Love Is... (3.5) (5 page)

Matthew

Day Seventeen - Monday

“You can’t get on the train in flippers…”

I wake up and look over to see Rafe still fast asleep and clearly dreaming, I supress a laugh and turn to watch him. As I disturb the mattress Rafe stretches out and rolls onto his back. The quilt was kicked off the bed at some point during the night and the thin sheet is bunched down to his waist.

He’s fucking beautiful!  I’ve shared his bed for three nights now, I don’t know how we’ve managed it but somehow we’ve kept our hands off each other...Just!  Each morning that I’ve been here I’ve woken before him, smiling at his crazy sleep talk and propping myself up on my elbow to take in the view.

He’s lying on his back with his face turned towards me. His left arm is resting on his pillow next to his head and his right arm follows the line of his body, his hand disappearing underneath the sheet, guided by the perfect trail of neat black hair. The thought of his hand on his dick gives me a raging hard on in an instant.  I force myself to look back up at his face before I rip the sheet away and take him in my mouth. I groan! This is torture.

Rafe’s chocolate brown eyes are hidden behind his closed lids but his smooth olive skin and soft dark brown stubble is delectable. I want so badly to lean down and run my tongue along his rough jaw line, kiss him in that spot below his ear that makes him whimper.

Fuck! I’m solid as a fucking rock!

Rafe’s long dark eyelashes flutter as he says my name in his sleep and my heart skips. I want to reach over and run my fingers up into his soft dark curls, grip them as he sucks me dry … Fucking hell Matthew, sort yourself out!

I get up as quietly as I can, it’s only just gone six am and I really don’t want to wake Rafe up. I open Rafe’s wardrobe and smile that he’s as organised as I am. Sportswear is neatly hung at one end. I grab a t-shirt and some jogging bottoms and pull some boxers and socks out of the top drawer of the chest beside the wardrobe. The best thing about dating a bloke? … Sharing his clothes!

I’m over the moon when I reach the living room and remember that I wore my running trainers to get here last night. I need to work out my frustrations, I need to run!

I head out of Rafe’s flat leaving my phone, wallet and keys behind. I have every intention of heading straight back. I stretch and start to jog, but before long I am running at pace, pounding the pavements in my frustration.

It’s not just sexual. I’m frustrated by my need for Rafe, my addiction to him. I’ve been around the block a bit over the last decade. I have had one-night stands, flings, affairs and a couple of disastrous relationships. I should be more cautious, but I can’t resist Rafe. I want to be with him every day. Actually physically with him, next to him, not just to know that he’s mine. I’ve known him for a little over two weeks and I’m completely head over heels.

He’s beautiful, sexy, funny and kind. He’s an amazing cook and makes the best coffee in the world. I’m a tall bloke, and I’m well-built so the men that I’ve been with in the past have all been smaller than me, either in height or build, or both. It melts me from the inside out that I can sink into Rafe’s embrace as much as he can get lost in mine.

I feel like we were made to fit each other, but we haven’t even slept together yet. Sex isn’t everything but it’s a huge part of a relationship. What if I fall too far to turn back and we’re just not compatible in bed? As the thought crosses my mind, I laugh out loud, drawing confused stares from the pedestrians that I pass. I’ve already fallen too far.

The thing about me is that since my first boyfriend Cain, I don’t really do ‘love.’ I was all about confessing my undying love for him even though it wasn’t love at all. So once we finished I made a conscious decision to stay away from the ‘L’ word. I’m not opposed to actually falling in love I just decided never to confess to it if and when I do. What if I was mistaken or it was unrequited.

I didn’t realise though that when it’s real, there’s no mistaking it. What I already feel for Rafe is beyond anything that I ever imagined possible.

When we’re together, just us, I feel calm and truly happy. It’s as though I have no control over the smile on my face and couldn’t wipe it off even if I wanted to. When we go out for dinner, shopping, to the cinema, it’s everything that I’ve always wanted in a relationship. A partner that is truly a friend, he makes me laugh and my heart skip beats left right and centre.

It’s normal, it’s as though we’ve been together for years. At the cinema, he ordered sweet and salty popcorn without even asking, that’s my favourite. I asked how he knew and apparently I’d mentioned it at some point. I didn’t remember that, but he did. He held my hand throughout the film, even lifting my hand to his mouth to kiss the back of my fingers at one point, for no reason other than because he wanted to.

It’s so easy. We can go for a beer and talk about sport or music or go for a candlelit dinner and hold hands across the table. We can work out together and lie on the sofa listening to music and not saying a word. We cook together, he’s amazing in the kitchen and it’s so sexy the way he moves around with such fluidity and awareness of where everything is. I could watch him cook for hours…if he didn’t put me to work as well that is.

In the years since I first came out I’ve had encounters of one sort or another with a lot of men but I’ve never felt such an intense attraction to anyone as I do to Rafe. I genuinely think I’m going to have a heart attack every time he smiles at me.

I love him.

