stepped in between them at that point, before they started scratching each other’s eyes out. They refused to make up, so I sent Lulu home. Honestly, who needs kids, certainly not me!

With regard to this afternoon I’ve told Twinkles that while I would appreciate his support and company, if he really can’t face making polite conversation with our visitors, then he can stay upstairs out of the way, because I’m not having him take his mood out on everybody else. He’s bad enough with dad and Gill when he’s in a good mood. He’s promised to be a good little wife hostess and do me proud. In fact he’s in the kitchen at the moment, making sandwiches and defrosting a lemon gateaux (which he’ll claim to have made if it gets compliments) I’d better go and give him a hand, or he’ll call mum and slag me off for being a male chauvinist gay who does nothing around the house.

 

 

28th April 2005:

 

Spanking The Monkey

 

Last Sunday’s tea party was not a huge success. Him in frocks had faithfully promised that he would be on his best behaviour, but alas he didn’t deliver. He doesn’t get on well with my father or Gill at the best of times. He claims Gill has had a charisma bypass op, which explains her attraction to old dull duck, kindred spirits etc. He blames Gill for my parents breaking up, but it isn’t strictly true. My parents had broken up long before they parted company in a physical sense. He just refuses to look at the wider picture.

Anyway, he was upstairs getting changed when the visitors arrived. Mrs Frost, Gill’s mother, turned out to be a rather sweet, old-fashioned sort of lady. I’d just been introduced to her when Twinkles came bounding down the stairs, doing the typically gay thing of being last to arrive on scene. He was wearing skin tight, strategically slashed, stopping just short of being obscene, leather trousers, a ripped designer t-shirt, which totally exposed one of his nipples to which he’d clipped a large gold hoop to make it look as if it were pierced and his beloved pink mules. In addition he was sporting a black leather metal-studded collar and matching wrist bracelets. He looked like he was auditioning for a part in a bdsm porn movie. He was being deliberately provocative and extremely naughty (I made a mental note to have very stern words with him at the first opportunity) He said a very theatrical hello to everyone; ignoring the cold looks he was getting from my father and Gill, not to mention me.

Mrs Frost seemed a little perturbed, but smiled warmly and said, ‘you must be Tarn’s friend?’ Twinkles immediately flung his arms around my neck and squealed at the top of his voice. ‘Yes, he’s my very bentest, I mean bestest, friend, aren’t you, Tarnsy, darling boy. We just love each other to death!’ At which point he almost suffocated me with a kiss (I added this display to the list of stern words to be had) He then grabbed dad and kissed him full on the lips, doing the same to Gill, before saying sweetly, ‘long time no see, or is that just wishful thinking on my part?’ Tripping gaily off to the kitchen to put the kettle on he left me to smooth my father’s ruffled feathers. Both he and Gill looked like they’d swallowed hemlock. Mrs Frost gave me a small, uncertain smile and made the understatement of the year, ‘he’s very lively isn’t he?’ I smiled and nodded, while mentally thinking that if Twinks didn’t cool it lively would be the last thing he’d be because I’d kill him.

Excusing myself on the pretext of helping Twinkles make tea, I headed into the kitchen where I unceremoniously plucked off his nipple ring and told him to tone down his Julian Clary playing a Hells Angel act. He came over all innocent and bewildered, asking what my problem was? He was just being friendly to his dear daddy-in-law and his uptight lady friend and her mama. I told him that if he didn’t behave properly then the moment that tea was over so would his day be, if not his life. He mumbled something about me turning into a version of my ball-achingly dull father, but otherwise seemed to heed what I said, making an effort to be sociable and polite.

Mrs Frost the elder seemed to genuinely take to Twinkles. I think he was a touch of the exotic as far as she was concerned. You didn’t get many of his kind to the pound in her quiet corner of Great Ayton. She sat staring at him like a mesmerised rabbit. Twinks, sensing a natural born fan, went all out to be sweet and charming with her, regaling her with tall (we’re talking skyscraper here) tales of his show business exploits. He portrayed himself as something akin to Danny La Rue, even hinting that he knew the lady himself, which really impressed Mrs Frost. ‘Oh’ she breathed, ‘he used to regularly appear on the Royal Variety Show, in front of the Queen.’ Twinks took her hand, patted it and said, ‘Darling, he WAS the queen.’ This tickled her for some reason and she burst into giggles, even dad smiled and for a moment I thought Gill’s mouth looked less severe.

Apart from one incident that made my dad blush (when Twinkles managed to make eating a chocolate éclair look like a pornographic act by flicking his tongue over the end of it) tea went relatively well. We chatted about their forthcoming marriage, the baby, the weather, etc. When it was over, as always on such occasions, Gill insisted on helping with the clearing up and began to gather dishes to stack in the dishwasher. I followed her into the kitchen just as she was opening the dishwasher door to begin loading up. A slightly puzzled look crossed her face, as she noted that something had been left inside from the last cycle. Withdrawing the object (no innuendo or puns intended, I do promise) she stared at it. Her face then turned scarlet as it registered exactly what it was she was clutching in her hand.

It was a dildo, the biggest one we owned and double ended. Okay, let me state in our own defence that we are red-blooded men, we enjoy sex and we like to add a little fun and spice to keep it interesting. I’m not ashamed of it. That said I wasn’t keen on my father’s future wife having an insight into my bedroom activities. I didn’t want to know what she got up to with dad and I certainly didn’t want her picturing what I got up to with Twinkles. I’m sure she was of exactly the same opinion. Embarrassed doesn’t begin to describe my feelings. I was so mortified I wanted the earth to open up and swallow me. Before I could say a word, Twinkles joined the act, chipping in gleefully with, ‘well, Gill, I see you’ve made the acquaintance of our flexible rubber friend. I bet it’s been quite some time since you handled something that big, stroke it gently now and it might let you take it home with you.’ For a moment I thought Gill was going to slap him, but she didn’t, instead she hurled the dildo at him. He deftly caught it and gave her a mocking little wave with it. She stalked out of the kitchen looking tearful.

Giving Twinkles a furious look I hastened after her, catching her in the hall and apologising profusely. She accepted my apology, but didn’t buy my excuse that it was an accident and my fault, because it had been my turn to unload the dishwasher. She said she had seen my face and I had looked not only embarrassed, but also shocked. I hadn’t expected it to be there. This was true. I had done my duty earlier and emptied the dishwasher. The dildo had not been left there by accident, it had been planted and it didn’t need Columbo to work out who the culprit was. Twinkles can be horrible upon occasion and I was ashamed of him. Gill is not the sort of woman you tell a risqué joke to, or watch a blue movie with, or even exchange a small innuendo with. It just isn’t her. To suddenly be caught holding a large rubber dildo, and there was no passing it off as anything else, must have been deeply upsetting and humiliating for her.

Why would a dildo be in the dishwasher anyway, I hear you ask? Well, both Twinkles and I are particular about hygiene, especially when it comes to personal matters, so, after playing with our sex toys we put them in the dishwasher to make sure they’re hygienically sterilised. I hasten to add that we would never put a dildo in with the breakfast dishes or anything like that and we do rinse them thoroughly prior to them going in.

Making the excuse that she was tired, Gill asked dad to take her home. I later endured an uncomfortable phone conversation with him when he found out what had happened. He was most annoyed at what he termed a very tasteless, unkind, juvenile prank. I was more than annoyed. I was livid. There’s a fine line between mischief and malice and I reckoned Jonathan, oh yes, I was angry enough to resort to his birth name, had crossed it.

After closing the front door on our visitors I turned to find Jonathan standing in the hall waving the dildo, to which he’d tied a white dishcloth, as a sign of truce. I was not amused. He nearly wet himself when I launched down the hall and grabbed him, slapping my hand across the seat of his trousers several times before hustling him back into the kitchen. There was no excuse for his behaviour. He’d deliberately set out to be controversial and annoying, just because he was in a strop over what Lulu had said to him earlier that morning. As I’ve said before, sometimes he gets carried away without thinking of consequences and without taking into consideration other people’s feelings, mine included.

Seating myself on a chair I pulled him between my knees reaching for the button on his trousers, telling him that he’d been boorish, rude and spiteful and he was going to get exactly what he deserved. Pulling down his trousers, thus confirming my suspicion that he had no underpants on, I hauled him over my knee and smacked his backside a shade of red that the Revlon cosmetic people would have killed for as a lipstick colour. In the circumstances I thought he deserved more than a hand spanking and sought out the wooden spoon. It had vanished and I suspected foul play. My hand duly interrogated the suspect’s bottom and he consequently made a full confession. While I’d been seeing our visitors out, he, having already judged my mood and its likely outcome had jettisoned the wooden spoon, slipping it into Mrs Frost’s bag as she exited. No matter. I utilised our flexible rubber friend, bringing a whole new definition to the term, spanking the monkey.

I lectured as I spanked, something the monkey in question particularly hates, pointing out the fact that Gill, no matter how he personally felt about her, had been a guest in our house and he had violated the most basic rules of courtesy with his treatment of her. I also pointed out that she was a lady in the early stages of pregnancy and his tasteless joke could have had nasty consequences for her and her unborn child. To give him his due, Twinkles was genuinely horrified when I said that. He sobbed that he had just wanted to tease her, because she was always so uptight about everything and always looking down her nose at him. He hadn’t thought about the pregnancy aspect of things. He begged me to call her and make sure she was all right. I said he could phone himself and apologise.

So, that was our Sunday. I’m afraid I disposed of our flexible friend. I could never, never toy with it again, not without a mental vision of poor Gill’s face as she drew it out of the dishwasher. Twinkles did apologise. He also sent her a basket of flowers, which I thought was nice. He apologised to me too, saying he was sorry for playing the spoilt brat and showing me up.

He’s actually a bit down at the moment. Lulu hasn’t answered any of his phone calls or text messages since Monday and he’s rather hurt over it. We called in at the PP on Monday evening to see if he was there, but he wasn’t. It’s not the first time they’ve fallen out and it won’t be the last, so I’m not too worried. They’ll make up, they always do. I’m going to take Twinkles out for dinner this evening to try and cheer him up. There’s a fabulous Italian restaurant that we visit from time to time as a treat. It does the most exquisite food and the desserts and ice creams are to die for. We haven’t been out for dinner together for a while, so it should be nice.

 

 

3rd May 2005:

 

Wanted: Affordable Hot Stud

 

As I predicted, Twinkles and Lulu have made up after their row. Lulu finally returned Twinkles’ calls and said he was sorry for being bitchy and Twinks said he was sorry for suggesting the only way Lulu could get sex would be to pay for it. Lulu gloomily said that with his luck, even if he did pay for it, the bloke he paid would probably demand a refund and it wasn’t fair. The boyfriends he did manage to get were either married and only gay on a part time basis or the sort of bastard who shagged you once, wiped their dick on the bedcovers and left without so much as a farewell kiss. Why was it that all the good gay man were snapped up and indulging in monogamous relationships these days? Why couldn’t he find a nice man who wanted to be monogamous with him or even polygamous, he wouldn’t mind sharing? We had tears then, not just Lulu’s, but Twinks who can’t bear to see anyone cry and usually breaks out in sympathy with them. I dished out Kleenex and sympathy. I gave Lulu a hug and told him he was a sweet boy and there was sure to be someone out there for him.

I later discovered Twinks surfing the net looking for affordable Gay Escorts, not for him I hasten to add, but for Lulu, to cheer him up. He was wondering whether we could get Lu a gift voucher for a long night with a hot stud. I disconnected him and swatted him to bed, telling him that no partner of mine was procuring prostitutes, even if it wasn’t for his own use. Lest he have been tempted by any of the muscular beefcake on offer, I showed him just how hot a stud I could be when the mood took me. He reckons that he’ll have to google and ogle other men more often if that’s the affect it has on me.

 

 

5th May 2005:

 

Nemesis

 

Twinks was in a foul mood this morning. He woke up to discover he had a spot on his chin, note my use of the singular, though from the way he carried on you’d be forgiven for thinking he’d contracted Smallpox. He came galloping downstairs yelling that it was just his rotten luck to develop late onset acne. I pointed out that he had a spot, ONE spot, and it was probably because he hadn’t cleaned his makeup off properly at the weekend and a pore had got blocked. Talk about ill chosen words. He got very, very uppity about that. How dare I suggest that he was some kind of lazy slattern who didn’t clean off their makeup properly! I said I was suggesting no such thing and he could watch his tone or he’d be going to work with more than a tiny red spot on his chin, he’d be going with a much bigger red spot on his bum, which my hand would put there. He accused me of insensitivity on the scale of Stalin and stamped out of the kitchen in high dudgeon. Yes, I’m afraid he really does stamp, not that he’d ever admit to it, he’d say he was just walking with extra definition, but to all intents and purposes it is stamping. I must admit, while not approving, I have a sneaking admiration for a man who can stamp, or walk with definition, while wearing mules that have a four-inch spike heel and subsequently remain upright. Believe me, it’s hard enough just standing in a pair of high heels never mind anything else.

The crash of the bedroom door warned me that we were heading for a full-scale drama queen tantrum. My journey to put the brakes on the DQT was halted by the sight of a sickeningly familiar envelope being poked through the letterbox. It was the first incident in a while and I had been hoping the sorry episode was over. Seeing the envelope plop onto the mat caused me some dismay. Then it occurred to me that this was the first time I’d witnessed delivery and if I were quick I just might catch the sick bastard responsible. I raced to the front door, unlocked it and bounded down the garden path, but there was no one in sight, except for the paper lad. I hailed him, demanding to know if he’d seen anyone near our front door. He gave me an odd look, not least I suppose because I wasn’t wearing any trousers. I’d been in process of pressing them when Twinks started with his histrionics. I could just imagine the paperboy telling his mum about it and the subsequent conversation with a suspicious policeman: ‘no, officer, I really don’t make a habit of chatting to young boys, while wearing nothing but my underwear and shirt, please let me explain the extenuating circumstances before you arrest me.’

Anyway, the paperboy hadn’t seen anyone near our door posting a letter for the simple reason that he was the poster. The poor kid was rather scared by my reaction, stammering that a man had caught him at the end of the street and asked him to deliver the letter and offering three quid in exchange for the favour. He hadn’t got a good look at the man because he was wearing a scarf around the lower part of his face and had a cap on. I took the lad’s name and address to report the incident to the police. After reassuring paperboy Peter Woods that he personally wasn’t in any trouble, and yes he could keep the three quid, I headed back indoors. Tearing open the envelope I found the usual cut and pasted message. A short one this time, three words, the first in big letters ‘NEMESIS,’ and underneath it in smaller letters, rather chillingly, ‘will come.’ It would seem the usual biblical tone of the notes had given way to a mythological one. Nemesis, in case you’re not sure, and memory serves me right, was a Greek Goddess who was also known as the Daughter of Night and her sole purpose was to wreak vengeance and severely punish, usually by death, those who were judged to have transgressed the natural order of things. I was seriously pissed off that someone thought they had the right to threaten us in such a despicable way.

To further my annoyance I got upstairs to discover that Twinkles had taken himself back to bed, claiming he couldn’t possibly go into work with what might be a highly contagious skin disease. He wanted me to phone him in sick and call out the doctor. I said if he thought any doctor on the planet would make a house call to treat a pimple then he was sadly deluded and he could get his badly behaved arse out of bed and into some clothes pronto or I’d spank it so hard he wouldn’t be able to sit down for a week. I was upset over the letter and I didn’t need him playing up over something as trivial as a spot.

I showed him the letter and said I didn’t want him wandering around anywhere on his own, in fact I’d prefer him to stay in the staff room at lunchtime instead of prowling around the shops. He lost his temper, saying I was overreacting to the ramblings of a narrow-minded nutcase who probably didn’t have the courage to confront anyone face to face. Then he accused me of treating him like a four year old and claimed I’d be telling him not to take sweets from strangers next. I said that when it came to sweets he was so greedy he’d probably be tempted to stop and take one from someone wielding a blood-drenched chainsaw.

Needless to say we set off for work on a chilly note. Seeing as today is The General Election we stopped off at the local polling station, to register our vote. Twinks registered his disapproval of me by standing in a separate queue to get his ballot paper. It suited me just fine.

Staying with politics for a sec I must say this has been a low-key sort of Election. Usually you have candidates jostling on your doorstep to persuade you to vote for them. This time we’ve had one half hearted Conservative candidate, who regretted ringing our doorbell when Twinkles demanded to know what the Tory stance was on Transgender issues. The poor man didn’t really seem to know much about the subject at all, let alone his Party’s stance. He wasn’t sure they even had a stance. Twinks gave him an education, plus a guided tour of his wardrobe and makeup box.

He was still in a mood when I picked him up from work this evening. The pimple had developed a yellow centre and Barbara, his friend at work, had noticed and offered to squeeze it for him. He’d declined.

It was his turn to make dinner tonight, but I took pity on him and said I’d do it while he went off and had a nice hot bath. I wasn’t being completely unselfish. Given his temper we’d have ended up with burnt offerings for dinner. I threw together a chicken casserole, shoved it in the oven, then I took him a glass of wine and sat chatting with him as he steeped in a hot bath with a face mask on. It was one of those masks that dries like a skin and has to be peeled off. Twinks loathes peeling them off. He says it makes him feel queasy, so I always do it for him. I peel his oranges as well…true love is peeling a man’s facemask and citrus fruits for him.

He calmed down and was in a much more cuddly mood after dinner. Instead of watching television we listened to some of our favourite CD’s and did the old ‘memory lane’ routine. It’s nice to go back sometimes, to remember, to laugh, and to also cry a little for friends and family no longer with us. You don’t realise how much you pack into life until you take a moment to unpack some of the layers and look at them again. Such moods of reminiscence inevitably lead to getting out the photo albums. Twinks adores looking at photos, especially if he’s on them. It can be a bittersweet thing. Thanks to AIDS our pages seen to have more than their fair share of smiling faces that we can no longer look upon in our daily lives. People like Steven and more besides whose photographs will never be updated with later ones. Twinkles also likes to look at photographs of my sister Maryann and I when we were little, family pictures of high days and holidays, seaside trips, Christmas time, that sort of thing. He has no photographs of himself as a child. It saddens me, you need something to attach yourself to and on a selfish note I would love to see what Twinkles looked like when he was a child.

We ended up making love and I do mean making love, not just having sex, though just having sex is wonderful too. We often have plain old sex. There’s nothing wrong with a jolly good getting your rocks off fuck, especially first thing on a morning when it seems a crying shame not to put two spontaneously occurring erections to good use. However, this was lovemaking, unhurried, sensuous, intense, a reaffirmation of love. Twinkles fell asleep in my arms afterwards. He’s still fast asleep on the couch now, hugging a cushion, wearing nothing but a Mona Lisa smile. I just might take a photograph of him.

Ah well, the day might not have started too well, but it definitely got better.

 

 

15th May 2005:

 

Murder On The Dance Floor

 

I wish I could lay hands on just one of those responsible for creating computer viruses. I’d make known my disgruntlement at the way they squander their talent by uploading a permanent image of my footwear onto their malicious backsides. My computer got hit over a week ago and it’s taken forever to get rid of the wretched thing, and cost me a fortune into the bargain. I suspect the virus protection people of actually creating all these new viruses, just to keep us buying their products.

Twinkles and I are not at one with each other at the moment, we are not feng shui. He’s taken himself off upstairs in preference to sharing the same space as me. I’m fine with that. In fact I’ve told him that he can do the same every evening after work until he offers me an explanation for what happened at the PP last night. We’d gone out as per usual and everything seemed fine. I was in Brian’s office enjoying a quiet drink and a chat when Rick, one of the barmen, came running in and said there was a catfight taking place on the dance floor and the fur was flying. By the time Brian and I arrived on scene, Cherie Pie had turned the situation to self-advantage by singing Sophie Ellis Bexter’s hit song, ‘Murder On The Dance Floor.’ Queens are so egocentric, they can’t bear anyone else being centre stage. Of course I might have guessed that Twinkles would be involved, though for a change it wasn’t Natalie he was brawling with, it was Lulu. I was stunned, as was Lulu when Twinks handbag bounced off his skull. He soon recovered and brought Twinks down with a deftly executed rugby tackle that dislodged his Miss Springtime crown (he insists on wearing it every weekend) and sent it bouncing into the baying mob that had gathered to enjoy the floorshow. Twinks went ballistic and reaching into the front of Lulu’s gown ripped out one of his falsies and hurled it into the delighted crowd.

