Caught in Possession

Fragments

Warning: mature content discussed!

"Still here Gulf? Intuition told me you would be", Pauline had winked over rosy cheeks as she poured murky, grey, mop bucket water down the sink's plug hole the next day, Mew roaming habitually unclothed in the background on a terse phonecall to his father. "I had a feeling that you might be different, you see, duckie. I've been through it all with my own children - that moment when they met...", the woman halted abruptly there, mid-sentence whilst discarding her rubber gloves, arching a long suffering eyebrow at the sight of a used condom in the bin, to sigh "Boys, please, this is a kitchen".

And with that she was gone, cleaning equipment trolley wheels squeaking in her wake like a chorus of gossiping mice, Gulf left with a scowl, uncomfortably reeling, equal parts embarrassment and curiosity. What had she meant by, 'different'?

So the blue toothbrush had remained in its place. And as the moon waxed and waned it was joined throughout the apartment by a merry troop of other 'Gulfities' as he marked the place as his home. A razor, crumpled jackets on coat pegs - "Should I make formal introductions between yourself and my iron? I don't think you've met before" Mew chided - Thai rap music blaring through open windows as he fried pork for an evening meal. And a warmth to Mew's bedsheets...

The eve immediately following the night of Gulf's most vicious nightmare, both men had reluctantly parted ways to their own beds solo - unwilling, awkward and too proud to broach. Yet after almost an hour of tossing, turning, yearning and pining for the presence of the other's touch, just the weight of their body alongside, Mew had stumbled out of his own room towards the dark corridor of the guest quarters, just as Gulf edged out of the door, drawn like a delicate, pearly white moth back towards its flame.

They met in the hallway - averted eyes and blushes, but mutual understanding too, just a cursory nod shared, before turning together to retreat back to the master bedroom. To each other's arms.

Unspoken, wordless agreement: They slept only together from that night forth.

By May, as crocuses were supplanted by bluebells and foxgloves in the wild thicketed woods of Hampstead Heath where the two men drove to run most afternoons, a subtle shift - relations as seasons - was in unstoppable, creeping motion.

Previously innocuous conversations pivoting around supermarket shopping or football training, gave way to a quiet but insistently nagging drive to know one another - beyond even those rarely shared but exclusively voiced tales of darkness.

As though both sensed, somewhere within, that they were pieces of the same puzzle - needing then to fit and sync together in the same way that their bodies did. Beautifully. Naturally.

So as objects of Gulf encroached and Mew let his own self and longtime 'splendid isolation' go - acceptance - over the weeks each added parts of themselves to the puzzle board, in the form of fragments of conversation. Sometimes unlocked from deepest chambers of a heart, other times small, seemingly inconsequential offerings, but all particles of themselves for the other to know none the less.

Talking. The two that rarely talked:

Entwined in bed, Gulf's head resting on Mew's bare chest - closest contact with that steady, constant, soothing tide of a heart beat. Sheltering breathlessly from a sudden cloudburst, mid-run, under luscious foliage of greenest leaves of the Heath's Beech trees. Mumbling through mouthfuls of freshly cooked dinner, flavours, heat and spices of home tantalising tongues. Half watching an Avengers film, Mew's long body stretched out languidly on the sofa, head in Gulf's lap as the younger man brushed slender fingers through silky, soft hair, absent mindedly yet whole heartedly, contentedly...