Shameless by Paul Burston Page A

for falling in love and setting up home together quicker than you could say “cat flap”? Was that really so bad? At least they weren’t afraid of commitment, which was more than could be said for certain gay men. It was just like that joke that did the rounds a few years ago—“What do lesbians take on a second date? A moving van. What do gay men take on a second date? What second date?” There were far worse things to be compared to than lesbians. All things considered, he would rather be mistaken for a lesbian than for a gay man like John.
    “Anyway, listen,” John said. “The reason I’m calling is about Saturday. Gay Pride. You are still planning on going?”
    An image of his father squeezed between two drag queens flashed before Martin’s eyes. “I suppose so,” he said, halfheartedly. “Well, actually I’m not sure. The thing is, it’s a bit awkward. I don’t know if I mentioned it, but my dad is coming to stay this weekend and, well, he says he wants to come along.”
    “Oh, I see,” John faltered for a moment. “Christ, he isn’t about to announce that he’s queer or something, is he?”
    “Of course not!”
    “Well, I hope you’re right, ’cos that would be too gross. Can you imagine? Your own dad, a queen! And at his age, too! It would be so embarrassing! Not as bad as finding out that he likes to dress up in women’s clothes and call himself Brenda, I suppose, but even so. . . .”
    “Okay, John,” Martin snapped. “Can we change the subject now, please?”
    “What? Oh, right. Well, I suppose we’ll just have to work around him. We could always pair him off with some sad git from one of those gay parents’ groups. He’ll be fine. They can compare notes and we can get on with the serious business of having a good time. Talking of which, Fernando says he can sort us out with whatever we want. I just have to call him tomorrow with a shopping list and he’ll have it all ready on the day. I thought we could get a couple of E’s for the march, maybe some coke to tide us over the afternoon, then a few more E’s for later, and maybe a bit of K for the club later. Oh, and guess what? We were talking about which club to go to, and Fernando said he can put our names on the guest list wherever we fancy. He knows all the club promoters, DJs, everyone. We won’t even have to queue.”
    Martin’s heart sank at the prospect of a whole day playing goose with John and his latest catch. He wasn’t sure which was going to be worse—having his father tag along at Gay Pride or watching John falling in love again for the second time in a week.
    “Yeah, great,” he said. “I’m not sure about taking E, though. Isn’t it a bit dangerous?”
    John laughed. “I can’t believe you’ve never had an E. Where have you been? You’ll be telling me you haven’t tried Viagra next.”
    “I haven’t,” Martin said crossly. “I may not be twenty-one anymore, but I’m hardly at the age where I’m having trouble getting it up.”
    “Try telling me that after your first E,” John sniggered. “Anyway, you shouldn’t believe everything you read in the papers. More people die every year from alcohol than from E. And alcohol makes you fat, as I’m sure you know. All those horror stories you hear about E, that’s just the crap they sell to kids in the clubs. This is the good stuff. I popped one with Fernando the other night and it was fabulous. We were as high as kites and as horny as hell. And that was just at the club. By the time we got back to his place, we were tearing each other’s clothes off. So, I’ll order you two, okay? Trust me, you’ll have the time of your life.”
    Martin doubted this very much, but he couldn’t see any point in putting up a fight. “Okay,” he said. “See you Saturday.”
    The first thing Caroline did when she got home from work on Friday evening was call Graham. His answering machine came on after the second ring. She hesitated before hanging up, and then