What Happened To Everyone?

Nick Andrews never did get into Mikail Vigell's pants, as far as I know.

I came back from overseas with Rachel, after two years. I bought the house with Adam. That failed quickly. I lived on my own. Leah used to knock on my window late at night, particularly if she was drunk on a Saturday night. She’d get into my bed and we’d have sex. We always had unprotected sex, but that was okay as I always had safe sex with everyone else.

I never really thought anything too much about it. Leah liked being on top – of course, she did – sucking on her tits – I guess it helped that she had kind of boyish figure – with my dick inside her, it felt good.

She admitted to me years later that I was one of the few men who could make her orgasm with their dick. I always thought that was kind of a sad indictment on straight boys. I just thought it was kind of normal when she’d wrap her legs around me, and dig her nails into the flesh of my back and make those gasping/grunting noises, which all together could mess up my rhythm somewhat, but, apparently not. Girls? At least with boys you know, when they scream out and spray you with their cum.

My body count increased exponentially during this period. 

Much later, when asked what my body count was, I worked it out roughly to be, I reckon, very loosely – pun intended – 1000 guys and one girl. That is not a brag, just a fact, I think all of my gay friends would have roughly the same figure.

Truthfully, I have no idea. So, the simple calculation I am using is, one guy per week for 20 years. I can tell you that many, many, many weeks, there were a lot more than one. I remember the one month I, actually, added up the guys I’d had sex with, noted in my journal at the time, and there were 20. Of course, there were weeks where there were none. But, someone asked me what the number was, so I made an attempt at the number.

I met Anthony. He was elusive, at best. That didn’t last very long. He was more frustrating that fulfilling.

Leah would head overseas to London, where she was very successful.

Nick moved into my place living with me for a time.

Jill met the love of her life early on, who she intended to marry. She found out he was serially cheating on her and she broke it off, heart broken. She has never met anyone else.

David M eventually went to uni and got a degree. I didn’t see much of him by this stage. He changed and became really, really, unbearably pretentious. His whole family had it in them, kind of a collective chip on their shoulders about proving they we just as good as anyone else. I’m not really sure where that came from, as their family was just the same as any of our families.

Rachel lived around the corner from me. David and Rachel were always very close. They still are. Jill’s sister Elly moved in with Rachel. Elly met her handsome husband, Mark I.

Rachel married her perfect husband, Anton. She had four perfect children. She moved back interstate for a while to be near her mum to help raise the kids.

She moved back to Melbourne. She divorced her perfect husband, saying that perfection was, ultimately, boring. 

She then had a relationship with a Ferrari driving millionaire property developer.

She then had a relationship with a drunk who may, or may not, have killed her dog as the relationship crumbled.

She is currently single.

Elly and Mark I. would move to Sydney, (where all monster people end up) have two kids, being very successful doctors. 

Jill and I would joke that there were two types of doctors, the one who goes into medicine to heal themselves, and those who went into medicine to heal others. That’s all I’m saying.

Mark I. has now lived an extraordinary number of years being terminally ill with cancer.

Adam would eventually meet some guy later in life who, apparently, rode the rollercoaster of striking it rich, and losing it all, repeatedly. They’d get married and, apparently, live happily ever after, eventually retiring young down the beach, so, I guess, there was a striking it rich that stuck. I don’t know.

“They released white doves,” Rachel excitedly told me about their wedding.

“The things you see when you don’t have your flame thrower handy,” I replied.

Adam texts me every year on my birthday, as the only contact we ever have.

Side note, as Daniel wasn’t in our friendship circle, let me just say, he became a very successful hairdresser. I would see him on and off through the years, he and I always got along really well. I met a number of young gay guys along the way who had been apprentices who’d quake at the mention of Daniel Haddock’s name.

“Oh my god, I was scared of him,” they’d say.

“Daniel? Really? Scared of him.” I’d laugh. The idea seemed so funny.

“Christian Fletcher, how the hell are you?” I’d hear that unmistakable nasal voice in a Fitzroy street somewhere. (think Allan Carr, actually, complete with Adele’s laugh)

“Daniel.”

“Luv.”

“I meet people who are scared of you.”

“Oh nonsense,” he’d say. And then there would be that beautiful smile of his. When Daniel smiled, his face lit up. When Daniel laughed, all of him laughed.

The teacher at our school who got 20 years for molesting boys, who attempted it on me but stopped when I told him to, well, that whole investigation was, apparently, started by Daniel pressing charges of being raped repeatedly by Peter Morrison.

