I strode down the city's main street, decked in my slick new attire. Black leather jacket, open and flapping in the breeze. Faded blue boot-cut jean ends obscuring all but the caps of my shiny black boots. The footwear took adjusting to, my feet accustomed to sole-friendly trainers. Though the tightness was worth it. The uniform, complete. I was, for the first time in my life, in fashion.

I passed the multi-million dollar, 150 meters tall Spire of Dublin, colloquially known as the stiletto in the ghetto or the pin in the bin, a monument to the country's newfound prosperity. In the past few months, a fresh buzzword had entered the lexicon; Celtic Tiger. The term referred to the economic boom the country was currently experiencing. The effects of which were filtering through to the man on the street.

Three days ago, I landed a new job. I'd called into Keith's over the holidays. He had recently started working an evening shift for a pharmaceutical supplier. He assured me there were plenty of jobs available and promised to put in a word for me. I thought little of it, putting it down to drunk talk. Two days later, he appeared at my doorstep, and I had an interview the following morning. It lasted five minutes. A few years ago, it had taken my dad eighteen months to find work. Spent every day scouring the wanted ads and offers pinned to the dole office noticeboard. I—a schoolboy—had been out of a job for nine weeks. I hadn't been seeking alternative employment; it found me. Times were changing.

Robbie answered the door, wearing a grin so wide you could recline on it. "Almost didn't recognise you."

"Happy new year!"

I handed him his belated Christmas present. A Robert DeNiro biography, and a black-and-white still from Taxi Driver. Travis Bickle, grinning manically with a gun in either hand.

"Bleeding deadly," Robbie said, chuffed. His face changed, "I didn't get you anything."

"No biggie." Smile masking my slight disappointment.

He put the TV on. "Beer? Me ma left two six-packs in the fridge. We have a tacit arrangement. As long as there's one pack still intact when she gets back, she won't skin us alive."

We sat on the settee sipping from cold, perspiring long-neck bottles, smelling of cologne and fresh clothes. Junior men, swapping stories about our good fortune on the job front.

Robbie had won a role in a contemporary soap set in Dublin. "I'm playing a Nigerian."

"Don't tell me they expect you to go all Eddie Murphy in Coming to America with the accent."

He laughed. "Nah, they want my proper Dublin brogue. My character's supposed to reflect the new multi-cultural nature of the city. It's quite tactful, which is surprising. I'm enjoying researching the role—you know there are five hundred different languages spoken in Nigeria."

"I struggle with one."

"They don't speak five-hundred languages. There're two-hundred and fifty ethnic groups in the country... Fascinating place. It's mad, but I've never given much thought to my African connection...Spend every day proving my Irishness, that I've just kinda forgotten the strands woven into my DNA. I've only ever been back to Jamaica. Once. When I was little..." He stared off into the middle distance.

He blinked and shook his head. "I've got the script here if you wanna take a gander." I nodded, and he vanished upstairs.

Robbie, the soap star. I was made up for him.

He slipped something into my hand. Too small to be a script. A ticket. Jan 12 SFX. 8.00 pm. SUEDE. In bold print. "I-what...?"

"The look on your face."

"You don't know how much this means to me." His knowing smile suggested he did.

"Can't believe you thought I'd not gotten you anything."

A guilty half-smile. "No, I—"

"You're too easy." Robbie shook his head. "You gotta stop accepting everything people tell you as gospel. Just because you're open and honest doesn't mean everyone else is. They're not."

"I'm not that open... or honest." All those days and nights, pondering how I would broach the subject. If I ever would? All that planning. All that agonising over the perfect arrangement of words. "I'm attracted to guys."

There. Said. Done.

I expected a reaction. Shock. Confusion. Consternation. Like you might reserve for the big reveal in the movies. The unexpected twist. That's how I'd always pictured this moment.

Just a simple smile. "Cool."

Had I been seeking validation for the past few months of mental torture, I was out of luck.

Robbie sat down on the settee and took a swallow from his bottle. "I figured as much."

"You never." What an ironic turn of events. I was the one in disbelief. "How?" I looked down at my crossed legs and uncrossed them. "I don't come across as effete... do I?"

"The fact you use words like effete is a giveaway."

We traded friendly middle-finger salutes.

"Relax, Aaron, nobody's about to accuse you of being flamboyant—wouldn't matter if you were—that's not your personality type."

"It's the Johnny Depp posters?"