It took me, Brian and Big Mary several minutes to pull the two of them apart. Both were in tears and both refused point blank to say what had triggered the fight. Big Mary took Lulu home and I brought Twinkles home. So far he’s refused to explain what happened. I called Lulu today to see if I could find out anything from him, but he wasn’t answering his phone. I’m concerned as much as anything else. It does Twinkles no good at all to keep things bottled up. He makes mountains out of molehills and then climbs them with no safety equipment. I’m going to take him a cup of tea and I’m going to insist that he talks to me about last night.

 

 

17th May 2005:

 

Unmasked

 

I may not have discovered the identity of our anonymous hate mailer yet, but I have discovered the identity of my secret admirer. It’s all rather embarrassing. It’s Lulu of all people. That’s what the fight was about at the PP.

Apparently Lulu had gone off to chat with someone, leaving his handbag on the table. Someone jolted the table and sent the handbag crashing to the floor where it literally spilled its guts. You have no idea how much stuff transvestites carry around in their handbags: makeup, tissues, combs, brushes, eyelash glue, extra pair of tights, spare tit in case one punctures, Viagra, condoms, lube (well a girl can hope) In Lulu’s case the usual paraphernalia also included an envelope, addressed to me. Twinkles, gathering the fallen contents of the bag together discovered it and with complete disregard of the common law regarding privacy opened it and discovered a romantic card with a love poem inside, dedicated to me. He confronted Lulu who promptly accused him of snooping through his private belongings and it all went from there.

Twinkles is also angry with me. If I hadn’t gone swinging into the PP at Easter like a cross between a macho John Wayne and Harrison Ford whacking Lulu’s backside, then he wouldn’t have developed a school-queen crush on me and felt a need to write crappy poetry. I might have guessed it would be my fault somewhere along the line.

Poor Lulu. He’s lonely and desperate to find a steady, reliable boyfriend. His love affairs rarely amount to more than a few dates, but then he goes for the wrong type, the type that have ‘quick shag and move on’ written all over them. I think he’s envious not only because Twinkles always has someone to go out with, but also someone to return home with. At the end of the day when the frock and the wig and the make up come off, he can turn away from the mirror and not find an empty room behind him. It’s not me he’s attracted to. He’s attracted to something that Twinkles and I share, a lifestyle. I’ve tried to make Twinks see that, but he’s still too upset at what he terms Lulu’s backstabbing betrayal. One does not covet one’s best friend’s ox. I can’t say I liked the ox reference much and just for the record I look nothing like one. I’m not boy band material, but I’m certainly not an ox.

I’ll have to sort this out. Lulu is refusing to answer the phone so, come tomorrow, I’m going to go and see him in person.

 

 

23rd May 2005:

 

A Point Of Peace

 

Twinkles and Lulu continue to be estranged. Lu pretended to be out the evening I called round. I won’t give up though.

Twinkles’ therapist finally persuaded him to read the letter that his father left for him. He said he was afraid to in case whatever was inside confirmed what he feared, that his father had been ashamed of him and had not felt able to love him. She said that the gift of the watch would seem to belie that and that he needed to confront his fear and the only way he could do that was to open the letter. So he did.

Twinkles’ father did love him. He said the words. He also said he had wanted to contact him as soon as he knew he was terminally ill, but didn’t think he had the right to impose that kind of burden on him, not after all that had gone before. The prospect of one’s own death, he wrote, allows you to finally see what really matters and you always mattered to me. He hoped Twinkles liked the watch and said that the thought of passing it on to him had afforded him great comfort, as it was one of the few things that belonged entirely to him. He believed the watch connected him to his own father and his grandfather and that often, when he picked it up to put it on, it gave him glimpses back into his childhood and times spent with people he had loved. He asked Twinkles to try to remember that they did share some good moments as father and son. He also asked forgiveness that there had not been more of them and also asked forgiveness for his weakness in not standing firmer against the harsh views of his father-in-law.

The letter also contained some beautifully detailed, hand written memories of times spent with Jonathan when he was small. Twinkles asked if I would read them to him. I wasn’t too sure. I felt like I was intruding, that these were words only Twinkles himself had a right to read. They were a direct interaction between him and his father. He insisted that he wanted me to read them and listened intently as I did so, interrupting from time to time, giving excited exclamations as his memory was jogged and the occasion his father was writing about came back to him.

As I read I felt that a third person entered the room and stood quietly listening. Twinkles said later that at one point, the timbre of my voice altered, and he honestly felt as if his father were speaking through me. Of course it was probably wishful thinking and sentiment on our parts, but you never know, and anyway sometimes you just need to believe the impossible. Twinkles was quiet for a few days afterwards. He didn’t sleep terribly well as he went over and over the contents of the letter. Hardly surprising, he’d had portions of his childhood reawakened and his mind needed some time to review them before putting them safely down to sleep again.

We went away last weekend, to the Lakes. We walked a lot and talked very little and just found peace in being with each other. We all need a point of peace and a point of release from what has held us captive.

As a footnote, I had a wish granted. I finally got to see what Twinkles looked like as a child. Enclosed with the letter was a photograph, a little bit worn, seeing as it had been one that Twinkles’ father had carried around in his wallet. It shows Jonathan at age seven. Even then he was adorable, with a smile that could light up a room. No wonder his dad kept it close all those years.

Life is bittersweet and sometimes the bitter seems to negate the sweet. It’s the way of the world. The bad always makes headlines over the good, but in the end goodness, like love, will always find a way.

 

 

1st June 2005:

 

Appendix

 

My mother has been very ill. She suffered a ruptured appendix and ended up having an emergency operation. She’s well on the mend now, but for a while there Twinkles and I were worried to death about her. For all they fight and quarrel, Twinks and my mother are very attached to each other. We’ve been going over to the hospital every evening from work to see her. I knew she was starting to feel better when she started to criticise the nurses, the doctors, the food, other patients, their visitors and the general state of cleanliness on the ward. Twinkles was just as bad, going so far as to put in a formal complaint about the appalling pattern on the bed curtains, demanding to know how people were expected to get better when they were surrounded by such bad taste in soft furnishings. He made me promise that if ever he needed to be hospitalised I’d make sure he was put in a room with tasteful decor. Then he almost caused a war with the cleaning staff when, unbeknown to me, he took an afternoon off work and went to the hospital taking a large bottle of strong disinfectant and his own mop, in order to show them the proper way to clean a ward. No MRSA Super Bug was going to get into his mother in law’s operation wound and eat away her flesh, not if he had anything to do with it.

I got a frantic phone call from the ward sister asking me to come and collect Twinkles, as he’d had to be put in an isolation room for his own safety. A posse of offended cleaners were threatening to shove his mop somewhere personal once they got their hands on him. Twinks said he wouldn’t have minded if it were just the handle bit they were threatening him with, he could take that, easily, but it was the other end and it was FILTHY after cleaning the ward floor, which just proved they didn’t know how to clean efficiently. He reckons only gay men should be allowed to be hospital cleaners. You wouldn’t find dust on a skirting board in a room that a gay cleaner had cleaned, unless it was Lulu of course, because he’s a big slut, as well as a backstabbing ox coveter (sigh)

Poor mum almost had to be sedated because, up until Twinkles mentioned it, the thought of being a victim of an MRSA infection had not even crossed her mind. She became hysterical, demanding to be discharged and sent home immediately before she became a meal for rogue, antibiotic resistant bacteria. I had a few stern words to say to Twinkles when I got him home I can tell you. He can cause trouble in an empty room.

Mum was discharged from hospital today. I collected her at lunchtime and took her home to recuperate. My aunt Helen is staying with her for a few days, so I know she’ll be well looked after. I’m looking forward to getting back into what passes as a normal routine around here. Seeing as I’ve got some spare time now, I’m determined to catch up with Lulu, he seems to have vanished off the face of the planet since the fight with Twinkles. He hasn’t been answering any phone calls or emails, or text messages nor has he been going to the PP. It’s a sad situation and I want to try and patch things up. I know he finishes work around four o clock on a Wednesday, so I’m going to sit outside his flat and catch him as he comes home.

 

 

2nd June 2005:

 

Divorce

 

Twinkles wants a divorce because I sent him to stand in a corner the moment we got home from work this evening. He is not pleased. Don’t I realise that making him stand still for vast periods of time could result in a build up of fluid around his ankles and to a transvestite of any ilk, having fat, fluid filled ankles is the equivalent of an ordinary gay guy having genital herpes. It could lead to him being shunned by his own kind. I’ve just reminded him that demanding a divorce is not permissible during actual discipline and we’ll discuss it later when he’s feeling calmer and more rational. Some hope. He’s now naming conditions. He wants custody of the hairdryer, along with my mother, because at least she’s handy with a sewing machine, which is more than I am. He also wants first call on visiting times with regard to our godson and visitation rights to the television, especially on Fridays, when Will and Grace are on, and Sundays when Joey and Two And A Half Men are on, and by the way, isn’t it about time that Jack from W&G got his own ‘Just Jack’ spin off show like Joey had got from friends? I’ve just reminded him that corner time is not a social event and is meant to be served in silence and if he says ONE more word there will be bother of a most uncomfortable nature, uncomfortable for him that is.

Why have I confined him to a corner? I’ll tell you why…on account of his attitude over my decision to invite Lulu for dinner and peace talks this evening, as well as his rudeness to the lady who runs the greengrocer’s shop next to the jewellers. Let me explain.

Yesterday, as planned I camped outside Lulu’s house, catching him as he came home from work. He was so embarrassed. He turned bright red and burst into tears the moment I stepped out of the car and greeted him. He galloped up to his front door trying to get into his flat without speaking to me, but I sprinted after him. Taking his key from his hand, which was trembling so much it kept missing the lock, I did the job for him and ushered him inside, insisting he sit down while I made us some tea. The place was an absolute mess. He’d let it go. There was a ton of crockery piled in the sink and it was obviously some time since the hoover had romanced the sitting room carpet. Lulu himself was a bit rough around the edges. In fact he was sporting the start of a beard that Desperate Dan would be proud of. Judging from the amount of empties lying around the place it was obvious he’d taken refuge and solace in Belgian lager and luridly flavoured alcoholic mixer drinks.

I finally managed to coax him into talking to me. He said he’d had no intention of ever making himself known to me. He’d wanted to play at romance for a while, pretending he had a lover. He wistfully said how much he’d enjoyed choosing cards and flowers and did I know that Clinton the greetings card people now did a full range of gay cards with romantic themes. He knew I loved Twinkles more than anything and he was a bit jealous, not of us as such, but of what we had and truly he would never ever try to come between us, even if he thought he stood half a chance. He had been mortified when Twinks found the card and poem and broken-hearted about losing his friendship, even if he had called him some nasty, hurtful names during the fight and ruined his best set of silicone inserts. He apologised to me for any embarrassment and hurt he might have caused with his silliness. I told him we all did silly things at times and we would put it behind us. I invited him to come over to the house and talk things over with Twinkles, but he said that Wednesday was the night he visited his parents, so I invited him for dinner this evening and he agreed, which I thought took real courage.

I broke the news to Twinkles, about making contact with Lulu and he hit the roof, saying he didn’t want to make up with the backstabbing, man snatching bitch. It was rubbish. He was missing Lulu’s friendship like mad. He knew Lulu had not been making a serious play for me, the person, but for some fantasy figure. I told him that in the circumstances he was being uncharitable, unkind, and selfish and he was stubbornly dragging everything out in order to make Lulu squirm. He claimed to have plans for Thursday evening, so dinner was out of the question anyway. I asked him what these ‘plans’ were and he snapped, to be out when the dancing queen comes round. I told him he was staying in and he was going to give Lulu a chance to make amends. I also told him he was going to be civilised and polite and if after all that he truly felt he could not be a friend to Lulu again, then that was his choice. He made known his annoyance with me by bringing all his wigs downstairs and sitting brushing and combing them all last evening, leaving me well out in the cold.

I knew it wasn’t going to be a smooth run the moment I picked Twinks up from work today. He was in a foul mood. He’d had one of those awkward customer days. The sort where you could swear that a special busload of awkward people had been dropped off in town, just to make the lives of all sales staff a living hell. The final one had trundled into the shop five minutes before closing time deciding she wanted to see every last item of jewellery on the premises before choosing the cheapest pair of silver earrings and demanding he gift wrap them, before paying for them by cheque.

To make matters worse it then took three attempts to set the shop alarm and then the shutters wouldn’t pull down properly. Twinkle’s lost his rag altogether and did a Basil Fawlty, kicking the shutters and screaming a torrent of foul mouthed abuse at them, as if they were a living entity that had purposely set out to aggravate him. Thank God he’s not a Jedi Knight, with the lack of control and level of anger he displays at times, he’d be ripe for a takeover by the Dark Side. It was at this point that the woman who runs the greengrocers shop next door made known her disapproval at his behaviour and he made known where he would shove her artichokes and bananas if she didn’t mind her own business. I hastily sent him to sit in the car and finished off locking down the shutters myself.

As soon as we got indoors, I sent him to stand in the corner to calm down and think about how he’s going to behave this evening. Lulu is due at eight and I’ve got food to prepare. It shouldn’t take long though. I’m keeping it simple. I’m making pasta. I’ve got some meat sauce ready prepared in the freezer and it won’t take long to defrost and heat in the microwave, I’ll also do garlic bread and salad followed by coffee cake that I bought from Betty’s this afternoon. Twinks has been quiet for a while now, so maybe he’s actually starting to do some thinking. It’s rather hard not to think when you’re stuck in a corner facing a wall, there’s not a lot else to do.

I’d better go and make a start on dinner. Fingers crossed that it gets eaten and not used as ammunition between two warring queens.

 

 

3rd June 2005:

 

Prepare To Feel The Force

 

By ten past eight last night I was beginning to wonder whether Lulu had bottled out from coming. I had the table set, the pasta almost cooked and the salad all dressed. I also had a partner who, despite threats of a good spanking if he purposely made unpleasant waves, was still refusing to give me an assurance that he was at least going to hear Lulu out, if and when he turned up. Twinkles is as stubborn as a mule when he has a mind to be. He was determined to make me sweat.

At roughly twelve minutes past eight the doorbell rang and Twinks rocketed down the hall. Short of rugby tackling him to the ground, there was nothing I could do to get to the door before him. He hurled it open to be confronted by a very nervous looking Lulu, who was peeping over the top of a beautiful bouquet of carnations and roses. They stood looking at each other in silence for a few moments, then Twinks snarled, ‘are you going to stand there looking like a pathetic, last minute entry for the Chelsea Flower Show all evening, or are you going to come in?’

Lulu accepted this gracious invitation and stepped into the hall. Twinkles wrested the bouquet from his arms saying, ‘I take it these are for me by way of apology for coveting my property and for causing my springtime coronet to become misshapen. I would have preferred shades of pink rather than lemon, but they’ll do.’ He then thrust them at me saying sweetly, ‘be a dear and put them in water and don’t go sniffing all the scent out of them, because they’re mine, not yours, Mr object of forbidden desire.’ I was seriously considering taking him out to the garden shed to have a few stern words, when he suddenly flung his arms around Lulu, burst into tears and sobbed, ‘give me a hug you daft tart, I’ve really missed you.’ Leaving them to hug, weep and make up, I put the flowers in water and finished off making dinner.

I knew they were friends again when, after dinner, Twinks insisted on giving Lulu a full manicure and nail buff, and they rhapsodised over the gorgeous gowns worn by the pregnant Padme in the latest Star Wars film. You know you’re in the cinema with a cross dresser when they start showing more interest in the female leads costume changes, than in the battle and fight scenes. They both agreed that pretty though it was, Padme’s nightdress with the loops of pearls that draped over the arms would be impossible to sleep in and you’d end up with pockmarked biceps.

I made a point of hugging Lulu and kissing him on the cheek when it came to him going home, as I’ve always done. I didn’t want to set a precedent of awkwardness and thought it best to just resume as if nothing had happened. As we stood at the bottom of the path watching Lulu’s taxi disappear, Twinkles slipped an arm around my waist and apologised for being grumpy with me. He then sweetly said that he wasn’t a bit surprised that Lulu had formed an attachment for me, as in a good light, after several glasses of wine and a good dinner, I had the appearance of a faded, jaded, but still passably sexy film star…the sort that was reduced to appearing in low budget, daytime, television soap operas.

Faded and jaded I might be, but I can still run faster than him, the cheeky little toad, and he didn’t make it across the doorstep before I caught up with him. Scooping him up into my arms in traditional, romantic hero fashion, I kicked the door shut with my heel and carried him upstairs to bed using my best Darth Vader heavy breathing voice to tell him to prepare to feel the force. I’m not one to boast, but I definitely think I performed some impressive moves with my lightsabre last night. My own little Padme certainly went to sleep with a smile on his face.

 

 

7th June 2005:

 

Come Dancing

 

Oh for a quiet life! What a weekend we had, you wouldn’t believe.

As per usual on Friday night we headed for The PP. There was a charity event on to raise funds for Terry, one of the downstairs bar staff, who was saving up for the final surgical stage of her quest to become a mister instead of a miss. It was an anomaly really, a roomful of men dressed as women raising money for a woman who wanted to become a man, or at least to match her/his exterior gender to her/his interior one. The theme for the evening was Ballroom Dancing and there was to be a dance competition. Twinkles, as always, had put his heart and soul into dressing for the occasion. He wore an ankle length full skirted ball gown with layers of frilly net petticoats, silver dance shoes, sequinned boa and long elbow length evening gloves. In addition he was positively dripping in diamante jewellery. He was coruscating so vibrantly I practically needed sunglasses to be able to look at him. In the spirit of the occasion I chose to wear a black tux and white shirt, but to be honest I wasn’t looking forward to it. I’m no ballroom dancer and I pitied anyone that ended up paired with me. There was no way they’d win any competition with me trailing them hesitantly around the floor. Twinkles says waltzing with me is like waltzing with a plank of wood.

Terry, looking very handsome in a white tuxedo, was doing a Graham Norton and hosting. He was also drawing the lots that would pair who danced with who. I knew that fate was not on my side when I got paired with Natalie. Twinks got paired with Big Mary who was having a rare social outing as a bloke…he looked like a gigantic, rotund Emperor Penguin in his tux. Natalie had opted to dress Latino in a sexy black dress that plunged at the back to show his builders cleavage and plunged at the front to show his naval, in addition it was slashed to the hips at both sides. I just hoped he had his penis tucked securely because if it flopped out during a quick step there wasn’t really anywhere for it to hide. He’d also got a big carried away with the fake tan and his skin, rather than looking a rich Latin bronze, was glowing like a radioactive tangerine. I hoped he didn’t expect me to dance with a rose clenched between my teeth. Lulu fared even worse than Twinks and I when it came to his dance partner. He was paired with boring Barry, who aside from being only five foot tall, has halitosis and tends to talk non-stop about his hobby of breeding exotic gerbils. By the time all entrants were paired up and on the floor, the PP looked liked a bizarre carnival scene from a nightmare. Catching sight of Brian grinning from the side of the floor I suspected him of fixing some of the pairings as a joke. Steven’s sense of humour and mischief were obviously still influencing him, it was just the sort of thing he’d do.

I’ll have to finish this account later. Twinks has announced he’s not feeling well, he thinks he’s getting a cold and is going up to bed. I’ll go and see if he needs anything.

 

 

8th June 2005:

 

Chicken Soup

 

Twinks has a summer cold, a bad one, and is consequently snappish and irritable. We had planned on visiting my mother this evening, but I called and told her we wouldn’t be going over, as we didn’t want to risk her catching a cold while she’s still recuperating from appendicitis. She kindly sent Priscilla round with some comfort food for Twinkles, a giant bar of mint crisp chocolate that she’d won in a raffle. I really wish she wouldn’t feed his addiction to chocolate and all things sweet. He has no self-control. He can’t just eat a little bit and then leave it. He has to eat the lot and then I have to live with the consequences of him putting on weight or getting spots. I’d much prefer her to send something wholesome and nourishing, something Yiddish like chicken soup, though of course I would never dare mention that to her for fear of having a sarcastic case load of Heinz CS dumped on the doorstep. She has a similar personality to Twinks in some ways, very rash and rooted in the moment. I suppose that’s why she and Twinks both get on and also rub each other up the wrong way.

