Seeing and believing

On Friday, I met Emma at the station in BigCity. We took a train to Manchester Piccadilly. With a couple of hours to kill before we pursued our little theatre mission, we trogged around the Canal Street area perusing possible eateries and drinkeries. We ate at a place called Velvet, but before that we had a drink in a place called Queer – a gay bar (lots of homosexual drinks, and straws, and fag-hags – you know the sort of place). Anyway, absolutely fascinating was the ‘gaydar’ concept – there were people making use of free internet facilities, and were publicly using these for… well… er-… ‘people-shopping’. Wonderful idea. Equally spooky. Reminded me of my two pals who’ve dabbled in such social enterprises. Brave.

The theatre thing – not advertised – was good enough. In a nutshell, the performers were playing around with the position of the audience – would have been a bit discomfiting had it not been so predictable. Was kind of as I’d imagined it would be. Emma was a little freaked out, but alas did well to keep her cool – I’m learning that she’s good at that – the façade doesn’t always match the feeling.

On boarding the return train I was carrying a bottle of wine that we’d bought at Velvet. We were both pleasantly pished – the world was our friend, and we were friends with the world. At this point, I made a silly schoolboy error. I acknowledged a stranger – a young man, mid-late 20s, a bit scruffy, and not looking too happy. ‘I will enrich his evening’ thought I. He accepted the offer of a paper cup of wine, and made use of the journey to share a most unFriday-feeling down-on-his-luck story - visiting a sick aunt, jobless, penniless (the ticket inspector just took his name and address – no further hassle – they both knew the routine). My increasingly frowned expression led to more of his story being directed at Emma. I was doubting the genuineness of what we heard. Anyway, we left the train ahead of the young hound’s destination. Having alighted the train I suggested that this may be a standard Friday evening trip for the chap – could be worth his while – pished-up people handing over the honest dollar, euro, or pound as a token of sympathetic guilt-ridden kindliness. Emma’s response to this was ‘Oh no, really? Do you think he wasn’t for real? I gave him a tenner.’ I modified my cynicism at this point, and suggested we forget all about it: ‘The wine was poor – we should consider it £10 of compensation to the dear rogue.’

Back at the Friday night pad, we relaxed into a long, shared bath, and all that went with that. It is imperative that I tell you that candles, bubbles, and finding one’s partner to be quite the ‘sexy M-F’ (as Prince Charles is prone to saying) really does work quite a treat. I could have melted into her. Instead, I took a more standard route - in various positions, and at various sites around the house. Could quite get used to this.

Have since returned to the dirty business of working.