Knowing Dave

I decided not to let him know the real reason for my surprise. After all, it probably came from the same desperation that we’d discussed him feeling on earlier occasions: Dave never seemed to have considered the implications of the absence of other gay men from my life on our relationship, only the absence of women from his.

I said, “I just never expected to see you in a football strip…”

“You know I play every Wednesday night…”

“Yeah but knowing it in theory and seeing you actually in it… I mean, as a hobby, it seems so at odds with everything else you’re into…”

He smiled and shrugged. “Yeah. I dunno. I suppose, it’s one of those things you either really enjoy or just can’t see the point of… one of the guys on the team I play with is really into poetry… that surprised me at first, but then – when you think about it – why should the one interest exclude the other, just because they’re so different? It’s like saying just because you’re into fishing, you can’t like chess…”

I nodded. I wanted to him stay. I was bored on my own, watching mindless television and drinking lager, and I realised how much I missed Dave when he wasn’t here with me.

I said, “I’ve loads of cans in the fridge. Do you want to stay for a while?”

He shook his head. “I probably stink like a pig. I want to get showered and stuff…”

I knew I might be overstepping the bounds of our friendship – I’d never offered anything so open to being misinterpreted before – but I went ahead and said, “Why don’t you take a shower here?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t got my stuff…”

I tried again. One last time. I promised myself that if he refused again I’d let him go, no matter how much I wanted him to stay.

I said, “You can use my soap and shampoo and stuff… I’ve loads of clean towels… and you can borrow a pair of my jeans if you like…”

As it came out I thought, “Jesus, Wes, why don’t you just be done with and offer him money? That’s how fucking desperate you sound, mate…”

But he smiled and said, “Okay… I mean, if you don’t mind. I don’t want to put you to any trouble…”

I smiled back and shrugged. “Naah… it’ll be good to have you here… there’s fuck all on telly…”

He grinned more broadly. “I’m your entertainment, then?”

“Well, you’re cheaper than renting a video…”

We laughed and he closed the front door. I took him through to my bathroom and showed him how the shower worked. I said I’d fetch him a towel and some clothes and left him to undress.

When I went back in, he’d taken off his trainers and socks and pulled off his football shirt. His chest was really hairy. I wasn’t usually into hairy chests but on Dave it looked fantastic. I loved the way that clumps of it swirled around his nipples and how a thick black line of it led downward from his stomach toward the secrets inside his football shorts.

He looked like he was waiting to pull off his shorts. I knew – we both knew – that in front of any other of his mates he’d have done it without thinking. But in front of me he hesitated. Maybe he was uncomfortable; maybe he was afraid I’d see it as a come-on; maybe he was just shy in front of me.

I placed the towel and clothes onto the side of the bathtub and said, “Enjoy your shower…”

He said, “You really don’t mind me using your shower?”

Again the hesitance.

I turned and faced him again. “Why should I?”

He shrugged. “I dunno. I just don’t want you think I’m taking liberties…”

I laughed. “It’s only a shower, Dave. It’s not like… I dunno… relatives coming to visit and ending up staying six months, or something…”

He smiled and nodded but his eyes were on me like stone. Cold and serious. I saw what he was thinking. He was afraid I was reading things into this situation that he hadn't intended.

I kept smiling. “Just take your shower and don’t worry about it. I’ll be watching telly…”

I left the bathroom and closed the door behind me.

I listened to hear if he locked the door but he didn’t. I think I’d have been a little hurt if he had. Like he thought I was going to run in there and try and get in with him or something.

But he left it open; he trusted me.

My flat was fairly small and, as I sat watching the TV, I could clearly hear the sounds of Dave taking a shower. I could hear water falling intermittently onto the plastic base of the shower unit: water that had poured down his hairy chest; water that had coursed over his stomach; water that had trickled downward into the dense, thick bush of his pubic hair.

I could almost see it, as I listened to it, dribbling from the end of Dave’s cock down between his feet. I imagined it streaming from his balls, making the hair matt together like dark brown icicles.

I began to get hard and then felt guilty for it.

“He’s your mate,” I told myself. “He likes girls. And he trusts you not to think of him like this. He’s not a sexual object for you to fantasise about, Wes…”

I turned volume on the television up to drown out the noise of him in the shower.

But I kept thinking of him in there, wondering how big his cock was, how low his balls hung, how round and meaty his arse was.

And really hating myself for it.

