Previously, on "GAYS OF OUR LIVES"...   Our hero, Gattino, more stunning with each passing day, has met up with millionaire playboy Ben on several occassions.  Most notably in Chester where they jointly encountered the horizonatally chalenged Phil from the personal ad.  Subsequently another meeting occured on a wild and steamy sunday night in Liverpool, when 2 of Ben's friends came along.  One of these was described by someone, who must have been inebriated, as extremely shaggable.  For this error we apologise. A trip to Dublin had been in mind.  But these are small minds and ideas rarely have room to grow.  Elsewhere Andy had been denounced as unforgivably unreliable and -some viewers missed this episode due to technical difficulties - our emerald eyed love god had been recieving spontaneous emails from Richie Rich, a self-proclaimed penthouse dweller with "lots of clothes" and an uncanny likeness to Liza Marie Presley.  Or something like that.  I don't read this shit, so don't expect me to remember it.  The saga continues......           A TALE OF TWO CITIES     But first those loose ends.  Young Andy, though ever a stranger, is back in my will.  When I die I'm to leave him .well...the pleasure of having known me.  Such forgiving generosity has been engendered, in part,  by the fact that he's currently holidaying on some exotic Greek Island  (where incidentally a porn film was apparently being shot this week starring - you guessed it - a certain Lukas Ridgeston.  Imagine Andy's confusion if he came across him!  Imagine his delight if he came across him.  Imagine coming across him...) Sorry.  Where was I?  O yes.  He's on holiday, hoping to impress those dusky skinned mediterranean hunks.  Which he might have more success in doing if he hadn't gone with his mother.  And for this - the knowledge that there is someone out there who is more pitiful than me - he deserves to regain my deep love and affection.  Secondly there's the matter of "Richie" , who I've failed to keep you up to date about.  Subsequent to my first mention of him I discovered that he is the kept boy of a much older sugar daddy and is self-declaredly too lazy to work.  The shame.  (Shut up!)  They spend all their time travelling and going on cruises.  Which    accounts for several weeks of merciful silence from that quarter.  You see before he disappeared he regaled me with the hilarious anecdote of how in a fit of pique aboard a cruise ship he 'freaked out' all the old ladies by beating up his boyfriend.  Oh how I laughed.  The scamp!   Well he's back and is confused by my silence:  ANYWAY IF YOU DONT GET BACK AND GIVE A GOOD REASON FOR NOT WRITING I WILL JUST KEEP WRITING AND TRACK YOU DOWN AND MAKE A SCENE.  He, er, jokes (?) "Can't take Rejection" he concludes.  But my conclusions are bigger than his, so I won't be writing back.   Ben asked me to visit Chester.  Several times.  With gusto.  This is not the universe as it was meant to be and it depresses me.  I'm so unaccustomed to anyone showing such enthusiasm for my company that I never noticed the absence of it in others before.  Now I have and I hate you all.  I'm at a loss to explain his enthusiasm, however.  Oh sure there's the stunning looks, the superior mind and the lightning wit - but apart from that I mean.  We've only met 3 times and not had that much conversation when we did yet he can't get enough of me.  Yes I know what you're thinking, but you're wrong.  He's just fallen madly in love with a German (who in turn has fallen madly in love with  Germany since that's where he's gone.  But I didn't like to say anything..) But nonetheless I obliged and descended on that City-next-door on Wednesday night.   Also there (at my suggestion) was Phil and (out of a desire to confirm my first lustful impression) Simon and Mark.  On the latter subject I was depressed to discover my own ability to exagerate - he did not greatly resemble my former description of him.  Except for his bum of course, which remains the Almighty's sweetest gift to a tired and suffering people.  Bury my heart at Wounded Knee, if you must - but, for the merciful love of God, bury my face in that boy's arse!     You'd think I'd learn from experience wouldn't you?  I never do.  As we sat around an outside table in the uncrowded courtyard of a local pub before, at the end, returning to Ben's home for a nice cuppa and some ginger biscuits I saw my whole sorry future mapped out in front of me and felt like Marlon Brando never did.  Of course I'm exagerating - it wasn't meant to be a "night out", just a swift social drink to say hello.  But as Ben asked me how it felt to have a "gang" he could barely suppress the demonic glint of laughter in his eyes.  Then reached for another ginger biscuit.  A gang?  I pictured myself as a Jet in West Side Story.  Only with more ballet and fewer flick- knives.  A gang indeed.  And yet there's the rub.  I've developed an embryonic social life in another town...   And, if I've ever neglected to mention it, it's an unutterably pretty town.  Row on row of black and white tudor facades lining the cobbled shopping streets,  enclosed in it's ancient Roman city walls.  It's like walking through a film set.  And the population are suitably young and pretty - all fresh faced well dressed student types (of the well spoken "Mummy and daddy" variety - not the "lounge around in front of the tv all day in your piss-stained Y-fronts" kind of student we're all accustomed to.)  