After Priscilla had gone I casually mentioned that mum’s influence was continuing to pay off and he had looked quite nice in his summer dress. Well, Twinkles exploded, bellowing: ‘SHE, IT’S SHE. HOW MANY MORE TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THAT WE WHO ARE HE AUTOMATICALLY BECOME SHE WHEN IN A FROCK! YOU ARE SO INSENSITIVE AT TIMES!’ He then burst into a storm of tears. I humbly apologised for my lack of transgender sensitivity and consideration and spent half an hour comforting him, as he was obviously feeling very wretched. He’s asleep now.

 

To return to last Friday’s events at the PP. Natalie proved to be rather over enthusiastic about her role as a femme fatale dancer and insisted on pressing herself so close to my body that I could barely breathe, let alone move with any kind of grace. I thought she was going to meld herself to my skeletal frame. Thankfully, Twinkles was too preoccupied with Big Mary to notice Natalie’s seductive dance technique, otherwise I’m sure that he would have tried to separate not only Natalie from my body, but Natalie’s body from her head.

Big Mary was an atrocious ballroom dancer, even worse than me and Twinkles got more and more irate. At one point, his dulcet tones were heard to screech above the beat of a Cha-cha ‘I know you look like a frigging Emperor Penguin, but do you really have to shuffle around the floor as if you’re trying to balance a newly hatched chick on your feet?’

To my utter relief Natalie and I were amongst the first to be tapped by one of the floor judges. I peeled her away from me only to discover that heat had made her fake tan run and my shirt was covered in orange blotches. Lulu was also out in the first round. He was even more relieved than I was flinging his arms around the judge and kissing her passionately. Twinkles and Big Mary were next to go. Though of course my competitive boy refused to accept the judge’s decision and had a stand up row with him. He demanded to see his dance teaching credentials and wanted to be allowed to bring on a substitute dance partner. In the end I had to intervene and quietly order him off the dance floor so the competition could continue. He was not pleased. I told him that if he didn’t behave, I’d take him home and give him my considered opinion of bad losers. He went off in a huff to powder his nose. Ten minutes later an alarmed Lulu came galloping from the vicinity of the toilets and told me that Twinks had had a bit of a cosmetic accident and could I come quick as he was getting hysterical.

I’ll have to finish this later, Twinkles has woken up and is calling me.

 

 

11th June 2005:

 

Chickenpox Blues

 

Just a quick diary visit while Twinkles naps. His summer cold turned out to be the forerunner of Chickenpox. My poor baby! He’s so miserable. There isn’t an inch of his body that isn’t covered, and I do mean covered, in blisters, from his scalp to the soles of his feet. They’re everywhere, even in his mouth and on his crown jewels. Chickenpox can be a dangerous thing, more so for an adult than for a child. The doctor said he couldn’t prescribe anything other than painkillers, bed rest, plenty of fluids and careful monitoring, as Chickenpox is a virus that doesn’t respond to antibiotics. I can’t even give him a comforting cuddle, not a proper one, not with all those horrible blisters. It’s too painful for him. He’s terrified that the blisters will leave scars, especially on his face. I bought some calamine lotion to try and stop the itching, but he said it didn’t help and anyway it makes him look flaky, because it dries like a powder and he feels like a dusty old mummy that’s starting to disintegrate. At least his eye is much better and he doesn’t need the eye guard anymore. I promise I will get round to telling about the cosmetic accident he had last weekend. At present I’m more concerned with finding something to relieve the discomfort he’s in. I’m going to surf the net to see if there are any helpful tips online.

 

 

17th June 2005:

 

The Gay Gordons

 

I’m happy and relieved to report that Twinkles is much better. His spots have largely dried and crusted over with no new clusters appearing. I was successful in my web surfing. I found a Natural remedy site that recommended using essential oil of Tea tree, combined with sweet almond oil, as a massage solution to treat the Chickenpox. Tea tree is a natural antiseptic and antibacterial agent, as well as an anaesthetic, not only does it help prevent the blisters from becoming infected, it also soothes and reduces the itch. We had nothing to lose by trying, so I headed off to Holland and Barrett and bought the stuff. Twinkles said it eased the painful itching much better than the calamine lotion had done. Someone also suggested the use of powdered oatmeal as a bathing aid to calm the skin, so we added that to the regime, a cool oatmeal bath twice a day followed by a gentle body massage with the Tea tree solution. I could almost qualify as an alternative therapist after all this.

I knew he was feeling considerably better last night, when he asked me to massage his groin area, twice, wearing a blissful expression on his face that I suspected had little to do with relief from itching. I was very strict with him about scratching. I didn’t want him breaking the blisters and causing infection and therefore scarring. He keeps his fingernails short anyway, it makes fixing false nails easier, so that wasn’t a problem. However, he naughtily tried to have a sly scratch by squeezing a cotton bud between the blisters. I was alerted to this reckless action when he let out a howl of agony upon bursting one of them. I told him that if I caught him at it again, he’d be in trouble. He cheekily retorted that I could hardly blister his bum, as it was blistered already. There are worse punishments than spanking and I threatened to call boring Barry and have him come over and talk about his latest acquisition, a long haired, piebald, Mongolian gerbil, which feeds only on the roots of basil and rosemary (it’s a herbal gerbil) Twinkles immediately handed over the cotton buds he had stashed under his pillow and promised not to scratch or pick anymore.

I’m glad I had Chickenpox as a child. I wouldn’t fancy going through what Twinkles has gone through these past days. I’ve also heard that mumps is on the increase again. That’s another childhood ailment that is much worse if you get it as an adult. Twinkles called Karen and Paul and made them promise to have baby Dominic properly immunised against childhood diseases, pointing out that the risk of complications from the diseases is greater than the risk from the vaccines.

On Saturday evening, Lulu, Big Mary and Kevin came over to keep Twinks company by playing cards. Thankfully Kevin left Natalie at home. Twinkles held court wearing a lilac satin nightdress with matching bed jacket, as well as his Miss Springtime Crown, which I’d managed to bend back into shape. He enquired as to the health of the evil Natalie, who he suspected of being the one who had given him the pox. Kevin admitted that Natalie had indeed had a very mild infection, totalling, he reported rather smugly, twelve spots. He defended her by saying it was too long ago for her to have been the source of Twinkles’ present infection. He said that if Twinkles should blame anyone, he should blame Cherie Pie, as it was one of her backing singers, Ruth Less, that had set off the chain of infection at the PP. The four of them then spent a happy fifteen minutes bitching about Cherie Pie, her love of the limelight, her refusal to give anyone else a look in at PP stardom and her terrible taste in tight, glittery frocks that showed off her beer gut. I thought it was a bit rich of Big Mary to make any comments along those lines, seeing as his beer gut is twice the size of Cherie Pie’s and his love of gaudy, glitter-encrusted frocks is legend. Still, it’s in the nature of drag queens to view themselves as perfect and all others as lacking.

Anyway, let me now return to the tale of Twinkles’ cosmetic accident on the night of the charity Ballroom Dancing event. When Lulu came galloping over to the table babbling about cosmetic accidents I wasn’t too concerned. My first thought was that Twinkles had poked himself in the eye with a mascara wand again, he does that fairly regularly, mainly because he talks too much as he’s applying the stuff and doesn’t pay due care and attention. I had to fight my way through a throng of fussing queens to get to Twinkles (including one brazen hussy who tried to evict me as being improperly dressed for the cross dresser’s toilets) I found him in a state of hysteria with his hands clamped to his right eye sobbing that he was blind. His hysteria wasn’t helped by the hysteria of his friends whose idea of comfort revolved around telling Twinks that glass eyes came in a variety of colours and they were sure the doctors would do their best to match him up. I got him out of the loo as quickly as I could and into Brian’s office, where I managed to persuade him to let me examine his eye. It was a real mess, very red, very swollen and weeping sticky fluid, as well as runny mascara. Brian took one look and reached for the phone, ordering a taxi to take Twinkles and I to the eye infirmary.

It transpired that one of Twinkles’ false eyelashes had come adrift and he’d forgotten to put his eyelash adhesive in his handbag. Lulu hadn’t brought any either, so Twinkles ended up using spirit gum that he borrowed from Cherie Pie. Spirit gum is used to slick down heavy eyebrows. It’s wholly unsuitable as an eyelash adhesive because it burns like mad if it gets in the eye and can cause permanent damage. As such it’s a forbidden substance. Luckily he managed to re-fix his eyelash without mishap. However, at the same time, Lulu was demonstrating and attempting to sell a new product from the company he’s an agent for, namely cosmetic contact lenses. The lenses came in various colours and patterns, even animal and Vampire affect. They were causing some excitement and Lulu was doing a roaring trade. His commission was on target to be the highest yet. Twinkles, of course, decided he too had to have fashionable designer eyes. He opted to try in a pair of lenses that had a star pattern, only, instead of putting a drop of the contact lens solution on the lens, he picked up the wrong bottle from the sink and put on a blob of the spirit gum he’d just used on his eyelashes. In short he glued a contact lens to his eyeball with a caustic substance. He quickly realised his error and at least managed to pop the lens out before the gum set, but no amount of cold water soothed the burning sensation in his eye.

Lulu insisted on coming to the eye infirmary with us and stubbornly squeezed himself and his frock into the taxi. Twinks was his best friend and it was his product that had been glued to his eye. I felt like I was drowning in a sea of tulle with Twinkles on one side of me and Lu on the other. The taxi driver couldn’t keep his eyes off us, spending more time viewing us in his mirror than he did the road. It was a miracle we didn’t crash.

The local eye infirmary is housed in one of those very old, gothic style buildings; the sort that a film crew would choose as a location for a horror movie. Because it was after hours, everything was closed up and we had to go to a side door and ring the night bell. There was an intercom on the wall from which a peevish voice demanded to know what we wanted. I said I needed a doctor urgently, as my partner had inadvertently got spirit gum in his eye and was in a lot of discomfort. The voice snapped that the doctor on duty was resting and could we come back to the main clinic in the morning. I said certainly not and if the doctor was on duty he could do that duty and do it quickly. There was some muttering and then the door, a huge wooden affair, creaked reluctantly open. I half expected to see Lurch standing there and fixed my eyes at about the six foot level in anticipation, only to have to drop them by a good six inches to view the churlish night duty nurse. He stared at us in silent disbelief and who could blame him. There I was, a man in a tuxedo, wearing a shirt with a bad fake tan, sandwiched between two ball-gowned transvestites one of whom was sobbing his heart out.

Just as I thought he must have been struck permanently dumb, he suddenly broke his silence by dramatically clapping his hands to his face and shrieking, ‘Oooohhhh, ballroom queens and in my clinic! I just love your dresses, ladies they’re divine. Did you make them yourselves?’ He then roared over his shoulder, ‘Cindy, Cindy, get a wheelchair quickly, it’s an emergency!’ Another nurse appeared pushing a wheelchair and helped her colleague bundle Twinkles into it, following his instructions about arranging his dress so it wouldn’t crease. The male nurse then sped the chair down the long Victorian corridor while bawling another name at the top of his voice, ‘Maurice, Maurice (which he pronounced More-reece) wake up, lovey, we’ve got company, your talents are needed.’

A long thin figure, whom I assumed was Doctor Maurice, shambled out of a side room, wearing a surgical face mask, which was all askew, mumbling, ‘for goodness sake, Teddy, I’d just got over, what…then he clocked a proper look at us and topped Teddy’s earlier shriek by several decibels, ‘OOH, why didn’t you say it was royalty I would have hurried!’ I felt like I’d fallen through a rabbit hole into some alternative gay universe. Teddy and Maurice, who obviously shared more than a work-based relationship, circled around like a couple of camp hyenas, exclaiming over Twinkles’ and Lulu’s outfits. I pinched myself, convinced that I’d fallen asleep and was dreaming, but no, it was really happening. When I drew the doctor’s attention to Twinkles’ eye dilemma, Teddy drew it to the sequinned trim on his ball gown, ‘hand stitched, Maurice, not glued, you don’t see that very often these days and look at those seams, faultless.’ Fighting off a fit of hysteria I firmly insisted that they leave sequin talk for later and attend to their patient’s eye.

Once they got going, Maurice and Teddy, with Cindy’s help, proved to be a very efficient team and soon had Twinkles made much more comfortable with a pain killing injection so his eye could be examined and treated. It wasn’t as bad as I had feared. Maurice said although the eye was very inflamed he didn’t think there was any permanent damage to the cornea and it should regenerate perfectly well. Throughout the treatment they both spoke to him as if he were about seven years old, patting his hands and calling him a brave little princess, as his eye was sluiced and cleaned. I have to tell you he absolutely lapped it up. It was shameful.

As they worked, Teddy proudly related how he and Maurice had won The Gay Gordons Ballroom Dance Trophy three years running at the annual Drag Queen’s Gala in Manchester’s Gay Village. Giving me a rather baleful look from his good eye, Twinks said he would love to take part in something like that, but unfortunately he was lumbered with a partner who had two left feet. After treatment he was prescribed some eye drops and given a clear eye guard to protect his sensitive eye until the inflammation subsided.

I was ready for home, but Teddy insisted we stay and have a cup of tea and a biscuit with him, Maurice and Cindy. They obviously wanted to quiz Lulu and Twinks and as they were happy to be quizzed, I let the four of them get on with it while I sat and helped Cindy do a crossword puzzle. No one can gossip like a gaggle of queens. Cindy kindly offered me the use of a pair of earplugs to block out their vocal exchanges, but I declined, preferring to keep track of what Twinkles was saying. I didn’t want him arranging for me to have dancing lessons with Teddy. Mum’s name was bandied around as a seamstress par excellence, with Twinkles promising to make introductions to her, as well as to the PP. Maurice and Teddy it seemed were relatively new to the area, after moving down from Brighton and were not yet fully au fait with the local TV scene.

To cap it all Twinkles and Lulu, partnered respectively by Maurice and Teddy, ended up waltzing down the long corridor. I’m afraid I must admit to a twinge of jealousy, as I noted that Twinks and Maurice made rather a fetching couple, despite one of them having an eye patch and the other being dressed in surgical scrubs. I hadn’t realised Twinkles could move so gracefully, a half decent dance partner made all the difference. Teddy and Maurice then proceeded to teach Lulu and Twinkles the finer points of a competition standard Polka. It was then that I phoned a taxi to take us home.

As a postscript to that saga, his eye is fine now. All the swelling and redness have completely gone and he can focus without his vision blurring. We had a lengthy discussion about his decision to use spirit gum to re-fix his eyelashes. I wasn’t happy about it at all and considered it to be reckless disobedience on his part. He tried to point out that it wasn’t sticking the eyelashes that had caused the gum to get in his eye, he’d been very careful about that. It made no difference. He had used something we’d agreed was NEVER to be used near his eyes. In the end, I decided that the pain and trauma he’d suffered as a result of his decision was more than sufficient to teach him a lesson about safety and was far worse punishment than I could or would ever devise. I settled for warning him that if he ever used spirit gum again I would invest in a very large paddle.

 

19th June 2005:

 

Father’s Day

 

Twinkles was in one of his martyred moods this morning. He floated around the house in his favourite weekend peignoir flicking at things with a feather duster, while muttering just outside my range of hearing. Then he sat down, folded his arms, crossed his legs and began swinging his foot back and forth so that his mule clacked against his heel. He oozed telling little sighs while glancing up at the ceiling. I hate it when he does that. He wears this look on his face: longsuffering, wronged, hard done by, tight-lipped. It drives me mad. I calmly asked what the matter was? Nothing, he said, but his mule clacking against his foot like a stenograph was telling a different story. He was just fine…even though he’d recently almost lost his sight and been left horribly disfigured by a deadly virus. I told him not to worry, as the spots would soon fade. He said, rather enigmatically, that emotional scars were the hardest to deal with.

I gave up trying to read the Sunday papers and gave my full attention to the smouldering Martyr, telling him bluntly that I wasn’t spending Sunday playing guess what’s eating Stardust Twinkles. If he didn’t spit out what was bothering him, I was going to whack his arse.

He immediately demanded to know why I hadn’t bought him a card and a gift for Father’s Day. I’ll be honest and say this flummoxed me. It was something that had never arisen before. To me it was obvious why I hadn’t gotten him a card, why I’d never in fact gotten him a card…he isn’t my father. I said so. To which he dramatically replied, ‘no, but I’m the godfather of your godson and I thought you would at least have got me a card on his behalf.’ It hadn’t crossed my mind. For a start I’d actually forgotten it was Father’s Day. Normally I would visit my dad and take him a card and a present, but he and Gill have gone away to Paris for a romantic weekend. I wasn’t certain that being a godfather qualified you to receive cards on Father’s Day. I wasn’t certain they even existed. Suddenly what had been a straightforward kind of thing was now a potential hazard area and very confusing. This is where life is much easier for mixed partner parents and godparents…Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, one of each, nice and simple. How do children of transvestite parents cope? Do they buy their father a card on both mother’s and father’s day?

Like I said, it was all very confusing. Twinkles dissolved into tears at what he termed my heartless disregard for the godfather of my godson. I said the same could be said of him, as I was the godfather of his godson, and he hadn’t got me a card. At which point he whipped up a sofa cushion and with a flourish produced a large white envelope. It was a sweet card with a flotilla of little blue ducks on it. It read ‘To a wonderful godfather on Father’s Day.’ Is there ANY permutations not covered by the greetings card industry? I humbly thanked Twinks and begged his forgiveness for my lack of thoughtfulness, which he graciously gave, but with a slightly injured air.

I slipped out and went to Tesco, and low and behold they had some godfather cards. I chose one with a big blue teddy on it. They also had some that read: to my uncle on Father’s Day, which was just totally beyond my comprehension. Whatever next, to my beloved Tom Cat on Father’s Day? As well as the card I bought a bottle of champagne, some fresh strawberries and a tub of cream and of course chocolates. Twinks has had a rough time lately and he’s missed some nights out at the PP, so I thought it might be nice to treat him to a picnic lunch in the garden. It looked like it was going to be a sunny day for a change. He adores being spoilt and I knew I was forgiven. To add to his pleasure, Karen and Paul dropped by with a card and some flowers for us from Dominic. I was pleased too. I reckon I could get used to this Father’s Day thing. I thought it especially kind of Paul to allow us a small share in the limelight of his special day. In all likelihood being godparents is the closest that Twinkles and I will ever come to experiencing fatherhood, and it’s really rather wonderful.

The garden picnic was lovely. Twinks, despite still being spotty and lathered in several inches of sun block, looked gorgeous in his white t-shirt and little white shorts. He sat under a lacquered Chinese parasol, nibbling strawberries and sipping champagne. It felt as if summer had finally arrived. We’d just finished the champagne and were having a bit of a kiss and fondle when a huge clap of thunder sounded. He went skedaddling indoors leaving me to clear up. Another British summer over with.

The rain is still pounding down. Two more days and it will be the summer solstice, and then it’s all down hill to the dark nights. Twinks blames Wimbledon, which starts tomorrow. He says it buggers up summer every year without fail, guaranteeing a fortnight of torrential rain. As I write he’s snoring away on the couch. Drinking wine on an afternoon always knocks him out. Before sleep claimed him he told me a sad thing and a sweet thing. The sad thing was that he wished he could have sent his father a last Father’s Day card, one that told him he was forgiven and loved. The sweet thing was that if he were given the chance to re-live one moment of his life again, it would be the moment he looked up and saw me walk through the door of the jeweller’s shop where he works. I was touched. He asked me what moment I’d choose and I said it would be the moment when I walked into the jewellers and he smiled and asked if he could help me.

