HYSM

Nineteen

"Ok I have a question. I understand bisexual, pansexual, and fluid. But what's the difference between omnisexual and polysexual?"

"The only thing that matters is that you're Mewsexual"

"Tua! I'm being serious..."

"So am I, baby. I'm Gulfsexual and you're Mewsexual. There we go, we're labelled"

Gulf slammed shut the laptop lid on his 'What is my sexuality?' Google search - "Hoy! Jai yen!" came the pained, anxious exclamation from Mew, said laptop's owner - as he clambered onto the elder man's lap to face him, in his seated position on the swivelling computer chair.

"So did we invent a whole new dictionary of sexuality just for us?" Gulf jested, leaning forwards to playfully Eskimo kiss the nose of the other, then resting foreheads together in ceremonial pose.

And with a crinkly smile and both hands rising to massage loosely at Gulf's shoulders, Mew replied...

"Of course baby" - before, more thoughtfully, "To be honest even though I've been with both women and men since I was a teenager, I've never labelled myself as anything. Just said to myself that love is love and if we take out gender then our perspective can be much broader. I just love a person for being that person. And that person just so happens to have always been...you", tapping a pointing finger to the tip of Gulf's nose.

A kiss - soft, tender, lips moving delicately against one another - eyes fluttering closed, as Gulf's arms encircled Mew's neck.

Then, pulling back to observe the face of his lover - the younger man's tone was jovial yet his eyes deadly serious with:

"So when are you going to ask me to be your faen?"

"All in good time my sweet baby. All in good time", Mew taunted, basking in the fleeting feeling of omnipotence, until thinking better of it and adding hurriedly - since however powerful he was, he was still, justifiably, a little scared of the younger: "Unless you beat me to it and ask first of course"

"No! I won't ask! I said 'I love you' first, even when you'd already loved me for decades if not centuries. It's your turn to be brave Phi", Gulf was giggling as Mew sniff-kissed and tickled his way adoringly up and down his neck below.

"Well I guess Nong Gulf must learn to be patient then na. And I know how you hate it when I make you wait for...something"

Their lips found one another again then, and they were kissing with dancing tongues, with explorative depth, with swelling urgency, when suddenly-

-The doorknob to the room rattled and the voice of Mew's mother, like a bucketful of ice to the rising temperature of the moment, called through the door:

"Mew? Nong, I've brought your dinner up on a tray so you can eat whilst you're working on your assignment. Grilled salmon, the best brain food to help you study"

"Thanks Mama, just a minute", Mew's calm voice belied the flurry of panicked activity in the room behind the locked door, Gulf leaping from the elder's lap to crawl - long limbed - under the bed and hide, whilst Mew re-opened the laptop at his desk and rushed, fingers tap-tapping furiously, to minimise the younger man's earlier search and open up an already completed essay to 'work on'.

It wasn't their first cover up. In the month that had passed since the return from Hua Hin, the two men had settled into a comfortable, unprecedentedly happy - but secretive - way of life. Each night one would trek to cross the back gardens and that barrier of a fence, to climb up to the other's window and spend the night together. Sometimes sleeping in one another's arms, sometimes kissing and cuddling and talking in sofest voices, voices only reserved for each other. And often making love, or fucking, depending on the mood and whether Gulf could keep quiet enough, with a hand over his mouth and his face in a pillow to muffle and stifle his most vocal mating calls.

Then at dawn they would part with sweet farewells, to wash, dress and prepare for the day ahead in their own houses, before familial goodbyes and a pretence of setting off for University solo - when the reality, in fact, was meeting each other two streets to the East. Gulf climbing aboard Mew's motorcycle, spare helmet worn and hands woven tightly around the familiar, warm, muscular core of his driver, head resting on shoulder until they neared campus and prying, identifying gazes.

Eyebrows continued to raise, of course, in their closest friendship circles. They knew - and Mew and Gulf knew that they knew - but it would remain an unspoken secret until the day it was ready to be told.

And that day was drawing ever closer.

//

It was later the same evening - empty dinner plate on desk and Gulf rebirthed from his cramped cave - that the earlier conversation resumed as the two sat cross legged on the floor playing video games on Mew's cinematic flat screen TV and attached console.

"Do you think labels are important Gulf?"

"I don't know - maybe it depends on the individual. For me, I would say yes. Because I think it would help me to feel I know myself and my own identity. Before I just always assumed I was 'straight'. It was a given, a status quo. But now I know that's not my truth, I'm re-evaluating what that truth is. You remember the play, Hamlet, that you acted in in your final year in high school? One line always stuck in my head: 'To thine own self be true'. I think understanding these labels will help me to do that. And then whatever I am, I can be proud of - because that's who I am..."

"...Shia! He just bombed my car!" - a break from soul searching as he lost another life in the fantasy world of the video game.

"Follow me, let's hide behind the derelict warehouse and then we can ambush them with grenades", Mew responded, before returning to reflect on Gulf's musings...

"We are such opposites. You want a label to help define you - and I understand that, I respect that, I will support you with that. But I guess I would feel a label restricted me"

"Yes but you've said it yourself - you always knew yourself. I...didn't"

"How about now? What does my baby know now?"

And as their game characters were blown to smithereens, control pads were cast forgotten to the floor as Mew gently pushed Gulf backwards, down, until he was lying on the floor with the elder crouched on all fours above him, silky black hair hanging to tease lightly against the younger's brow.

"Now I know...that I want...to ride you like a fucking cowboy tonight" - Gulf provoked, using all of his strength to reverse flip the elder man suddenly onto his back so that he himself, instead, could manage proceedings.

And as they began to kiss and grind and moan into one another, Mew couldn't help the inward, secret smile as he thought ahead to the weekend: The date he had planned - a first one in public - and the question he would finally ask.

Because whatever their labels, or non-labels, were, the label of boyfriends would be one they could surely agree on.