"They were an indicator. But mainly it's the hints you've been dropping."

"Like what?"

"Ah, don't act so coy. You mentioned Burroughs so much I thought you were his publicist."

I hadn't realised. Or had I? I guess this was that subconscious thing Freud wrote about. "Why didn't you say anything?"

"Figured you'd tell me when you'd come to terms with it."

I let that one sink in. I hadn't imagined it possible my estimation of Robbie could have gotten any higher. Until now.

We chatted away. It was exciting and liberating to release all those cloying emotions which had clogged my mind for so long. If this were a musical, I would be serenading the hilltops, or running my fingers through my moussed hair, shaking my hips and singing, You're the one that I want, to Robbie.

Get a grip, giddy boy. My emotions go from hell to heaven quicker than greased lightning.

"So, which position you prefer?"

I knew what he meant, but was embarrassed by the directness of the question. "I don't get you."

Robbie grinned. "Yeah, you do." He got me.

It was strange discussing this with another person. Strange, but exhilarating. All those nights alone in my room, imagining this scenario, inventing eloquent speeches, delivering sexy quips with the rakish charm of Roger Moore in a Bond movie. "Well, I..."—Cleared the throat, the classic stall. Wherefore art thou, Roger? —"I read somewhere the male g-spot is in... y'know..."

"Kinda debunks the myth about God hating gay men. Assuming he created man, what would possess him to place the pleasure point there if he was anti-homosexuality?"

He chuckled. Then looked me in the eye. Calm and easy. "I'd be more comfortable being the pitcher, not the catcher."

A memory flashed in my mind of a recent self-love session, where Robbie occupied that role in my accompanied fantasy. The frigid iron cross hanging over the headboard. My trembling body, covered in sticky shame.

I shifted in the seat. Scratched at my temple.

"So, who do ya fancy, then?"

Now would have been the optimum moment to extend the honesty kick I was on. But something inside was blocking me. The adrenaline jolt of nervous excitement I'd been subsisting on since I first came clean about my sexuality had worn off.

I brushed my fringe to the side with the tips of my fingers. "I dunno..." His penetrating gaze reminded me of a game-show host awaiting the answer to the million-dollar question. Did I play it safe, or risk it all? "I..." Real men, even sympathetic ones, don't appreciate being the object of another guy's desire. Sure, they joked about pitchers and catchers. In the abstract. "Noel's kinda cute."

He looked away. "Lucky Noely." Repositioned himself on the settee, so he faced the TV set.

The silence became unbearably stretched.

I needed to fill the emptiness, needed to regain his respect. "I still like girls."

"How do you know?" His eyes fixed on the screen.

"Same way I know I fancy guys," I said, unable to keep the anger and resentment out of my tone. "Because my dick gets hard, whether I want it to or not."

The silence, now, taut as the string on a bow.

He must have sensed my gaze boring into him because he glanced around. "It's no big thing."

"It is for me."

He scratched at the red label affixed to his bottle. "Statistically one in ten people are gay."

"Well, I've yet to meet them... except for Andy... but—"

"Who's Andy?" His eyes met mine, suddenly interested.

"A bloke from my old school. I thought... turns out he had a girlfriend."

"Oscar Wilde had a wife."

We smiled at each other.

Robbie looked down at the bottle in his hand, foam sliding down the neck. "I mean, I suppose we're all a bit bi. The pendulum swings back and forth. It's all a matter of whether we act on it. Or not." Leaving me to decipher his ambiguous declaration, he took a long swig of beer.

There followed another lull in the conversation. Not exactly comfortable, but minus the edge. Allowing me ample time to finesse the question I was desperate to know the answer to. "Have you, y'know...?"

"What?" Resolute in his determination not to make this easy.

"Have you ever been attracted to guys?"

He shrugged. "Guys, plural—no."

"But you have thought about it?"

"Define it."

I couldn't figure his moodiness, disliking the awkward atmosphere. I wished this entire conversation had never taken place. Except it had. No way to erase it from our minds.

Robbie finished his bottle, rose from the seat and brushed bits of Budweiser label from his thigh and shuffled out of the room.

The fridge door slammed shut.

I rapped the bridge of my nose with a knuckle. The sound of bone hitting bone echoed through my skull.

He returned from the kitchen, handed me a beer, and sat down. I placed the bottle by my feet.

He lit a long, slim cigarette.

"You smoking now?"