It’s funny how just one moment can change your life. I had walked past that small jeweller’s shop many times and not so much as glanced in the window. Then one day while I was out, my cell phone rang. It was my sister asking if I’d remembered it was mum’s birthday. To my shame I hadn’t. That call couldn’t have been more beautifully timed or placed. It halted me right outside Twinkles’ shop. Kismet I thought as I pushed open the door, and I was right in more ways than one.

So, there you have our Summer Sunday. I wish you all as fortunate in Kismet as I have been.

 

 

29th June 2005:

 

Skipping And Waxing

 

He’s is in a huff with me this evening. He’s sitting on the couch looking very hard done by. Why? Because I’ve confiscated his new skipping rope, that’s why. Why? Because he’s a pest with it, that’s why. He read an article in a magazine a few days ago that claimed skipping was an excellent way of boosting your metabolism and thus burning more calories and that it also toned your shoulders, legs and bottom. Doing a minute of energetic skipping every half hour or so throughout the day is guaranteed to get you in film star shape in less than a fortnight. So he hurried forth and bought a skipping rope. Of course Twinks being Twinks, he couldn’t just buy a plain old skipping rope. Oh no, he had to buy a bright orange and pink thing that makes a high pitched whining noise as you skip. It drives me up the wall.

In principle I have no objection to him skipping. What I did object to was his insistence on skipping in the house. The weather has been rather inclement here lately and skipping outside is less than appealing. I tried to be understanding, but I told him yesterday, after he’d taken out the kitchen light bulb twice with the wretched thing, that he would have to wait until the weather improved so he could skip outside. In the meantime he was not to skip in the kitchen again. He wilfully interpreted that as meaning it was okay to skip in the sitting room and as soon as I disappeared upstairs to shower this evening he did just that. Consequently he took out the sitting room light bulb, smashing the shade in the process. In the same movement he whipped a mug of tea off the coffee table, it flew through the air and crashed through the television screen. I was not pleased at all.

He said he was sorry for what had happened, but it was imperative that he skipped this evening. I asked what the urgency was and he confessed that he’d bought a load of bargain chocolate from Bent Barry’s confectionary stall in town this afternoon and had already eaten most of it. He was hoping to boost his metabolism and burn off the excess calories by skipping. I asked whether he seriously thought I’d approve of him skipping in the sitting room when I’d made it plain I didn’t approve of him skipping in the kitchen? He reluctantly said no. I said damned right and spanked his bottom. I then took his rope away, telling him that if he couldn’t use it responsibly then I wasn’t going to allow him to use it at all. Hence his huff with me, he thinks his need to burn off chocolate calories amounted to extenuating circumstances, and I should have been more understanding. All I understood was that his bargain chocolate binge had cost us a fortune and we’d had quite enough expense lately due to his thoughtless actions.

As I mentioned, the weather here has been a tad inclement of late. We’ve had some massive thunderstorms in the last ten days or so and they’ve caused some terrible flash flooding. Compared to some poor unfortunates, we’ve escaped lightly. Even so, I’ll never forget the sight of several feet of water swirling around our kitchen. The flooring was totally ruined in the kitchen and hallway and had to be replaced. I wouldn’t mind so much if it was storm damage, but it wasn’t. It was Twinkles damage.

One evening he had a girl’s night in, a leg waxing party. The very idea of it filled me with horror, so I contacted Brian and some other friends and arranged a lad’s night out. Before leaving I warned Twinks to go easy on the cocktails, both in doling them out and drinking them down. He’s apt to get a bit carried away when mixing drinks and I didn’t want to come home to a houseful of inebriated transvestites. He promised to be the very epitome of sobriety. I also told him to keep the noise down so as not to upset the neighbours. He promised to be the very soul of neighbourly discretion. I warned him that I wanted no fighting, especially if Natalie turned up with Big Mary. At that point, he sweetly asked me if I’d joined the frigging Temperance Movement on the sly and was I actually going out, or was I going to stand there all night spouting Commandants like Moses on a lecture tour. I took his point, kissed him and left. I had a pleasant evening. It’s nice to go out to a regular pub once in a while and just talk with friends.

I got home to find…nothing. No drunken queens rolling around the garden having a punch up, no irate neighbours banging on the door demanding music be turned down. I went into the sitting room to find a happy little throng of freshly leg-waxed queens. They were painting each other’s toenails, quaffing cocktails and nibbling nibbles, while watching a DVD of the film Calendar Girls. I found myself comfortably ensconced at their centre, Martini in hand, Twinkles on my lap. The film was much enjoyed. Drag queens are an impressionable breed and they have passion. If something captures them, it captures them and they fling themselves into it wholeheartedly. Before the film was over, there was talk of setting up a cross dressing version of the W.I. Names were being taken of those willing to pose naked for a drag queen calendar to raise funds for gay charities and Twinkles was planning to make jam and bake a sponge cake first thing on the morrow.

All enjoyed a pleasant evening and in due course I stood on the doorstep with Twinkles waving everyone off. I’m sure most of the neighbours are convinced that I’m some sort of brothel keeper or pimp with all the exotically dressed ‘women’ that come and go from our house. Twinks wasn’t drunk, but he was slightly tiddly, so I carried him up to bed. He was wearing a black lace peignoir, which I have to say is incredibly sexy on him. It’s fairly short at the front, falling into cascading ruffles at the back and it shows off his legs beautifully. He has great legs. I like the feel of them when they’ve been freshly waxed because they’re all silky smooth. Once upstairs he invited me to run my hand up them, which I did willingly enough. Giving me a sexy wink and smile he then guided my hand further. My eyes opened wide and I grinned in delight. He’d had the full Brazilian. That had to have hurt, but oh my, it felt very, very sexy. Let’s just say his lace peignoir soon hit the floor.

I awoke at about three with a need to heed nature’s call. I was heading back to our bedroom when I heard a sound. I stood at the top of the stairs trying to identify it. It was a gurgling, like over stressed drains trying to cope with a heavy downpour. I looked out of the bedroom window, expecting to see it bucketing down, but for once it was dry. That’s when I went downstairs.

As soon as my feet touched the hall floor I knew something was seriously amiss. I turned on the light to see water snaking down the hall, obviously coming from the kitchen. I squelched through it, pushed open the door and a positive deluge rushed out to greet me. What a mess. I got to the sink as fast as I could and turned off the tap that had been left gently running. I couldn’t understand why it hadn’t drained away. The plug wasn’t in. Well, not a regular plug anyway. I soon discovered that wax had set solid in the plughole. It seems that after the waxing session, Twinks was eager to join his hairless friends and not miss any of the films they were watching. Without thinking he carelessly tipped what remained of the hot liquid wax into the sink. Giving his hands a quick rinse under the cold tap, he had then retired to the main arena, not realising he’d clogged the sink and left the tap partially running. He’s always doing that. If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a dozen times to make sure he turns the taps off properly. Does he listen? Does he heck!

At least it was clean water; my heart goes out to those people who have suffered river water plundering their homes. Twinkles was devastated. It was hard to be cross with him in the face of his genuine contrition. And yet, here we are again, this evening, TV-less, bulb-less, shade-less and all because Twinkles doesn’t think before acting.

He’s gone from being huffy to being miserable. I suppose it won’t kill me to go give him a cuddle.

 

 

30th June 2005:

 

New Balls Please!

 

It looks very much like our anonymous mail friend is back on the scene. It’s all been quiet for a while, no letters, no hoax calls and no wreaths. He’s either been sick, physically, rather than just in the head, on holiday or found someone else to persecute for a time. However, we came home from work this evening to discover that someone had beheaded all our garden gnomes, scattering torsos and heads across the front lawn. They weren’t just your box standard, run of the mill garden gnomes either. They were gay pride gnomes: two drag queens, two lesbians canoodling on a bench and two male gnomes who were doing something decidedly suspect with what appeared to be a length of hosepipe and a watering can. They were gifts from our friends Val and Sandra who make them as a hobby. I’ll be brutally honest here and say that in one respect I didn’t mind the slaughter. I couldn’t stand the hideous things and I wouldn’t miss seeing them in the garden. What I did mind was that someone thought they had the right to do that to us. It’s the insult, the contempt, and the hatred inherent in the action that disturbs me. I reported it to the police with no real hope that they would do anything.

I feel a bit depressed about it. This could go on for years and there’s nothing we can do to stop it, short of selling up and moving right away and even then there’s no guarantee that it will cease. I asked the neighbours if they’d seen anything and naturally they hadn’t, but they offered to keep an eye open for anyone suspicious hanging around our property. Though, as Twinks said, when you thought about it, all the callers at our house would appear suspicious to most people. I told Twinkles not to let on to Val and Sandra about what had happened, as I didn’t want them getting upset about the spiteful destruction of their gifts (I was also terrified that they might offer us replacements)

I’m a grass widower this evening. Twinks is out. He and Lulu were invited over to Maurice and Teddy’s place to play tennis, mixed doubles. They drew lots to see who played as who. Lulu drew to play as Bjorn Borg with Teddy as Martina Navratilova. To Twink’s delight he drew to play as Venus Williams along with Maurice as John MacEnroe…yes, I know, that’s exactly what I said…you cannot be serious? Talk about fantasy tennis! I was invited to take on the role of umpire, but I politely declined, claiming I had some work to do at home. I didn’t fancy attempting to umpire that quartet. It would take the U.N. to keep peace between them.

I had to have stern words with Twinkles even before he left the house. His tennis dress was super short, which I didn’t mind. What I did mind was that the only thing he had on underneath it was a thong so wispy you’d be forgiven for mistaking it for a spider’s web. He said I was being a prude. I said he was being naughty and I knew what his game was and it wasn’t tennis, it was downright cheating. No one on the court would be able to concentrate on the balls going over the net, not when they were too busy looking at another set of balls and a couple of globes bobbing around the court. What’s under his dress is for my eyes only and I didn’t want it on display to anyone else. I told him that if he didn’t put on some adequate underwear, then it was game, set and match to me and he’d be heading to the dressing room for an early shower. He grumbled, but did as he was told. I also warned him not to throw a tantrum if he and Maurice lost and to try and maintain a sense of good sportsmanship. He was deeply offended that I should even presume to question his sportsmanship. He was renowned for his graciousness in defeat. I suppose we all have our delusions about something. Actually, I don’t think there’ll be any winners or losers this evening. Judging from the distant rumblings and strange light I’d say rain is about to stop play. God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform.

 

 

3rd July 2005:

 

War Of The Worlds

 

I’m slightly hard of hearing today. We were at the PP last night and Brian had arranged for big screens to be put up to show the G8 concerts. I’m not so much deaf from the loudness of the music, as from the loudness of the company. Sitting at a table with a gaggle of drag queens doesn’t do much for the well being of your aural nerves. Mine were suffering even before Diva Madonna set foot on the stage. They went into shock as soon as she appeared, shrivelling under a cacophony of shrieks, screeches and acidic comments…‘oh, what a terrible outfit, looks like pyjamas, you’d think she’d have dressed up for the occasion, have you seen her hair, terrible, doesn’t suit her, and my dear, look at those muscles, you can’t tell me she isn’t on testosterone injections, she’s more butch than a lesbian bus driver…’ Twinkles said he would have to start pumping iron in order for his Madonna impersonation to be more authentic. Lulu told him he’d be hard pressed to pump a bike tyre never mind iron. Twinkles retaliated by snapping at least I don’t have to pump my own…at which point I cut him off with a stern look.

The appearance of the Scissor Sisters prompted another assault on my long-suffering eardrums. They also prompted a row between you know who. Twinkles said he thought that Ana Matronic’s frock, indeed her whole figure, was very Marilyn Monroe in style. Natalie bitchily remarked that there was enough blubber hanging over the back of her halter neck dress to attract the Japanese whaling fleet. Twinkles applauded her for not being one of those overly skinny pop stars that looked liked they hadn’t had food since their mother stopped breast feeding them and anyway, Natalie need talk about blubber, as she had so much wobbling around on her arse it was a wonder that Greenpeace hadn’t sent out a boat to protect it from harpoon attack. I stopped it there before it escalated any further, confiscating both their handbags before they started using them like medieval flails. I made Twinkles apologise for his remark and told Natalie to try and be less caustic, to which she replied, caustically, I’m a drag queen, dear, it’s my duty to be caustic.

George Michael caused another ear splitting outburst, though Twinkles said he didn’t care for his beard and he’d have to shave it off before he’d consider snogging him. I rather rashly made a small comment about liking Brad Pitt’s blonde look. Twinkles, Mr double standards, immediately went into a huff, accusing me of lusting after other men and blonde ones at that. Wasn’t his boring brown hair good enough for me anymore? What would it take to make me love him again, peroxide, was that it, was he going to have to join the ranks of the bottle blondes to keep my attention? I wearily took a couple of painkillers, inserted some cotton wool into my throbbing ears and told Twinks that if he so much as looked at a bottle of hair dye he’d have to get used to standing up for the rest of his life. It was a relief to get home.

We went to the cinema this morning to see War of the Worlds. Twinks and I are in two minds about Tom Cruise. We’re not sure if we fancy him or not, or whether he’s cute or sexy. We think he might be cute, but not sexy, though we both agree that should he ‘turn’ neither of us would kick him out of bed in a hurry. The film was enjoyable and a bit scary in parts, which I hadn’t expected, especially as it was classified as only a 12A. Twinkles almost jumped out of his skin when the first alien tripod shot out of the earth and began to destroy everything in sight. He let out a cry of fright and shot back in his seat, hurling the contents of his popcorn carton over his shoulder and showering the people in the row behind. He then clutched my arm so hard I thought he was going to yank it out of its socket. By the end of the film he was all but on my lap. There were people in the cinema that didn’t know whether to watch the screen or watch us. The little boy sitting next to Twinks, who looked all of ten, very kindly told him not to be scared, as it was just a film.

We’re going over to mum’s for dinner this evening, it’s a special occasion. My sister Maryann is home. She arrived late last night and then went to visit dad and Gill this morning, so we haven’t actually seen her yet. She works and lives in Scotland and this is her first visit home since Christmas. I talked to her on the phone briefly this afternoon, when I managed to prise it away from Twinkles. He thinks the world of Maryann, and she adores him. I was worried that they wouldn’t get on when I first introduced them. Maryann says Twinks is the perfect best friend, as he’s interested in clothes, makeup, shoes, gossip and men, but no threat whatsoever to your chances of getting a date. Maryanne and I used to have a bit of a problem when it came to meeting each other’s boyfriends, especially if one of us was between dates. We seemed to share a similar taste in men, which could be frustrating. It ticked her off seeing me with blokes that she fancied when she didn’t have a boyfriend, and the same for me. She fancied my boyfriends and I fancied hers, but never the twain could meet. Maryann is currently dating someone. She’s been seeing him for two months and has brought him with her, that’s partly why I couldn’t get the phone off Twinks. He was quizzing her about her beau, nosy devil that he is. We’re looking forward to seeing her and meeting him.

 

 

8th July 2005:

 

London

 

It’s hard to focus on anything other than the news surrounding the terrorist attacks in London. It’s also very hard to imagine what kind of people can encourage and carry out such vile acts. How can they then go about their own lives after destroying the lives of so many innocents? How do they sleep, how can they look with ease on the faces of their loved ones, after murdering other people’s loved ones? Twinkles says they’re not people, they’re sub-human, savage bastards who want to oppress and destroy anything that doesn’t fit their sick little view of the world. I can sympathise with his angry sentiments, some of the stories we’ve heard have been harrowing in the extreme. Our heartfelt sympathies go out to all those so cruelly affected.

On a lighter note this evening, Twinkles is currently hiding behind the sofa, because the little girl next door, who’s eight, is looking for him. She’s peeping through the window and he’s terrified she’ll spot him. She wants him to play skips with her. She’s got a new rhyme to teach him. She saw him in the garden doing his skipping routine a few days ago and has plagued him ever since. As soon as we get home from work she’s ringing the doorbell, asking if he’s coming out to play. Poor Twinks, he doesn’t mind playing for fifteen minutes or so, but she’s relentless and she can skip him off the planet. He’s shattered. However, what’s really scaring him is that she’s taken a fancy to his beloved pink fluffy mules and wants to wear them. Every time the doorbell sounds he looks at me wildly, mouthing, ‘tell her I’m out, don’t let her in,’ while clasping his mules protectively to his bosom. He says it’s my fault she’s latched onto him and I should never have given him his skipping rope back. He’s snaking across the floor on his stomach now, on his way towards the stairs so he can make a start on getting ready to go out later. He says he’s taking his mules with him, in case Gabby breaks in to steal them while we’re out. I think he’s joking, on the other hand….

 

 

12th July 2005:

 

Drag Starfish

 

My sister and her boyfriend returned to Scotland on Saturday after staying with Mum for a week. It was good to see Maryann. Sadly, neither Twinkles nor I much cared for Callum, her boyfriend. First impressions were favourable. He was good looking, in a heavy, blonde rugby player sort of way. The type I once might have fancied, before I was blinded by Stardust. Personality wise, how can I put it, he was lacking a certain charm, especially when Maryann and mum were out of earshot. It wasn’t too bad at first, though you could tell he wasn’t comfortable with the relationship that Twinkles and I share, which is fair enough. It takes some people a little time to relax with something unfamiliar to them. Twinkles was dressed conventionally, for him anyway, in a white t-shirt, pedal pusher jeans and a pair of lilac suede sandals that showed off his painted toenails. Maryann loved his sandals, she’s as bad as him when it comes to shoes, and immediately made him take them off, so she could try them on. They both take a size seven in a shoe. Callum didn’t like this, making little noises of disgust that neither Twinks nor Maryann heard, engaged as they were with shoe talk and catching up on sundry gossip. I heard though, as was the intention. I also noted with some disquiet the sideway looks that he kept giving Twinkles. He really did not like him, or the fact that Maryann obviously does. He proceeded to find any opportunity to have a sly dig at Twinks, making snide jokes and comments about female impersonators, all in a wink-wink, just teasing, sort of way, but with an unmistakeable edge to it. I felt like punching his teeth out.

Twinkles was remarkably restrained, for him. He didn’t want to upset Maryann, but I could tell he was getting rattled. When he found out that Callum actually did play rugby, he sweetly told him that he’d heard that the rugby scrum was a euphemism for group oral sex and asked was it true that when they were huddled together on the field, they were all sucking each other’s dicks? Callum didn’t mind dishing it but he didn’t like taking it, and his face darkened. However, seeing as Maryann was standing next to Twinkles and she laughed at his ‘joke’ there wasn’t much he could do, but if looks could kill, Twinks would be history. He got his own back though. It was a warm evening and we were in the garden. Mum had set out the patio tables and chairs and after dinner we went outside to sit and chat. Callum got up to go to the bathroom, managing to tilt the table in the process, sending a jug of Sangria crashing into Twinkles’ lap. I felt I had no choice but to accept it as an accident, but I’m certain it was no such thing. Twinkles knew too and he was fuming, but again, for mum and Maryanne’s sake he kept fuss to a minimum. I was proud of him. He doesn’t find it easy to keep his temper in situations like that. At least it offered us an excuse to leave and go home. Twinkles t-shirt and jeans laundered all right, but his sandals were ruined. The stains wouldn’t come out of the soft suede.

That might have been that, but unfortunately, mid-week, mum decided to have a family party and invited all known clan members within a thirty-mile radius. Short of hiring a shuttle to take us to the moon, there wasn’t much we could do to get out of it, not without hurting my sister and mother’s feelings.

Callum started as soon as we arrived, ‘jokingly’ referring to us as SpongeBob Square Pants and his little friend Pansy Star. When Twinkles pointed out that actually SpongeBob’s friend was called Patrick, he sneered and said so what, it was well known that he was a wee pansy. Ignoring my warning glance, Twinks gave one of his best theatrical squeals and throwing his arms around Callum in a stranglehold hug shrieked, ‘oh you darling man, you’ve heard that I’m a drag queen and you’ve reinvented Patrick and made him a drag Starfish with his very own drag name just for me.’ He then kissed a shell shocked Callum full on the lips, causing a certain amount of amusement amongst onlookers. Callum was far from amused. I thought he was going to hit Twinkles and prepared to intervene. Fortunately, mum and Maryann made an appearance at that point. I quietly told Twinkles that while I could understand his desire to get back at Callum, the kiss had been unnecessary and I didn’t want him doing anything like that again.

