Gage looks down at the cracks in between the boards of the pier and holds Paul’s hand tight. The sun’s setting now but it’s still stiflingly hot and they walk to the end looking out at the mixed palette of the sky and leaning against the peeling paint of the railings
The metal is cool enough to numb a stripe across Gage’s belly and he looks down at the greyish bluish greenish water and has this inexplicable urge to jump.
“Penny for those sad thoughts.” says Paul slipping an arm around Gage’s shoulders.
“You spent your last penny on What the Butler Saw in the Victorian arcade,” replies Gage obtusely. He doesn’t want Paul to know how difficult this is.
It’s been twelve years since they were teenagers, young and shy exploring each other’s bodies in that student flat in Leeds while all their other flat mates were out at a party. Seven years since they met up again by chance on a cold rainy day in a café bar in Chiswick. Four years since they made love and Gage said the words that he’d been thinking forever.
The sky suits his mood; vibrant reds and erotic golds and a turquoise that’s so alive it’s glowing. There’s just a hint of darkness encroaching and maybe that’s what’s making Gage shiver.
“Does he ever catch anything?” laughs Paul as they walk on and he narrowly avoids knocking over a fisherman’s thermos flask.
The old fellow’s there everyday come rain or shine, sitting on his striped plastic foldaway chair with the torn edge, reading yesterday’s papers that he finds in the bin and people watching out of the corner of his eye while his dog whiles away the hours lying on the decking and doing a little people watching of his own. Sometimes, unbeknownst to Paul, when Gage is out walking on his own he stops to talk to the old man. They all seem to fit together right; him and Eric and Clancy the dog. It’s a sobering thought that he feels more at home with an unwashed senior citizen and his mutt than with Paul and his London friends. Their friends.
They sit in the little bar at the end of the pier and all of a sudden Gage knows that this is the life he covets. He wants to serve gin and tonics and bottles of beer and watch the sun set over the railings as the lights switch on in beat poet syncopation.
“I love it here,” he says.
“I love it anywhere as long as I’m with you,” smiles Paul.
If ever there was a right thing to say that was it. Gage smiles back and covers Paul’s hand with his own wishing there was just a hint of sincerity wrapped up in those words. Finishing their drinks they walk over to the railing and stare out at the lights reflecting off the water.
“Tide’s out,” says Gage, the sounds of the board walk and the fun fair in the distance making him feel almost as cool as David from the Lost Boys. Spiking his sweaty hair back he leaps over the railing with the sign on it that’s warning people away from the rickety Victorian wrought iron steps.
“Come back, you prat,” says Paul leaning over and watching him as he rattles his way down the stairs and onto the small landing level.
“I’m hot. I want to swim.” Gage looks up in surprise as he hears Paul following on behind. Paul’s never been a follower and the only risks he ever takes are in the business world.
The summer has been long and blisteringly hot and as Gage dives into the water it’s like being in a cool bath, none of that sudden judder of frostbiting pain that’s normally associated with swimming off the Sussex coast.
“Tell me why we’re doing this,” says Paul surfacing from the deep, his words accompanied by a spout of sea water.
“Because we only have one life.” Gage wraps himself around Paul and slow kisses him as they sway, almost dance in the ocean.
The moment continues as they strip off clothes and kick away shoes, never taking their eyes off each other.
“Tell me why we’re doing this?” asks Paul as their mouths meet and tongues trace lazy lines over salt wet lips.
Gage is transfixed by this rejuvenated person. One he thought he’d lost a long time ago.
“Because that life is over too quick,” he replies running his fingers over the droplets on Paul’s waxed skin. Wax like a dummy in Madame Tussauds. Waxy and unreal, or so he thought this morning when he was looking for the gas bill to pay and found a letter from a company in Milan arranging for Paul to start work for them on the nineteenth of this month. He found other things too when he went searching – plane tickets for them both and the estate agent’s details for a beautiful apartment in Italy.
The feel of Paul hard and hot and cool and smooth brushing against him is enough to make Gage want to come immediately. They’ve taken each other in so many unconventional places but never like this – open, naked, and in full view of their sea front flat and the neighbours.
