forbidden



	Previously, on "GAYS OF OUR LIVES"...


	Our hero, Gattino, a scintillating sex-bomb if ever there was, brought Andy and James over to Chester to meet the other half of his secret twilight life, namely posh Ben, his boyfriend Aryan Alex, and his 3 chums Mark, Phil and "Simon with the edible arse". Thus an unprecedented cast of characters were brought together at last. I'm not in a position to recall, but a good time was had by all those who were on the winning side of World War II. I can't speak for the rest. Andy charmed with his chattiness, James amused and shocked with his outspoken suggestiveness and Gattino was pissed. At any rate developing a loud verbal obsession with Simon's rump and threatening to goose-step in front of the young German are best blamed on red wine and not my upbringing. One of the participants, Phil, insisted the experience be repeated in Liverpool in the immediate future. Could something new be made of this? Well our hero was willing to give it a go........


	FORBIDDEN CITY


	If I'd bothered to count - and evidently I had - there were 8 people at that last little soiree, which came as a surprise to me, since I didn't know I knew 8 people. But with the return match due to take place, as I presumed, on the coming weekend I happened to mention the possibility to Darren - who you will recall as the shoe-selling "Jude Law-alike". Do you want to come too? I enquired politely. He did. And he'd bring a couple of friends with him. How jolly. Why that would make ..er..11 people! That could be fun! If only I'd counted. I didn't. My pride swelling with my own generosity and vast organisational skills, I turned my attention to a 20 year old local I'd established a brief email friendship with. Would he and his boyfriend care to turn up? Oh Yes! Fabulous. If only I'd counted. I didn't. Not to 13 anyway.. And then I extended the same invite to 2 complete strangers I'd contacted on the Internet. Oh and ..er the best mate of one of them. Sometimes I'm drunk even when I'm sober. That's the only explanation I can give. 16 people. I counted.But there was a little hole in my plan. I'd invited this vast number of total strangers to turn up to an evening out which hadn't actually been arranged. So naturally I got around to ringing the main participants. You know, out of politeness. Just to confirm - that sort of thing.


	"Saturday?" asked Andy "This Saturday??! No, I'll be in Manchester. But the 12th August looks good!" Ah. No Andy, no James. Ben? No. Mm. So really it 's just me, playing leader of the gang to a vast throng of total strangers - average age 21 - one of whom, I'd since found out, has an unusual and startling propensity for stripping naked in Public with little - which is to say No - encouragement. I see. Of course some people recognize this as their favourite fantasy. I on the other hand, being a social incompetent born without the benefit of a backbone, would generally choose the option of peeling my eyeballs with a safety razor. I politely, casually, gingerly disentangled myself from this web of commitments and devoted the next several days to violently slapping my face in the mirror.


	However there was a residual problem. Not everyone of my acquaintance had other plans. The 3 lesser characters (in every possible way) in our regular soap - chubby Phil and the silent twins Mark and Simon - were all too keen to come over to Liverpool for a night out. No number of threatening letters from my solicitor would deter them. Shit. It's not that they're anything but lovely people, you understand, it's just that...well, so many things really. Firstly I'd never spoken to them on their own before - they were always just sort of there. Secondly most previous meetings had been notable only for the lack of adventure and the embarrassed small talk, saved only by the presence of Ben and his superior brand of bitchiness. Mark and Simon barely speak. And Phil....well...he scares me. He stares at me a lot in a "I just want to be your friend" kind of way. In fact he wants everyone to be his friend and decides that they are, whether they're aware of it or not. Andy and James are now counted on the list he recites in every conversation - which may come as a pleasant surprise to them, having only met the bloke once. He's really nice, and not registered as dangerous with the mental health authorities - but he's a little intense. So the idea of going out with JUST those 3 was not too appetising, pleasant as they are. Above all the real, true reason I was so reluctant to meet them or anyone else outside of the protective company of more familiar friends is that I'm what's technically referred to as a "Big Wet Nelly", and thus have a crippling phobia about entering a gay bar on my own. This is triggered by a combination of the general stigma of going anywhere on one's own and my own personal certainty that I'm so desirable that everyone will want to pounce on me. So I finally agreed to meet the enigmatic threesome only if we did so in the street. What a mistake to make.....


	Every girl has her little black dress, and this boy is no exception. Dressing well is thankfully rare in this town, but at least one doesn't want to look foolish by dressing too badly, and being ignorant of fashion or style I find it best to play safe on almost every social occassion with black trousers and a black T-shirt. This would be a wise choice in most circumstances, but not perhaps when my hair has again reached the stage where it pays it's own personal tribute to John Travolta, circa 1976. As I snake-hipped my way down the winding road from the city centre to the meeting point, every inch of me, from the oversized soles of my shoes to the peak of my 6 inch quiff, seemed to cry out " You're the one that I want" (Oo, oo, oo.) At least that's the only explanation I'm willing to contemplate for the fact that, having negotiated my way along Saturday Night streets lined with early drunks and bald bouncers, I was apparently propositioned by a lady of a horizontal persuasion.