I stuck like glue to his side after that, steering him around various relatives, keeping him busy, well away from Callum. There was one tricky moment when an elderly uncle sidetracked me, and Twinkles escaped. I spotted him heading purposefully in Callum’s direction carrying a jug of Sangria. Making a hasty apology to my uncle I darted after Twinks, cutting him off. Removing the jug from his hands I told him that if he moved from my side without permission for the rest of the evening, I would punish him. He said I had a suspicious mind and he was just going to offer Maryann a drink, to which I replied, and pigs ride bicycles!

I can only hope that Maryann’s affair with Callum is just that, and nothing more. I can’t say I find the idea of having him as a brother-in-law very appealing. However, I’m the last person in the world to say whom another should love. If Maryann loves him, she loves him.

As I write, Twinkles is having a nice long soak in a cool, peppermint oil bath. He’s tired and overwrought. He doesn’t know it yet, but he’s going to bed after his bath. It’s been hotter than Hades here for the past few days. It’s the sort of weather that makes you feel sluggish and irritable. I made the mistake of grumbling to mum about the heat when she came round for tea yesterday evening and she immediately went for my jugular, snapping that I knew nothing about heat and I ought to thank my lucky stars that I wasn’t menopausal, because the real meaning of misery and discomfort was having a hot flush in a heat wave. This set her off on a tirade about bloody selfish, shallow men, be they gay or straight, who had no idea about the horrors that women had to suffer with their hormones and all for what? To bring ungrateful children into the world, children who grew up and left you without so much as a thank you for the loan of your womb! Twinkles immediately leapt to my defence and begged mum not to be cross with me, because…he burst into wracking sobs as he made the dramatic pronouncement…I had cancer.

My poor mother was utterly stunned. I thought she was going to faint. Thankfully she didn’t. Following Twinkles’ example she burst into a storm of tears. I had two of them simultaneously howling and trying to hug me. It started to get a bit competitive. I felt like a bone being pulled between two dogs, one of them snarling that I was her baby boy, and the other that I was his husband. I hastily adopted a King Solomon stance before I got split in two, firmly calling a halt to the hysterics. I settled mum at one end of the sofa and sat next to her, while cuddling Twinkles on my other side. It was hard to be cross with him, he’s scared for me, but really, I hadn’t wanted mum to know, not until I was sure there was something she needed to know. I explained to her that Twinks, as per usual, was being a drama queen, and as yet I didn’t know what I had, if anything. I reassured her that as soon as I had any news I would tell her.

She’d calmed down by the time Priscilla came round to pick her up. They were going to the cinema to see War of the Worlds. I had to put my hand over Twink’s mouth to stop him launching into a detailed blow-by-blow account of the film and thus rendering going to see it as a complete waste of money. When she left her farewell hug and kiss were particularly affectionate, as if she was fearful she was never going to see me again. I told her she wasn’t to worry. She said it was a mother’s prerogative to worry and had I told my dad, because he had a right to worry too. I said I’d call him later. She hugged Twinks, telling him to keep her properly informed, as she knew I’d only tell her what I felt she needed to know. Honestly, those two, if I’m not refereeing their rows or negotiating peace between them, I’m the object of a mutual conspiracy.

What’s all the fuss about? Well, something and nothing really. On Sunday gone, Twinkles and I were sitting in the garden and I asked him to rub some sun lotion on my back, which he did. He suddenly stopped rubbing and clutched rather painfully at my sides. I asked him what was wrong? He said there was something different about the mole I have on my right shoulder. It had altered shape and was definitely much darker in colour than it used to be. He’d read about this kind of thing, it was serious. He was clearly upset, so I calmly told him that it was probably nothing to worry about. I’d probably rubbed a towel too hard across it when drying myself. He wanted me to make a doctor’s appointment there and then, but I reminded him it was Sunday and the surgery was closed. He immediately began cranking his mood up, wanting me to go to A&E, or call out a doctor. I knew he was worried. I too was concerned. The ugly word cancer wasn’t spoken, but it hung on the air like a threat of thunder, dimming the sunshine. However, I wasn’t going to get hysterical nor was I going to let him get hysterical. I firmly told him there was nothing to be gained by bothering the emergency medical services unnecessarily and I would make an appointment on Monday morning.

I half expected my GP, Doctor Sharp, to tell me it was nothing at all and it would clear up on its own, but he didn’t. He spent quite some time humming and hawing and prodding at my shoulder. Then he picked up the phone and made arrangements for me to be referred, as a priority, to a Dermatologist at the hospital. I should have an appointment within the week. They’ll most likely remove it and do a biopsy.

I keep telling Twinks that the chances of it being something sinister are slim and that removing it is just a precaution, but he’s still worrying himself sick. I found him surfing the web at two o clock this morning looking at grotesque pictures of advanced, terminal melanomas, with tears pouring down his cheeks. I took him back to bed and forbade him to look at anything like that again. It was only feeding his anxiety. I would let him know as and when there was cause to worry, and how much he was allowed to worry. He gave a sharp intake of breath and indignantly told me that I might think I was lord and master of all I surveyed, but he’d bloody worry if he wanted to and I had no right, and no authority, to tell him not to. I conceded that point, but told him I had every right to dictate how he expressed his worry, and scaring himself silly by reading about worst case scenarios was not was of them. At least making him cross with me stopped him crying and gave him something else to focus on. It was a horribly hot and sticky night, but despite that, he wanted to cuddle me and lay in my arms muttering darkly until he fell asleep again. I lay awake, indulging a few of my own anxieties until it was time to get up. I’ll feel better once I know exactly what I have to contend with.

I’m going to go and close the bedroom blinds, put on the ceiling fan and sort out some videos for Twinkles and I to watch in bed. I’ll open a bottle of chilled wine and put out some snacks and hopefully take his mind off things for a while.

 

 

14th July 2005:

 

My Salad Lives

 

I had one of the most revolting and horrible experiences of my entire life today, and it was all thanks to him in frocks. My skin is still crawling and my blood pressure has yet to equalise. Let me explain. I’ve taken a few days holiday from work. After dropping Twinks at the shop this morning I came back home and pottered around doing some housework, catching up on the ironing, washing the car, that sort of thing. Incidentally, Twinkles is very grumpy about me being off when he isn’t. I had the devil’s own job getting him out of bed this morning. He feigned a headache and wanted me to phone him in sick. I know when he’s got a genuine headache, and I was having none of it. I cheered him up by showering with him. It cheered me up as well, there’s nothing like warm running sex for relieving anxiety and stress.

Before dropping him off at work I gave him strict instructions not to phone the hospital to demand when my appointment would be (he’s called them nine times to date, they’re getting a tad annoyed) Anyway, getting back to the incident, I finished the ironing and put it all away, then went to get some lunch. We had salad last night for dinner and I decided to finish the leftovers of that with some canned tuna. So, there I was, reading my book, happily munching away on my salad when, to my surprise, nay, astonishment, I glanced at my plate and noted that the salad appeared to be slightly vibrating. This puzzled me somewhat, after all it hadn’t been vibrating yesterday evening. I peered more closely and poked around with my fork, and what I discovered in amongst the greenery caused my hair to stand on end. My salad was alive, and not with the sound of music, but with scores of maggots. I rocketed to my feet so abruptly I overturned the chair. Abandoning all propriety I spat the contents of my mouth onto the floor, along with some pretty strong expletives, before dashing to the sink and heaving. Oh God was I sick, and it had maggots in it. I’d consumed maggots! I was sicker still, fighting a powerful impulse to run around the house screaming out my revulsion.

Eventually, when I stopped heaving and rinsing my mouth again and again and shuddering, I turned my thoughts as to how the damn things had got into the salad. It had been freshly prepared the night before. All the salad vegetables had been washed prior to use, they had been clean, so where had they come from and why was there so many of them? One or two would be bad enough, but dozens! Worse was to come. Opening the fridge I discovered upon inspection that everything was infested with maggots. It was the most disgusting sight I’ve ever seen. They were in the butter, the cheese, the cooked meats, the salad drawer, they were wiggling on the steak I’d been planning to barbecue for dinner. My stomach rose into my throat once again. How the hell had it happened? A plastic box, an unfamiliar plastic box, on the top shelf of the fridge provided the clue. It had obviously once been the home of the maggot hoards that were now colonising our refrigerator; a few less adventurous specimens were still huddled in its corners.

TWINKLES! I actually yelled his name, even though he wasn’t in the house. I phoned the shop and politely asked if I might have a word with him. I asked what he knew about the mysterious plastic box in the fridge that had once been filled with live maggots. He asked me what I meant by ‘once’ and I explained. There was a long silence followed by some odd muffled noises. I spoke very quietly into the receiver, ‘if you’re laughing, Jonathan Lane, I swear I will drive over there and I will spank you until you can’t sit down.’ He claimed he was gagging in sympathy for my ordeal. Little liar.

It turns out they were Lulu’s maggots. His fridge apparently gave up the ghost yesterday and he asked Twinkles if he would store the beasties in our fridge to keep them fresh until the weekend, when he’s due to go fishing with his dad. Twinkles didn’t mention it to me, because he thought I might object, as I was renowned for being a bit finicky about things like that. He didn’t think I’d notice if he kept the box at the back of the fridge. I asked how the lid came to be off the box? Twinks confessed that he took it off this morning, to give the maggots a bit of air. Despite the fact that they were repulsive, it bothered him that they might suffocate with the lid on, even though Lulu said they wouldn’t, it just kept them dormant. He’d meant to put the lid back on before going to work, but forgot. He was sorry. I said that we would talk about it this evening. He asked was I annoyed with him? I said no of course not. I was bloody livid! I had eaten maggots. I had actually consumed living, wriggling things. That horrific detail aside, it was discourteous to store something like that without informing me. At least if I’d known about them I could have stopped him interfering with the container. He said he was sorry for not telling me and had I heard anything from the hospital? I said no, and he said did I want him to phone them again? I said no and he might have changed the subject, but I hadn’t and we’d be talking further this evening.

As it happened, the letterbox clattered the moment I put the phone down. The post had arrived. Once upon a time, you could guarantee that your mail was delivered early on a morning, in time for you to read over your breakfast before leaving for work. It can arrive anytime now, mid morning, mid afternoon, anytime but when you actually want it. My appointment for the dermatologist was in among the usual circulars. It’s tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. I called Twinks once again to put his mind at rest. He was relieved and happy that a Specialist was seeing me.

He wasn’t happy with the talk we had when I brought him home this evening. I made it very clear that I did not appreciate his lack of respect and courtesy in agreeing to store the bait without at least seeking my opinion. I appreciated still less munching on maggots and having them freely roaming around the fridge. This was yet another example of him being careless and acting without thinking. It cost us money. Everything in the fridge would have to be thrown away.

As punishment I told him that he was to clean out the fridge and get rid of all trace of the revolting creatures. He was dismayed to say the least, saying they were Lulu’s rotten maggots and he should come round and clear them out. As he had been the one to liberate them I felt it only fair that he recapture them. He let out a screech when he saw them clustered thickly over things, saying tearfully, that he couldn’t touch them, he’d be sick. I gave him a choice, he could do it with or without a sore bottom, but he was going to do it. I handed him a pair of rubber gloves and some bin bags and bade him get on with the task. It took him ages to clean them out and he did it with much grimacing and groaning, but to give him his due, he did a thorough job, checking and cleaning every last inch of the fridge interior. He didn’t want any dinner. He didn’t think he’d ever eat again after what he’d seen and handled. I could empathise with that. The mere thought of food set my stomach churning.

Afterwards I took a dominant stance, telling him he was to go straight up to bed and no television. He was most put out, as he had plans for this evening. Lulu was coming over to help him cut out a new dress pattern. I said he would have to rearrange it for another evening. He said I was being unnecessarily harsh, but I didn’t agree. In my opinion he needed some quiet time to think about the consequences of his careless actions, not only in terms of financial cost to us both, but in terms of the consequences to himself when I called him on them. I reminded him that in a matter of weeks, he had flooded the kitchen and hall, shattered several light bulbs along with a glass shade and broken the television. I warned him, any more incidents stemming from carelessness and I would penalise him more severely. With the look of a man deeply wronged, he called Lulu and apologised for cancelling their plans. He explained that I was unwell on account of greedily scoffing all of Lu’s maggots and they’d soured my disposition. I could hear the screams from across the other side of the room. Grabbing the phone, I hastily explained the truth, telling Lulu that I would reimburse the cost of the bait, but would not give consideration to the possibility of keeping any replacements in our fridge.

Oh well, at least maggots are high in protein and low in fat. They shouldn’t cause me too much harm. I just hope the ones I swallowed are dead, and there’s nothing wriggling around inside me. Going to the bathroom should be interesting in the morning, as will going to the hospital. I must confess to a slight nervousness in both respects.

 

 

15th July 2005:

 

Grave Considerations

 

Twinkles accompanied me to the hospital this morning. Even though it was an early appointment it was very busy and there was a fair amount of waiting around to be done. First one reception area, then another, then another, so it was good to have his company in one respect. However, he can’t resist sifting through the piles of magazines that are usually to be found in such places. There’s always some article that catches his eye, and believe me, that can mean trouble. This morning he read an article that claimed tomatoes contain an anti-aging enzyme and proceeded to entertain the entire waiting room by reading it aloud to me. To my dismay he then picked up a magazine aimed at pregnant women and began to flick through it with great interest, before settling on a feature about cracked nipples in lactating mothers. Whipping out his cell phone he announced he was going to call Karen and ask her what state her nipples were in, and offer advice, as gleaned from the article he’d just read. I reminded him that cell phones were not to be used in the hospital and he could just keep it switched off. Before I could stop him he tore the page out of the magazine and folded it up to take home with him, along with a coupon for a free sample of nipple salve. I sharply told him to leave the magazines intact. He was just reaching for a pamphlet on the treatment of anal fissures and haemorrhoids when, to my utter relief, a nurse called my name.

The Consultant answered my questions with total candour saying the mole on my back could very well be pre-cancerous, or even cancerous. However, tests were needed to confirm it and also to ascertain whether the melanoma was insitu (confined to the mole itself) or whether it had gone deeper and with that in mind he was going to remove it today and send it to the lab for tests. I unashamedly held Twinks hand as we waited for a treatment room to be prepared. He’d gone silent. It’s one thing having layman’s worries and concerns and quite another having them more or less validated by an expert. I tried to be reassuring, saying that skin cancers were fully curable when caught early enough and possibly I’d need no more treatment than the removal of it today. He felt guilty for not noticing that the mole had changed colour earlier, and what if it had been like that for ages? It would be his fault if it had spread into the deeper layers of skin. I put an immediate embargo on any further thoughts along those lines. I also refused to allow him to come into the treatment room with me. He’s terrible with anything that involves needles and blood. I didn’t want him fainting.

The procedure was simple. I lay on a couch, the doctor injected a local anaesthetic into the skin surrounding the mole and cut it out, along with a sample of the tissue around it, he then put in a few stitches and covered it with a dressing and I was ready to go home. I was given an appointment for a week’s time to have the stitches removed and to get the results of the biopsy and discuss any further treatment that might be required.

Once home, I made us some coffee, sat down, pulled Twinks on my lap and told him to tell me his worst thoughts. Just to get them out of his head and into the open where we could give them some proportion. It was good for both of us. It made us air and share our deepest concerns. Speaking them aloud somehow un-demonised them. He was frightened at the thought of me being long term ill, not just because he didn’t want me to suffer, but he wondered if he would have the strength to help me through it. I told him I had no doubts about his capabilities, he had great inner strength. It made us discuss things we’d never discussed. Hard though it is to accept, there will come a day when one of us will leave the other.

We discussed healthcare, pain relief, insurance and funerals. Unfortunately the latter led us to a difference of opinion. I said I would prefer to be cremated and my ashes scattered on the sea. Twinks was very put out. He wanted me to be buried, in a nice plot, with a nice pink granite headstone, with room for him to be buried next to me when it came to his turn to shuffle off this mortal coil. He wanted somewhere to focus his grief. I said in the event of my dying first, I didn’t want him sitting around weeping over a grave. I wanted him to get on with his life. He erupted. I was just being frigging SELFISH! As if losing me to cruel death wasn’t bad enough, there I was denying him his widow’s right to weep and wail over a grave. What the hell was he supposed to snuggle up to in the afterlife when all that I had been was turned to ash and tossed on the sea? He became distraught, bursting into a paroxysm of tears. I hastily retracted being scattered at sea and said that I would give serious consideration to burial. The things you do for love!

 

 

17th July 2005:

 

A Walk In The Park

 

Mum rang to ask how I was feeling and pass on Priscilla/Eric’s best wishes.

Twinkles rang.

Dad rang to ask how I was and said Gill sent her love.

Twinkles rang.

Karen rang to say hello and ask how I was doing and said Paul and Dominic sent love and hugs.

Twinkles rang.

Maryann rang to ask how I felt and said Callum sent his love…I very much doubted it.

Twinkles rang.

Lulu rang, very emotional, and said Twinks had rung him, very emotional, and was it true I was at death’s door?

Twinkles rang…I had stern words.

Brian rang to say hello and ask how it went at the hospital. He said he’d missed us at the PP last night and we’d missed a huge bust-up between Beardaddy and his boy.

Twinkles rang. I told him about Beardaddy, he said he knew, Lulu had told him.

Someone rang and tried to sell me double-glazing. I declined the double-glazing, but said I was feeling fine and not to worry…well it had become a habit by then.

Twinkles rang.

I unplugged the phone.

My mobile rang.

It was Twinkles.

 

And there you pretty much have the pattern of my Saturday. I appreciate everyone’s kind concerns and expressions of affection, but it can all get a bit much, especially when you’re trying to watch the cricket on television. In the end, having missed most of the coverage, I went on the computer to check the scores, checking my emails at the same time, only to have Twinkles pop up on Messenger. I reassured him as to my health and well being and told him rather firmly that he needed to buckle down and do what he was paid to do, i.e. work and not keep making personal calls. He’s feeling needy. The frequent calls are as much about securing my attention for him, as they are about him giving me his attention.

We didn’t go out on Friday night, not that we’d actually intended to stay in or anything. It was just that with Twinks being so upset when we got back from the hospital, I took him upstairs for a lie down and a cuddle and one thing led to another and another, and yet another and we ended up falling asleep. We slept solidly until four o clock on Saturday morning. Twinks was cross with me for causing him to miss his Friday night out with my ‘voracious sexual appetite’ and shouldn’t I be slowing down at my age? I said that I hadn’t noticed him complaining at the time.

We ended up going out for an early morning walk. The sun was up and the air was light and warm. Best of all the streets were so quiet we could walk hand in hand without getting any strange looks or cruel comments. We went to the park and walked around the lake and then we played on the swings. Twinkles bet me that he could get his swing higher than mine, which he did, and then he dared me to jump off while it was at its height. I refused and forbade him to do it too. I remember kids getting knocked unconscious or breaking limbs when they performed that stunt, my sister Maryann being one of them. She broke her ankle after landing badly. To make matters worse the vacated swing then hit her friend on the head when she dashed to help Maryann, and she needed five stitches in the subsequent cut.

I’m glad there were no police officers wandering around. It would have been hard to explain what two grown men were doing playing on the children’s apparatus at that time in the morning. It’s sad, but guilt and suspicion are the prevailing attitudes of our time. There’s no innocence allowed. Take Twinks and I. We were gay males and in a park, the assumption: we must be paedophiles. The old man who sits on a park bench watching children play, in all innocence, probably remembering the days of his own childhood and those of his children, is instantly a pervert instead of someone taking a measure of joy in the state of childhood. We know bad things happen, we know there are bad people out there, but sadly it seems we are now all guilty of something until proven innocent. People are almost afraid to look at life in case it looks back at them and accuses them of something. The really scary thing is I’m probably just as bad as anyone else for doing it.

When we got home Twinkles put his arms around me and begged me to just hold him. I understood. We’d just shared a special moment, one of those times you remember for always. It was very simple, just a walk in the hushed atmosphere of early morning and a few silly moments playing at being children again, but it had a kind of profundity about it. We would probably never do it again, or if we did, it would remind us of the anxieties that brought it about and it would be different. It was a one and only moment. Our lives are marching on to who knows where, but we were strengthened and our bond deepened by a walk in the park.

