enough to be able to genuinely smile at the memories of the awkward discovery of what it could mean

to be no longer an innocent child with an equally almost too young boy and the long self-forgiven

shame of not being able to control himself with a girl far too beautiful for his inexperienced fumbling.

There were the more mature encounters. Mostly pleasurable, almost none of them memorable.

Daniël’s touch had burnt traces in his heart and memories in his brain. The boy’s unassuming

inquisitiveness, his generosity as well as the vocal expressions of his love for Steve and his body, had

changed a man who thought himself set in his habits. Danny had made him aware he had found

something he didn’t even know was missing.

Whatever it is lying there is not his body. There’s nothing familiar about it. It is broken,

damaged beyond recognition. A condemned house; uninhabitable. No longer safe. And yet his beloved

sits beside a bed in a room that looks somewhat familiar, although he has no recollection of how or

why he, or rather the body he ought to call his own, came to be lying on that bed, connected to so

many tubes and wires. Daniël sits there and, with heart-breaking tenderness, touches a small patch of

skin on the inside of the right forearm. As far as Steve can see it’s the only part of the body that isn’t

hideously bruised.

His beloved moves his body slightly forward and bows his head deeply, and then he places his

lips against that patch of intact skin, kisses it. His beloved talks to him, but he can’t understand the

words. He can’t even hear the sound of his voice.

Steve yearns to feel those lips, those fingers. He belongs in those arms. The mysteries of the

universe, of life itself, have been unravelled before his eyes, but what’s the point if he can’t hear the

voice of the one he loves? But it can only be if he accepts his body as it is.

So he makes the journey home.

Too much. Too much. Pain and pain and pain. Screaming in his ears. Clawing white heat of

light behind his eyes. Shredding his skin to pieces. Mauling the flesh off his bones. Gnawing at his

bones to get to the nutritious marrow. Devouring him and spitting him out to start once more.

Daniël’s voice, as clear and real as the pain, cuts through it all. “Steve.”

He flees, shocked to the core of his being. His instinct tells him to get away as far as possible.

He then stops abruptly. He has to think, has to be rational about it. He knows he has to go back to his

physical existence and he believes he’s ready for it. But his body definitely isn’t ready for him.

Perhaps an ever greater shock than the avalanche of pain has been Daniël’s voice. Not a

memory, a vision or a beautiful dream, but the real voice of the real man, saying one word: Steve’s

name. His lover sits with him and watches over him. This is the absolute truth.

He accepts the journey back will take longer than he reckoned with, but he knows now for

certain there is a home waiting for him.

Chapter 5

All is quiet. His senses are at rest. He’s aware of Daniël being with him, he doesn’t need proof

to know. Death also is still there. Not doing much. It’s like a presence, observing Steve from a

distance, almost as if it’s curious to see what happens next. Steve has no illusions: Death will do its

job if it gets the chance. He doesn’t take it personally.

The monster called Pain, that’s a different story. Steve fears it deeply, although he knows the

only way to get back to Daniël is to face the terror and either defeat it or make peace with it. Or most

likely, defeat it by making peace with it. He doesn’t want that. He’s like a little boy in this, wishing he

could make it go away by closing his eyes very tightly and counting to ten. He wishes Daniël would

chase it away, like he fended off Death for Steve, though he realises even love big enough to stop

Death in its tracks won’t make the monster disappear. He knows, however, exactly what his beloved

would say to Pain.

“If you have to hurt someone, because that’s your purpose in this world, do it to me. I don’t

fear you. My body is strong. My love is stronger than my body. I can take it.” And he would take

Steve in his arms, with a tenderness that would move the monster to tears, but it still wouldn’t stop the

pain. He might be able, to a certain point, to trade his life for Steve’s, but pain, by its very nature, has

to be carried alone.

Daniël will be with him, every step of the way, but he has to be the one smiling his acceptance

at pain, without ever forgetting this isn’t how it’s supposed to be. It had to be a wise man who said

that you have to make peace with the enemy, not with your closest friend.

For now he hardly dares looking in its direction. Daniël is touching him, is touching the one

small part that doesn’t hurt, but he can’t feel it without feeling the pain of the rest of his body. So he

keeps himself from feeling anything. That hurts too, but it can’t be avoided for the moment.

It’s hardly a conscious decision when the part of his brain responsible for smell kicks into

action. The first impression is disappointing. It’s not really bad or even frightening in its

overwhelming complexity, it’s just something he knows he smelled before and he didn’t like it then

either. And it certainly isn’t Daniël. But he has patience, accepts the facts for what they are.

Disinfectants. Soap, but not one of the nicer ones. Blood. Some traces of human waste. A handful of

people coming and going; the females somewhat sweeter than the males, but all with the same

undertone, like they have something very essential in common.

It’s there. It’s really there. Daniël’s scent. He smells of not enough fresh air, of coffee and

takeaway meals, of needing to change his clothes. He smells of Daniël. He smells of home. The scent

fills Steve with sweet memories. It gives him the courage to look at the monster called Pain, even if

it’s only for a few seconds out of the corner of his eyes. It’s enough to make him tremble with fear. So

he forces himself to look exactly one second longer than he dares. But then he’s forced to look away.

He rewards himself by concentrating fully on Daniël’s scent. With a bit of trial and error, he

even succeeds in blocking out all other impressions for a few precious seconds. It’s almost as if he’s

close enough to his beloved to be actually capable of touching him. In a way, he is. In fact, he is not.

He ignores Death and the monster, he even ignores his own craving to feel Daniël’s touch on

that small part of his arm, to hear his voice, and he concentrates on the memories brought on by the

scent of his lover. Them doing their laps at the start of training and them being on the pitch during that

away match against Liverpool, he on the right, Danny at the centre, both of them concentrating on

their job as defenders, waiting for the signal...

No, too early for that. Much too early. He sees the monster stir, getting ready to pounce. Even

Death looks more interested.

This is better. Last summer, June to be more precise, and it had been raining for days. The boy

was going mad, desperate for air and exercise. Steve, going mad from Dan’s restlessness, had pushed

him out of his apartment for a long walk, with the instruction to stay away until he had run off all

excess energy. Obviously having sex a dozen times during the last 24 hours hadn’t done the job.

Daniël returned wet to the skin and with a glow to his face that would have made Steve fall for

him then and there, hadn’t he been up to his ears in love with the man already.