If breaking through my brain’s protection of Alex’s memories and revisiting them a full decade later still hurt, it is safe to say it was an open wound for a long time.

After spending ‘09 basically just fooling around, feasting on the flesh while keeping my heart locked away, the first months of 2010 started proving themselves what a luscious snack the previous year had been, but I was far from satisfied. I was deeply scared of meeting people in person, so I simply refused going places. Those who came through the internet have never been so harmful and, scared and scarred as I was, I felt safer talking to people online, my heart and mind open to them, but my body still safe somewhere they couldn’t find. Should anything go sour, a simple block would always work.

I enjoyed it a lot, meeting guys online and talking to them for a few minutes every night. Most of them were just trying to fix themselves a fast fuck, but I was interested in more. Obviously, there are always those who just pretend to want something more from you but really just want to get in your pants; I’m thankful for always having been able to recognise those rather fast.

One night in June I met Cooper online. If anything, he looked as if he wasn’t actually looking for anything at all. Those were my favourite kind of men to talk to, they never initiated a conversation by asking if you’re top or bottom or inquiring about your dick’s size. Cooper had a nice talk and good grammar. Although the years have been effective at reducing my levels of linguistic prejudice, I have always been a sucker for well-used language.

As it always happens when you meet people through these online services, you’re soon bound to never speak to the person again or move the talk to a different platform until you eventually drift away or meet up at last. We were having a very nice talk, but it was still too soon for Facebook profile exchanges and he didn’t use any kind of messenger other than Skype. Who uses Skype? True, it was 2010, a lot more people used Skype, but my twenty-two-year-old ass didn’t. I really wanted to keep talking to him, though.

At that time my biggest fear was the chat window accidentally closing and Cooper disappearing from the face of Earth. I asked him just a bit of patience that I was downloading and installing Skype and I’d soon call him over there. When I called him on that sober-looking messenger he was impressed at my effort, saying people don’t usually go through all that trouble just to keep talking to someone they just met.

‘But that’s the point of the effort, isn’t it?’ I asked. ‘This way we hopefully can pass the stage of “just met”.’ He seemed interested by my words and we were both happy at each other’s pictures. The conversation quickly found its way to our intentions.

‘I’ve never dated anyone’ he admitted ‘I’m thirty and have never had I boyfriend.’

‘Please don’t tell me you’re a virgin too’

‘Nah. It’s not that bad. It’s just that I didn’t want to focus on that.’

‘And why the change?’

‘It’s not really a change. I just fulfilled the things I set myself to accomplish and now that’s what I want for my life.’

‘That’s nice. Tell me more about the things you’ve accomplished.’

‘Well, like I said, I’m thirty. I am a federal university professor with a Doctor’s degree in compared literature who is planning to start a post-doctoral course next semester. I also published a book on North-American literature two years ago. Now my academic and professional life are solved, I decided to get a love life as well.’

‘Wow, the things you can actually accomplish by not having a man distracting you’ I laughed, but there was some honest reflection to my words. I was twenty-two and my single attempt at attending college had been disrupted by my own gigantic mistakes. I had been teaching for about two and a half years, but I had never intended to really do that for a living. I never saw myself as teacher-material. Still don’t, no matter how much my students disagree.

‘But still’, he continued, ‘I don’t want to waste my time. I want to find a man and build a future and a family of us two with this man.’

Had I just won the lottery?

‘I have to be honest, then. I lied. My name’s not Ralph, it’s “this man”.’

‘Okay, that was really cute, I’ll give you that. I actually laughed, not like when people type rofl while wearing funeral faces.’

‘So I made you laugh! I knew it would be a great night!’

Cooper was from the same city as I was, but had spent the previous two years living in a far-off state working his federal job. That was no threat to our relationship or any plans for the future we would be making, for when we first talked on that online chat room, his move back to town was already in progress and he’d arrive here mid-July. That’d be our first real date.

We spent that month talking through Skype every single day. Text messages soon evolved to video messages and we spent time too plenty just looking at each other’s faces on our screens. All of our conversation was set an unspoken number of years into the future. All we ever talked about was about how our life would be when we finally lived together.

