As a 19-year-old amateur dramatics come rock star wannabee layabout, it’s my customary thing when I have an empty day to wander into town, browsing some shops and then sitting down in Starbucks. I’d like to forget about the beauty of the female form for at least a day and just read the sports pages or mentally rehearse the play, but being the addict I am starting to reckon I am, sex is never far from my mind. I have no plans to strike up a conversation much less a flirt with anybody, but that’s not to say I don’t notice whatever is around, as indeed I am doing right now. I’m not sure what came first – the girlie chittering or the vision in my periphery – but I glance around to see two of them taking their place in the queue behind me. Can’t see the rearmost one, but in about half a second I take stock of she who is on my shoulder: tall, short hair (not normally my thing), pretty face and slender physique (very much my things) in a smart blouse and jeans. Overall, a strong ‘yes’, but just how strong is difficult to say until further study affords itself. It won’t do to look again, because that’s an obvious lowering of the guard, and as I said I am not particularly looking for it today.

The queue is moving damn slowly, though, because the old lady in front is fumbling about in her purse. I don’t like standing still at the best of times, let alone when an interesting specimen is behind me. I absorbed that she was young, as in little or no older than me, but I sense a confident demeanour not to mention sophisticated scenting and make-up that makes ‘girl’ seem not the best word for her. Young woman, then. Well, it would be natural to gaze idly at the cake shelf now as if thinking of buying one, and in the process get a par for the course better look at her. That I do. Side on to her, I note that she is fixing me with a kind of half-smile that is unsettling in a stranger. I give a moment of eye contact in return. That short hair is really immaculately done, side-parted and full of ‘body’ as they say, sweeping tidily behind her ears, so I conclude I could abandon my prejudice in her case. Gold earrings, mild lipstick and a touch of eye shadow nails the prettiness parameters for me. The yes is a very strong yes. But wait a fucking second ... she looks a bit like ... holy mother of fuck it can’t be!

Five years prior, when I was 14, doing the first year of GCSE at school. Palpitating in shock, my turn at the counter and the old lady saying sorry to me for the delay couldn’t have come at a better second. I can re-steady, I don’t have to say anything to my blast from the past for now – if indeed that’s who it is – and I don’t have to check again just yet to make sure. I am sure, though; there are some things you just know in your soul...

I remember painfully that, at 14, I was an abject fucking virgin, dreaming of my first girlfriend, or at least a first fuck. My best friend, Callum, was very much in the same boat. That’s principally what bonded us, I suppose, together with the random chance of sitting together in double French one day which got us talking to each other for the first time (in English). Until then, he was just another kid, but who I vaguely admired for being an athletic type and a bit of a hard nut despite soft good looks. That was relative, though, for at an all-boys Grammar School almost everyone was well brought-up and intelligent. Well, we got to know each other and became a pair of friends to the exclusion of almost everyone else remarkably quickly. That was adolescence for you.

So, we ‘dreamed’ together. We’d compare notes (sometimes literally, not just in the mental sense, how pitiful) on what kinds of looks and bodies we liked in a girl, or woman even, sometimes even having an actual example who had come into our lives in some small way but inevitably a million miles from turning into a girlfriend. Whilst I was an only child, Callum had an 18-year-old sister whom he reckoned he hated and she him. This was not exactly true, though, as I discovered by the time I got invited to his house for tea and an evening. His sister – Catriona (I was in awe of that name) – seemed really nice and polite, at random moments bringing up cups of tea to us in Callum’s bedroom. She always knocked, which was essential to them keeping the peace in the house I gleaned. She was sexy, yes, but in an Andromeda galaxy distance sense.

Too old, too much poise, had a boyfriend anyway I was told. She might as well have indeed been an alien, and I did not even count as a possibility hooking up with her. Nowadays, given my higher confidence and that I know she did find me ‘cute’, I understand the only legitimate reasons why not were: 1) she would not want to break the law; 2) my capacity for conversation with her would have been a maximum 4 words at a time. She pretty much officially killed the concept, anyway, when early on she said, “Maybe you two can help each other find a girlfriend.” I could tell she meant it in a sincere mentor way, but Callum said, “Yeah, thanks for the tea now you can piss off.” She replied, “Great manners as always. You’re both perfectly handsome, you know.” Callum: “Yeah okay, piss off.” He practically shoved her out the door, slamming it in her wake.

I did suggest to him, just that once, that maybe there was no need to be rude, to which he uttered she was an irritating witch (or was it bitch?). I also suggested she was very good-looking, to which he told me no she wasn’t and don’t even go there. I took him at his word, not just because I accepted it was impossible anyway, but because I was very tentative about rocking our burgeoning friendship in any way. And not least, because I was actually beginning to find Callum himself appealing. I need to check myself on that now, almost as much as I needed to do at the time: I was finding my best friend, my male friend, Callum, ‘sexually appealing’! Put another way, I would want to kiss him, not to mention more than that. I admitted to myself, giddily but without shame, that I would actually willingly have sex with Callum if it was a possibility.