He surprised me, a few minutes later, by coming into my sitting room while I was sitting in front of the blaring telly alternately visualising his body and then trying to dismiss the picture from my mind.

I hadn’t even heard him switch off the shower.

I looked round, trying not to look taken aback, and said, “You were quick.”

He smiled and tried to say something but his voice was drowned out by the music of a car commercial.

I turned the telly down, saying, “Sorry, the adverts are always so loud…”

He said, “I like your shower. It’s really powerful. The shower at my place is just a dribble.”

I couldn’t stop myself from saying, “Well you can shower any time you like around here…”

He smiled but gave me those cold, serious eyes again.

He didn’t like that sort of comment. Straight friends didn’t make offers like that.

But, after that night, he did start coming around unannounced more often.

I rarely went round his – in fact, I don’t think I visited his flat more than once because he didn’t have a video – but he often turned up in my doorway for a chat and a few drinks.

The first few times he’d say, “I was on the way back from the library…” or “I went for a walk and thought I’d pop in…”

But after that he didn’t feel he needed an excuse.

It was around Easter when he first stayed over.

My flat was only had one bed – a double – and I’d offered to sleep on the sofa so that he would stay the night.

It had seemed so wonderful that he’d want to stay; that he trusted me to the point of actually sleeping in my flat. I’d have slept hanging from the ceiling like a bat if it had meant him staying over that night.

My suggestion had made him laugh drunkenly. That was his reason for staying; he was too pissed to stagger back to his place.

He’d said, “Don’t be daft, Wes. We can share a double bed. I’ve shared a bed with other guys before. It doesn’t, like, mean anything…”

“Yeah, but I’m gay. They probably weren’t.”

“I know you’re gay. But, Jesus, you’re not gonna jump me in the night, are you?”

I smiled at him mischievously. “You’re very cute, Dave. I might.”

He smiled back. “Well if you do, Wes, you get a smack in the teeth. Is that a deal?”

I smiled. “What if I wear the blond wig?”

He chuckled. “I’m rat-arsed, Wes, but I’m not that rat-arsed. I still know the difference between boys and girls, mate…”

When we'd got into bed together, in our teeshirts and briefs, he’d asked, “Do you really think I’m cute?”

“Yes. Very.” Not even a hesitation.

He smiled for a few seconds. Then he looked sad. Then he looked like he might cry.

He said, "I wish you were a girl. I really wish you were a fucking girl."

One minute I'd been smiling - feeling ridiculously cheerful just because Dave was lying next to me in my bed - the next I was feeling shocked by his outburst.

All I could say was, "Why?"

"I've never got on as well with anyone as I have with you. If I said half of the stuff to a girl that I say to you, she'd run a fucking mile..."

His voice was starting to crack like he was about to burst into tears.

I said, "Come on, Dave... there's loads of girls who are into the stuff we're into..."

He didn't seem to hear me. He went on, "I like you so much, Wes... you're such a nice guy... I've even tried to imagine what it would be like to... you know... do some stuff with you..."

I was really dumbfounded; totally speechless.

He went on, "But you're the wrong sex for me. Neither of us can change that."

He turned over, away from me. Staring at the wall.

He said, "Sorry, mate... I shouldn't have said that..."

I just lay there, looking at the back of Dave's head and then at the wallpaper above him.

What he'd said had really thrown me; I just hadn't expected it.

Just a few seconds ago he'd be threatening to punch me, albeit jokingly, if I touched him in the night. Then he'd confessed that he'd been imagining what it would be like if he and I had sex.

Part of me said that I should be feeling been ecstatic by what he'd said. This was progress: he was, at least, acknowledging that we had something special.

But I felt so upset for him. He was nearly crying and I was just lying here looking at the pattern on the wallpaper.

I turned over towards him and put my hand on his shoulder.

Before I could say anything he shrugged me off and moved closer to the wall.

He said, "'Night Wes."

I whispered, "Dave. If you wanna talk..."

He said, more forcefully, "I said, 'Night Wes'." His tone suggested that the threat of a smack in the teeth may not have been as jovial as I'd assumed.

I pulled away and left him alone.

I turned off the light and lay there, looking up at the ceiling I couldn't see.

We were both awake and we both knew it. He was feeling annoyed with himself for saying what he'd said; I was feeling annoyed with myself for being unable, somehow, to steer the situation towards a more favourable outcome.