‘It’s settled, then. Our fridge will have only Coke bottles and the pantry only Nutella jars.’

‘Today I was coming home and saw a guy pulling a stroller. That could be us, but in it we would put the movies we bought that day.’

‘I know none of us drives, but we could totally have a coupe car, this way we’ll always be sorry-but-sadly unable to give people rides.’

‘If we happen to not like the doorman, we’ll have lots of sex on the lifts.’

About a week before he was supposed to fly back to town, we started making arrangements for our first real date. Before meeting me, he had already made plans for his arrival day, so we would have to wait a little. I didn’t have a problem, with it, no matter how anxious I was, but I had had an idea. The fact he constantly said he wanted to hug me made the waiting impressively hard.

‘I think I found a solution for us to meet briefly on your arrival. It’s not exactly a date, but let’s call it a hugging window.’

‘Oooh, I really want to hug you. What do you suggest?’

‘I could pick you up from the airport. You said no one will, so I can meet you there, help you load your bags on to the cab and hug you before heading home.’

‘You’d go through all of this trouble just so we can hug?’

‘Well, you’re the one saying how much you want it. I thought it could be a nice welcome back present, but I get it if you—’

‘No! I want it! I just didn’t want to be a nuisance to you, that’s all.’

‘How can hugging the man I’m planning to spend my life with ever be a nuisance, Cooper?’

His smile was really wide and I blushed.

‘But that’s not a date. It’s just some help with luggage and a hug.’

The day had finally arrived and I surprised him with a little plaque with his name on it, which I was holding like many a chauffeur would. The sparkle on his eyes for seeing me were soon replaced by a heartfelt laughter when his eyes fell on the plaque. Another thing I’m a sucker for: my man’s laughter.

As he was getting closer to me, he stepped from behind his luggage trolley and opened his arms wide. After a month I was finally able to hug him tight and feel his embrace. It was really soothing.

‘It’s so good to see you in person at long last.’

‘Likewise, Doctor Shaw’ I replied with a grin.

‘Will you be calling me Doctor Shaw now?’

‘Only while still inside the airport. After that, you’ll have to ask really nicely to be called “Doctor Shaw” again, Doctor Shaw.’

‘You look so nice, Ralph.’

‘You too, Cooper. You too.’

‘So, you know the arrangements we were making for out date tomorrow?’

‘Uh-hum. What about them?’

‘Wanna have it today?’

‘I’d love to! But how can we do it with all of that?’ I raised my finger towards his loaded luggage trolley.

‘Oh. I got that fixed already.’

Apparently, he had hired a kind of carrier service who took his luggage to his house. I didn’t even know those were a thing. We entered the cab together and headed to the movies. Toy Story 3 had premiered about a month before and we were dying to finally watch it. After the movie, we grabbed a bite of something and went to a fancy hotel he had booked for us to spend the night. I knew we were going to do that, I just didn’t know it would be at such a nice place. It wasn’t even a room, it was a three-story unit with individual garage.

I was so happy for finally being with him and for seeing that we were as comfortable in each other’s presence just as much as we were online that I didn’t even care for the just okay sex time we had. It would still be almost four months before he finally bottomed, but that day I was willing just to make him happy.

I don’t know anymore exactly when, but all those plans and dreams for the future shattered way before the relationship did.

A few months into it I could tell Cooper was hiding something from me. He had started acting very secretively and his answers to any of my questions were becoming shorter by the hour. I eventually got him to tell me. We were exiting the food court of the mall across from his place and heading to the lift that would take us to the cinema lounge.

‘Fine’ he sighed. ‘I have bought myself a flat. It’s still on the blueprint, they will give the keys in two years, but I have already bought it.’

I’m always attentive to a person’s choice of words. He had made sure to say ‘myself’. He could have just said ‘I have bought a flat’. True, the ideal thing when you are in a relationship which from day one you intend to last years to come and come across the chance of buying a place is ‘we should start paying for our flat’, but no. He had said ‘I have bought myself a flat’ and he said it after not wanting to. It was more than obvious I wasn’t a part of those plans.

