As two 18 year olds Greg and I had begun our road to discovery!
When we got to Greg's flat (see previous - chapter 2), loaded up with a rucksack of French textbooks, guides and novels, Greg showed me to a fire escape. The building was an old Victorian warehouse and Greg had the whole of the top floor of three. I was to lead the way up (I don't think Greg wanted me to have the thought of being led as a lamb to the slaughter). The white paint was crumbling off and the whole scene was not what my furtive imagination had promised. As we got to the front door Greg leaned forward to unlock it and pressed a button on his key fob whereupon the lights lit inside the flat. It is clichéd to say that my jaw dropped but there it was - I was dumbstruck. I think Greg must have tapped my rucksack or something because I dropped it and my parka and walked in wearing white Calvin Klein T shirt and black jogging pants to a sight that now mirrored my attire.
The flat (which is now legally mine for tax reasons but we share our lives in it) was pure but not brilliant white with black furnishings. The impression was stunning. There was just one room (it later transpired that at one end there is a 'pseudo wall' which hides the entrances to a toilet/shower/bathroom and a utility room). The room was divided into three areas; the living, four settees laid out in a square with a table at each corner and a coffee table centrally; the bed, central to the space and below a glazed atrium fitted with black electric blinds (the bed is rectangular but set in a circular dais which can electrically rotate albeit very slowly); and the kitchen area with granite tops and white gloss finished units (black accessories and steel utensils).
Around the room was low level furniture displaying an eclectic mix of the erotic and exotic. Wardrobes formed the 'pseudo-wall', which is why it works so brilliantly in hiding the rooms behind it. Suddenly, after my brain has relaxed sufficiently to take it all in I can hear Greg saying 'coffee?'
'Whatever' I reply and it is only then that I realise the whole flat works because of the artwork; the half life-size plates of Tom of Finland's work and others that Greg has been telling me about. I walk around drooling over them; my mouth must still be embarrassingly wide open. I am sure my hand was half way between my dick and the art works; I just wanted to feel them, stroke them, and adore them. The whole flat seemed to be a shrine to these icons and I wanted to be a part of this worship. Taking my time and letting each fill me with desire I eventually came to the opposite end of the flat to the 'pseudo-wall'. There were just three pieces, all three black and white and in a kind of soft airbrush effect; the first was a picture of Greg's Dad on a similar bike to the one in the photo.