 

22nd July 2005:

 

Attack Of The Liquid Tomatoes

 

It’s been a mixed kind of week. I literally saw red last Monday evening. Twinks, inspired by the tomato article he read in the hospital magazine, decided he was going to incorporate them into his daily diet as a way of keeping age at bay. When I picked him up from work, he had two big carrier bags absolutely full of fresh tomatoes. I was annoyed, and said so. Why? Because he’s not that keen on tomatoes, he always picks them out of a salad or a sandwich. I could see them just going to waste as there was no way he would eat them, and I certainly couldn’t eat that many before they went off. He haughtily told me to take off my disapproving Top face (didn’t I know that frowning like that would give me unattractive forehead lines) because he had a plan. He was going to liquidise the little red devils and drink them rather than eat them. He reckoned that if he drank a litre of fresh tomato juice per day, not only would he stave off getting any older, but also he’d look five years younger by this time next week.

As soon as we got home he raked through the cupboards looking for the blender that my mother had once given us as a Christmas present and never used. The look on his face, as he tried to drink a tumbler of the resulting tomato pulp was absolutely priceless. He couldn’t have looked more disgusted if he were drinking blood. I thought he was going to throw up. However, Twinks, once enamoured of an idea, especially if it relates to his vanity, is loath to let it go. Gritting his teeth he continued to sip the thick juice giving me a triumphant, if slightly queasy look as he finished the first glassful, claiming that he felt younger already. I reminded him there was still a fair amount to get through to reach his litre a day goal. He gave me a chilly look and suggested I might like to help him out, as God knows, I could do with something to halt the ravages of time and had I noticed the crows feet starting to develop around my eyes? He said if I wasn’t careful I’d rival the crinkle-faced emperor from Star Wars before my thirties were out. I gave his bitchy little bottom a good swat, told him they were laughter lines around my eyes, not crows feet and no way was I drinking liquid tomatoes. Just the thought of it gave me acid indigestion. Twinks immediately claimed that getting indigestion was another sign of advancing years. I said actually it was a sign of living with a vain little drag queen. At which point he mustered his dignity, stuck out his tongue, picked up his jug of red slush and retired to the sitting room to watch television while I made dinner.

By the time I took our meals into the sitting room, he’d drank almost half the jug and claimed he was starting to like the stuff and it was amazing what mind over matter could achieve. I was impressed. He really did seem to be enjoying it. No sooner did he empty his glass than he filled it again. By the time we’d finished eating he’d polished off the entire jug. Seeing as I’d made dinner, it was his turn to wash up. After he’d tottered off to the kitchen carrying the crockery, I groped around the couch trying to locate the remote for the telly, so I could turn off Hollyoaks and watch the news. I found it behind his cushion along with a bottle of vodka that was a lot less full than it had been last time I’d seen it in the drinks cabinet. So much for mind over matter! It was more like vodka over tomato juice. He’d been slyly quaffing Bloody Mary’s. It explained the rosy glow that had begun to creep across his complexion, not to mention his slightly lopsided gait as he’d walked out of the sitting room.

I strode into the kitchen to tell him he’d been rumbled and to ask what was the point of trying to stave off aging when he was poisoning his liver with booze? He was in process of packing the blender with another load of tomatoes and before I could say a word he pressed the on switch. The next thing I know something wet splattered straight into my face. It gave me such a shock that I dropped the vodka bottle on the floor, where it shattered. He’d forgotten to put the lid on the blender before pressing the on button. The kitchen looked like an abattoir. It was dripping with blood red liquid, and so was I, and Twinkles. We looked like victims of a Horror Film psychopath.

Wiping the wretched stuff from my eyes I glared at the culprit who picked up the blender lid, looked at it, looked at me, put a hand to his mouth and said, ‘oops,’ before breaking into giggles. He was in no fit state to clean up the mess he’d caused with his drink-induced carelessness. He wasn’t drunk as such, but he wasn’t sober either and it would take a trip up some stepladders to reach some of the places hit by the tomato pulp. He was having enough trouble standing on his mules. I confiscated the latter, told him to get cleaned up and made it clear that he was strictly banned from having any kind of alcohol for the rest of the week. I then sent him to bed to sleep it off. It took me ages to clean the kitchen, the vile stuff was everywhere, talk about attack of the liquid tomatoes.

In the early hours of Tuesday morning I was shaken awake by a panicking Twinkles babbling that he’d broken out in an itchy red rash and he was terrified that he was getting chickenpox again. It looked more like an allergy rash to me and I reckoned the tomato juice had triggered it. I calmed him down, got him an antihistamine tablet, then made up some of the Tea Tree solution we’d used for his chickenpox and gave him a soothing body massage with it. It did the trick. He sleepily asked if I would still love him when he was no longer young. Tenderly kissing each cheek of his rash red bottom I told him I would love him whatever age he was.

On Tuesday evening we babysat Dominic. We went round early, with Twinkles lugging the fishing tackle box he uses as a makeup holder, so he could do Karen’s makeup for her. I was pleased, because it meant that while he was making up mum, I got baby all to myself for a little while. Dominic is really coming on now. He can sit up by himself and everything is of interest to him. I love it when he smiles and holds out his arms to be lifted up. He hasn’t quite got the hang of crawling yet, but I don’t think it will be long before he does. He adores it when Twinks gets down on the floor with him and demonstrates how to crawl. After crawling around for a while, Twinks then hides behind a chair and the look on Dominic’s little face as he waits for him to peep out and say boo is a joy, as are the chuckles that follow the action.

While Twinks is brilliant at talking and playing with the baby he tends to get quite anxious if he’s upset and can’t be immediately placated. Dom is teething at the moment. He’s cutting his second bottom tooth. As he got tired and the Calpol wore off, he got very crabby and started crossly gnawing on his teething ring and crying. Nothing seemed to soothe or comfort him and Twinkles ended up in tears of anxiety and frustration because he couldn’t fix the problem. I ended up giving both him and the baby some Calpol. I then walked up and down the sitting room, nursing Dominic while Twinkle’s had a lie down on the couch. Dominic soon fell asleep.

Wednesday started badly with the arrival of a letter from our friend telling us that God hates us and we were on our way to Hell. Twinks who had woken up irritable to start with, went ballistic. Tearing it up he shouted that if Heaven was full of the fucking bastards who made other people’s lives a misery then he was glad he was going to Hell. It’s beyond my understanding that people who preach hatred, who condemn on grounds of race, sexuality and creed, who victimise, persecute and incite violence against their fellow human beings, somehow believe they’re on their way to heaven!! Why can they not live their own lives and let others live theirs. What bitter poison runs through their veins?

Things didn’t get much better. I had some work I needed to finish that evening, so Twinkles decided to call Lulu to see if he wanted to go out for a drink. I reminded him that he wasn’t allowed alcohol and he would have to stick to soft drinks. He argued for just one pint of sweet cider, or a glass of wine. I refused, saying the issue wasn’t up for negotiation. He wasn’t happy, snarling that there was no frigging point going out if he had to sit sipping orange juice all night and why did I have to be so frigging tight arsed and literal about everything. One drink wouldn’t do any harm! I knew the letter had upset him, I also knew he was getting anxious about the results of my biopsy, but I still wasn’t going to be spoken to in such a manner. I told him I didn’t think he was in the right frame of mind to go out after all and that a warm bath and an early night would be more beneficial.

He stormed out of the sitting room, slamming the door hard behind him. Unfortunately, it didn’t slam fast enough to prevent me hearing the very unattractive name he called me as he exited. I swiftly followed him, and we had a brief over the knee discussion about temper tantrums, mutual respect and courtesy. He apologised for taking his bad mood out on me. I sent him to bed after the spanking, but went up to keep him company, working on my laptop as he curled against my side criticising my grammar and lack of literary imagination. Seeing as I was doing some annual cost projections I didn’t let his remarks unduly affect me.

On Thursday evening, Lulu came round with a dress that Twinkles had promised to help alter. He didn’t stay long. He and Twinkles had some kind of quarrel and he left in a huff, saying people shouldn’t ask your opinion if they didn’t actually want to hear it. Twinkles said he was sick of Lulu and his bitchy remarks and he was going to find himself a new best friend and then sat with his arms folded and a face like fury all evening.

I awoke in the early hours of this morning to find him standing by the window, chewing at his fingernails. I went to him, taking him in my arms and he clung to me, saying he didn’t want me to leave him. I said it would take wild horses to drag me away and I doubted the impending biopsy results were anything to worry about, because as we’d discussed, the hospital would have contacted me and asked me to go in and start immediate treatment if it were serious.

 

I thought I was prepared for anything, but when the Consultant at the hospital calmly told me the mole I’d had removed was indeed a malignant melanoma, as he’d suspected, it was like being given a sharp blow to the face. However, my shock was nothing compared to that of the medic and his nurse attendant when Twinkles, as soon as the word malignant was said, let out a piercing scream and leapt to his feet. He grabbed the notes from the desk saying they must have got them mixed up with somebody else’s. On reading my name on them he gave way to total hysteria. He slapped at me when I tried to touch him, screeching that I was a lying swine for telling him there was nothing to worry about. He then told the poor nurse that her eye shadow was ghastly and he didn’t like it and then accused the astounded Consultant of being a homophobic quack and he was going to report him to the BMA and have him struck off. It was all rather awful and embarrassing.

My instinct was to smack his bottom in order to break his hysteria and calm him down, but I could hardly do that considering where we were. Taking a firm grip of him I sat down seating him securely on my lap. I don’t know who was trembling more, Twinkles, the Consultant, the nurse or me. We must have looked liked a small impromptu gathering of the American religious sect, the Shakers. Taking a deep breath I sincerely begged their pardon for the rumpus, finding myself saying, ‘he’s very emotional, he’s a transvestite,’ as if that explained it all. They both said ‘ah’ as if indeed it did explain it all. The nurse was very forgiving and got Twinkles some tissues to blow his nose on. He managed to compose himself enough to apologise to her and the doctor for his remarks.

The Consultant was actually rather sweet. He pulled his chair up next to us, took hold of Twinkles’ hand and patted it in that inimitable way that doctors do. I think they must do a course in it at med school…sympathetic hand patting. He explained that it wasn’t as bad as it sounded and to hear him out. The tests on the mole had shown that I had stage one, or very early melanoma, which meant I was lucky. It hadn’t grown deep enough into the skin to allow cancerous cells to break away and spread. He said that when he had cut it out last week, he had taken a little of the tissue around it and this had been shown to be healthy, which was a very good sign, as was the fact my blood tests were clear. He examined my shoulder and said it was healing really well and then the nurse took out the stitches, which incidentally was more uncomfortable than them being put in. I’ll need to have check ups at three month intervals, probably for at least two to three years, but otherwise was told to just go away and get on with my life, while taking every precaution to protect my skin from the sun. I was advised against going abroad this year, as the scar on my shoulder will be particularly sensitive for quite some time.

When we got to the car Twinkles climbed in, fastened his seat belt, put his hands between his knees, turned his tear ravaged countenance towards me and said, ‘see, Tarn darling, all that fuss you made was for nothing.’ I repressed an urge to throttle him and leaned over and kissed him instead. He wrapped his arms tight round my neck. Bless him, he was still trembling like a leaf in an autumn gale and I wasn’t much better. I felt suddenly drained. You don’t realise how much energy you use when you worry about something, even if you’re not always consciously aware that you are in fact worrying. And those words: malignant, cancer, are so potent. It really shakes you to hear them in whatever degree with relation to yourself or the ones you love. It makes you aware of how fragile life can be.

As soon as we got home I divested Twinks of the article he’d torn out of a magazine that claimed figs would give you a perfect complexion and binned it. He then took possession of the phone to tell anyone that would listen the outcome of my appointment. My jaw dropped when I overheard him telling mum that I’d got a bit hysterical when the doctor had first told me the mole was malignant, and he’d had to tell me to calm down and let the doctor finish what he was saying. He then said it was a good job he could keep a level head in a crisis! I was considering walloping his bum when the doorbell rang. I opened the door to find myself presented with a beautiful spray of elegant cream coloured roses accompanied by a card that read: you can never leave me, because wherever you go my heart and soul will go with you… all my love, Twinkles. It was his turn to hold me tight as the floodgates opened. He asked did I like the roses. I said yes, they were beautiful. He asked did I like his message and I said I loved it and would treasure it. He said good, because when he told Lulu what he’d written he’d said it sounded more like a threat than a declaration of love and I’d probably think the roses were from our stalker. Well that nicely explained their quarrel on Thursday night. I told him that Lulu was naughty and had just been winding him up and I hoped they’d kiss and make up this evening.

So, that’s our week to date. I was dreading that appointment this morning. I’m glad it’s over and we can just get on with life.

Skin cancer can be deadly. It kills more young people than any other cancer, so be vigilant. Look after your skin, slap on the sun block and remember to check any moles regularly, or get someone else to check them. I dread to think what might have happened if Twinkles hadn’t noticed the changes to the mole on my shoulder.

 

 

28th July 2005:

 

Gay Fascism

 

We went out to the PP last Friday night as per usual. After the stress and strain of the preceding week it should have been fun, an opportunity to unwind, but it didn’t quite work out that way. As a consequence Twinkles got in an almighty grump with me. I was relegated to the very bottom of his Christmas card list, the sort of person who gets sent the very last card in the box, the one with the grotty picture and tarnished glitter.

What happened was that on Friday night Brian announced that the Pink Parrot would be closed on Saturday and Sunday for essential maintenance work. As a result Cherie Pie suggested that a gang of the girls got together and took a weekend trip to London. There was an international Drag Cabaret Show at one of the theatres on Saturday. Famous Showbiz Queens from around the world would be making appearances and he knew there were still tickets available for the Saturday Matinee performance. It would be a chance to go and view some professional Divas at work, and maybe even get to meet some of them. The Kinsey Sicks were on the bill and it was even rumoured that the highly revered RuPaul was scheduled to make a rare appearance (and horses might fly)

Twinkles loved the idea and was well up for it. I had to gently and discreetly remind him before he got too carried away with plans, that unlike the others, he had work commitments to fulfil on a Saturday. He shrugged them off as easily as he shrugged off a feather boa, saying I could call him in sick. I could say he had a migraine or something. I wasn’t prepared to lie on his behalf, certainly not when I knew the shop was already short handed due to illness and holidays. It would be unfair to leave his remaining colleagues struggling even harder to cope with a busy Saturday. Fine. If I wouldn’t call him in sick, then he’d call himself in sick. I forbid him to do so. He didn’t take it well. I sympathised, but I wasn’t prepared to tell lies for him, nor was I going to condone him telling them. I really did think it was more important for him to honour his commitments at work than to go on a jaunt to London. I suppose my ‘bossy’ instincts were operating on several levels. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate my work staff pulling a fake sick day, especially if we were undermanned to begin with. The evening was effectively over from that moment. He wanted to go home. There was no point staying, not with everyone discussing plans for a trip he wasn’t allowed to go on. It wasn’t as if he could even have a drink to drown his sorrows, because he still wasn’t allowed alcohol. He’d call a taxi. I could stay for all he cared. In fact he’d prefer it if I did stay, because he didn’t want my company. I said it was too bad, because he was getting it whether he liked it or not.

Usually we both get in the back of a taxi, but he pointedly bundled himself into the front seat, leaving me to get in the back alone. As soon as we drew up at the house he hurled himself out of the cab, his stilettos tapping an angry staccato rhythm on the pavement as he headed up the path. The taxi driver, a regular of ours, gave me a quizzical look, saying wryly, ‘I’m guessing that Miss Twinkles didn’t have a good time tonight, no moment in the limelight eh?’ I shook my head, paid the fare, told him to keep the change and wished him goodnight.

By the time I got into the house Twinks was furiously shedding his Stardust persona as he made his way upstairs. Stilettos and handbag lay abandoned in the hall. His blonde wig hung rather awkwardly from the living room door handle, he’d obviously dragged it off and hurled it in temper. His falsies lay in two indignantly quivering mounds on the stairs, along with earrings, necklace and bracelets and his evening dress lay on the landing in a puddle of scarlet satin along with his boa. I followed in his wake gathering everything together, picking up his matching bra and panties from outside the bathroom door before knocking on it and asking if he wanted a cup of tea? I was met with silence. I took his stuff into the bedroom, putting his panties in the laundry hamper, hanging up his dress, etc. Then I went back downstairs to make myself some tea, while he cleansed, toned and moisturised. I was hoping that the process would calm him down a bit and we could talk about the situation rationally. Taking my tea upstairs I waited for him. I heard the bathroom door open, heard his footsteps pad across the landing, bypass our room and enter the guestroom whumping the door closed behind them in a way that clearly said ‘screw you, Tarn Swan!’

We were not going down that road! I’d been there in our early days when we were still trying to balance our relationship so it worked for both of us. That kind of action never brought balance. How could it, with him miserable in one room and me miserable in another? All that happened was that words got left unsaid, resentments built and distance opened between us. I’d vowed never again. It was one of our agreements. I had no objection to him being as mad as hell at me. After all, I got mad at him, but he could be as mad as hell in the same room and the same bed, within easy reach of me should he decide, in the cool light of dawn, that I was a life species worth hugging after all. A small expanse of mattress is much easier to cover than lengths of bedroom floors and landing with closed doors in between. I’d known couples, like my parents, for whom the doors remained closed never to be opened again.

Marching into the guest room I flung back the sheet, firmly took his hand and hauled him back to our bedroom where I bent him across the bed and thoroughly smacked his bare bottom for breaking our agreement about not cold shouldering each other after a difference of opinion. He was wound up enough for the spanking to make him cry almost immediately after commencement, but I kept on with it making sure that I put enough heat and sting into his buttocks to make an impression.

It was not the way I would have chosen the evening to go. I’d hoped for something lighter and more celebratory. I silently cursed Cherie Pie and her London idea and then just as silently added a thankful prayer that Twinks did have work commitments on a Saturday, as given the recent happenings in the Capital I wasn’t keen on the idea of him going there. It set me wondering whether that was the real reason I’d put the kybosh on him taking the day off work. Was I being over-controlling and mollycoddling him for fear of what might happen?

I decided it wasn’t. I wouldn’t have interfered if Twinkles had the day off work legitimately. It was for him to decide his social activities and to calculate the risks involved in pursuing them. That said and given the nature of our relationship, if I considered that there was a tangible threat and I had legitimate concerns for his safety in the face of that threat, then regardless of anything else I had the right to say he couldn’t go. He’d consented to my having that authority. It’s difficult knowing what to do sometimes. How do you keep the balance of power from tipping over into a one sided tyranny and I don’t just mean my tyranny. He can be tyrannical in his own way too.

Getting into bed I stroked his back, trying to make him acknowledge the reasons behind my having said no. I reminded him of some facts. There were only 3 of them at work at the moment. He’d groused about it all week, about how hard it had been to manage, how much harder it was going to be on a busy Saturday. I asked would he really be able to enjoy himself knowing that he’d left just two people struggling to cope? At least with three in the shop there was an outside chance of them all getting a break for tea or lunch at some point. I also reminded him that his boss wouldn’t be happy about him taking time off and he was due for a review soon. Besides as assistant manager he had responsibilities and an example to set. It was a matter of conscience. Surely he could see that?

I knew I was going on a bit, but I did feel it was important to make him look at the wider picture and not obscure it with his desire to do what he wanted to do. His response was to glare at me over his shoulder and say in a cloying, simpering voice, and I quote: ‘now, remember, Pinocchio, be a good boy. And always let your conscience be your guide…’ then he snarled, I didn’t realise I was shacked up with the frigging Blue Fairy!

Whipping back the sheet I gave his saucy backside several firm slaps and told him to go to sleep. There’s no talking to him when he’s entrenched in a mood like that. He was still in a hissy mood on Saturday morning, saying he’d prefer to get the bus to work. I said fine, go ahead, he could get the bus to work if it would make him feel better. I was in a no win situation. I was selfish, not only had I refused to allow him to go to London, but I was now making him get a bus to work when he didn’t even know the times or service numbers? I didn’t bother to reply. Grabbing my car keys in one hand and his hand in the other I bundled him into the car and drove him to work as usual.