Less than a month after meeting him, I am in love with him. Head over heels in fact! It doesn’t scare me; I’m certain he feels the same way. I feel like I should be freaking out about it, people will probably say it’s too soon, but it doesn’t feel like that. I feel like I know Rafe better than anyone and he knows everything there is to know about me and I know all about his history with men, and with Pippa!

I love him. I can’t deny it for a second.

Being away from him is unbearable and I can’t get back to him quick enough. Suggesting thirty days, whilst it’s been excruciating, was the best thing that I’ve ever done. If we’d slept together straight away, we might never have got to know each other so well, we might never have even tried.

“You’re going to make me fat aren’t you?”  I wipe my mouth after devouring the Full English breakfast that Rafe cooked for us after my run.

“That’s the plan! Spoil you for all other men so that you have no option but to stay!”

I laugh as Rafe leans down to kiss me before taking my plate and heading for the kitchen. It’s tempting to tell him that he already has spoiled me for other men. Not by making me get fat so that they’re not interested, but by ripping my heart out of my chest and putting it securely in his bloody pocket!

I’ve had one serious relationship previously. Well technically two, but as one of them was a girl that I pretended I was in love with while I tried to hide that I was gay, I can’t really count that! So, pre-Rafe, there’s only been one guy that I thought could have been ‘the one.’

Cain and I met when he hired me as his trainer about ten years ago. I’d only just started out and was still working part time for somebody else at the time. Cain was the first client who, after meeting me, actually requested me by name. Normally, a booking for a trainer came in to the company that I was working for and the diary was checked for a space.

We got pretty intense pretty quickly. Cain was a professional footballer so our relationship had to stay behind closed doors. I was young and he wasn’t ready to be out and proud and splashed all over the press. So we kept it professional in the gym or out on runs, but once we were alone, we were crazy about each other.

I was eighteen when I met Cain. I’d only come out about nine months prior and only after Megan, my ex, caught me looking at gay porn. It was pretty hard to deny from there on out. I’d just left college and been offered a place at university in London so I applied for part time training jobs to see me through. I moved away from Cornwall and decided to explore this new world that had finally opened up to me.

I went to gay clubs and fooled around with different guys, but I was petrified of actually having sex with a man. I’d wanted it for so long, even trying to imagine that Megan was a man when I was inside her, but it terrified me to think about taking that step. I was certain that I’d get it all wrong and would either be ridiculed for not having a clue, or I’d have to take it and it would hurt like hell. I decided that blow jobs and hand jobs in the toilets of clubs were the way to go. Sex, I could do without. Until I met Cain!

He knew I was ‘fresh’ as he called it, and he took things really slow. There was never any pressure and he put me at ease with everything that we did together. Before I could give it a second thought, I’d gone from being scared of sex with a man to craving it.

Things were great. I was having the time of my life, living and working in London, studying, training and getting my fill of my gorgeous boyfriend, but it soon changed.

Cain became controlling after just a few months. He tried to dictate what I could and couldn’t wear and who I could see. He locked me in his flat and made me miss lectures because a girl in the class had asked me out once. I knew I needed to get out of the relationship but I didn’t know how to do it, I loved him, or at least I thought I did.

After just three and a half months together, Cain and I were seen out having dinner together. We were photographed and all over the weekend papers, it was his big chance to be open, to prove that footballers can be gay and it doesn’t change anything, but instead he released a statement to the press.

‘The man that I was photographed enjoying dinner with last week is my personal trainer. He was giving me some guidance on how to still choose a nutritionally balanced meal whilst out in a restaurant. He is a friend, and yes he is gay, but I am not. I am in a happy loving relationship with my girlfriend Cadence. I’d thank you to leave us alone to enjoy our life together and not cause her anymore upset.’

Accompanying the statement were photographs of Cain reading the statement to the press, Cain and Cadence together and Cain and Cadence kissing, hugging and smiling, the epitome of a happy couple.

I didn’t hear from him again.

As time passed, I came to realise that what I had felt for Cain was nothing more than an infatuation; I thought it was love because I didn’t know any better. He was the first man that I had called a boyfriend, the first man that I slept with.  I found out later that Cadence was an old school friend and the only person, other than me that knows that he’s gay. She had pretended to be his girlfriend until he was ready to come out. He still hasn’t.

But now there’s Rafe.

We’ve both spent most of our twenties bed-hopping and kissing frogs. We’ve both had a hell of a lot of fun. I’ve learned that being gay doesn’t mean that I have to walk or talk a certain way, I can just be me, and Rafe is the same way. From the second that I met him I knew that I wanted him. I’ve never felt an attraction like this to anyone.

We have so much in common, we laugh and play and can already enjoy the moments of quiet calm that should only come from being in a relationship with someone long enough that words aren’t needed, but we have that less than a week in.

He’s gorgeous, and funny. His body is to die for and I can tell from the glint in his eye that he is going to know exactly how to knock my socks off in bed.

So yes, he has already ruined me for other men because I only want him. I might not be ready to tell him, but I know for certain, I love him.

Matthew

Day Twenty - Friday

“Hey, are you coming round tonight? I thought maybe we could go for a beer or two.”

