He misses, feels, thinks. [MILEX] [Miles Kane x Alex Turner] +18

7

Saturday 07 November 2015

Weekends are for resting. But since last night, I have only been able to sleep for a few hours. The meeting with Miles had kept me awake.

I decided to distract my mind with work (at least that's what I always do when I am down). Reading contracts, filling out forms, evaluating new proposals, finding more efficient ways to sustain funding and if push came to shove, I would even open the suggestion box on Alexa's desk. Unfortunately, that morning nothing seemed to work. I couldn't stop thinking about him. In my mind I kept replaying his words, the touch of our hands and the sound of his laughter. To make the day complete, Taylor hadn't stopped texting me since I had opened my eyes. She was at work and in between customers she would text me to ask if I was feeling better because I had left her so worried and even asked if I was actually sick or if she had done something to upset me.

I felt bad about how I had sent her off, but it was never my intention to hurt her. Besides, selfish as I was, I didn't want her to disappear from my life either. I found her presence interesting. I really wanted to have a friend outside of the circles I normally frequented. For some reason, I felt I could trust her.

Although I needed to clarify my intentions as soon as possible, this was clearly not going to be the day. I ignored her messages for a few hours until late afternoon when I finally wrote to let her know that I was fine and that I was inviting her to spend Sunday with me.

She replied promptly, accepting the invitation.

In the evening my friends invited me to a party. Although at first, I rejected, I ended up going out. The routine; dinner at the best restaurant in town, going to an exclusive party and ending the night with someone.

I kissed a couple of attractive women who were introduced to me and when my friends were sufficiently drunk, I slipped away. One of my techniques was that it was at that precise moment that I would slyly look for a man to pick me up and leave the place without anyone seeing me, but I had done this only a few times as men of my status were not to be trusted. In order to blackmail they were capable of telling in detail what they had done with you. It had cost me too much money to silence flirtations to fall into the same trap again.

In other circumstances I wouldn't mind, but in this one it affects me: nobody knows I was gay.

In my situation belonging to the LGTBQ community was frowned upon. Of course, we all know who did and for that simple fact they were discreetly excluded and lost a good portion of their earnings. Also, they were harassed into keeping up appearances. So, for obvious reasons I never said anything.

That was the "world" I knew and the only one I only knew my way around, at that.

To be honest I would be useless in the "real world". I always had all the luxuries because money allowed it. In case of any stupid conflict, my family name was enough to solve it. Being an only child had also led me to be a person who didn't want to and didn't plan to disappoint his parents. Resigning to a life of not being publicly with a man didn't seem wrong for all the other benefits I got. The only thing that troubled me was the fact that at some point, and probably at some point soon, I would have to marry a woman for the continuation of my family line. That scared me.

The only girlfriend I had ever had was in my teens and losing my virginity to her was a headache. Fortunately, I got an erection after thinking about my chemistry teacher and got the job done. After a month of thinking about different men in order to appear heterosexual which, I wasn't, I dumped her with the excuse that my parents didn't approve of her, which was a big lie! My parents adored her! She was the daughter of a multi-millionaire businessman who exported fabrics to North America and they were already planning an expensive wedding since the union meant a lot more money at stake (and I was only seventeen).

I had the opportunity to break free and experiment as I wanted to when I went to university. I insisted and insisted that they let me study in the United States and after months of discussions, they agreed. A month before starting my studies, with the excuse that I needed to get to know the city, I was travelling to Cambridge to attend Harvard Business School.

I enjoyed those five years of my life as if they were my last days on earth. My parents had rented me a luxurious flat, but unbeknownst to them I lived on campus, getting all mixed up with the middle class. At first I wanted to hide my social standing, but when I saw that getting a place to have sex and organise uncontrolled parties was an ordeal, I offered the empty flat I had and when they visited, my new friends affirmed that I was nothing less than a posh British boy. They always joked about my elegance, my way of talking and how naive I was about everyday situations (like not knowing how to ride a bus) and discovering the flat connected all the dots.

By a stroke of luck that did not change the way they saw me or their interest in my purchasing power.

Twice a year my parents visited me and my faithful friends helped me set up the flat so that Penny and David would think that someone was actually living there. Even Arielle, my closest friend at the time and the first person I met in the city, pretended to be my girlfriend.

For her benefit, when my parents were visiting, I would take her shopping and update her wardrobe with the best designer clothes. She would impersonate the daughter of an upper-class Los Angeles family in my parents' presence. Although to be honest I think they always suspected I was lying to them. For as pretty and dazzling as Arielle looked, the way she expressed herself gave away that she had not been brought up in a family like ours. I didn't care as it was only pretending for a few days.

Once they were back in London, I could get drunk, eat junk food, do stupid things, go to vulgar places where they had the best parties and meet amazing guys who taught me all the joys of sex.

When graduation day came, an emptiness came over me. I knew that my golden years were over, that I had to go back to London and face the company I would inherit. Goodbye to a life where it didn't matter who you were, or how much you owned. What could I do? Tell my father I wanted to start my own company? That I wanted to live in New York and resume my piano lessons? Of course not!

With Arielle and the rest of the group we parted with a promise to see each other again, which they did, but I didn't. I was too busy to fly out. We exchanged a couple of birthday calls and that was it. I missed them (even to this day). I would love my weekends to be with them and not the idiots I called friends (but didn't consider them as such).