Page 13 of This Thing With Charlie

“You’re being a dick.”

“I know,” he giggled softly.

“I’m not having a midlife crisis,” I tried, but he almost cackled in my ear.

“You are totally having a midlife crisis, looking for a quick rebound that you can then tell funny stories about at dinner parties, charming tales of when you were so out of control that you almost bagged yourself a boyfriend. It’s not fair, Daniel. It’s not.”

I loved that he kept saying my name. I loved how it sounded when he said it.

“I wouldn’t do that.”

“You would. You would start this thing with me and then go into a fully blown gay panic, and I would be left with egg on my face and a broken heart. It’s hard enough to deal with that you don’t really fancy me in the first place.”

“I do… fancy you.”

“Oh, shut the fuck up, Daniel,” he said and hung up on me.

I supposed I deserved that.

I texted him on December 23 and told him I missed him.

He replied back with a link to how to correctly perform a prostate exam.

I have performed several prostate exams throughout my career. My patients usually don’t look like they enjoy them.

I could almost hear him smile, from wherever he was.

You need to be gentle, assume the correct position and use lots of lovely lube.

He was such a dick.

That idea doesn’t do much for me, to be honest.

Yup. I was a dick too.

Daniel, you are not a virgin. I know this because you have talked about sex with whichever wife it was. So, I’ve kind of figured that one out. You have had sex. You’ve been married twice and shagged your way around some kind of nursing dorms. You told me. So, don’t come here and piss me off, acting like you have no idea how to make another person feel good. Sex is sex, whatever the gender. You use your body, your hands and your mouth for oral, and then if anal is on the cards, you might want to perform a slow two-fingered prostate exam and then swap your fingers for your cock. With a condom. And lube. That’s my top tip, should you ever find yourself in bed with a dude. Works with girls as well by the way—if they fancy anal. Consent is kind of a good thing to get from any gender. Okay?

I sat there in agony, reading back what he’d written. Then I threw myself into packing my things together and going to work.

He didn’t text me back, and I didn’t text him either.

I missed him to the point that my body ached as I went to bed, spending my final night at the Nordic Star Hotel alone and miserable. I masturbated in a crazy frenzy, hoping he’d know what he was making me do. He didn’t, of course, but I called out his name as I came into the sheets, my brain throwing out fretful images of freckled skin and stolen kisses.

Perhaps Iwashaving a midlife crisis. Maybe Charlie was my rebound thing. Maybe I was just going crazy, stuck in this godforsaken town where suddenly only Mrs Hallet and Mrs Pasankar were left to count as my friends.

I picked up the keys to my new house on the morning of the 24th and had my aptly namedChristmas Lunchcorner-shop sandwich sat on the steps of the wreck I had bought, waiting impatiently for the moving company to deliver my things from the storage facility. When they arrived, a cheery collection of lads who carried my sofa and TV and placed everything randomly along the walls on the ground floor. Justine had taken our bed, so all I had to sleep on was the new mattress I’d ordered that mocked me from the hallway, still wrapped in its plastic.

I stared at the movers as I signed off on the delivery, ticking boxes on a form as they wished me a Merry Christmas and Happy New Home and all that. I looked at their faces, their bodies and shapes, and realised none of them did anything for me. I was not attracted to the burly bearded foreman or the youngish attractive bloke driving the van. I was not remotely interested in the spotty teenager with the dreadlocks or the surfer dude guy with the bleached-blond hair.

I needed to get over myself and get back to normal but pretending to be happy and cheerful was hard when your house was full of rat droppings, and there was an obvious leak in the roof.

I gave up and called him because it was Christmas Eve, and I was tired and weary, sitting on my plastic-wrapped sofa, staring at the TV I still hadn’t plugged in. I had no Wi-Fi or Sky subscription anyway, so my hopeless self just sat there.

He answered on the second ring, and my whole body relaxed in relief.

“Merry Christmas,” he said, sounding more like his normal self.

“Merry Christmas,” I said back, smiling.

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