Who would have thought that at 55, with three more or less grown-up children, two exes, and a willy that wouldn't quite rise to the occasion, a guy would find the love of his life. I knew there were blokes who liked my style, but thought casual sex and bridge with a select few partners was the best that life could offer under the circum-stances.

I had broken up with Geof, who had taught me that I am beautiful, because I could not get a job where he lived and he could not move away from his house and work. Although we still cared deeply about each other, it had become a co-dependent relationship on my part, one which had become very painful. I thought a lot about dying and the relief it would bring, but at the same time I stood aside and laughed because I knew I would take every breath I could in this veil of tears. Dr. Bonnie said I didn't have to put up with that and gave me some pills: I put my swimming pool picture up on the internet.

The internet, then and now, has few boundaries, and my picture and profile was soon spread around wherever older, furry gay men were fashionable. That is how Pete found me. He had discovered, to his horror, that he got a tent in his pants whenever he sat near a certain big, hairy blond man at the local pub – twice in three weeks -, and deduced that his greatest fear, one that he had been avoiding all of his life, might be true: he was gay. His therapist said he had been talking to her about it for some time and that it was about time he went out and discovered what it was all about.

When he did a search on the internet for "gay AND men" the sixth item down was about bears. He didn't know the forest animals were into same-sex diversions, so he went to look. A bear was defined as a masculine-type gay or bisexual man, often hairy, with a rather non-judgmental attitude toward others….. distinguished from pretty-boy "twinks" [they sparkle] who were terrified of ageing and calories.

He went to a link. The third picture he saw was of me in the swimming pool. He could see that I was big and friendly, but he didn't think I was furry. My blond pelt was virtually invisible in the water…. But he could see where the pubescence broke the water. So….. he wrote. Thus began our internet love affair.

Pete had had nearly no experiences with men at the time and was struck by the fact that I loved my 3 children and was willing to help a younger man discover how to be gay and productive in the straight world. I was struck by the fact that he dearly loved his daughter and had decided to bail out of his painful marriage with his fall-down-drunk alcoholic wife.

I told him that if he was ever in the USA, he should stay with me a while so I could show him the sights. I confess I had ulterior, if not posterior, motives, since he was and is a most handsome man. [Indeed, I had a photo collection on my computer of the most beautiful men in the world and Pete immediately moved into that folder!]

A few weeks later, Pete asked if I was serious because he had a chance to come to America and would like to meet me. We agreed for him to come on May 5.

________________

After he left Newark Airport and discovered he was nearly in New York City, he turned around and headed for Allentown PA on I-78. When he called from a rest stop, I told him to come to the second Allentown exit and go to the first service station, or to a diner, to call me. I failed to realize a service station was a garage repair shop in England. He didn't find one. Indeed, he made it to the Dunkin Donuts before he got to the diner.

"Which one?" I asked on the phone [there were seven in town]. The manager told me how to get there.

When I drove up, there was a most beautiful fellow peering under the "Come on in " sign, so I got nervous. I picked up the bag of trash beside me in the front seat to take it to the dumpster. I didn't know what to do with my hands. He didn't understand why I was dumping my trash and almost wrote me off right there! But I did say "Hi!" and "Welcome to Pennsylvania" and invited him to follow me to my humble belfry in Dave's house of unattached gay men.

I had warned him that Dave was a rabid anglophile and had out his Union Jack and picture of the queen and would be playing "Rule Britannia" as we stepped into the parlour. I had told Dave, John, and Paul [the tonsured reverend] to keep their mitts off until I had had a chance to meet Pete. Dave and Paul knew I would put them through the meat grinder. John was his usual self.

Fortunately my crowded two rooms, at the top of the two flights of stairs, had been straightened up. There was little chance of anything tumbling upon us as we entered the bedroom from the landing. The other room had an overstuffed chair and 2000 opera LPs leaning against the walls around the room. My computer and bed were in the larger room, so Pete had no choice but to lounge upon the bed when he wanted to alight.

He saw immediately the photo of my grandfather at 88, with his full head of white hair. Pete's eyes twinkled.

We put down his bags.

Pete had told me I would probably have to lead the way. That was a bit out of character for me. I usually waited to see whether someone was interested in me first, but I decided to take the initiative. I gave Pete a hug and said, "Let's see how this beautiful man likes to hug." It was marvellous.

Then I said "Well, let's see how this most handsome fellow likes to kiss."

There was a momentary reticence, then he settled into a warm kiss. I tumbled head over heels into the valley of soft landings!

"You will make a great lover for the right person."