Paul edges further towards the shore until he’s standing at thigh level, his cock hard as nails and begging Gage with every erotic twitch to go down on him. Falling to his knees with a splash Gage does as he’s told, taking the head into his mouth and lavishing it with the best kind of attention, long fluid swipes of his tongue and good hard sucks until Paul is panting and fucking his face with determined grace, his fingers tugging at Gage’s wet blond hair as he thrusts his hips forward and back, forward and back.
“Tell me why we’re doing this.” The words are almost unintelligible as Paul takes Gage hard until his lips are sore and his jaw is aching just the way he likes it. With a final moan and shudder Paul fucks mouthful after mouthful of come into Gage’s throat then wades to the water’s edge dropping down with a splash onto all fours.
Jesus, Gage is so close to orgasm. Sloshing his way through the ocean he kneels once more, pressing his lips to Paul’s hole prepping him with semen and tongue then forcing his erection inside unable to ignore the urgency any longer.
It’s too dry for comfort but Gage knows he won’t last. One, two, three hard power strokes and he’s coming inside Paul, his sperm burning hot in contrast to the sea water.
They stand and brush away the small stones that have embedded themselves in their skin and then hug for an hour, a year, a lifetime.
“We’re doing this because we only have one chance,” says Gage kissing Paul with that passion that’s always with them even after the sex is done.
He thinks of love and life and how Paul has been the only one in his heart forever. He thinks of how he wishes Paul had been the only one in his bed. He thinks of goodbye and how to say it right.
Beachcombing for a while they discover an old T-shirt and an abandoned Scooby Doo beach towel and then make their vaguely decent way back home to the top floor flat in the regency terrace that’s crumbling but serenely beautiful. The roof garden is their own space that not even their closest friends are privy to. It’s barely a garden except for Phyllis the Japanese willow in her faux Grecian pot but it’s certainly magical.
“I’m doing this because I love you,” says Paul and he’s bathed in moonlight and as naked as the day he was born and Gage is crying now as he wonders if he’ll have the courage to be his own person.
“It’s time for a change,” explains Paul pouring them a glass of pinot grigio and lighting a cigarette.
Who will he share fags with from now on? wonders Gage in that bizarre way he has about him. He doesn’t want his lips where anyone else’s have been.
“This opportunity came up that was too good to miss out on and I know I should’ve talked it over first but-”
“I’m sorry. I can’t do it.” Gage looks at Paul and hopes his eyes aren’t too wet.
“You can’t do it?”
Paul’s defeated; Gage can see it so clearly in that dark gaze up at the night sky.
“I thought it was what you wanted so when the lease came up for grabs… I guess I grabbed it.”
Lease? Gage is baffled but steadfast. “I love living here, Paul, you know that. I can’t leave. Even for you.”
“Why would you need to leave? It’s only across the road.”
“Milan is not across the road,” replies Gage emphatically with one of those so ‘mo gestures that he’s sworn he’ll never make and he’s almost angry when Paul is laughing and laughing and laughing some more. But then there are words. And words have a habit of changing things.
“I quit my job and took the lease on the Pier bar, you idiot.”
Bar. His bar. The dream. “But Milan? You got offered a job in Milan.”
“And I was going to fly us out there to see if we liked the idea but then this came up and Eric said it was what you always wanted and so I signed the papers. You have to go see Julian tomorrow to ink in your name on the contract. If you want to.”
Paul’s actually stammering now and Gage has never seen him like this. So excited. So terrified. So young.
Bar. His Bar. His dream. Paul knows Eric? Gage is having this definite Twilight Zone moment but then there are kisses and kisses have a habit of changing everything for the better.
They stay up all night, talking and drinking and sharing cigarettes and then when the mood takes them they slide together and make love cock to cock and mouth to mouth both too tired to climb down the ladder to get slick.
When the sun wakes him Gage is cold and bedraggled and so utterly happy, exactly the way a thirty something who’s just been handed a life-altering, happy-making plan should be. He remembers everything and wakes Paul with a soft suck at each nipple and the sleepy smile on his boyfriend’s face reflects vibrant reds and erotic golds and a turquoise so alive it’s almost glowing.