Fantasy World
Chapter 4
I woke up snuggled into my love, he smelt of wood smoke so I guessed we had BBQ'd the night before. I stroked this man that I hadn't seen for nearly two years, but to him it would have only been during his hours of sleep last night.
When he woke we kissed and cuddled for a little while before climbing out to start our day. I was terribly tense around him and he picked up on it. Huh, how could he not, we had been together for more than thirty-five years, my lover was fifty seven and one very astute man.
"What is it love? You are wound up as tight as a watch spring?"
"Sorry, Max, a particularly disturbing dream."
He soothed my troubled brow, brought me another coffee, noted I wasn't actually writing anything and almost forced me onto the yacht.
"Let's go for a sail, brush the cobwebs away and we'll have lunch on board. You get `Lady' ready and I'll go and get the food and drink."
I did love to sail, but instead of just enjoying it with my lover I wondered what it would be like to teach Tom how to sail. The depression got worse during the day causing Max to worry. It wasn't fair on him, but what could I do.
Things did get better. I returned to my writing and eventually felt I could lay this ghost to rest by writing about it. So, I wrote the whole thing down like a fantasy story. It was an interesting exercise that took me nearly a year to complete. My relationship with Max suffered, but not too much. He couldn't understand how the one dream could damage me so much.
When I finished it I carried out one last edit and then I was going to delete it. What happened instead was that before I did the deed I checked to see if a Tom Hector really existed in Berkhampsted or whether it had all actually been an incredibly realistic dream. Dad's name was Ralph so I asked directory enquiries. Yes there was a R. Hector. Could they give me the address? Yes, no problem, and it was the same as I knew. That was too much for me and I disintegrated. Max was almost going crazy trying to calm me down. Eventually I walked like a zombie to my study, printed the story and gave it to Max to read.
"Don't say anything until you've read it all and then come to me and we'll talk."
I had finished the story at the point where I woke up in our bed after leaving Tom.
Max sat opposite me in the lounge after finishing it, but didn't say anything, he just looked. I was still very tearful, like a silly kid.
"Every word of that is the truth. I checked with directory enquiries that Tom did exist at the address I knew. I don't know how the time thing will work if you were to contact him now. Whether he has had his operation and gone to university, or whether he is in our time and has all this ahead of him."
I produced the photo I had taken of Tom at the beach. Naked and showing his more than adequate cock. Max tried to make light of it.
"Well you certainly know how to pick them, he is gorgeous."
I looked at him with all the love I felt, "Yes he is, but thirty-six years ago I was lucky enough to find another young man as gorgeous as that."
Max smiled at me and just said the one word, "Flatterer."
He obviously didn't believe the story though and must have thought I had lost it and was having some kind of mental breakdown.
"I need time to digest this my love, and you obviously need to go to bed. I'll get you a tablet and a hot drink."
I didn't argue, I was too shattered.
While I was out of it, Max got hold of a private detective in Hertfordshire. Gave him all the details he could and waited. He fussed over me for the next week until a big buff envelope arrived in the post. He read all the contents and went a deathly shade of white. Quite impressive for someone that lived in the sun with a beautiful golden tan, year round.
"It's all true, Charlie. Tom has just had his first operation that went wrong and he does have an eighteen year old boyfriend called Charlie Watkins."
He moved across the room to me and took me in his arms.
"My poor Darling, what a terrible trauma for you."
He tried to make light of it by asking me if I was as sexy at eighteen as Tom thought I was.
What had I done to deserve someone like Max? He accepted something that I'm quite certain not one in a hundred million people would believe, it was just so impossible.
Things did get better, my spells of depression were shorter and less deep. Max never made me feel that I had been unfaithful to him even when I talked about it. We went back to England for our annual medicals and dental visits and Max asked me if I wanted to go to see Tom, without of course telling him who I was. I shook my head. I thought it would be far too painful.
Any thoughts on that subject were pushed aside after Max's blood test results came through. He had leukaemia, it was a nasty strain, very difficult to control or get rid of. He went through all the nausea of the chemo, which did no good and nor did the radiation treatment.
"I want to go home Charlie. I want to spend the last of my life in the sunshine."
So, we took the medication with us to make his life more comfortable and we went home. I watched him die, very slowly. He took a year, the weight dropped off him and he looked more and more skeletal. The thinner he got the more my depression deepened. How could this wonderful man be dying?
I didn't think anything would make me stop thinking about Tom, but this did. I realised how deep my love for my soul mate was.
He spent so much time sleeping as the smallest of effort exhausted him, and I had so much inspiration to write. I churned out two novels in that year, both tragedies, of course, but both made the bestsellers list. Max had always been my inspiration, I wasn't a great writer, just an enthusiastic one, and a lot of that was down to Max, I never wanted to let him down.
It was a welcome release when he eventually died, he had hung on for so long trying to help me come to terms with it. I never did. I had always worried about dying first and leaving him to fend for himself. I had never thought about the reverse happening.
I locked myself away after his funeral, mainly to lick my wounds I think, and because it was embarrassing for people to see me crying. I cried all the time, my grief was weighing me down. A local boy used to pick up my mail and collect my shopping. He didn't say very much for a few months and then he stopped one day instead of just dropping off the mail.
"You know Mr. Watkins, Max was always so friendly and positive about life. What do you think he would say if he saw you like this?"
Then he left and I looked at myself in the mirror. It was a shocking reflection. I had a beard, and long hair, both unkempt, making me look like the wild man from Borneo almost. My eyes were deep sunk and the whole visage looked like that of a ninety year old.
I cried then, for Max, and myself, that was the last time.
I got the clippers out and cleared the main growth of hair from head and face, and completed the removal of facial hair with a close shave. I showered and dressed before going to the barbers to complete the transformation. Then I went home, cleaned the house top to bottom, sorted my mail ready to attack it the next day. I cooked myself a proper meal for the first time in I don't know how long, caught up on the world news and went to bed early. I slept for a solid eight hours. The next day I attacked the pile of mail in date order. Nothing terribly important, but three very nice royalty checks for my book sales. I spent the next week letting people know I was still alive by going out almost every night for a drink and something to eat. Tom came back to my mind then and I desperately wanted to see him, even if it was as a seventy two year old man.
If I went back now Tom would have just completed his first term at university. He would have no idea that I had in fact been away for a little more than two years. Not that he was going to know who I really was any way.
I didn't make a big deal about closing the villa down, I only expected to be away a few weeks at the most. When I came back I was going to try to write a happy novel, and if that didn't work I would write a thriller. No more tragedies and definitely no love stories. Two great loves in my life, but not for public airing, so I would stay away from them.