That was adolescence for you. Even though gayness was a very big deal and absolutely not to be revealed, certainly not at an all-boys Grammar school, I knew with confidence I was not gay – or bi for that matter. I was perfectly okay with the fact I fantasized about – indeed craved – to neck, masturbate or even ‘bum’ (our go-to word for sodomy or anal sex) my best friend, because he was so good-looking and I liked him a very lot. I was smart enough to know I was simply sex-starved and he was merely a ‘substitute’ for that holy grail of a girlfriend. I even dipped into a psychology book in the town library, which confirmed ‘same-sex friendships at this age will often overlap into erotic feelings, as life preparation for adult relationships.’ That’s what this was; but that did not help the fact I badly wanted to cross that bridge with him, and I did not have the faintest bloody clue whether he felt the same, despite the fact he acted the exact same.

You see, we had this thing going whereby we were normal if very intense friends all the time, but increasingly injecting joke flirtations with each other. It became downright obsessive, with an impressive blend of sensitivity and crudity to it. “I love the sound of birds chirping when the sun comes out,” I said, before adding in a seductive whisper, “but not as much as I love you.” He would mock-purr, “Then here I am, do something about it, darling.” Then we would smirk, knowing how it sounded and how unthinkable it was and yet fun to act up on. Other times, it was a “Yes thanks, I would like to suck on yours,” when one or us offered a fruit pastille to the other. “Oh please do, sweetie, and I’ll suck and swallow yours.” Of course words were just that and passed quickly, until the next ones flowed forth from our ignorant if exploring and imaginative minds.

There was so much of this in our meteoric friendship that it is impossible to reminisce fully, but three what I think of as ‘building block’ incidents stay in my mind. We got talking about a girl I had passed on my morning walk to school, who I regarded drool-worthy. “Why?” enquired Callum. “What is so great about her? Explain, darling.” I explained it was particularly because of a tall slim body (tall by our standards which was 5’5” him, 5’4” me back then). I added, “Rather like you, actually.” Then the predictable flattered act from him had a strangely deeper edge to it. “Oh, really?” He raised his eyebrows, inviting further ‘flirt’. “Yes indeed,” I purred. “And I’ll show you what I would do with her.” We were standing in a discreet alcove for one of the school’s unused back entrances on a residential street, as we often did at break times. “Come on, then,” he said, his body language suggesting I should press him against the wall and start mouth-kissing. It did not happen.

A few days later, on a Friday in the bedroom at his nice semi-detached home, we were playing Subbuteo (an English soccer game with tiny model players) on the floor. I scored an excellent goal, but it might have been an illegal ‘double flick’. “Cheat!” he said, in a way that was meant to provoke a certain type of reaction. “Was not!” I said, poking him in the chest. “Face it, you’re one nil down.” He poked me back, retorting, “Don’t fucking poke me.” Our eyes glinted at each other despite our frowns. We then started ‘strangling’ each other, not for the first time but this was different, maybe because of what had transpired during the week. “Don’t break the players,” he said, and we chuckled as we rolled carefully aside and fought to the death on the carpet. Our legs got entwined like kind of Greek wrestlers except not nude, although I wished we were and wondered if he felt the same.

I retracted, terrified lest he detected my severe stiffy, and virtually at the same moment he got up and declared he needed a piss and that we’d resume the match in a few. His sister came in with teas and biscuits on the resumption, and commented how it sounded like we were having a good time in here, but in a way like she suspected there was more to it than just the match. Strangely surprising to me, this time Callum merely shrugged, even muttering a thanks, mercifully without insults. I didn’t like him being nasty to Catriona – not that it seemed to bother her – because I still did wank from time to time to that vision of woman-stature tits and arse, and her eloquent tones into the bargain. “Well, don’t let me interrupt,” she said, before getting out of the boy zone.

By the time the third incident came around on the next Friday evening, several times at school we’d said to each other that this gay stuff was of course just kidding. I reckoned with him it almost certainly was and that a real move from me would get me a punch in the mouth, but with myself I knew it was not; although I was not actually gay, I wanted to do gay with him, just specifically him not any other boy. For the Subbuteo match this time, we had ordained we’d both wear the football kits of our respective teams (Liverpool me, Man United he) – for ‘authenticity’, you know – which would mean being in tight short shorts. This scared me – there’d be no hiding an erection – but neither did I want to decline the idea.

At half time, it seemed his star striker was not playing well. I joked he must have an injury, and that he needed this: I playfully gave Callum’s upper thigh a quick two-handed massage. I reckoned I could get away with it on account of us having officially established the kidology during the week. It was well-toned yet smooth, with more of a tan than my own rather pale skin. I liked it and knew this was no joke to me. His face turned to stone, and he gave me a double-handed push in the chest. “What the fuck you think you’re doing?” I shuffled back, trying to shrug as if nonchalant as always but not able to hide my ‘sincerity’. “Well? Well? What you think you’re doing?” His expression morphed from anger to convincingly aghast.