Rafe has called while I’m on my way home from a business meeting in Cardiff.

“Stupid question, of course I’m coming round. A beer sounds good; I’ll be home earlier than expected actually. I managed to get finished up quickly; it was a waste of time to be honest. Where are we going?”

“Oh that’s good, not that you wasted your time of course. Erm well, my mates really want to meet you and I thought we could go for a couple of pints with them, no pressure, just a couple then we’ll leave them to it. Is that ok?” He speaks quickly and I smile.

“Of course it is. I’ve got to meet them at some point babe. WANKER! Sorry, some fucker cut me up! Listen I’ve got to go Rafe, I’m driving but I should be back by about three, I’ll come to the café.”

“Ok, drive safe.”

“I will. Bye.”

The line goes dead and I become nervous. Rafe’s friends mean a lot to him, I just hope they like me.

“Alvez!”

We walk into the pub and Rafe’s friends immediately make a fuss of him. I don’t normally get nervous, but they love him so I want them to like me.

“Alright shitheads, this is Matthew. Babe, that’s Mike, Dave, Stu, Jim and Seth. Right then, introductions done, I’ll get the beers in. Usual?”

Just like that, I’ve officially been introduced.

I help Rafe with the round after everyone has said hello and shook my hand. They all look like they take care of themselves and are a good looking group of blokes. From what Rafe has said, they’re all straight. They love sport and play football together each week, looking at Mike though, I’m certain he’s more of a rugby man, he’s huge.

It’s a great evening and the couple of pints that we intended on having has already more than doubled. We’ve talked about how Rafe and I met. They’ve tried their best to embarrass him and took the piss out of him for not being able to seal the deal when he told them that we’re waiting before we have sex, which was a bit weird. I’m not used to being open about my sex life with anyone other than Lou.

Now they’re onto football. I don’t mind football but don’t support anyone. I know enough to be able to get involved in the conversation but can only observe their banter when it comes to their club rivalries.

“Enough of this shite, let’s talk about a real sport!” Mike puts down his empty glass after gulping down his last mouthful, “Rugby union, where men are men instead of little bitches, you should love it Rafe!”

Everyone laughs and I take satisfaction in the fact that I was not only right, but that I have a kindred spirit in Mike.

We debate for about ten minutes why rugby is better than football and vice versa, Mike and I made our case pretty well and I caught Rafe smiling at me while I laughed with Mike at Stu’s pathetic attempt to explain and justify why footballers dive. It must be nice for him that I’m here having fun with his friends.

“My round, come on Matty boy! The only real man here can help me out!” Mike stands and Rafe makes a joke about that sounding gayer than anything that Mike has ever said as we head to the bar.

The bar is really busy and we take up a position to wait our turn. Now that we’re alone it takes a moment for conversation to start up, but Mike breaks the silence.

“It’s great to meet you bud. It’s really good to see him happy. After that last prick I thought he wouldn’t smile again. Oh shit sorry, ex talk!” Mike pulls a face that tells me that he’s worried in case he’s said something wrong.

“No it’s ok; he’s told me all about it. Thanks for saying that though, it means a lot that the people who know him best are saying that he’s happy, I certainly am.” I smile and glance back to the table to see Rafe laughing and Stu with his head on the table. My stomach somersaults. “Was it ever a problem for you?”

“What?” Mike seems oblivious to what I’m asking.

“Rafe being gay. I mean, you’re all straight and then there’s him, was it ever an issue?”

Rafe’s friends are good looking guys and definitely straight. Mike’s girlfriend is pregnant and he apparently proposed to her a couple of weeks ago, and the other four turned into peacocks when the group of girls dolled up to the nines walked into the pub half an hour ago, desperate to be noticed. A lot of men would run a mile if one of their friends came out to them.

“Oh god, no, not at all! Rafe’s been my best mate for about a decade so I’ve always known he was gay, before we were even really close. As the other guys came into the group and he told them all once they knew him a bit, they were all fine except Seth. It took him about a week to get his head around it. Then he manned up and asked Rafe outright if he fancied him and had he looked at his dick in the changing room or at the urinal. Rafe pissed himself laughing, said ‘Fuck no! You’re too short for me and why would I want to watch you having a piss?’ And that was it, sorted.”

I smile, I love that they just accept him as he is. I have straight guy friends but not this close, nothing like this. Louise is my best friend, way to fit the stereotype Matthew, gay man with a girl as a best friend. I wish I could be closer to my brother but he’s a dick and a total homophobe, the irony of that is that when I came out to my parents they said it was Michael that they thought was gay.

“That was a great night, thank you for coming to meet them.” Rafe is a bit drunk and seems really happy as he holds my hand on the walk back to his flat.

“I enjoyed it, thanks for asking me to come. They’re great guys.” I smile as I think about the brilliant evening that we’ve had.

“They are. They love you.” Rafe takes a deep breath in and I think for a second that he’s going to say that he does too, but he reconsiders. Apparently he’s not ready either.