"It's a menthol. My character smokes, so I thought I'd prepare. I don't want to get a coughing fit on set." He leaned forward, elbows resting on his thighs, hands clasped together, cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth.

"Very Jimmy Dean," I commented.

His head pivoted around. "It may have escaped your attention, but Dean was white."

"Save me a drag."

"You don't smoke," Robbie said, adding a little churlishly, "and you don't want my saliva in your gob."

"We've shared a joint, so I already have. Way I remember, that roach was wetter than a duck's arse." That elicited a reluctant smile.

Outside, a banger exploded, a resounding reminder it was New Year's Eve.

"Wanna watch something?" Robbie said, passing the cigarette.

We watched Sergio Leone's four-hour masterpiece Once Upon A Time In America. Robbie's choice. A haunting epic of life, dreams, memories, and friendship. Every once in a while, during the poignant scenes with childhood friends Max and Noodles, we exchanged glances and an occasional smile. Wordless apologies. Silent reaffirmations of affection.

As the credits rolled, we were back on familiar territory, unreservedly praising what we'd seen and running through our personal highlights, the way movie-lovers do. Then, seamlessly, the talk segued to recollections of the past year. Our first meeting in the schoolyard—we could repeat that initial conversation about Goodfellas verbatim. My panic-attack. The dead body. Blessington. The memories came alive in our heads as we chattered at the velocity of amphetamine users and with the enthusiasm of excited children. Nostalgia yielded to elevated talk of what lay in store. The suede concert. Robbie's new role.

We were already making plans for the summer when the reports and shouting began.

We rushed outside to witness the festivities.

The black sky was alight with streaking, vivid variety of pyrotechnic colour. Dense bursts, exploding into glittering darts of silvery light. Multi-coloured palm-tree eruptions, dazzling spiders; a spectacle for the senses.

We looked at each other, arms automatically spreading. Shouted, "Happy new year!" at each other above the din, and hugged it out with the same intensity as the illuminations above our heads.

The first minute of an embryonic year. A fresh slate. It was impossible to predict where life would take us, but we knew we had each other. And that was something truly worth celebrating.

We moseyed back inside. The door closed behind us. We stood facing each other, neither attempting to move. It should have been awkward. But, it wasn't.

Robbie inched closer. Our noses almost touching. His eyes stared into mine, unblinking. Inviting.

He inclined his head to the left, sensuous lips parting.

Our heads leaned gently into each other. My eyelids shut.

His soft lips landed on mine. A dizzy explosion of sweet bliss swept my mind free of thoughts.

His arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer as our hot breath mingled. Our bodies pressed tight together, merging as one.

I reached around his neck, cradling his head.

When we eventually disengaged to draw air, we gazed at each other. Eyes wide and bright, like explores who'd discovered a new world.

Senses tingling, roared on by a rampaging desire, I moved forward. Greedy, not wanting this moment to end.

The second kiss was hungrier, all those pent-up emotions finally achieving glorious release.

Electric.

The space we inhabited dissolved in the moment's magic.

The telephone rang sharply, snapping the spell. We hastily disengaged from each other. Robbie hesitated, composing himself, before answering. His mother, calling to wish us a happy new year, and promising to be home soon. The illusion shattered cold. Reality returned like a knee-trembling kick to the balls.

We sat on the settee, silent, faces flushed, not looking at each other. So much I wanted to say. As usual, my tongue failed me, and the words remained trapped inside my head.

He turned to me half frowning, half smiling and said, "You're awfully quiet."

In books and movies, this is when the characters address their deep emotions and declare their love for one another. What would Johnny Depp say? Nothing—Johnny didn't kiss guys. I mumbled, "That was nice."

"Yeah." Subdued, face as impenetrable as a brick wall.

Later that night, I lay motionless on the mattress—that Amani had covered with a sheet, pillow, and duvet—on the hardwood floor by Robbie's single bed. Listening to the soft sounds of his breathing, I replayed our kiss over and over in my head. Each time elicited a wildly oscillating response, from joyous exhilaration to shameful self-loathing, a conditioned reflex.

I am Pavlov's cowereing cur.

I lay there in the darkened room, perfectly still, suspended in a state of terrible confusion.

The small noise of the bed creaking as he shifted position—obviously awake and unable to sleep—amplified by the surrounding silence.

That line from Sweet Child of Mine echoed through my mind as I dragged the duvet over my face. Where do we go?

Where do we go now?