As expected, he was hungry, so we went to the kitchen for roast chicken, sweet potatoes, and beans. While we were having our dinner, every occupant of the house strode through the kitchen to see our English visitor. Dave gushed, Paul blessed us both, and John made sleepy-time eyes. I warned Pete to be prepared for John to scale the heights to get into his pants.

It was a very hot May. In that part of Pennsylvania, it is usually not very hot until August, but everyone was caught unprepared by the heat of May 1999. Dave had not yet been able to get to the front room of the basement to find the air conditioners so we had to make do with an oscillating fan on a stand. We played and talked about the gay scene until we fell asleep.

There was something I had to talk to Pete about. I had not told Geof about the HIV when we first met, although Geof eventually figured it out. I felt very guilty about having any sex with Geof that could have been risky for him, even though I had talked to my specialist and been told that with my viral load undetectable, there was very little risk in what we were doing. I knew that if something wonderful was going to come of our getting together, I had to tell Pete before we did anything risky. I knew it might end the visit and send Pete to Savannah, Georgia, to meet his other internet friend, Tom.

We missed breakfast, or, rather, at breakfast time Pete had his thighs wrapped around my neck probing where my tonsils used to be. My jaw was getting a little cramped and I thought Pete might be thinking that not much more was going to happen. I almost stopped him to say that it was all right and we could rest a bit, but I moved my head slightly instead and settled in for the rest of his first prime time gobble. Almost immediately he straightened his back and started to course from his ankles up. Soon I was gulping to avoid drowning as todger [his dick] discovered a cache he had not accessed in about 8 years.

Pete slapped his thigh and rolled off, "I didn't think that was ever going to happen again. I thought there was something wrong with me."

There was nothing wrong except he had been with the wrong person. Because his drunk of a wife was sadistic during sex, he had given up all sex, even given up jacking himself for about 8 years in an attempt to save the marriage. That was all that was wrong. During the next two weeks he discovered that everything was in working order and we had about 8 years to catch up on.

[When Pete returned to the UK, he told Meg, his therapist, that he had felt no depression when he was with me and that during the first sex it had felt like the little boy Pete, who had moved to a dark room when he about 8, had decided he liked me and could play with me and had come out of the dark for a hug. Meg said THAT had to be progress.]

On Saturday afternoon, I told him about the HIV. I told him that we had not done anything risky to him and that I would be sad but would understand if he did not want to deal with it. I told him that I had not mentioned it before because we had not yet met and I did not know whether we would "hit it off." He and I knew by then that something special was beginning to happen.

Pete was quiet for a minute, then he replied that he had dealt with death and with HIV through his work as a British fireman. He was eager to talk to my doctor, but did not want to let the HIV interfere with our intimacy and passion. I never expected such a miracle.

Pete did have a contingency plan when he got off the plane.. he had met through the internet another guy he thought he might like as a friend – Tom in Savannah. If we had not clicked he would have driven down to meet Tom in person. I thought that was very sensible. But by Monday he had decided that he wanted to spend his time with me, so he called Tom to put off their meeting. Tom is still our friend and sends us flowers on our anniversary.

On Monday I had to go to work. John asked Pete if he wanted to go over to New Jersey to get a lottery ticket. The lottery ticket was a ruse. When I returned for lunch, Pete was waiting on the front porch and came out to the car to tell me John had taken him to a wooded park and lead him through the rhododendron bushes, even managing to trip on a root to try to get Pete to fall on top of him, but Pete had avoided all overtures. I told Pete I had half expected it and I appreciated his [Pete's] feints and parries.

When I went into the kitchen, John told me he had been "a bad boy" and that Pete really liked me because John had tested [he almost said "tasted"] Pete, who had rebuffed every approach. I told John that I was not surprised by either.

________

It really was a very hot May. We spent a lot of time in bed and got very sweaty. Pete was used to sweat with his work, but I was not. Normally I cannot sleep at all if I am sweating. We had the fan but it was blowing hot air. One day early in the visit, Pete fell asleep in my armpit and I felt the sweat rolling off me. I had to make a choice, give up the snuggle and try to get cool or stick with the snuggle and sweat. That is when I learned to sweat and sleep at the same time. Some days we dried the sheet two or three times, and we took a lot of cold showers.

[You really could not take a hot shower in Dave's house, but that May we preferred the cold shower to help us cool off.]

While we were in the shower, Pete liked to soap my bod, so I returned the favor. When he turned around, I let go my bladder and focussed a warm stream onto his pretty bum.

"What's that!?"

"Wow!"

He returned the favor. We were never really into water sports, but whenever we showered together, the plug would sometimes come uncorked.

___________

Pete wanted to meet some gay men away from the UK. In the UK only 2 or 3 people knew he was gay, and he expected to lose every person he told about it. [He didn't, but he expected it.] In America just about everyone he met liked him, including my second wife. He was more determined than ever that he wanted to move to America.

