It’s nothing special. The details still unclear. But if the rudiments are sorted accordingly, what’s the difference? If the flat’s on the South Bank or in Shoreditch? Two kids or three? Their names? The ages that we die, as long as we’re still together.

It starts as these things do. In an airport or in a bar. Round the back of a theatre or in a friend’s flat over dinner and games. Our chemistry sparks initially, then giving way to the culture of ironic distance, we both try and relegate the feeling to the back of our mind. Maybe we just don’t want another rejection. It’s been going so well. I found a fiver in my jacket; they cured cancer. You made it to the party just before the rain. Or maybe we don’t even notice that we’ve sparked to each other, til it’s time to leave and each of us linger awkwardly by the door, the host or barman leering. We hug for a little too long, a little too close, enjoying the warmth of each other a little too much for a first meeting. When, finally outside, with numbers exchanged and at last alone, the only thing between us, our breath, our clothes, and the meter we could so easily close if we had the courage. Then what a surprise--we’re both headed to the same station, parked in the same direction. We walk together, closer. Still laughing at each other’s jokes and offered intimacies. Warm in the glow of our wit, finding a language mixed of our pasts, our humors, our longings, our advances. Finally, we reach the edge, the gorge in reason, the breaking point. We can go no further, kiss or kill. Home or more. Together or apart. So great to meet you for the seventh time. Seven it turns out is god’s number.

One of us is bold. Probably it’s you. Depends if I was in a sober patch. Or maybe it was the other way. Drunk and greedy lust becomes me and I need you. Need to inhabit you, need more. A hand on a face. Hair stroked down the side. Fingers wrapped around and finally, there’s no option. We know where we are. We know what we must do with our tongues. They meet as we met, tentative then boastful, then laughing when our teeth clang together with our overzealous intentions. We pull apart and smile, staring very seriously into each other.

Years later we’ll contend that in this moment we knew some truth about ourselves. Something was revealed when first our chemicals mixed in a newly formed mutual mouth. The aggressor pridefully prodding if it wasn’t for his efforts all would not be. Not the house, kids, our friends, our family brand. Maybe it’s true. Or maybe we were leaning into each other against the door of an empty car on the Northern line, just trying to kiss well, being out of practice. Aping experience. The technical prowess of a whore, but the innocence of a virgin. Saintly is this tongue that wants to take you home and torture your body with its pleasures. Maybe it’s against the side of someone else’s car? A cobbled east-London street, fog enveloping everything but your face and my face.

I relish the moment coming. I feel it viscerally from my boots to forehead, before it comes. A line so lurid if it wasn’t delivered with such sincerity, sincerity of the divine, sincerity of a mother professing her love, it would be impossible not to erupt with laughter. But it comes, strong and genuine, and the delivery was perfect. Maybe you beat me to the punch. I was waiting for my perfect line, clutching the back of your head, staring, when you rock me with--revolutionize me with a single line. We feel like a cat that got the cream. We are so beautiful. We have never felt this way before. We want us. Kiss me.

Somethings said can’t be undone. So it is with this. Back to your apartment, or my house. Both neatly staged earlier on the off hope of meeting your future tonight. The hope that is always there. Accessible condoms hidden in everything. Incense burnt as if it was just a routine. Tuesday’s, sure I burn incense. Sage and smoke out the ghosts of a sadder past; smoked out responsibilities, bills, receipts, junk mail, books on feeble minded subjects. We crash through the door, lust exploding out of our bodies, breaking the restraint we showed on the long journey. I push you into a wall, probably against the entry hall. You groan like the wind has been knocked out of you and you enjoyed every last whisper of air leaving you. Perhaps in expectation of being filled up with joy, with tactile pressure, being bruised by hope and me. This is my specialty. The bait and switch of easy going goof to muscled sadist, hunter about to kill, savage about to dine. Clothes start hitting the floor and no one is disappointed so far. Unlike all the times before. There’s an elegance, a vocabulary of stumbling through the dark toward a bed or a couch or kitchen table. Any surface where we can indulge. Maybe a marble confectioner’s table, where we will mold each other into some sugary ecstasy. Whisperings. Nuanced moans. Delicate instructions: higher, lower, don’t stop – don’t stop ever. Let me trade my life, education, talent, looks, earnings and owning to stay entangled like this forever. No future ambition need be satisfied but to stay here with you.

Your round face and lithe frame – we’re an odd match, not alike except in our shared hope that this is the this we have been waiting for. Like a girl of four or five dressing up for her wedding to a stuffed bear. We explore each other’s limits with relish and the kind of knowledge and intimacy that must point to something larger than either of us individually, we think. Maybe we’re just good at sex? Lucky to have found another as proficient and it’s all a fluke. But doubt is for tomorrow; tonight is for smashing our atoms together, trying to fuse.

When it’s done there is crying quietly in the dark. By one of us. I’m inclined to think it’s you, knowing I’m more likely to wear a self–satisfied grin and console you with more incredible language of security and connection when you roll your wet face into the cleft of my arm. I lay my face on yours and say your name like it’s the last word I’ll ever speak. The last name. And what do I love more than language? Maybe you. Already? It’s possible, I know who I am. Maybe I’m the one who cried and rolled belly to back cocooned in your longer body. You’ve got me in this space that we’ll share the rest of our lives. Free from the sins and poison of the outside world. Free the defeats and cancers. This is a game we always win, as long as we’re paired.

More silence, more staring. It’s happened, without being voiced or discussed. We look at each other and the gaps in our knowledge of the other melt into your eyes, your mouth. The line of your neck. And we may stay here til morning. Or maybe we sleep our first night together soundly baking each other with the heat of the clutch.

Morning. And still naked, breakfast is made. We have no shame in the light. We will have to get used to each other. And to routing out the insecurities we falsely cling to. As if shame were an heirloom too prized to be pawned. Hardly. We talk of nothing important and touch the rough rubbed areas of stubble around our mouths and trouble them with more abuse. Or we talk of everything, moving in, meeting parents, naming children, it turns out we both like the name Will. In tribute to various great men, my father, your grandfather. Or maybe we talk of our heritage. Ravenous for the details of the past, the chemical compounds that lead to this beauty before me. More smiling, more hands together. More of everything.

You are my future. I’m convinced. An atheist given the gift of faith by the knowing of an ordinary man from suburban east London or Washington state, Edinburgh? And the same to you from me the humble mutt from Michigan. The loud one, cocksure, but sinking in fear. Sinking in waiting for you.

We learn our truest selves from each other, our shades, our violence. We forgive our insecurities and reward our loyalty. We have two boys, Will and Chiron or Benjamin. One from each of us. Or maybe we’re unclear of the paternity. We fool ourselves: Will is shorter and blond, he’s mine; Ben is Dark with ears that stick out and a button nose. They both have our eyes.

They meet our parents and help them age and drift off to death quietly, peacefully having staved off disease for longer than could have been predicted. And they love you, they love your kindness. Or maybe they think you spoil the boys. That my temper is too inconsistent for children. They come to all our work and exude pride in their sons when we triumph together.

The ambition of youth fades. Time props us up. Occasionally, when sufficiently riled, when the kids are at a sleepover, it’s still like it was. Or maybe you lost a leg to diabetes. I love you still.

We never cheat, we never leave, we never are ashamed of our lives our families. We always hope to die before you as to not have to grieve. And I die first. Or you do? Give me the next sixty years and we’ll see.