Kane

'I was gonna go for a walk along the cliffs, you wanna come too?'

Kane was in the gym, doing his naked yoga poses. Standing on one leg with his back to me, he looked as if chiseled out of a block of wet, blue-black slate. He must have been doing his exercises for quite a while as l could see he was covered in sweat, running down his spine and between his perfect moons. 

He did look round at me briefly but merely shook his head. And said nothing.

'I thought we could stop and collect Missy from the housekeeper's, if you want?'

Normally, anything that involved taking Missy was a sure-fire winner with Kane.

Suddenly, he stretched down to touch his toes, effortlessly and knowing full well that I would have the most perfect view of his most perfect hole. A bead of sweat caught in the faintest wisps of hair surrounding it. He returned to a standing position, moved his feet apart and once again bent over to put wrists on the floor this time. And give me no choice about seeing not only his gorgeous entrance but also have his taint lead my eyes to his wrinkled ball-sack and long, elegantly thin cock hanging down beyond. I had to fight the urge to take him there and then, such was the sheer temptation he knew he was flaunting. 

'Nah, I'm good.' Then, the killer moment of hesitation before he added 'Thanks.'

'Ok.' 

That one word had to scrape its way out of my dry throat. We'd had words, several, over breakfast which made me think maybe he just needed time away from me and maybe l did too. l just grabbed my wallet and phone and left.

I'd got a little testier than l should have more because l suppose l couldn't fathom in my own head what was making me so reluctant to let things turn sexual. That was certainly a first for me! Speaking frankly, I'd been the more promiscuous, had definitely gone with younger guys before and relatively recently too (maybe not as young as Kane's 20 but still); maybe nobody quite as drop-dead gorgeous as Kane but was that really the barrier? Was it that he'd been a rent-boy then? Was that it? Or was it his colour? Perhaps l was racist after all? My head screamed 'No!' each time though. So, for lack of anything better, l piled my indecision onto the most convenient excuse going: which was 'losing Michael so recently'. This despite it being the one reason I knew for certain wasn't behind my hesitation. Then I felt like a shit for using Michael's passing as an excuse and that in turn just ratcheted up my bad mood and the tension still further.

What l didn't do, even for a second, was attempt to look at things from Kane's point of view. Stupidly as it turned out with the benefit of hindsight. You would have thought the one advantage of my years on the clock would have been that l ought to have had enough experience to know there's a price to pay for being that self-centred but no, l just made it worse.

I'd left at maybe 11h00 or so but when l came back to the house at around half twelve, l never went inside. Rather, it was straight to the car, climb in and off to a pub for lunch. I told myself it was to give him space but the real reason was to leave him with the choice of cook for himself or go hungry! A nice leisurely fish-pie later, l'd told myself that, seeing as l was out, l might as well do the supermarket run! The end result was I didn't get back to the house before half five or thereabouts.

'Kane! I'm back!' I yelled as l came in with two overflowing shopping bags.

Silence.

Back out to the car for the third bag and the pack of beers, muttering to myself about how sulking just made things worse.

It was only when I'd packed away the frozen stuff and had just poured a glass of red for me and a coke for him that l saw it on the dining room table. A scrap of paper with a note scrawled on it:

If this isn't going to go anywhere, l think it's best I leave now. You're a great guy but if you don't want me, you don't want me. End of. Thanks for everything. 
Love

Kane XX

First reaction: to say 'Fuck!' very softly.

Second reaction: to sit down and want to cry but fail to. Couldn't even do that right. I felt ALONE. The same aloneness I'd felt crushed by returning to the house in London after the funeral. Only this time, the house felt that much more huge and l felt that much smaller and more inadequate. 

I picked up my mobile and dialed his number and god did my heart leap when I heard it ring in the bedroom! I ran down the corridor thinking he hadn't left yet and that I had the chance to convince him to stay! Instead, l found it lying on the bed, next to the piles of clothes we'd bought. He'd left wearing the same clothes he'd had on when he'd rescued me from Ug. Nothing else was gone, apart from a rucksack and his Treasure Tin. He'd even left the blue trainers.

'Fuck! Fuck! FUCK!'

And that's basically the only word l used for the next four hours as I drove around, trying to put myself into his head; trying to second guess what he would have done, where he would have gone, how he might have thought to travel. I tried the bus stations, the nearest trains stations, drove up and down the main trunk roads in and out of the county in case he was trying to hitch-hike out but the feeling in the pit of my stomach told me again and again that he'd had six hours head start! Six fucking hours!!!

It was 10pm before the futility of my efforts became so apparent I had no choice but to drive back home. That and the growling, gnawing hunger pains in my stomach.

I'd lost him.

And I had no way of contacting him, getting him back. Of finding him. In ten hours, he could in Scotland, for fuck's sake.

I spent virtually the whole night sitting on one of the sofa-benches in the middle of the lounge area looking out over the bay. Feeling l was alone. Hell, knowing l was alone. For the first couple of hours, there were the lights of the town in the distance but gradually they went off, one by one, and it was just the full moon and the rich blue-black of the night. Kane's blue-black --- just to remind me visually as well of what I'd lost. Periodically, I got up to fix a bland ham or cheese sandwich or get a drink or pee but that was it. Until at 6h10, my mobile rang:

'Is that Mr Ben Gee, Gwee ..?' The voice trailed off, defeated by my surname once again.

'Guilleaume, Gee-ohme, Ben Guilleaume, yes, that's me ... who's that?'

'This is PC Trevaskis from the Devon and Cornwall Police.'