Apparently, Daniel couldn’t come to terms with it in the end, and he committed suicide.

I met Mark, which drew me away from all of those friends, which gave me all of my new gay mates, Perry and Kim and Tom and Shane and Fergus and Sebastian and David G and Lauri and Simon and Dean and Anthony would return as a friend.

I had a whole other gay life with Mark.

We bought a house together, which we renovated.

We had an open relationship, and we fucked every guy that came into our orbit.

The whole house there for a time, was full of guys and drugs and dance music.

Nick and his long term boyfriend, Liam, rented the house that Adam and I originally bought together, from me, after I had met Mark and we’d bought the other house together in Fitzroy, the house I still live in now.

Nick and Liam rented the house with Mark’s cousin, Andrew.

There was a dispute about the rent, Nick only wanted to pay half the rent, going on bedrooms used, where Andrew wanted to pay a third of the rent, as there were three of them, Andrew, Nick and Liam, living in the house. Andrew kept paying me a third of the rent, saying he’d pay the difference if it was decided to be half half. Nick and Liam stopped paying rent altogether, supposedly, until the rent situation was sorted out.

They never seemed to come to an agreement.

It came to a point where Mark and I were going to Europe for three months, so just before we left, I stepped in and said, 

“Since you guys can’t seem to come to an agreement, I will do it for you. There are three of you, you pay a third each.” 

So, Andrew was up to date. Nick and Liam had to find two thirds of the rent, I think by that stage, for over 12 months.

Mark and I left for Europe.

Nick and Liam moved out of the house the day after Mark and I left for OS. 

I have never seen Nick again, my oldest friend who I met in grade 4.

I sold my first house and Mark and I bought Bolago.

Leah eventually moved back to Sydney, where she held very high up executive positions on huge salaries. She became so full of herself, and so overbearing that the last time I saw her, I walked out afterwards knowing I was done with her.

I haven’t seen her, or spoken to her, for 10 years.

She has never tried to rescue the relationship.

She has been married to her gorgeous husband for many years.

Mark and I split up.

I met Sam which drew me away even more from everyone. You know, when you get a new partner, you tend to pair up.

Jill and Rachel and I remain friends.

The last time I saw David M, was at a dinner at Rachel’s place, he had cake samples with him for his upcoming marriage to his poisonous boyfriend, Harry de Wit. (or as I like to say, Harry Halfwit)

“Oh really, what kind of cake is it?” I asked.

“Really fucking expensive cake, that’s what kind of cake it is,” he replied.

“Oh David,” I’m sure I said exasperated with him. “Is it fruit cake, or mud cake, or what flavour?” I don’t care how much it cost.

David S’s parents would eventually move back to Melbourne from England and settle for good in Kew. David S tried to reintroduce himself into our friendship group, at one point, but it didn’t stick.

He is a semi famous, experimental artist. I still think about his pottery wall hanging of babies strapped together with leather thronging as a homage to abortion, or his grotesque 30 something centimetre figures of people called The Worst in Society, or his life size busts of paper mache screaming faces, or his collection of photos of guy's faces at the very point of ejaculation. (The collection includes all his male friends, and random strangers that he asked. He told me once, that he never had a guy turn him down, gay, or straight. He asked me to do it, and while I agreed to do it, I, actually, never did)

I really meant to keep in contact with him but, you know, life gets in the way.

No one knows about David M and I, in fact, I’m pretty sure that I have never written about it before. I have never told anyone, and I have no intension of telling anyone. Let’s hope no one finds this post, no one has ever found my blog – except a dentist I used to go to, he, so far has been the only one.

(for the astute amongst you, there are a couple of inconsequential, minor details in this piece that don’t completely make sense, that’s because I have altered them to protect my privacy. I learnt from the dentist, more than one unaltered fact can lead to discovery)

I have never spoken about it out of loyalty to Leah, I have never wanted her to find out. I never wanted it to alter her perception of our relationship. I wanted to preserve the way she thinks it was. She would never understand that I could do both, have both, be both. (That is a gay sensibility that straight people just don’t have)

But, you know, now that we no longer speak, and from all accounts will probably never speak again, I’m not so concerned about that any more.

And now when I look up, I see my perfect boyfriend, Sam. It took a while to find him, I had to road test so many along the way, but eventually I did find him. And he's lovely.