“Good evening, Miss Burns. May I say you look stunning tonight?”
“You may say whatever you want, Lee. I’m in an excellent mood.”
“Oh really. Big score last night?”
“You really can’t help yourself, can you? I guess I’m to blame for that. But I’m still in a good mood and for your information, I only just arrived this afternoon.”
“And I’m your first call? Should I be flattered or worried?”
“Neither. But I would like you to listen to what I have to say.”
“Now I am worried.”
“Let’s have dinner first though. And let’s finish this lovely bottle of wine while you tell me all about your new job.”

She was a hard woman to fall out of love with. Maybe it was her unapologetic nature, the slightly sarcastic smirk that was continuously plastered across her face or the husky tone of her voice. Or maybe it was all of that at once and the way she quickly blinked twice when she had something difficult to say. Maybe it was the way she moved her hands up and down when she got a little nervous and how I had learnt to notice the other tiny signals she displayed when she felt like she was losing control. She had let me notice. She knew she didn’t have to hide from me. Tiny cracks of confidence can be so damn sexy. As I was sitting across from her, looking at her face, the biggest crack in her confidence ever, I detected small signs of an internal struggle. Every time too much vulnerability was about to shine through she sipped her wine. She never was one to avert her eyes, the white of them contrasting heavily with the dark brown of the irises, they were the most alive and the last untouched bits of her face. That night at the restaurant she could barely look me in the eye. I was expecting the worst. After dinner she invited me to the bar of her hotel for a night cap. “No funny business, Lee, I swear. We need to talk.” It was the same hotel bar where it had all begun. We settled in at a corner table and ordered another bottle of wine.

“I’m listening, Claire. Your mood seems to have dampened a bit. What’s going on? You’re not ill, are you?”
“No, no, don’t worry. It’s nothing like that. I guess I just want to, you know, apologize.”
That’s when she met my eyes and held my gaze for longer than a second for the first time that night. I felt relieved but more than that I felt sad. Somehow I knew I wasn’t going to like what was coming next.
“I could have been a much better girlfriend to you, Lee. I’ve made you accept and even do things you were not comfortable with. You tried so hard and I just kept pushing you further and further. I fully realize that I’m the one who fucked up our relationship and I need you to know I am truly sorry.”
“I think I know.”
“This has been a bad break up for me too. It actually forced me to do some long overdue soul searching.”
I was staring into my wine, fumbling with my glass, nervously shuffling it around the table when she grabbed my hand. She softly stroked my palm with her thumb. Her sudden touch jolted me. I looked up just in time to see a tear roll down her face.
“I’m leaving Paris, Lee. I’ve been offered a job in New York. I’m going back to The States.”
I didn’t know what to say. I let the words sink in and when the force of our last goodbye finally hit my stomach with full force I got up from my chair, swallowed away the tears burning in the back of my throat and said: “Let’s go to your room.”

To be continued…

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I had settled in the comfort of my new home. I hung out with Jack a lot, our friendship blossomed over watching reruns of Queer As Folk and Absolutely Fabulous together. My room was all the way up in the attic and I hardly had any possessions, let alone a TV, so I spent many a night falling asleep in his bed, waking up at three o’clock in the morning and realizing there was a man snoring next to me. Oh well, at least I wasn’t sleeping alone. Kim and Jennifer, the lesbians whom we shared the house with, reigned supreme over the living room. They were always together, slouching in the couch, getting groceries, cooking and adopting kittens − they had three by the time I moved in. They were wonderful in their own way and I admired their relationship. That’s a lie, actually, I envied the pants of them. They were my age and they had been together for four years, happily, in a firmly closed relationship. So it was possible. What they must have thought of me in the beginning, coming home at all hours of the night, showcasing various degrees of intoxication, or − if I got lucky − not making it home at all.

One Thursday night I was hanging with Kim in the kitchen, watching her prepare something I had never heard of, when a familiar number started blinking on my cell phone screen. With a slightly heavy heart, but nevertheless excited, I picked up.
“Hi Lee. How do you like your new job?”
“Hello Claire. I like it just fine.”
“Just fine?”
“It’s amazing actually. I suppose I owe you some gratitude for that.”
“Don’t be so enthusiastic, Lee. You may give me a heart attack. Anyway. Guess what?”
“I don’t know. You found a plastic surgeon who can finally free you of that stubborn wrinkle on the side of your forehead?”
“No, although that would be wonderful. I’m in London until Sunday. So what does a lady like me do when she arrives in London? She calls you, of course. Do you want to have dinner tonight?”
“Tonight? I may have plans actually.”
“You may? As in you’re not sure yet?”
“My room mate is cooking us all dinner, so it would be kind of rude −“
That’s when Kim signaled that I shouldn’t mind her and the food she was preparing.
“Hold on, she’s just telling me it would be an excusable kind of rude.”
“OK, so it’s a date then.”
“Oh please, don’t call it that.”
“It’s two old friends having dinner then.”
“If you say so, Claire.”
“Eight o’clock?”
“See you.”

