Caught in Possession

Labels

"Are you sure you've got the passports, faen?"

"Did you tip the taxi driver, faen?"

"Can you hold my bag while I go to the bathroom, faen?"

"Faen, on a scale of 1-10, how much would you say you're enjoying being my faen so far, faen?"

Gulf's playful toying and jesting was an irrepressible, roaring, bank-bursting current by the time the pair arrived to Bangkok airport to catch the red-eye flight bound for London the next day.

Cloaking the more persistently stained scarlet lipstick trails beneath the façade of a simple travel uniform - sports T-shirt and black joggers - the accessory of a coy, rosy blush to cheeks was all natural, the younger man in effervescent mood as he overflowed with the excitability of a soda fountain at a 90s childrens birthday party.

'Mew Gulf pen faen gun' Mew had imprinted on his naked, blissfully quivering body, the elder's eyes shining with sincerity as he hovered above him on the bed those hours before, seeking the affirmation from his opposite soul - the yang to his yin - as he ventured:

"Be my faen, Gulf?"

It was utterly new to both men, this label to the relationship. Like the baggage label smacked onto their luggage at the check-in desk - a title or description, faens, which travelled with them, bound them together, told who they belonged to. Kept either one from getting lost, as a dusty, lonely suitcase in baggage retrieval...

"Nong, don't forget to switch your phone to flight mode, or you'll be getting one of your daily hundred calls from Up mid-takeoff, I swear that man calls more frequently than your Mae...is he your agent or your secret wife?", Mew muttered testily as they reclined back in the relative calm of the first class cabin of the aeroplane.

"Ok faen", Gulf saluted, unruffled.

"I'm just curious, are you going to be calling me that all the time, or only for today as a special occasion?", the elder's voice deadly stern yet his eyes alive with amusement.

"Don't you like it, Mew Grumpasit?"

"No baby...I love it" - pout eradicated in an instant, and they were smiling into an open-eyed kiss as Mew grasped Gulf by his nape. Man to man, faen to faen.

//

It was dawn again when the elder awoke - forever chasing the sun's afterglow from east to west on their Groundhog Day of a flight path - stretching stiffly beneath metal-clasped seatbelt, before turning to the drooling, slumbering man beside. He reached out a hand to stroke gently, quietly, thumb tracing delicate circles over the elegant curve of a cheekbone.

His boyfriend, his faen. The label alone made Mew's heart swell to double size in his chest. A feeling that he could step out of the emergency exit door with Gulf in his arms and they would just float away as giant, sweetheart helium balloons, as the pilot, stewards and passengers waved merrily on.

Because...how much had his little man, his tallest baby, his simple, brave, straight forward, true-hearted, beautiful boyfriend changed him - changed his life? Stood boldly, unshakeably by his side in the face of anything and everything. Kicked and snuggled his way into Mew's heart until he just felt warmer, softer, like the summer melting of an ice cream, until only sweetness remained.

Swiftly retrieving his hand from Gulf's smooth cheek as he felt a welling of unintended emotion - 'Shia, get a hold of yourself Suppasit' came the ingrained Jongcheveevat bark within - the elder man turned instead to raise the ugly plastic blind from the window, peering out at the birds-eye plan of Northern Europe below as the clockwork sun rose dutifully in the Western hemisphere once again.

Mother Earth's paint palette was a whole different rainbow here - gone was the aquamarine of sparkling oceans, the rich, deep crimson and shell-pink of floral accents, dazzling white of a coconut's buried treasure, and in their place a darker, more muted set: mossy greens, muddy browns, crashing, swirling navy blue tides. And grey, as the plane's course dipped over the suburban outskirts of a city. Every shade of grey - from the gosling eiderdown of clouds to the stony pebble dash of concrete tower blocks...

And suddenly Mew was aching for the vibrancy of the homeland he had fled from on every occasion before. Because this time, he'd seen that place through Gulf's eyes, and with him by his side, after years of exile, it had somehow come to embody the long lost word of home.

Home: a label that spiralled the elder man off into giddy, secretive daydreams of a future utopia with Gulf and Paithoon - an eco farm in the mould of those they had visited on market days across Chiangmai - a family idyll of their own...

Until thoughts of there, that peaceful place, pressed play on the pair's departure from their summer's impromptu Ton Pao base, then, broadcasting achingly in the elder mind's eye:

Paithoon had clung, sniffling, to her Naa Mew's leg when the time had come to say goodbye - Gulf smoothing her plaited hair gently as his silent tears fell.

"It's only for a little while Pai, stay here with P'Mild and P'Bow and we'll be back together again properly soon, I promise kitten", the elder man's voice had soothed and assured, tremble of his own lip masked.

Yet as the rusty, misshapen old taxi had hobbled and bobbled along the narrow, dirt track driveway out of the rural property and towards the smooth tarmac of the road away to Bangkok, it had been both men who squinted, misty-eyed, back out of the rear windshield at the little girl standing forlorn - hands held on each side by her remaining centurions - as she shrunk smaller, smaller, and then disappeared from sight as they turned a final corner and could only wordlessly squeeze one another's hands.

They would return for Paithoon, that much both knew: 'Hold on, don't let go'...

//

At long, long last, six hours reversed back into their own past, as jaded, jet lagged limbs struggled wearily against the physical befuddlement of international time differences, the travellers arrived back to the cloudy kingdom of London SW3.

Mew resting his chin silently - contentedly - upon Gulf's shoulder from behind, hands encircling his slim waist, as they sailed upwards in the familiar lift of their apartment residence.

But then, arriving to their floor and dark, deserted corridor...

Inexplicable light, escaping out from beneath the front door. An exchanged glance of wary frowns between Mew and Gulf. The bleep of the keycard, the mechanical release of the door as it swung inwards to reveal two uninvited guests in the living room:

The first - cousin Tul - perched awkwardly on the arm of the sofa, fridge's breakfast lager bottle in hand, and sheepish shrug and smile to greet the bleary-eyed, disoriented nomads.

Yet the second figure's lips were pressed together in grim line from his commanding position in the centre of the seat. Rising to stand, ceiling's spotlight above framing his face ghoulishly - palpable fury bubbling like a once-dormant, freshly seething volcano, eyes scathingly crawling Gulf, head to toe - as he slammed a set of paparazzi stills down onto the cowering coffee table below.

"Care to explain yourself, Suppasit?", chilled the icy words of Kittichat Jongcheveevat, as the apartment's tiles became a slippery glacier and the pair began a treacherous slide together - bound then not only by label, but the permanence of photograph too.