I hoped that by the time I picked him up he would be in a better mood. He wasn’t. They’d had a horrendously busy day, plus he’d gotten a roasting from his boss for having passed a cheque transaction during the week without getting the card validated. It turned out to be stolen and the cheque had bounced. All in all he’d had a rotten day. I offered to take him out to dinner to cheer him up, somewhere nice, his choice. He didn’t want to go out to dinner, he wanted to go to London, but it was too late. I lost patience and told him it was time he stopped sulking and accepted the situation and my decision.

My mother arrived on the scene at that point. She’d called by to tell us she was going to have to retract the offer of Sunday lunch, as Priscilla had invited her away for the weekend to attend a TV gathering at a swish country hotel in Lincolnshire. She was both excited and nervous. Excited because this was the first time that Priscilla had invited her to go away with him to a big event like this, and she felt it signalled another step in their relationship, and nervous because she wasn’t quite sure what to expect. It’s a popular and regular event for transvestites, married and single, and their wives and partners. They cover topics like deportment, and have grooming and makeover seminars, as well as just socialising and talking about their experiences and generally having a nice time in a friendly, accepting atmosphere.

Twink’s simmering sour mood saw an opportunity to come to the boil when he discovered that drag queens were not permitted to attend the event, as they were considered not to dress or behave in a socially appropriate and authentic female manner. He began to rant on about it being bad enough that society in general judged and excluded, but it was coming to something, when those who should know better, started to do the same! He was disillusioned, that’s what he was, totally disillusioned. He was getting sick and tired of the effemiphobia being displayed by an increasing number of gay people who were trying to make everyone conform to a mode of sanitised gayness. Gay Fascism, that’s what it was. Where was it all going to end, with macho gays marching in columns down the Champs-Elysee pronouncing their homo superiority? He thought that at least the cross dressing community would stick together, but no, they were just the same as everyone else. They were small minded and parochial, condemning their sisters for not conforming to an ACCEPTABLE cross-dressing code! It was scandalous! What the hell had happened to solidarity and tolerance for diversity? From where he was standing it was fast diminishing and certain sectors of the queer community were being marginalized, mauled and shunned, and by their own people. He got totally carried away with his own rhetoric at that point and said he was going to gather together a group of sisters and picket the hotel in question, demanding that drag queens be recognised as equal to other cross dressers and not discriminated against for wearing bigger hair and higher heels. Then he flounced off, saying he never thought he’d see the day when his own partner and mother-in-law turned against him.

Mum, understandably, was completely confused and a bit upset. I told her not to worry because he was just in one of his Wuthering Heights moods and looking for things to have a drama about. I assured her that I wouldn’t let him anywhere near Lincolnshire with a protest placard. I wished her a happy weekend, while thinking it must be a rather confusing event, with everyone dressed as women, a bit like a lesbian’s convention. I also couldn’t help wondering whether there was jealousy if a husband looked more attractive than his wife when dolled up?

As soon as mum left I went in search of my feather-ruffled beloved, discovering him tapping aggressively on the computer keyboard. He was composing a letter to Peter Tatchell, telling him that it was his duty, as someone who had set themselves up as a spokesman for gay rights and equality, to frigging well look into the frigging discrimination and lack of equality that drag queens had to put up with, from both the straight and GLBT communities, in fact from everyone on the frigging planet. I suggested he might like to consider deleting the bad language as it devalued the point he was trying to put across. He gave me an angry look and said he knew why I was being so mean to him, it was because I didn’t want him to be a drag queen. I was trying to stop him doing what he enjoyed. I was queenophobic, just like so many others, he felt totally betrayed.

I really love Twinkles, but sometimes I could cheerfully gag and chloroform him just for some peace and quiet. I told him I was sorry he had missed sharing an outing with his friends, but it was done and I didn’t want to hear another word about it. I said I had no desire to stop him doing what made him happy, and it really hurt me to hear him say such things. He immediately burst into tears and said he was sorry for being a selfish bitch and carrying on and he hadn’t meant to hurt me, sometimes he just got carried away with his own feelings and forgot that I had feelings too. When he’d calmed down a bit, he rang mum and apologised for being so melodramatic. He wished her a nice weekend and told her to make sure that Priscilla didn’t wear white shoes with black tights as she had last week at the PP, leaving many fashion sensitive people traumatised and in need of powerful beverages to numb the pain.

He was sweet, cuddly and in the mood to be comforted after that, and I was more than willing to provide that comfort. He’s dramatic by nature. He can’t help it. Life with Twinks is never going to be calm and quiet. I knew that from the moment I first saw him wearing a frock and high heels, but I wouldn’t swap my life for anything. I’m addicted to him.

 

 

 

6th August 2005:

 

Topiary Or Not Topiary That Is The Question

 

Twinkles and I have been engaged with issues this week, issues pertaining once again to carelessness and lack of forethought on his part. He claims that I suffer from terminal fussiness and he doesn’t know how he’s lived with me all these years and remained sane. He reckons that I’m obsessed with piffling details and I need to loosen up a bit, before I have a heart attack. I retorted that the only reason I was likely to suffer a heart attack would be on account of him and his antics. I also said that what he terms my fussiness is actually basic commonsense and a regard for safety, my own as well as everyone else’s and its something he needs to practice.

Take last Saturday evening, weather wise it was foul with high winds and torrential rain. While most of us were worrying about whether the guttering and drains could take the strain, Twinks was worrying about the ruinous effect the weather would have on the dress and shoes he was planning to wear to the PP that evening if it didn’t ease up. My dad phoned while we were preparing dinner and I asked Twinkles to keep an eye on the chops cooking under the grill while I talked to him. He was too busy keeping an eye on the weather outside to keep an eye on the grill and consequently the chops burned to a crisp and set off the smoke alarm. He claimed it was my fault for talking too long with my dad and what kind of normal dad had long conversations with their gay son anyway? Normal dads were quietly hostile and in denial about their son’s sexuality, not chatting on the bloody phone about this, that and the other every five minutes. I refused to take any proportion of blame. I’d asked him to keep an eye on the grill and he hadn’t. It was another example of his carelessness. We could easily have had a fire. We ended up having fish fingers for dinner, which he then had the cheek to gripe about.

Then, as if he hadn’t caused havoc enough for one evening, when I bent to get a couple of plates out of a cupboard, he got a couple of mugs out of the cupboard above my head and left it open. Consequently when I straightened up my head made sharp contact with the bottom edge of the cupboard door. It hurt and I dropped and broke the plates with the shock. The subsequent cut also bled a lot, as head wounds even minor ones are wont to do and Twinkles, who can’t stand the sight of blood, promptly fainted, dropping and breaking the mugs in the process. The kitchen floor was littered with more broken crockery than a Greek Taverna that catered to the tourist trade. When he came round he was very contrite and so upset that it was hard to be annoyed with him, though believe me I did try.

I solved his anxiety about the weather spoiling whatever he’d been planning on wearing by telling him we were staying in. I had a headache, a tender scalp and blood encrusted hair and I just wasn’t in the mood for partying. He was going to be too busy to go out. Busy? Yes, busy writing an article on paying due care and attention to safety while in the kitchen. Naturally enough he wasn’t pleased, though he didn’t argue, well not as such, settling instead for primly telling me that I ought to write lines or wash out my mouth, because the language I’d spouted when my head made contact with the cupboard had been a disgrace. He’d heard people with Tourettes Syndrome swearing less. I said that in the circumstances I was perfectly entitled to swear. He played the wronged martyr all evening. I was being too heavy handed and it wasn’t fair to discipline him for what was effectively an unfortunate accident. I fully acknowledged that it had been an accident and that there had been no intent to injure me or cause yet more breakages, just as there had been no intention to set off the smoke alarm by sacrificing the chops. However, I pointed out that the accidents wouldn’t have happened if he’d bothered to give a little bit of thought and attention to what he was doing.

On Sunday afternoon, mum and Priscilla came over for tea. The weather had cleared up beautifully and I set the table on the patio and we had tea outside. It was very much a traditional genteel, cucumber sandwich, best china and cream cake sort of affair. I thought it might cheer mum up, as she’s had a heavy cold all week. All was going well. Then to everyone’s utter fright and confusion Twinkles suddenly leapt to his feet and attacked poor Priscilla with a tea towel, swiping him so hard across the face that his glasses were knocked flying into a flowerbed. The fresh cream chocolate éclair he had been in process of eating was splattered not only across his face, but also across my mother’s face, seeing as she was sitting next to him. In addition mum was left holding nothing but the handle of the china cup she had been drinking from. The rest of the cup was residing in the flowerbed along with Priscilla’s specs. I didn’t escape unscathed either. I was drenched in the contents of mum’s cup. My new t-shirt and clean jeans were covered in brown tea stains. Honestly! I could have smacked his legs for him.

Apparently he’d spotted a wasp hovering above Priscilla’s head and panicking lest it come in his direction, he had swatted at it, but missed. He sheepishly apologised for his terrible aim and its consequences. Fortunately Priscilla’s glasses were fine, but the cup had to be put in the bin, along with the other weekend casualties of Twinkles’ carelessness. Priscilla accepted Twinks apology with smiling good grace. I suppose he’s learned to cultivate patience and goodwill from his years working as a teacher. Mum, on the other hand, grabbed the tea towel and beat Twinks about the head and shoulders with it to see how he liked it. Thank God she never went into politics. With her tit for tat take on life we’d still be at war with France and the rest of Europe.

Later, when they’d gone home and we were sitting watching television together, Twinks’ shoulders suddenly began to shake and he put his hands over his face. I was concerned, thinking that perhaps my admonishments regarding the incident been too harsh and he was crying. He was indeed crying, but not because my telling off had upset him. He was crying with laughter. He said he wished he could have videoed the look on all our faces as Priscilla’s specs flew off and his éclair exploded. He could have sold it to one of those video blooper shows on the television. It’s very hard to keep a straight face when someone is doubled over and all but incoherent with laughter. I ended up laughing with him, bad boy that he is.

Monday was his day off. To my utter dismay I came home from work to discover that the privet hedge surrounding the front garden had been vandalised. It was a horrible mess, thoroughly hacked about. I hurried into the house to ask Twinks what on earth had happened, halting in the kitchen to stare in disbelieve through the window. There he was doing a very poor imitation of Edward Scissor Hands. He was attacking the tall yew hedge that runs along the garden with an electric hedge trimmer. Let me add that it was a blazing hot day and he was wearing nothing but a baseball cap and a pair of tiny shorts that barely covered his cheeks. Furthermore he was balancing precariously on a long ladder in a pair of high-heeled sandals that tied Roman style around his ankles.

My blood ran cold and I felt faint at the possibilities. It was like watching one of those Government safety advertisements, the type that set a scene and show you all the dangers inherent in it. He was standing on an unsupported ladder, wearing totally unsuitable footwear, operating a highly dangerous electrical gadget to chop at a hedge that was spitting out leaves and bits of twig into a face whose eyes were unprotected by any kind of safety goggles. I didn’t know what to do. My instinct was to step outside and angrily bellow at him. I dismissed this, considering it might give him a fright and cause him to tumble from the ladder and cut off one or more of his body parts with the trimmer. In the end I cautiously switched off the electricity and then galloped into the garden, as he descended to investigate why his tool of mutilation had stopped working. Taking it from his hands I laid it safely on the grass, gave a sigh of relief and quietly asked him what the fucking hell he thought he was playing at?

Topiary. He’d watched a programme on morning television about it and had been impressed by the sheer artistry involved. He reckoned it looked easy enough and decided to have a go, because after all he is very artistic…by the way, had I noticed the lovely symmetrical set of fantail doves he’d cut into the front hedge? My reply is unrepeatable here. I was fuming and not just because he’d butchered some perfectly nice hedging. We had words, oh yes we had words. He took refuge in sullenness, claiming I was so rigid I could pass an audition for the role of the rusted up Tin Man in a stage version of the Wizard Of Oz and not need a frigging costume or any choreography coaching. What exactly was wrong with me, why was I always fussing lately? Did I need hormone therapy? After all, I HADN’T come home to find him scattered in various parts across the back garden, as a result of getting a piece of twig in his eye, slipping in his high heels and plunging from the ladder with what amounted to a chain saw in his hands and nobody home to switch it off and call an ambulance!

One thing saved him from getting the spanking I thought he thoroughly deserved for his bloody reckless actions and that thing was sunburn. Since my run in with skin cancer I’m more fanatical about skincare in the sun. I couldn’t believe that he’d worked outside for hours wearing next to nothing and not bothered to put sunscreen on. Had he not listened to a word the consultant had said about sun damage? His face was a bit pink, but because his day moisturiser contains sunscreen, it had saved it from being too burned. His unprotected back and legs had caught the worst of it, especially across his shoulders and the tender skin on the backs of his thighs. They were just about nuclear and any heat I applied to his backside would go unnoticed in comparison. I made him take a couple of aspirin, which is an excellent treatment for sunburn as long as you’re not allergic, and then plastered him in aloe vera lotion and sent him upstairs to the bedroom to lie down on his stomach. He was in discomfort for several days afterwards, which was punishment in itself. He admitted he had been foolish and said he was sorry. He hadn’t given a thought to anything but doing what he wanted to do. I issued a warning. One more accident resulting from him not thinking before acting and I would give him a spanking he’d never forget.

I was having a nice refreshing shower on Thursday evening when I heard a tremendous crash followed by a panicked scream. Leaping out of the shower I grabbed a towel to cover my modesty and ran downstairs, anxiously calling his name. He met me in the hall, wide eyed and pale faced. Launching himself into my damp arms he babbled, ‘ you’ll never believe what just happened. I was sitting reading a magazine when something grabbed my ankle, pulled off my shoe and hurled it through the television screen. We’ve got a poltergeist!’

He was right. I didn’t believe it. I grimly surveyed the fluffy pink mule lying amongst the innards of the television set. The set that had been bought to replace the television that he’d broken when he skipped a mug of tea through it. It had been an expensive set, more so than the last one and now it was ruined. I was furious and demanded to know what had really happened. He insisted it had been a poltergeist and that we’d have to call in an exorcist to cleanse the house of paranormal activity. It had been a very frightening experience for him, like being in a horror film. I was in no mood for his brand of creative accountancy. Taking hold of his arm I turned him sideway and landed several good smacks to his backside before towing him back upstairs with me and parking him firmly in a corner of the bedroom while I got dressed.

It turned out he’d felt a sudden yen to practice some high dance kicks and consequently his mule had flown off and smashed through the television screen. He gazed at me appealingly, saying it had been an accident, and he was sorry for lying about how it happened. He’d panicked because he knew I’d be madder than a baited badger when I saw what he’d done to the telly again, albeit accidentally, not on purpose, or in temper, but accidentally, it was an accidental accident. I accepted it had indeed been an accident and there had been no malice aforethought. In fact there had been no kind of forethought whatsoever and that was the problem. I reminded him that in the course of a week, he’d accidentally neglected the grill, all but brained me, assaulted my mother’s lady-gentleman friend, caused two plates, two mugs, an expensive china cup and my new t-shirt to be relegated to the dustbin of no return. He’d also horribly mutilated our hedging while risking life, limb and skin cancer and now, as a piece de resistance he’d seen off yet another television set. Our household insurance premiums were set to be the highest in history. They’d probably earn a mention in the Guinness Book Of Records.

I asked him if he would consider going on stage and doing high kicks in high-heeled mules such as he’d been wearing downstairs? He shook his head. I asked him to explain why. He did so. Because they weren’t anchored securely to his feet with straps and the moment he kicked his leg up they would fly off and brain someone onstage, or stun a member of the audience. Exactly. So could he please explain why he had decided to practice high kicks in unsuitable footwear, in a confined space, with lots of breakable objects around? He confessed that he had been reading something in The Stage about Chorus Girls being needed for a touring production of Hello Dolly and had decided to hone up his high kicking technique in case the production company held auditions locally. In other words he hadn’t thought about anything other than doing what he wanted to do at that moment in time. He had simply acted on thoughtless impulse, yet again.

I don’t consider myself to be an unduly harsh disciplinarian, but it seemed that he was badly in need of a sharp reminder about the consequences of thoughtless and careless behaviour. None of my words had made any difference. They’d gone in one ear and out of the other. I sent him downstairs to get the wooden rice paddle that I’d bought to replace the wooden spoon he’d slipped into Gill’s mother’s handbag after the dildo trick. It was sturdier than the spoon, flatter and broader and thus far it had only been used for its intended purpose of stirring rice dishes. Twinkles eyes were bright with tears when he came back up and held it out. I told him to remove his shorts. This is something I rarely do when punishing him. Depending on how he’s dressed, I usually take down his trousers or pull up his skirts. He knew being told to take down his own shorts was a sign that he was in a serious discipline situation, which caused his eyes to shine even brighter with unshed tears. They overflowed when I ordered him to remove his briefs and bend over my knee. Because his thighs were still a little bit pink from the sunburn I concentrated all of the spanking on his buttocks. I spanked him very hard, both with my hand and the rice paddle. Such sessions are very emotional and we were both a little muted for some time afterwards. I took us both to bed where we lay quietly together, finding comfort, calm and balance again. It was a conclusion to a rather long and frenetic week.

Time to lay down my pen. We’re going out and the taxi will be here soon. Twinks gets very hoity toity if I’m not immediately on hand to escort him to his carriage, as befits a lady.

 

 

7th August 2005:

 

Coffee And Hate

 

We often shop on a Sunday morning when it tends to be quieter and this morning we duly trundled off to Tesco and whom should we see there, but Paul, with Dominic. Twinkles spotted him first, drawing my attention to the fact that Paul seemed to be trying to look as if he wasn’t with Dominic’s pushchair. It was true. Paul is a modern kind of dad in every respect, but when it comes to pushing his son’s pushchair he has this odd little quirk. He walks beside it, pushing it with one hand held at arms length, rather than standing directly behind it and pushing with both hands. I’ve noticed that quite a few men resort to this method of pushchair locomotion, almost like they’re embarrassed to be seen it. Twinkles scared the wits out of him, and me, by suddenly bellowing: ‘excuse me. You in the red t-shirt, I don’t want to alarm you, but a small child in a pushchair appears to be stalking you. Do you want me to alert Security?’ Paul turned redder than his t-shirt, especially when the people around him started laughing. Twinkles is really rather naughty sometimes. As if he hadn’t embarrassed poor Paul enough, he then went over to him and flung his arms around him, kissed him ostentatiously and cooed, ‘oh darling, so the rumours are true, you did have our love child. Why didn’t you tell me you were pregnant? I would have done the decent thing and made an honest man of you.’ Paul glared at him and told him if he didn’t behave he’d dump him in the nearest deep freeze and lock down the lid.

Karen was having one of those explosive times of the month episodes and Paul had decided that cowardice was the better part of valour and had cleared out of the war zone with Dominic in the hope that normal service would have resumed by the time he returned home. Twinkles told him that he ought to be ashamed, leaving the mother of his child feeling not only under siege from the evil hormones that were swamping her, but neglected and unprotected by the man who had professed to love her until death did them part. Paul said he did love her, but she was scary when possessed by the hormone demons and he’d feared for his manhood, which she had threatened with a vegetable peeler. Twinkles suggested he buy flowers to woo and calm the savage beast that had taken possession of Karen, but Paul pulled a face, saying he wasn’t a flower kind of guy. Twinks wasn’t having any of that. Taking him firmly by the arm he began dragging him towards the flower section, telling him that he obviously needed a few lessons in grumpy lover taming from the Gay Guru.

