Chapter Two

The first thing I'd remember when I thought about Phil was his smell. I've read that the way someone smells to you – and I meanreallysmells, up close and personal – is an infallible indicator of whether the two of you are compatible. Did you know that if, for some reason, Mother Nature dictates that you and the one you are getting intimate with aren't right for each other, they'll smell of slightly sour milk to you?

However, I digress.

Phil and his smell… it always seemed so perfect and right to me. It didn't matter how bad he should've smelled – maybe he'd not slept all night, or he was living in a shit hole, or he'd just had sex – he always smelled so good to me, I would want to inhale him. I put this down to his pure heart. I don't know why the smell of him was the first thing I'd think about when I remembered Phil, but for some reason it was. I guess our minds don't always confine themselves to thinking. Sometimes it's our senses that kick in first when we remember someone.

At one time Phil to me was not just a friend, but my family as well – although, in the final analysis, what he was most of all was a great fuck. This was years ago, of course. A lifetime at least, I sometimes thought. Now I realise I didn't appreciate the happiness I had then. In fact, I'd go so far as to say it was perfect, which was probably because I played a little hard to get, and Phil had to chase after me a bit. So add to that delicious combination the icing of knowing he was totally into me, and you will be able to appreciate how truly blessed I once was.

Give me youth at forty, will you, please? Youth and job opportunities are wasted on the young.

Now everything I've just said about Phil is still perfectly valid, but only in a kind of parallel universe. In the one I went on to live in, Phil would have been massively out of place because he was the sort of person who thought that Lambrusco was a good wine, spelled the abbreviation of 'there is' as 'theres', and believed a Wagon Wheel to be the highest-quality chocolate available. Moreover Phil was the only person I've ever known who would dine on the Christmas-dinner-flavour pot noodle every 25 December.

I, on the other hand, later found myself living in a middle-class cage, the bars of which, weirdly, seemed to be made from hummus, Chablis and Gruyère.

Phil was the freest person I ever knew.

I wasn't always the same as I am now, but when we were lovers I knew Phil would remain exactly who he was. There was no trace of ambivalence in him, and

I should know. I met him when I was eighteen and working in the cloakroom of a strip club. He was nineteen and a barman.

The women who worked there had the usual stories to tell. They'd mainly had a shit time of it and thought the punters who came to the place were scum, which most of them were. But all the girls who worked there loved Phil. Somehow he could override their negative attitudes towards men. I think they were happy to have found at least one male who was unequivocally good.

When we worked at the club, the highlight of every night for us was to leave together after the place had been locked up and go to this all-night caféon the Fulham Road where we'd eat cheesecake together. Looking back, it was probably just some shitty synthetic cheesecake, but this was before I ended up in HMP Finesse, remember. Phil and I would sit opposite each other, mouths full, savouring the cakey moment and making 'mmmmmm' noises.

We would leave as dawn was breaking and make our way either to his shit hole or mine. They didn't feel like shit holes at the time – on the contrary, they seemed like palaces given the homes where we'd been brought up. I often wondered later on if having a house that needed constant cleaning, with a husband who was a virtual stranger through working long hours to pay the mortgage on it, was an improvement on my life then.

All I needed to cover with my salary at that time was my low-ish rent. My studio flat had all I needed in it: this included the latestVogue, eight pairs of heels, some cheap flowers, tear sheets from magazines and newspapers pinned on one wall, a small fridge and table, and a big fucking bed in the middle of the floor. It was the most important piece of furniture in the room –thefeature – and if that doesn't tell you everything you need to know, I give up.

Sometimes Phil and I would lie there in it, putting the world to rights. I would snuggle into his chest and he would kiss my forehead. He was my safe haven; when I was with him I had complete peace of mind that I was where I should be, doing what I wanted to do.

Other times we would make love, and I really do mean make love. It would involve looking into each other's eyes, reaching orgasm, stroking, pulling, holding, kissing, more kissing, even more kissing, more sex, more holding, biting, squeezing, sweating, wetting, looking... you get the picture. Now wipe the drool off your chin and put your tongue back in your mouth. How long did you say you'd been married for?

I would never take it to the next level and become Phil's girlfriend because, frankly, I was shit scared I would lose what we had, and living without that was unthinkable. He was the only family I had as my real one sucked. Phil would ask me intermittently if I would be his girlfriend, marry him, run away with him… and I refused and refused and refused.

I know this may be difficult for you to understand but, to me, what we had was so great, I didn't want to risk changing it in any way in case it ended up ruined. If I am being totally honest Phil also came across as a bit thick sometimes and I was a pretentious ass in waiting.

He wasn't thick, he was actually more switched on than most people. But judging everything against the middle-class tick chart, he probably couldn't have sat at a dinner table and talked about builders and schools for three hours. Now, of course, I wonder why any poor fucker would want to do that.

Eventually Phil and I came to an end. I was studying law and after qualifying I moved on to work as a paralegal. I gradually started to spend more and more of my free time with my colleagues, and kept Phil well away from this group of people and my new life. I suppose I was in some way trying to climb the social ladder. Appalling as I know that sounds, it wasn't just for the sake of appearances. I'd come from a background of absolute poverty. I'd looked after my mother for years as her mental state swung back and forth, and we never had enough money. I wanted more out of life. I wanted to feel like I could be a normal person, not some misfit on the fringes of society, and I was driven by fear of failure. Look into your own heart, reader, before you judge me too harshly.

Sometimes I'd wake up with Phil, feeling his warm, soft body next to mine and looking into his honest, open eyes, and sometimes I'd be alone in my simple studio flat. It was somewhere I loved because I could make it look tidy and clean in about ten minutes. My life consisted of seeing Phil, smoking cigarettes, drinking whisky, fucking Phil, eating cheesecake, having long chats deep into the night with Phil, kissing Phil, walks in the park with Phil, talks in the park with Phil, fucks in the park with Phil and eating more cheesecake, buying new dresses, putting on make up and perfume and deciding what underwear to wear to show Phil, buying more underwear and then taking that underwear off for Phil, music, books, possibilities, hope and excitement.

And all of that somehow became this.