And there I was. On my way to meet Claire, whom I hadn’t seen or spoken to in months, again. I had left Paris to get away from her. But there was no escaping Claire Burns. It wasn’t entirely unanticipated of course as she came to London regularly for work. A deep nostalgia took hold of me. I was actually looking forward to this unexpected encounter. Of course I was. When it came to Claire I was always at my weakest. I arrived at the restaurant five minutes late and she was already there. She was always punctual. From outside the window I could see her sipping red wine. I had seen her bring a glass of red to her lips countless times, her long fingers firmly clenched along the stem, her lips barely touching the rim but ready to receive the fluid. I felt a knot grow in my stomach and I remember thinking that under no circumstances I was to sleep with her that night.

To be continued…

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I didn’t sell my sexual soul to Marie. I never met Madison Porter-Hawkins and I never worked for Alt City Magazine. But hey, you win some and you lose some. And sometimes not winning something is worth more than losing another thing. Not that I hadn’t lost my innocence much earlier in life but declining Marie’s favour felt like some kind of rebirth at the time and I can’t recall ever regretting it. For a couple of months I thought about it every time I bought the magazine, but then I just stopped reading it and the memory faded. It can be that simple.

I have written many words on the dramatic downfalls of my love life so far and the flagrantly erroneous choices I have made for the sake of it. But I have no idea where I would be right now if hadn’t fallen for Nathalie or Claire. It is part of life’s intricate plan that meeting one person places you on the path of another. The end of my affair with Nathalie indirectly introduced me to Theresa and working for Theresa led me to Claire, whom I considered to be the great love of my life, up until my twenty-sixth birthday. Losing Claire was about the hardest part of my twenties. Let’s face it, and I can finally say it now, she treated me like shit. But I loved her so ferociously, I took the mental beatings she gave me every time she told me she had fucked someone else and then I let her do it again. I was addicted to seeing her melt at my touch, to spying the lust she felt for me in her glance, to softening her up and hearing her say she goddamnlovedme. Even though she was a pretty unlovable person, I was crazy for her anyway. And for all her faults, she was the one who got me a job at the company I still work for now. Because that’s just how life goes.

My savings were getting low as I was nearing six weeks of unemployment. I was sharing a house with three other people but rent was still pretty steep and life in general wasn’t exactly cheap either. I went on several more interviews for jobs I had little or no enthusiasm for. It started to look as if the two only viable options I had were moving back in with my parents or taking another assistant’s job. I wanted neither, obviously. But then I got the call. Did I want to interview for an entry-level writing position at Blogging The Globe? Huh, yes please. Back then I couldn’t be sure Claire was behind it but I had my suspicions, I mean, why else would I get a call out of the blue with someone offering me a job like that just when I really needed it? Life is funny but not that funny. So I scraped together some articles from my job in Paris, dressed accordingly and got myself hired. I now manage the Hong Kong team. Claire may believe I still owe her for it but as far as I’m concerned she will always owe me, what with the scars of the open relationship and all. I still shiver when I hear someone speak the words.

I guess you could still say I shagged myself into a job but the way I see it, it was just well-earned compensation for all the gruelling heartbreak. Either way, I was happy. I could pay my share of the rent. I was independent. I had drinking money. And it was a great job. It still is.

To be continued…

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Last night I took Alex and Liz to Nha Trang, a popular Vietnamese restaurant in Central. It is in fact such a coveted dining spot that you have to queue up outside until a table frees up, but it’s worth it. While we were waiting on the pavement, listening to Alex’s late night adventures after a visit to Volume, a favourite hang-out for Hong Kong gay boys, I suddenly couldn’t believe my luck. After almost three weeks of fruitlessly searching for a needle in a haystack, Lucia was standing right in front of me. Hong Kong can be magical that way.

