The temperature outside was reaching daytime highs of about 60 degrees centigrade according to the local news service, but life inside the base was pretty much the same as it always was. Michael was beginning to get used to life at Dover again. After Sal's wedding, he had decided to stay on Loki; his life on Alpha and Ceres II hadn't worked out particularly well, after all, and there was plenty of engineering work to do. The Doverians were expanding their base, constructing new apartments at Verdeschi and building an indoor leisure centre to complement the outdoor one they had started during the spring. Michael's machinery skills were in constant demand to design and maintain the equipment that gave life to Kyoko and Mary's plans. It was a new phase in his life; as a symbol of this, he had grown a moustache.

Still, Michael could enjoy a break in the evenings. The pub was improving all the time; in fact, one of the summertime construction jobs had involved expanding the pub to give it a separate dance-floor. As Michael sat back in the "quiet" area, he admired the dividing partition. It was made of different sections which could be removed or added to close off or open up the extra space. When most of the sections were up, as now, the pub was effectively split into two sections. This way, dancers could boogy without colliding with chairs and furniture, while other patrons of the pub could enjoy a relatively quiet evening without being completely deafened by the music next door. The partitions were the brainchild of Kyoko Fujita, and they definitely gave the pub a different atmosphere.

Michael was alone. Since he had no lover of his own, Michael had to rely on Mary and his colleagues for company. He often had an evening drink with his sister, or with Kyoko and Martin. But tonight, Kyoko was nowhere to be seen, and Mary and Matt were having a night in with the kids. Michael smiled at the idea; Pat and Brian were very small and could be a right handful. Michael was always grateful that he was their uncle and not their father. He had decided that small children were a royal pain, and avoided babysitting as much as possible.

Having got a lager from Sal, Michael walked over to the partition to look at the dance-floor. The dancers were in full swing. Michael didn't like dancing, but he took some pleasure watching others do it. Particularly the men, of course.

He had been standing there with his pint of lager for a couple of songs -- perhaps ten minutes -- when he noticed that Patrick Vincent had come to stand beside him. Patrick was a handsome young man, a couple of years older than Michael and roughly the same height, with a light brown complexion and a strong, healthy body. He was also married to Astrid Buchanan and had four little boys. Cute as he was, he was definitely off-limits as far as Michael was concerned.

"Hiya," said Patrick when Michael noticed him.

"Hey."

Their mutual greetings exchanged, the two men lapsed into silence. If there was anything like silence this near to the dance-floor. Michael looked out at the bobbing crowd again. He noticed that Astrid was dancing with Karim. That was hardly unusual; any girl who liked dancing had to dance with the Cadmin sooner or later. Karim really took his dancing seriously. Michael remembered Salvatore making a joke about Italians having natural rhythm. Maybe that rule applied to Karim as well.

"I saw a film recently," said Patrick suddenly, interrupting Michael's thoughts.

"Right..." prompted Michael.

"Yeah." Patrick seemed to hesitate. "It was a costume drama called Maurice."

"Oh yes. A 1980s Merchant/Ivory production," said Michael knowledgeably. "It's one of my favourite films. I've even read the book."

"Yes, that's the one."

Patrick didn't say anything more for a moment. Michael wondered if he was merely mentioning the film because it was a homosexual love story. Maybe Patrick was trying to be polite, perhaps trying to show he knew something about Michael's homosexuality beyond superficial assurances of it being "okay".

Everyone knew about it, of course. Michael hadn't been discreet about his relationship with PJ when it happened, and there had been some jokes about Ceresian miners when he first arrived at Dover. Some of the men, particularly the teenage boys, became a bit awkward around him, but as a general rule, it wasn't a problem. Most people didn't mention it; whether this was out of discomfort or not, Michael didn't mind. He didn't feel that his sexuality was something that needed to crop up in casual conversation.

"It was really good," continued Patrick after a long pause. "One of the best films I've seen in a long time."

The Merchant/Ivory production of E.M. Forster's early 20th century novel Maurice was indeed a sumptuous piece of film-making. PJ had enjoyed it as well, though Michael remembered his brother-in-law Matt calling it "disgusting" because it featured men kissing. Each to his own. Michael had fallen asleep when he tried to watch Basic Instinct, a film Matt had recommended.

"I've been thinking about one of the characters," said Patrick. There was clearly something he wanted to tell Michael, but he seemed unable to get to the point. "I wondered if the character Hugh Grant played, the one who got married, well, I wondered if he ever had regrets."

"Maybe," said Michael, warming to the topic. "But that character, Clive, made his choice. He saw his attraction to Maurice as a sort of platonic recreation of the relationships the Ancient Greeks wrote about. That was what they were studying together at Oxford, so he thought it was appropriate then, when they were students, but something you should grow out of later. That's why he got married after he left university. He wanted to live the bourgeois life, and there was no place for homosexuality in it."

"But Maurice didn't compromise."

Michael nodded. "In the film, it was unambiguous. He knew that his love for Clive was more than a phase, so he didn't give in to society's pressures to marry and so on. I remember it wasn't so clear in the book. There, he got a fiancée, but she broke up with him because he didn't feel 'right'."

Michael paused as he realised how his own life paralleled that of the fictional Maurice. He too had tried unsuccessfully to compromise, on the brink of giving in to society's pressure to marry and have children. Fortunately, he had pursued a sensible woman who knew he wasn't 'right'. They had both made a lucky escape from what would have been a loveless and frustrating marriage. Hester was happily married to Salvatore and expecting their second child. But Michael was still alone.

"But in the end, Maurice is the one who found true love," said Patrick. "He had to wait, but in the end, he got his reward with Alec."

