My Prince by Anna Martin Page B

even had sex for the first time at that point. I was desperate to, and then the rumors started that you could catch this gay cancer just by being gay. Can you imagine that? Just being gay could kill you. I stayed for another couple of months, and then people started dying, and I decided fuck this and moved back home.”
    “You left?”
    “Oh God, yes,” Doug said, leaning back in his chair. “I hadn’t come out to my parents. I just told them I wanted to move to London for a better life, rather than wanting to move to London because I wanted to suck dick, which was the truth of the matter. Then when I came home, I made this massive fuss about hating London and wanting to come home to Scotland. That’s when I started training with my father to be a tailor.”
    “You were eighteen?”
    “Nineteen, by that point,” Doug said, nodding. “It took me another five years to come out.”
    “Shit,” George said. “Same as me.”
    “Close enough.”
    “Does Alex know this?”
    “Some of it. He puts me on a pedestal, Alex does. We adore each other, the feeling is truly mutual. I’m not sure how he’d react to knowing how scared I was back in those days. It was very socially acceptable to hate gay people. There were those who said the government shouldn’t be trying to cure the disease at all. Let the gays die out, they said. Let the gays all kill each other off. The world would be a better place if they did. The ironic thing, of course, was that Edinburgh had higher rates of HIV infection than London at the time.”
    “Really?”
    “Oh, yes. It was a pretty even split between the intravenous drug users and the homosexuals. It wasn’t until the late eighties, early nineties that attitudes started to shift.”
    “I wasn’t born ’til eighty-seven.”
    “Fuck off,” Doug said jovially.
    “By the time we were getting sex education, no one really took AIDS seriously. People were being cured of it, you know?”
    “I have never had sex in my life without using a condom,” Doug said gravely.
    “Are you serious?”
    “Absolutely. And I’ve had a lot of sex,” he added with a wicked grin. “Those few months in London left deep scars, George. I think I’ve forgotten what point I was trying to make.”
    George snorted. “There was a point to all this?”
    “Oh yes. Coming out.”
    “I already did that.”
    “There’s being out, darling, and living your life truthfully. I’m not saying you need to turn into me, heaven forbid. But hiding who you are, those half-truths and evasive stories will come back to haunt you sooner or later. You’ll lose friends.”
    “Great,” George muttered. “It’s not like I have loads of those to start with.”
    “People will look at you differently. It’s what happens. But my God, it feels good.”
    “Did Alex really tell you to come meet me and force me out of the closet?”
    The tingles of irritation George had been ignoring started to fizz around his spine again.
    “Force you?” Doug said. “Heavens, no. Never.” He knocked back the last of his gin and gave George a pointed look. “Are you ready for the next part?”
    “What’s the next part?”
    Doug’s smile grew sly. “The fun part.”

Chapter Six
     
     
    “A RE YOU fuckin’ kidding me?”
    They’d left the bar and headed down the hill, underneath one of Edinburgh’s magnificent bridges to a fairly dodgy-looking door with a glowing sign. Now George stood outside one of Edinburgh’s famous saunas, arms folded across his chest.
    “Come on, it’s a rite of passage,” Doug said. “It’s not like you have to do anything. Just go in. Experience the experience.”
    “No one’s going to try and suck my dick, are they?” George asked, too loudly, apparently, because he earned himself matching glares from two little old ladies walking past.
    “Almost certainly,” Doug said. He seemed to be enjoying himself, the bastard. “Just tell them no if you’re not interested.”
    “Alex is going to lose his