She was accompanied by a guy named Joe, who immediately tickled Alex’s fancy. Alex had previously confided in us that he was living a rice queen’s dream since arriving in Hong Kong last Sunday and meeting Joe meant he was not about to wake up just yet. Some people are so gay they couldn’t hide it if they tried. Joe was that gay. Meeting him as good as confirmed my suspicions about Lucia’s persuasion even though the whole gay by association thing is, of course, far from air tight. Introductions were made, double pecks on the cheeks exchanged and we were invited inside the restaurant. Once seated I blurted out what had been burning on my lips for the last ten minutes. I told Lucia I had lost her card in a cab and hadn’t been able to contact her. I was so riveted to see her that I lost any cool I might have possessed and confessed that I had been rather anxiously waiting to hear from her. In reply she asked me how much I had drunk that night? Confused, I answered, “Not as much as usual on a Saturday night. Why?”
“You didn’t give me your card. You gave me Samuel’s card, the banker I was with that night. You must have gotten it mixed up with your own. I didn’t notice until after we left the club.”
“Seriously? What are we doing fumbling with ancient things like business cards in this digital age anyway? Give me your phone number right now please and while we’re at it, let me add you on Facebook as well.”

The rest of the night continued in the typical Hong Kong fashion of drinking too much with people you barely know. As I have said before, alcohol is the lube of this city’s nightlife and without it we’d all be sourpussing at home, spending too much time on the internet and waiting for our phones to ring. Or bleep. As the text message is the clear runner-up in Hong Kong’s race for best out-on-the-town aide. Last night there was one big difference though, because not only was I spending precious time with old and dear friends, I also couldn’t keep my eyes of Lucia and I noticed a little spark every time I caught her gaze. By the end of the night any doubt I may have had about her sexual orientation was expertly squashed with a whisper in my ear that said, “Call me tomorrow, if I don’t call you first.” I think she liked me too.

Needless to say I couldn’t love Hong Kong more right now. This is the city of endless possibilities. Whatever you lose here you win back tenfold later. I am so ready for romance in this bizarre giant of a town. And this time, I’m going to do it right. You’ll see.

To be continued…

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That night I went to Marie’s house with myself on offer. But the exchange we were about to make was not a simple one. I would eat her food and drink her wine and then I would let her seduce me. It sounded easy enough, when I deducted the emotion. I focussed on the name Madison Porter-Hawkins. I repeated it as a mantra and it sounded good and promising in my head. She was the one I wanted to work for. I knew Marie would come through if I did what was asked of me. Twenty-four hours later I could have it all. Theoretically, I had done it before but it had never been as blatantly obvious. A certain subtlety goes a long way in complex matters of the flesh. And some gentle coaxing and a sudden look of understanding can make a big difference. To set up a trade like Marie had done required a lot of guts, cunning and foolish desire. She knew I wouldn’t say no immediately because of our history together. She had listened carefully when I had told her about my hopes and aspirations for the future. She had gotten rid of Christine for the occasion and had probably manipulated her into some sort of agreement. She knew what she was doing.

I, on the other hand, was clueless. I got off the tube and walked through the streets of Chelsea. I was listening to Morrissey’s “Dear God Please Help Me” on repeat. It was a Thursday evening in early spring. The dusky air was filled with promises of a hot and tender summer. The closer I got to my destination the weaker the echo of Madison Porter-Hawkins’s name rang in my head. I finally let the torrent of questions I’d been holding back flood my brain. What the hell was I doing? Would I really go that far? Wasn’t it time to grow a conscience? Was I really a person of such loose morals? I had had an affair with a married woman. I had slept with a prostitute. I had let myself be cheated on under the guise of an open relationship I never wanted. I had abused the rules of said relationship to suit my own needs. I had willingly exchanged sexual favours for a luxurious roof over my head. I had slapped my ex-girlfriend in the face. Was I really willing to take it one step further by getting into bed with a woman who offered me a shot at my dream job?

I wasn’t. I walked past Marie’s house to the end of her street. When I turned the corner without looking back I quietly told myself that integrity was more important than this job right now and I believed it. I would find another job. Then I made my way to Anna’s house, which was in the same neighbourhood. She was a therapist and I thought I could use some help. I rang the bell and Nathalie answered. Seeing her was all I needed to break down. She had been my first. My first teenage crush at fifteen, my first real love at twenty-two and my first taste of heartbreak a couple of months later. I looked at her and the weight of all my mistakes came crashing down on me. To fall apart in Nathalie’s arms was about as ironic as it could get but somehow it felt right. When it mattered she was there. She had to be.

To be continued…

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