O yes, it's a lovely place.  But it's not my place.  "Why don't you move to Chester?!"  Asked Ben in the pub.  Yeah sure.  "You can live in my house".  Uhuh.  "Really.  I have all those spare rooms"  eh?  "Why not?"  Dear God - I believe he was serious!  Now I readily admit my own desirability, and have described my confusion at someone being keen on my company - but to have a free home offered to me is perhaps over-estimating my net worth.  The boy clearly just wants to shag me.  Who wouldn't?  (Attila, put your frigging hand down! - you're just making a fool of yourself.)  But what else could he see in me?  Well..   The secret is he's enamoured of my emails, my letters, my way with the written word which in his lonely life is the principle source of amusement.  He wants me for my words.  To the extent, I might say, that in the more outrageous moments of conversation he turned to me and stated expressly that he was supplying me with material.  Though to be fair he doesn't have to try too hard.  He said to Mark: "I like that jacket on you".  Mark was suitably pleased at the compliment, 'till Ben added, with no hint of a smile, "..but I wouldn't wear it every time I went out."  When the ..erm..big-boned Phil said something about a tendency to be affected by alcohol, Ben expressed surprise:  "Really?  But you've got a big frame, haven't you?"  Noting the shocked laughter at his indiscretion he tried to backtrack diplomatically "No, I mean you're tall - you're 6' 2" aren't you?"   Phil replied quizzically: "No.  I'm 5' 9". "       Somehow (and I should point out that at this point I'd adopted a glazed expression of inner thought, which I like to claim is alcohol induced.  I too can be diplomatic.) he'd gotten on to the subject of "penetrative sex" and I could feel the question heading round the table.  "Have you ever done it?"  "Done what?"  "Penetrative sex?"  "Well," I replied "Does this include inanimate objects?"  Well to be precise I said "Does this incl.." and then withdrew the question through the certain fear that smally furry animals would get mentioned.  Somethings are private.   Before I headed home we headed home to his.  The home he'd apparently offered me as my own on the basis of my amusing writings.  How he was to benefit from my emails if I were in the same house is a mystery, until it dawned on me that perhaps I could follow around behind him with a notepad and pen and dash off witty "bon mots" at opportune moments.  I can see it now!  As for the house - Oh my! I knew he was posh but I never knew he was rich!!  I thought he was just putting it on.  That he was a boy from the ghetto with a good line in fruity accents.  But oh no.  He had an extremly large house to himself in the dead centre of historic Chester, with every room large enough to house a refugee family or 3.  I don't mean to suggest he had a diamond encrusted castle or anything, but the boy would be worth sponging off and no mistake.  In my world a bidet is an alien example of upper class ostentation.  In his world the same item is an alien example of middle-class vulgarity.  Instead he employs the services of a filipino house-boy with a medicated tongue.  No.  I just made that up.     Time for home.  He insisted repeatedly that I stay over, but I didn't trust him.  He'd be pestering me in the middle of the night for a long slow sentence  - or at least a quick pun.  So I (just) caught the penultimate train back to my side of the River.  Except before we got there the train terminated at Birkenhead where, we were informed, a fleet of Taxis had been booked to take us on through the tunnel to Liverpool, because of some problems at one of the stations. I say some problem because the explanation of a fire was like watching a sociological experiment.  I had to share the cab with 4 assorted women.  Among them a cross-eyed girl said "there must be fire".  A few moments later a loud woman mentioned there was fire.  The cross eyed girl said "A fire? - is there?"  "I dunno - that's what I heard".  The taxi driver said something about a fire into his radio.  One of the women said Oh it's a fire.  The taxi driver asked "Oh is that what it was?"  And ..well you get the picture.  The whole thing was fascinating.  A dark-skinned woman in a suit, looking like a mafia lady-boss then told someone on her mobile that the whole station was ablaze.  The others took this as confirmation. Meantime the taxi driver couldn't find the tunnel to cross the river...   "Fuckin' hell!"  His boss was shouting at him down the radio.  "Mother fucker!  All he does is sit on his arse all day"  The women were cackling and encouraging him to go round and kick the shit out of the boss.  "I don't know this side of the river at all" he explained.  The river isn't that big.  Missing the tunnel is like a fish missing the sea.  Hard to achieve.  AS I sat there listening to loud woman, cross-eyed girl and lady-boss encouraging the mother fucking incompetent taxi driver to kick the shit out of his boss, a warm glow filled my weary heart, a smile played across my lips and I thought to myself "Home at last - among my people".  And do you know at that precise moment, I may be right, I may be wrong, but I'm perfectly willing to swear a nightingale raised it's head somewhere in the distance and hacked up it's cattarh-lined guts.  And I knew the world was back the way it should be....