In Philadelphia, we walked hand-in-hand through Elspeth's Alley, the only street left in North America with all the buildings from the 17th century. We knew no one in Philadelphia, but he still expected a knife to come out of the shadows.

Pete had known for many years that women found him attractive, but he had learned not to look at men for fear of finding something he felt he couldn't face. When we walked in a mall or along the street, he didn't see the men who noticed we were a couple [and therefore gay] and would turn to look at Pete as he passed.

I would ask, "Did you see the guy looking at you?"

"No, where?"

"Just passed."

[The man was often stopped and considering how to get me out of the scene!]

It got away with Pete. He did not know how to deal with being an object of male lust. I thought it would help his self-confidence if he knew that there were lots of men who would welcome a chance to get into his knickers, if only for a moment.

"What should I do?"

"Nothing at all but look, if you like, or nod if he looks good, or, if nature calls, go up to a show window and see what comes up."

"I can't do that!"

"Yes you can. He might want to lick your balls, but he won't do it here. The most you might get is a telephone number."

The next chance he got, he tried the window routine and got a rise from the other guy, but not from himself.

When Pete returned to the UK, he discovered that he had to meet someone first before he made a plan to play, and that it really didn't work very well unless the guy reminded him of me. [Little boy Pete was still calling the shots!]

It took Pete about three months to start noticing the looks of men on his own… from the service station mechanic who went in the parts room and was casting a shadow when he returned to the car….to a dog-walker who preferred to sit across from Pete in the park.

When we moved to Philipsburg in December, we shopped at the local supermarket. On about our second trip, I noticed Pete had stopped behind me as I headed into the produce stands. I turned to see a tall, handsome man next to the bin of navel oranges, standing agape, staring at Pete, who was shrugging and looking embarrassed, like "What am I supposed to do now?"

"Well, honey, I told you that if you stepped off the sidewalk, you would stop traffic!"

The on-looker got mad at being talked about and stormed off.

_______

Because the US would not give Pete anything but a tourist visa, Pete had to keep going back and forth for three months at a time. About the third time he returned there was 4 inches of snow on the ground. I decided to introduce him to the joys of American baseball.

At Hummelstown there was a baseball diamond with a dugout you could see in the moonlight. We traipsed through the snow until we got to the bench

"Stand on the bench, hunk"

From there I could just reach my splendid todger, who enjoyed his first nine-inning gobble in the crisp, snowy night.

Later, in the summer, he noticed the fireflies in the back yard and asked what they were. I didn't know there were none in England. So I took him to the local baseball diamond where we had seen the blackberries and turk's-cap lilies. The fireflies floated down from the ash trees, a living starburst. There he learned how lovely a baseball diamond can be in June.

____

At the end of that first two-week visit Pete was distraught about having to go back to the UK. He had to get out of the fire brigade and he had to make sure his wife was able to take care of herself. He had to let his daughter [who already knew] and his parents know what was going on.

I had been playing around with virtual strangers for years and was not sure I could give it up while we were apart. Pete had not, but we agreed that now that he knew who he was, he should not close the door for 6 months to a year until we could get together again. We agreed to talk daily by phone and to keep each other informed about anything that was going on with our adventures.

As he headed our to the interstate, he was sobbing and had to pull off the road after he got out of sight, before he could continue to Newark.

I knew we both wanted to find a way to be together, but it would be a problem in the USA because of the fears of the paranoid Right. I didn't know how well Pete would be able to avoid getting involved with any of the many guys who would want to know him, when getting retired and getting divorced and moving to the USA got really sticky.

We had only been together for 15 days, but when he got back to the UK, he immediately told his mother and his daughter. Within a month he had told his wife and started the process of getting a medical retirement from the brigade although his depression was considerably abated. I had seriously underestimated his commitment to us.

His wife tried to blackmail him over telling his father about his gayness. His dad had been a marine commando in WWII and had often said disparaging things about "puffs", but Pete told his father, who changed his stripes and said,

"I fought a war so guys like you could live without fear in this country."

Together, they went for their first pub-crawl.

Quickly, I came to realize he was moving Heaven and Earth.

_______

After Pete had returned to the UK, I called up Geof to tell him I had met a wonderful guy. Geof had assiduously refused to see me during the 7 months since we had stopped dating, but a few weeks later he called to say he would like to see the tall ships in Philadelphia, so could he come down and go with me. I agreed.

When he came up to the computer room, I showed him Pete's picture. He got very quiet. I turned to look at him. He looked stunned.

"Well?" I asked.

"Paul, he's the most beautiful man I ever saw."

TO BE CONTINUED...