	The street I was meeting them in - where Phil intended parking his car - is a little narrow alley dangerously close to where Andy lives, a notorious haunt for women of loose morals and looser skin. The nights are still light, you understand, and it felt like daytime, so when this woman walked past me and inquired "Have you got the time, babe?" my arm shot out to look at my watch. Before my eyes settled on it, however, it suddenly dawned on me that the appropriate answer was not the one I gave - "ten to nine" - but rather "No, I'm in a hurry". She winked and smiled at me in as sexy a manner as a woman of her advanced years and dental problems could manage. And that's what I'd rather not think about. I've grown accustomed to my spreading grey hairs and the little jungle that's erupting from my left ear, but I refuse to accept I look like a typical or likely client for the kind of saggy old slapper who'd be lucky to find an escaped leper willing to take her from behind in the dark. I mean really.


	But it's ironic I found a prostitute, because I surely felt like one, pacing up and down the entrance to Back Canning Street waiting for my associates to arrive. Never again. With every step I felt the eyes of the Law and the Underworld weighing down on me. Finally they came. And I'll quickly get my main point over with - which is that I regret all past dismissive remarks about them since they are fine lovely people and decent company, and I'm glad I went. Once again Simon-edible -arse (to give him his full title) caught my attention first. You'll recall the first time I encountered him I described him as pretty and shaggable. Come the second time he was nothing of the kind. By the third encounter, in our last report, I privately concluded he has the eyes of Caligula and the mouth of his horse. And yet here again, stone cold sober and he was remarkabley dishy once more. I will never cease to be amazed by the strange effects a lack of alcohol can have on the senses. True, if his eyes were set any deeper they'd strike oil, but none-the-less he's easy on the eye. His beau, Mark, also deserves a mention, which is more than he's ever gotten before in this saga. Beyond noting his presence I don't recall ever giving much description of him...


	He's really rather attractive in his own right - all red and shiney and dripping with moisture, like a promotional photo of a can of Coke. I'd been amused last time at James' conclusions that Mark seemed tense, withdrawn or anally retentive (Well something to do with anuses and retention.. I'm not sure what.) I was aware it was a totalmisreading of his unchanging facial expression. His head is permantly pulled back, wide eyed with amused suspicion, as though he'd just been on the recieving end of a risque remark and was trying to work out what the other person could possibly be leading up to... It reveals nothing about what he may be actually thinking. Indeed he'd seemed to positively encourage my musings on his boyfriend's rear-end, suggesting he could send me a photo of him in his shorts taken on holiday. Personally I'd have slapped me. I think they may be swingers. I also note for a particular section of our readership that their faces lit up as they asked about Andy and James, who they were particularly taken with and entertained by. (I knew that would please him, the vain bastard....)


	Having dispensed with most of the conversation in one straight bar, we headed through town to another. How little I've seen of my own city at night. How little I wish I'd seen. I mean were there really girls dancing in an open shop window in imitation of an Amsterdam brothel?? I know I was tipsy but I wasn't hallucinating. I silently renewed my vow to be a homosexual if I ever get the chance. And then the Camel Bar. So named, it transpired, because it was decorated in the style of a Morroccan fleshpot - all arches and white stone walls and leopard skin seating. The latter confused me as we entered because, accompanied by the K-tang K-tang guitar music I thought it had just been raided by Starsky and Hutch. You live and learn. It did hold one fascination though - I was able to study how heterosexuals dance. They really are different from normal people. You have to feel sorry for them. Then the good old Lisbon. And the shock of my life....


	As we entered I was bewildered to find myself slap in the middle of a Lou Costello look-alike contest. Short fat men with bryl creamed hair were the only customers in sight. It was only when one of them lit up a cigar I realised they were lesbians. When did that happen??!! I've never seen so much body hair outside of a Greek gorilla sanctuary. I was thankful I'd taken the precaution of shaving off all vestiges of a moustache, or else one of them might have made a pass at me. There wasn't a single man in there, unless you count the women. The whole thing was begining to take on an air of unreality as we headed for our final destination. The G-Bar. Yes the same haunt were my own true love, Attila, had writhed his naked torso in a passionate love dance just for my benefit....


	Personally I never dance - except (to quote ..well..me) "to avoid bullets". But I've discovered after a certain point I don't have to move, since the floor does it for me. I hovered perilously close to the centre of the gyrating folk , head lurching forward, and staring at anyone who might catch my eye through the mist (which may or may not have actually been there), as though I were auditioning to be a Scotsman. I needed the toilet. Shit. More frigging women. The Ladies loo was over-run, but I never expected to find them so keen to resort to the men's urinals. I stood there cradling my best friend when a female presence behind me asked for a light, before inquiring "you don't mind me watching you do you?" Er...? Another woman entered and used the cubicle (maybe I was in the wrong place? Do women have urinals??) and the first girl shouts into her - seemingly oblivious to the fact she's in England, in Liverpool, and in homosexual company - "Have you got a light?" Inevitably she recieved a straight forward reply. "yeah - there's one on the ceiling." "Fuck off, ya bitch!" How unlike the life of our own dear Queen this is....


	I went home, after being propositioned by a trollop, witnessing gyrating window dancers, falling into a 70s time warp, attending a "Dungaree and clitoris" convention and being "cottaged" by a female toilet peeker, and reflected to myself that Liverpool is the one foreign city I've never visited before. I also realised I'll never find love, unless I don a boiler suit and shave my head. Life sucks. Lucky old life...