When The Cat's Away

Boyfriends Vash and Dashiel have been together for five years, since they were both nineteen. They are the same age.

Vash, short, messy blond hair, brown eyes and a goatee, black long sleeved skivvy with a white T-shirt over it, blue jeans rolled up at the base, fell for Dashiel, short spiked black hair - with the dorsal fin in the middle, red t-shirt with a thick white stripe around the middle, black jeans, over a discussion about a chair.

They've endured uni, monogamy and professional success and a year living overseas together.

They've just returned to Melbourne. Dashiel gets a job straight away, but Vash isn't so quick to secure employment.

Is Vash trying as hard as he could, thinks Dashiel?

Vash spends the days at home. He has the meals ready and the house tidy for when Dashiel gets home. Vash gets all that done in a few hours before lunch and then he spends all of his spare time on the net.

Mateo, long blond hair, brown eyes, a bit of a hippie, scruffy, athletic, sexy works around the corner in the coffee shop as he goes to uni finishing his final year. Mateo likes the look of Vash from the first moment they flirt with each other when Vash goes into his shop for coffee beans. The two meet up, secretly, one afternoon Mateo finishes at lunch time, for coffee, and then lunch and then back to Vash’s in the afternoon where they smoke a spliff and fuck. 

Vash falls for Mateo and breaks Dashiel's heart. 

Things aren’t looking good for the boyfriends, except Mateo bumps into Dashiel one night out at a club on his own. It’s a Saturday night and Mateo and Dashiel have taken pills, Dashiel because he wants to forget the resent past and Mateo because he is celebrating it. 

Dashiel and Mateo are in the toilets of the club when they meet. Mateo tries to apologise to Dashiel, but Dashiel wasn’t having it.

“What are you sorry for?”

“For everything that’s happened,” says Mateo.

“What, for ruining my life?”

“That wasn’t my intension.”

“Not you intension? Not your intension? So, what was your intension when you stuck your cock up my boyfriend’s arse, tell me that?”

“Nothing. I didn’t mean to fall for him, it just happened.”

“But you did, Blanch, you fucking did,” says Dashiel.

Dashiel’s voice was getting loud. At the same time, a toilet cubicle became vacant. Mateo, realising people were starting to stare, pushes Dashiel into the vacant toilet cubicle and shuts the door.

The two continue arguing, trying to keep a lid on their volume until at awkwardly contained fever pitch, something snaps, the situation, the drugs, the close proximity confinement, probably all of it, they start kissing each other passionately, and they have sex with each other.

Afterwards, they are kind of stunned with each other, but not sorry, and kind of taken with the idea.

Dashiel walks Mateo home to his and Vash’s house. They throw stone chips at the window until Vash’s sleep head appears through the French doors.

“Dashiel,” Vash says. “Mateo.” He is surprised and confused.

“Hey,” says Dashiel.

“Hey,” says Mateo.

“What the fuck?” says Vash.

“I miss you,” says Dashiel.

“What are you talking about?” says Vash.

“I’m sorry,” says Dashiel.

“What the hell are you two doing together?” says Vash.

“We want to be with you,” says Dashiel.

“We realised what we wanted, tonight,” says Mateo.

“Fuck off, this is hard enough without you two taking the piss,” says Vash.

“We’re not taking the piss,” says Dashiel.

“We’re not,” says Mateo.

“Open the fucken door, and let them inside, and shut the fuck up,” calls out Liam from across the road. “Would it be that we all have your problems, Vash.”

“Quit with the brag, some of us are trying to sleep,” yells Lachlan from next door from his bedroom window.

“Let’s us up,” says Dashiel.

“Lets us up,” says Mateo.

Vash lets the two boys in. Dashiel, puts his finger over Vash’s mouth. “Not now,” says Dashiel. “Tomorrow.”

Dashiel and Mateo lead Vash back upstairs. They undress each other as Vash watches from the bed, then they get into the bed either side of Vash, both putting their arms around him. 

Vash was not immediately forgiving, but Dashiel and Mateo were very attentive and eventually they made Vash laugh with their antics, and it was probably at that point that the three of them being together really came into being.