(This story contains a major theme of non-consent; please be warned.)
*
We had been friends forever, you and I.
From when we were kids, all the way through school, then after school and through the college years. We had been inseparable.
Well, some of the time. There were times when we didn't see each other. We hadn't done the same things at college. I was the artistic one, you were the engineer.
But we'd done so much together. Changed after PE in the same changing room at school. Gone swimming together. Gone running together. Got drunk together.
When I realised, at the age of 19, that I was queer, and I didn't want to tell you in case it ended our friendship, you figured it out yourself, and took me out one night and we had beers and you told me that you were happy for me. And we hugged each other.
And you had girlfriends, and I mostly liked them, and I had girlfriends as well as boyfriends, and you mostly liked them. But we were still best mates, even if we preferred to be with our partners at least some of the time.
There was one thing that you did, which I never did.
You used to joke about you and me.
I loved you like a brother. Actually more than I love my own brother, because he's kind of a dick. But that was as far as I felt about you. I never had dreams about you--well, maybe a long time ago, a couple, when I was having dreams about every boy and girl I knew and liked. But I never thought about you and I that way.
But you liked to joke about that.
After a few beers, in the right company, and only when you were single, you would start making jokes that if you were still single when you were thirty, well, then you'd just have to give it all up and marry me. Or if you were feeling really horny you'd ask me to talk about the last guy I was with and really go into detail.
I was always a bit uncomfortable about that. Because I'm not some stereotypical bi guy who lusts after twice as many people as gay or straight guys.
I've always been quite picky, and have always had a type, when it comes to women: women who were quite boyish or androgynous. I've lusted after an awful lot of lesbians. But occasionally, another girl and I have had the same thought at the same time, and the chemistry has happened.
Just like my male type is guys who are taller and stronger than me, who could throw me around the bed if they wanted to. You're a bit like that, physically, with your rugby playing and everything, but you're also... you. For all the times I've seen your ass in the changing room, I've never wanted to see any more of you.
And it turned out that that was our problem.
*
I met Dee when we were all 28.
She was very much my type. Angular, short-haired, dry, funny, smart. We clicked immediately.
Maybe we clicked a bit too hard. We were each other's type. She liked guys who weren't conventionally masculine, and I fit that bill, what with liking guys as well as women.
For a few months, Dee and I spent every spare moment in bed together. It was great. We were both so experimental that we tried out everything that we wanted to try out.
Well, it was great while it lasted. After we had been so experimental, Dee began to be more distant with me, and then even more so.
And then came the day that she admitted that she no longer fancied me, and wanted us to break up while we were still friendly.
I was sad, but I said yes. We hugged, and we went our separate ways.
I admit to being a little surprised when, a couple of weeks later, Dee was going out with you.
However, my lingering blazing jealousy only lasted a week, because then I met Martin.
Martin was French, and bi, like me, and sexy, and charming, and he was into me. He and I fell into bed on our fourth date. He was a great partner: energetic but also tender and affectionate.
Of course, everyone wanted Martin. But I was the one who had him, perhaps because I was the one who so neatly met all his needs as a lover.
Except, as it turned out, for one other person.
*
Once we were all hanging out together--you, Dee, Martin and I, and the rest of the gang--it didn't take me weeks to realise that Martin and Dee hit it off rather well.
Maybe a little too well.
Martin encourage me to get my hair cut like Dee's hair. He and I became boyfriend and girlfriend in all but configuration of genitalia. He bought me sexy lingerie. I found it a bit ridiculous, but the sex was so good that I didn't mind.
But one night, as he was falling asleep, I heard him murmur Goodnight, Dee, and it was the writing on the wall.
I was quite proud of myself. It only took me a week to summon up the nerve to break up with him.
He took it philosophically, but I think he was secretly relieved. I was certainly relieved to not have to pretend to be my ex-girlfriend for him. I simply got on with my life, and waited for what I suspected might happen.
And sure enough, it did.
*
You rang me, one night, drunk and stoical, and told me that Dee had broken up with you, and that you were gutted because you'd been planning to propose to her.
I was all sympathy, but I was in for the night. I wasn't in any particular mood to help you drown your sorrows.
That came a few days later.
*
You invited me out for a drink and scheduled it for Friday night, so I knew you planned to go on quite late.
That was fine with me. I had nothing better to be doing, and I did feel sorry for you.
We met up early, and got some food, so as to lay down a basis for the night's drinking, and then we went to the pub.
It was a pretty good night, to begin with. We were in a pub that we both liked to go to so our friends kept showing up, and so there was always at least a couple of other people at the table, enabling us to avoid heavy silences.
You cheered up somewhat, and I kept our drinks coming. By closing time we were both feeling pretty merry.
It was then that a guy carrying the last round past our table slipped slightly and jogged it, causing my half-empty pint to spill over my lap. He was very apologetic and got me another one, and I didn't really mind, but I wasn't pleased that my jeans were now soaked in beer.
By the time we finished, my jeans were still damp and I smelled like a brewery. But you and I were having fun, and you invited me back to your place so we could have a couple more drinks and I could wash my jeans in your washing machine.
This seemed like as good an idea as any, so you and I walked back to your flat feeling like the best of brothers.
When we were there, you instructed me to put my damp jeans in the washing machine and you gave me a spare pair of yours--slightly the wrong size, as my ass sticks out more than yours and your legs are longer.
But we sat on the sofa and got more beers and ate snacks, and then we started talking, as your washing machine whirred in the room across the hall.
You talked about how much you missed Dee, and what a bastard Martin was, and I agreed. You were bitter about the irony that my boyfriend had left me to steal my ex away from you. I had got to have sex with Dee and Martin, but you had only got to have sex with Dee.
'Yeah,' I said, 'but you're not bi.'
'How do you know?' you said.
'I think I'd know by now,' I said.
'You never give me any credit,' you said.