By the time we headed for the checkouts Paul was in possession of a bouquet of flowers, a bottle of Sparkling Wine and a box of Belgian chocolates. I could almost hear his credit card whimpering. Twinkles then added insult to his financial injury by standing at the end of the checkout as the goods came through and squealing mischievously, ‘oh, Paul sweetie, you’ve bought me all my favourite things. My, you are hoping for something special later on aren’t you?’ Poor Paul, he was scarlet faced and obviously praying that none of his mates from the Rugby Club were in the store. He finally cracked when Twinks, cradling the bouquet in his arms, stopped a passing couple and simpered, ‘look what my boyfriend has just bought me, isn’t it lovely and romantic. I think he might be getting ready to pop the question.’ He then fluttered his eyelashes at Paul and blew him several exaggerated kisses. Turning to the woman who was standing behind us in the queue Paul asked if he could borrow her stick of French bead? She gave a bemused nod and he snatched it from her trolley, asked the grinning checkout operator to charge it to him, and then proceeded to smartly whack Twinkles across the backside with it, telling him that if he didn’t shut up he was going to kill him, and furthermore if Karen failed to be impressed and calmed, he was going to bill him for everything, including the bread. Dominic adored the sight of daddy bashing Twinkles with the bread and joyfully clapped his little hands. I sent Twinkles to get another loaf to replace the one that Paul had hijacked from the customers trolley.

We treated Paul to a cup of coffee and a cake in the café to make up for teasing him. Because the café was busy and all the available baby highchairs were in use, Twinkles sat Dominic on his lap while Paul drank his coffee. We were chatting and generally enjoying ourselves when I became aware of someone approaching the table. I glanced up and froze with sick dismay as I recognised Twinkles’ grandfather. A woman, whom I assumed was his daughter and therefore Twinkles’ mother, was accompanying him. Twinkles saw her first and a look flashed across his face, one of shocked surprise followed by eager hope. A smile was born, and then died as she turned her eyes away from him. Then he saw his grandfather and his face blanched. As ever I was shocked by the way life drained away from him when in the presence of that man. He dwindled like a candle flame getting ready to die.

The old bastard ignored both Twinkles and I and targeted Paul. Lifting his stick he jabbed it at him, asking if he were the father of the baby. Paul didn’t know what was going on and confirmed that he was indeed the father. He then sat open mouthed as the old man told him that he ought to be horsewhipped for allowing his child to be endangered by wicked company. He stabbed the stick at Twinkles, informing Paul and the rest of the café that he was a shameful pervert, a man who revelled in lewd practices and who would undoubtedly defile and corrupt his son. I had a dizzying urge to grab the stick and drive it down the throat of its malevolent owner, but of course that wasn’t an option. I did push it away from Twinkles though. Standing up I quietly told him that he’d said his nasty piece and he could now leave. Paul leapt in at that point, his face once again red while in our company, but with anger on our behalf this time. I don’t know who you are, he said, but these are my friends and my son’s godparents and I couldn’t be more proud of that fact, so fuck off and mind your own business you mad old sod. Well, it was succinct enough and they got the message.

When we parted company with Paul, he put his arms around Twinkles and hugged him, telling him you could choose your friends, but your family was something you had no control over and not to let what had happened get him down. Paul isn’t a male hugging male sort of man, so for him to do that was really sweet. It did get Twinkles down though. He’s spent most of this afternoon crying. He doesn’t deserve to be treated like that. He’s essentially a good person, he’s sweet and funny and loving. How can they reject him so cruelly? Even now, after all they’ve done if they were to ask he would still be willing to love them. It breaks my heart because I know they never will. I hate to see him in this kind of pain because there is nothing I can do that will remove it. I feel powerless. It’s sad how easily a day can begin with laughter and then end in tears. I suppose that’s why we really do have to make the most of the times when laughter and goodwill are in the ascendancy.

 

 

14th August 2005:

 

Cross Stitch

 

When I went to pick Twinkles up from work on Friday, Barbara, his workmate, told me that if he wasn’t in a better mood when he came back from holiday then she and the rest of the staff were handing in their notices because working with him had been a bloody nightmare. He hadn’t had a pleasant word for anyone for days. They were all sick of him storming around. I’d given what I hoped was a non-committal, yet not discounting smile, while keeping to myself the fact that he’d been exactly the same at home and my own patience was stretched to breaking point.

Of course I knew what was behind his foul mood. The incident in the coffee shop last Sunday thoroughly knocked his equilibrium. I tried and tried encouraging him to talk about it, but he refused, claiming he was just fine and I was to stop making it bigger than it was. His actions told another story. He snapped and snarled, grumbled and complained and found fault with everything, especially me. I was getting on his nerves. If I kissed him he complained I was chafing his skin because I hadn’t shaved properly. If I tried to cuddle him I was crowding him. If I didn’t try I was neglecting him. At night I snored and kept him awake, this from the man who can snore for Britain. My trainers were disgusting and they made the hall smell, would I kindly keep them outside in the shed.

My bathroom habits came in for some heavy criticism. All the hair in the shower drain was mine. I always left the toothpaste messy and the towels damp and when I did what nature demanded, I turned the bathroom into the equivalent of a radiation site i.e. a total no-go area. The implication being that he smelled of roses and I smelled of manure.

He hates our house. It’s too small and old fashioned. He wanted to move, or at least have a halfway decent kitchen put in and why had I insisted on painting the living room such a foul colour. It was giving him migraine and he wanted it changed immediately.

The bloody weather was shit and why did it do nothing but rain in this God forsaken country. Wednesday on the other hand was too hot, it gave him a headache and by the way I stank of B.O. and was making him feel sick to his stomach. I’d just finished mowing two lawns and trimming up the hedges that he’d mutilated in his topiary frenzy, so it was hardly surprising that I was exuding a manly odour. It was the remark that broke this particular camel’s back. I took exception to it and told him to take his bad manners up to bed, because I’d had enough of them. I was more than willing to make allowances in the circumstances, but I wasn’t going to be abused out of hand. He stamped all the way up the stairs so I brought him back down and made him go up them again. He stamped even harder, so again I brought him down and on the third attempt he managed to ascend them in a manner I approved of.

Getting back to Friday. I suggested that as he was in a less than convivial mood, it might be best if we stayed in rather than venture out to the PP. He accused me of trying to ruin his social life and said that if I wanted to stay in, I could stay in, but he was going out, thank you very much, dearie. I was tempted at that point to turn into a heavy-handed Dom and say he couldn’t go, but I refrained, telling myself that dressing up and going out might make him feel better. So out we went and it was absolutely miserable.

He didn’t want to dance with me because the music was rubbish. The cabaret spot was pathetic. Cherie Pie was singing off key, and who for the love of Christmas, had told her that she looked good in that yellow frock and feather headdress, because she didn’t. She looked like Foghorn Leghorn the puffed up rooster, or old boiler in her case. Moreover, Rick the barman had bad-breath, the beer was warm and the wine was crap. Lulu, who was sitting at our table, finally lost patience and asked him if he was due a fucking period, to which Natalie, sitting at the next table, gleefully quipped, ‘don’t you mean the menopause, dear. She looks old enough in that dated retro rag she’s wearing.’

The glass of red wine that Twinkles had been whining about did not go well with the pale blue gown that Natalie was wearing and the latter was effectively ruined. Natalie, understandably, was very angry, but I managed to catch her fist before it ploughed into Twinkles’ face. Twinkles then stormed off and I apologised to Natalie, or by that point Kevin, his persona having slipped with annoyance and told him that we’d pay to have the dress cleaned and if it failed to clean then we’d pay for a replacement. I offered him the cost of a taxi home so he could change and come back, but he said he’d borrow a stage costume from one of the chorus girls.

All in all I regretted my decision not to play the heavy-handed Dom. I wished I’d put him over my knee and smacked his arse until he cried. It might have helped release some of the tension he was hiking around with him. Going out had been a waste of effort. Twinks’ mood was fouler than ever and he’d upset and offended his friends. He tried to brazen it out, claiming that he’d spilled the wine accidentally and that Natalie ought to consider anger management, as she flew off the handle at the drop of a hat. He knows and I know that accidents do happen, and we both knew that hadn’t been one of them. Natalie’s dress didn’t look like it had come off a British Home Stores bargain rail. I told him that the cleaning or replacement of it was coming out of his personal money, and not out of our joint account, which was verging on bankrupt after all the recent demands on it.

I also told him that he owed Natalie an apology and it wasn’t a negotiable subject. He said he’d apologise to Kevin, but he wasn’t apologising to that bitch. I said that seeing as it was Kevin’s feminine face he’d been obnoxious to, he could make the apology to it. He said I was being pedantic and anyway Natalie had insulted him first. I pointed out that he frequently insulted Natalie first and while being bitchy was part of drag, throwing glasses of wine and fisticuffs wasn’t, certainly not in my rulebook anyway. His attitude was one of not giving a toss, but I could tell that it was as artificial as the boobs he had pushed down the front of his dress. He knew he’d been far from nice and he was ashamed of himself, but just wasn’t ready to admit it.

As soon as we got home I sent him to remove his paraphernalia and get ready for bed. Pouring myself a very large drink I sat staring at the space that had once been occupied by our television sets. When he came downstairs he was wearing a joke t-shirt that he’d bought for me as a comfort gift, shortly after we started getting the hate mails. It reads: 555…A Lesser Evil. He looked at me sadly and asked if he’d been very wicked? I nodded. He said he was sorry and did I forgive him? I said yes, but I was still going to buy him a plain t-shirt and as punishment for his foul temper I was going to make him embroider in cross-stitch on it: 777…Worse Than The Devil Himself. He gave me a smile, the first in a week. It was like being released from purgatory and I pulled him down onto my lap. We didn’t say anything. We just sat cuddling and sharing my drink while watching the space where the telly used to be.

He finally opened up regarding last Sunday. At first he hadn’t seen his grandfather, just his mother. He’d been excited because he thought she was coming over to see him and to say hello and he was going to show off Dominic and ask how his sisters were, and a hundred other things that flashed through his mind in those few seconds before he saw the old man. He then felt so foolish and so humiliated for allowing himself that moment of hopeful excitement that he could cheerfully have slapped his own face. I offered my opinion. He had absolutely no need to feel foolish or humiliated, he’d done nothing wrong. The only wrong was the wrong done to him. He apologised again for being a trial all week and said he’d make it up to me. I insisted that he had nothing to make up, we were partners and we took the rough with the smooth. He gave me one of his drop dead sexy smiles, guided my hand up his bare thigh and under his t-shirt and said, ‘I’ll be smooth if you’ll be rough!’ It was an offer I couldn’t refuse.

 

 

16th August 2005:

 

Pink Rubber Fetish

 

I incurred Twinkles’ wrath this morning and as a result I’m finding sitting something less than a comfortable experience on account of having a bruised backside. Twinks turned heavy-handed Dom, surely not? Let me explain.

We’d just finished breakfast and I was clearing the table and stacking all the things that needed to be washed by the side of the sink, including a Flora margarine tub whose contents we’d used up. Twinks was washing up. He’s a sight to behold on a summer’s morning, standing at the sink wearing nothing but his pink mules and a pair of pink rubber washing up gloves, shaking his thing to whatever music is playing on the CD player. He washed up the plates and mugs, but dropped the empty margarine tub into the kitchen bin. I immediately remonstrated with him and fished it back out, dropping it into the washing up water to be washed, saying it might come in useful. In doing so I touched a nerve that had obviously been growing in sensitivity for some time.

He glared at me. ‘Useful is it, exactly how useful?’ Before I could make reply he trip-trapped across the kitchen and flung open one of the cupboard doors. With one pink rubber clad hand clamped firmly to a hip and the other flung out like a game show glamour girl indicating a prize, he said waspishly, ‘you mean useful like these? So useful in fact they have never been used and have been taking up a growing amount of shelf space for years?’ I was forced to admit there were rather a lot of them. I hadn’t realised quite how many. I got the Twinkles’ glare again followed by a tirade about having to have an extension built just to house my collection of questionably useful empty margarine tubs.

I admitted, testily, that okay perhaps there was no need to save the margarine tub we’d emptied at breakfast and dropped it back into the waste bin. Did this appease my cross little glamour puss? Did it heck. He was in full flow and it would take a muzzle to silence him. What was it about empty margarine tubs anyway? It amounted to a fetish. Was I secretly planning on constructing a life size model of Buckingham Palace from them when I’d collected enough? I (it was claimed) complained enough about his bad habits. Well this was one of my habits that drove him right up the wall. He wasn’t putting up with it any longer, was that absolutely clear? I nodded and humbly promised not to save any more empty margarine tubs. It wasn’t enough. He wanted the ones in the cupboard throwing out, now, that very moment. I was aghast. They represented years of prudent washing and saving. He was adamant. They had to go. He hated to disillusion me but they had never been useful, they never would be useful. I had to face that fact and let them go with dignity. By way of softening the blow he said I could keep four, just on the off chance they might come in useful. I begged for six, a neat half dozen, but he stood firm. The choice was four or none at all.

To be truthful I have no idea how or why I developed a compulsion to save empty margarine tubs. It must be some genetic kink stemming from my more frugal Scottish ancestry. Getting rid of them turned out to be really rather liberating. It was like casting off a shackle.

Power was very obviously an aphrodisiac for Twinks. After I’d obediently cleared the cupboard of all but four of the tubs, he displayed himself against the kitchen table and requested that I worship his totem for a change and do a bit of bottoming. He looked so wonderfully wanton, sporting nothing but an erection and a pair of pink rubber gloves that my passions were at once inflamed and I hastened to comply with his orders. He lay on his back on the kitchen table and I lubed all appropriate parts and squatted astride him, impaling myself on his totem as it were. In the heat and height of passion he gripped my rear with his hands in order to aid my movements and keep his cock buried more deeply inside me. I used my own hands, or one of them, to aid and abet my own pleasure. Once the fireworks had stopped exploding I smiled happily into his flushed face and he smiled happily back. Then his smile froze slightly and a puzzled look came over his face, as he tried to take his hands away from my buttocks and found he couldn’t. The rubber gloves had become sticky with our combined body heat and had bonded to my skin. In effect we were well and truly glued together.

Panic set in. Twinkles was terrified to tug too hard in case he pulled away a layer of my skin along with the gloves. He had terrible visions of the police breaking in because no one had seen us for days and discovering us bonded together by a pair of rubber gloves. The story would make The News of the World and be promoted as some weird gay BDSM ritual that had gone wrong. We’d never be able to show our faces in public again. I was edging towards panic myself. Apart from anything else my knees and shins were aching from their contact with the hard tabletop. I was longing to stand up and stretch my legs. I told him to stay calm, take deep breaths and try to manoeuvre his hands out of the gloves. Thankfully he managed to do so and we successfully uncoupled.

 

It was with some dismay that I twisted around to inspect the situation. I did not fancy trundling down to the hospital casualty department with a pair of pink rubber gloves adhered firmly to my bottom. It would cause uproar, but nor did I fancy spending the rest of my life trailing around with a pair of rubber hands lewdly groping my arse. Twinkles suggested I try a warm bath with plenty of bath oil to see if it would help soak them off. Thank goodness it did the trick. The oil softened the rubber and I was able to carefully peel the gloves away from my tender skin without too much trouble. They left a couple of friction bruises, but no skin loss. My relief was profound.

Twinkles hugged me and I noted with concern that he was shaking…with laughter as it turned out, the little toad. His eyes sparkling with amusement he said that he’d always known we were stuck on each other, but that was ridiculous. We both ended up indulging in a fit of the giggles, then we got dressed and had coffee and biscuits. He sat on my lap as we drank our coffee and chatted. The sun streamed through the window casting sparkles of light around the kitchen. I was happy, he was happy. Life was good. It suddenly struck me that I was in the midst of an indelible memory moment. At some point in the future I knew I would remember this morning’s events with clarity, perhaps just after he died, or just before I died. I didn’t want to think about it too closely, as it would turn joy to sadness. Instead I wrapped my arms around his waist and told him how much I loved him.

I suppose the moral to this tale is twofold, first…never have frenetic sex with someone wearing rubber gloves, and second…always tell the one you love how much you love them while you are yet able to hold and kiss them.

We’re both on holiday from work this week. I’m not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, apart from laze around and have sex while not wearing any kind of rubber garments. We had been toying with going on one of those last minute bargain holiday breaks to Italy or Greece, but it’s no longer an option, not since my doctor advised against going abroad this year. We’ll probably just head out for day trips or overnight stays somewhere.

 

 

17th August 2005:

 

The Selfishness Of Hamsters

 

Terrible screams issued from the bathroom at two this morning. Twinkles got up to obey a call of Nature only to become embroiled in a drama with a fearsome creature of the night. In other words a big moth had flown at him when he put the bathroom light on. It got in between him and the escape route of the bathroom door and he was effectively trapped until I went to his rescue. Twinks hates insects in general and moths in particular. I must admit it was a big one. It was a tiger moth with a thick body and furry wings; even I shuddered when I saw it. Despite his revulsion and fear, and it is a genuine fear, he exhorted me not to kill it. He has this notion that moths are the collectors and carriers of dead people’s souls and if you kill one you prevent a soul getting to Heaven. He has no idea where he got the notion from, whether he read a story or someone told him, but his resulting fear of the insect has been with him since he was a boy. If he knew there was a moth in the bedroom at night, he would be too afraid to go to sleep in case it meant he was going to die and it was waiting to take his soul away. I managed to capture and release this particular specimen unharmed into the night air, closing the window so it couldn’t get back in.

Poor Twinks, he was quite shaken and upset by the encounter. We went back to bed and I cuddled him, telling him he was not to see it as a premonition. The moth had not been on the prowl looking for a soul and neither he nor I were going to die in the night. He kept insisting that he had a bad feeling, a really bad feeling. I told him that if he persisted in working himself up into a doom laden frenzy then there would indeed be a bad feeling…on his backside when I spanked it. I was not going to permit him to carry on like a Roman Soothsayer, scaring himself half to death in the process. He can make a three-act drama out of a grocery list when he has a mind to.

I allowed him to inspect my scar and check me for signs of any other suspect blemishes and then called a halt. Fears and phobias are neither silly nor a sign of weakness. They’re very potent and they’re rooted in some fundamental part of our psyche. They’re often symbols of something important and if we could crack their code then we would come to a greater understanding of ourselves. I have suggested that we seek out a phobia expert to see if we can get to the core of his fear and discover where the image of the moth as a portent of death came from. He refused. No way on earth was he was going to visit some so called expert who would tell him that his fear of moths stemmed from a subjugated desire to have sex with his dead granny, and it could be cured by sitting in a bathtub full of the horrific creatures. He soon fell asleep again and snored solidly for the remainder of the night.

We caught up with some housework this morning, and then went out for lunch, after which we went shopping for yet another replacement television. Alas we fell out over it. I wanted to buy the same model that we’d just had, the one we’d barely worked out how to operate before he despatched it. He wanted to buy one of the fancy plasma screen models that cost an absolute fortune. Teddy and Maurice have one and it’s wonderful. I didn’t care what Teddy and Maurice had. We were not spending a fortune, especially given his recent track record with television sets. He claimed I was being unreasonable and said he contributed his fair share to the household budget and he had a right to have a say in what purchases were made with it. I told him that I didn’t dispute his contribution, or his rights. However, the fact remained that we could not afford to spend that amount of money on a television and as I had the final say, I was saying no. He went into sulk mode and refused to take an interest in proceedings after that. I cut short the shopping excursion.

He didn’t say a word to me all the way home. I was seriously considering having a discussion about bad attitude as soon as we got in. However, we arrived back to find Gabby, our neighbour’s little girl, sitting on the doorstep with her skipping rope. She looked sad. Forgetting his own bad mood Twinks gently asked her what was wrong and her big blue eyes overflowed, as she explained that Nancy, her beloved pet hamster, had died in the night. We headed for the kitchen where I made tea and poured out cola, which Gabby drank while waiting patiently for Twinks to stop crying. She offered comfort. ‘Nancy was an old hamster, Mr Twinkles, she’s in Heaven now.’ She then trotted out into the garden. He blew his nose and said self-righteously, ‘I told you that moth was on the hunt for a soul to carry away.’ I handed him his skips and sent him out into the garden to play to take his mind off it. I’m not sure that hamsters have souls, not ones that qualify them for a place in Heaven, but I would never voice such doubts to Gabby or even Twinks. I was sad for Gabby’s loss, but to be honest I wished Nancy had hung on for another day or two, just so that Twinkles couldn’t associate her demise with the moth incident. It would do nothing to dispel his phobia about them being harbingers of doom. Hamsters can be so selfish!