Now what? Sure, there were several things I liked about Cooper, but the foundation stone of our relationship was the future we wanted to have with one another. Now I felt kicked out of a flat that didn’t even still exist. Worst, I felt kicked out of his life.

Of course, I played the good boyfriend and congratulated him on his achievement, but I couldn’t even pay attention anymore to the movie we were about to see. Thank God it was a dark room and he couldn’t see the look on my face.

In the end, Cooper worked so hard to keep me off his life that I was still constantly shocked to see how far Oliver would always go to make sure I knew how inserted in his I was and how he had no plans of ever letting me go.

He was out to his immediate family, but not to the extended one. I don’t even think I am myself, but who fucking cares? Before moving in together, somewhere around the fiftieth date, we went to his father’s place for a party. I was bat shit nervous. I’ve met two mothers-in-law and half of them hated my guts for no apparent reason. It was my first time meeting a father. Also, I was the first boyfriend he ever introduced to his dad. His ex had lived with him and still. All that made me even more nervous.

Oliver kept me at a safe distance and went to talk to his father. They both came together shortly after towards me, Oliver a few steps back. His dad looked intimidating, like all fathers.

‘So, you are my son’s boyfriend?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘And your name is?’

‘Ralph, sir. Just like your son.’

I think it’s a good time to actually tell you that Oliver is a short version of his middle name. We’re actually both called Ralph, I just call him Oliver for the sake of a clearer story-telling.

‘And how am I to call one but not the other?’

‘You can call me by my last name, sir. I’m used to it. Everyone in school always did, exactly because Ralph is such a common name, so I’m used to answering to my last name as well.’

Another cultural tidbit: in our country it’s extremely unusual for people to ever use somebody else’s last names. Those are reserved for, I don’t know, the CEO of the company you work for? We don’t even call our bosses by their last names, so it was a considerable stretch asking your father-in-law address you that way.

‘Or’ I continued, ‘you can call him “son” and me by my name, whatever works for you, sir.’

‘I know my son has had some boyfriends, one who even lived with him, but he has never bothered to introduce any of them to me, no matter how important he says I am to him’ he turned, glaring at Oliver for a second, who was suddenly deeply interested by his trainers. ‘If he has brought you here you must be really special to him. So don’t you think for one second that I will call only him “son”.’ It took me a second to understand what he meant and I think we both cracked a smile at the same time. He reached out his hand to me and I shook it firmly. ‘Now’, he continued, ‘I hope your manners are better than his and I hope you mingle. It’s a party, after all. I take it you’re staying the night.’

‘I— I don’t really know, sir.’

‘Don’t ever call me “sir” again. And it’s already too late for you to go anywhere. Have fun. Enjoy the party. Worry about going home tomorrow. Just, since it’s this son-of-mine’s decision to make, check with him how you’re supposed to introduce yourself to the rest of the family. To my wife and stepson, though, you’ll be introduced as who you truly are, my son-in-law.’

I didn’t think my face was capable of storing so much blood, but I could it feel it burning like fire. I was probably ridiculously red. But that didn’t last long, though. I was extremely welcome to his house and his wife is still one the best people I have met in my whole life. She spoiled me like a son and was so warm all the time that I couldn’t stop smiling whenever she was close to me.

Several hours later we were given an improvised futon on the kitchen; we were the only ones who hadn’t given a heads-up about spending the night, so that was the space we had left. There is a first time for everything in life, just like sleeping in a kitchen. At your boyfriend’s father’s house. With a lot of his relatives there.

We quietly exchanged a few quiet good-night kisses and shortly fell asleep. When we woke up, after everybody else, I realised we were spooning, me behind him. I felt the happiest man alive for half a second, before remembering where we actually were.

And that was that. After that morning, all of Oliver’s family knew he had a boyfriend. The way his father kept making me feel welcome was a clear message to everybody and they all understood it well.