"Yes, Maurice got his reward, and Clive is left looking wistfully out of the window," said Michael, remembering the film. "I suppose Clive did have some regrets. Maybe he would have done everything exactly the same if he had to do it again, because that's the sort of person he was. But he might have paused to think about what could have been."

"What's it like being a homosexual? I mean, for you, as an Alphan."

"Painful," said Michael bitterly.

Patrick raised his thick eyebrows. "What, you mean when you have sex?"

"No, no, no. That's not what I'm talking about," said Michael with a chuckle. "I mean emotionally. It's pretty lonely. There isn't any San Francisco I can move to."

"You wouldn't want to," laughed Patrick. "It seemed to be full of people with moustaches and leather outfits. Not that there's anything wrong with moustaches," he added hastily.

Michael automatically rubbed his own and made a face. "That's only what they showed in the movies. I'm sure there were all kinds of people in San Franscico. It wasn't just the homosexuals who lived there."

Patrick nodded. "You're right. We get a skewed impression of things here." He paused. "By the way, the moustache really suits you. It makes you look like Freddie Mercury."

That pleased Michael very much. "Thanks. The last time someone commented on it, they said I looked like Les Johnson."

"Les Johnson?"

"Some original Alphan who did Freddie Mercury impressions at parties, apparently."

Patrick nodded mutely. Michael observed the nurse and wondered if there was a point to this conversation. If there was, then he felt he had some idea what it was. Most of him hoped he was wrong, for the sake of Patrick's family. But part of him also hoped he was right. Patrick was a handsome man.

"Well, I'd better be off before the Valkyrie starts wondering where I am," said Patrick.

He drained the glass that had stayed unattended in his hand since the beginning of the conversation, and then put it on a ledge nearby.

"I'll see you around," he said.

Before he had quite moved out of earshot, Michael called after him, "Maybe you could come around to my place some day. I have some other films on the lines of Maurice on file."

It was completely out of the blue, an impulsive invitation which he regretted almost as soon as he spoke. But Patrick just nodded.

"Yes, I'd like that," he said as he left. "A Thursday would be a good time."

Brilliant, just brilliant, thought Michael sarcastically. Now he had a date with a married man. And what was he going to show him? Torch Song Trilogy? Sunday Bloody Sunday? Or maybe Midnight Cowboy, though that didn't quite qualify as a gay movie. Good films, though, and ones which made Michael think there might be hope for him yet. Though he found it difficult to believe that hope would be fulfilled by Patrick Vincent.

Things were going surprisingly well, thought Michael as he handed Patrick a drink. The nurse had turned up at Michael's apartment at six as agreed. Michael had served up baked potatoes which they ate while watching Sunday Bloody Sunday. He had opted for John Schlessinger's 1970s movie because the main character in it was bisexual and there was only one homosexual kiss in it. Patrick had seemed enthralled. He was quite knowledgeable about films in general, which was not Michael's case.

"That was a very good film," said Patrick as Michael sat down beside him. "I liked the way Glenda Jackson and Peter Finch found out that they were both seeing the same young man."

"Yes. It was a good movie."

"Glenda Jackson was going to run for Mayor of London in the year 2000," continued Patrick. "Mum was planning to vote for her if she stood, but then of course, Breakaway happened."

"Oh."

Although Michael's parents had been the same nationality as Kate Andrews, they had never discussed British politics with him. He had been too young before they died.

"It's good to get away from the Valkyrie," said Patrick. "And all her little goblins."

"I gather you're not getting on well."

"Not really." Patrick sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "There's a lot of that going around."

"A lot of what?"

"Divorces. People not getting on. Maybe the sociologists or psychoanalysts or whatever they were back on Earth were right. Perhaps serial monogamy really is the norm for most human beings. That stuff about being married till death do you part was probably just something that worked best on people who were going to drop dead at forty."

Michael wasn't sure he agreed that "serial monogamy" was all that common. He could think of quite a few couples who had lived happily for decades. In any case, he didn't think that Patrick was telling him all this out of a sincere desire to find out what was best for most human beings.

"So you're thinking about... what, leaving Astrid?"

"Yes. It's not that we don't get on, really," said Patrick. "I just don't feel that our marriage is right anymore. You know she fools around with other men."

"No, I can't say I do. But then I'm not really in the loop as far as gossip goes."

"Well, she does," said Patrick, twirling his drink thoughtfully. "Not often, mind you. But she likes to spend some time with the Alphans and Ceresians who come down during the good seasons. She says she feels sorry for them, being so far away from their families and such. But she just likes men. She always has."

Michael scratched his moustache, feeling its bristles brush his fingers. "Oh."

"That's not our problem, though," continued Patrick. "I'm not even jealous, and that's probably more of a problem. I still love her, and the kids, but I don't feel as if I should be her husband. We do the business occasionally, but it doesn't mean anything to me. It's just... well, physically, it works, but it's meaningless. And now, I've decided it isn't right to go on like this. I'd be spending the rest of my life in a lie."

Patrick was beating around the bush again and Michael found that irritating.

"Patrick. Why are you here? What's all this got to do with me?" he asked firmly.

"Well, I think I might be... I think I'm a homosexual."

It wasn't exactly a surprise. Michael didn't react, and Patrick continued.

"Okay. I've had plenty of time to think about it, and that's the conclusion I've come to. I didn't have a girlfriend before Astrid decided she fancied me. She was... well you remember, she was the girl everyone wanted. The stunning blonde who could twist everyone around her little finger. She twisted me too, and I liked it. Mum had just died, Dad was devastated, Duncan was busy becoming Bigamist of the Year, Chris was a kid and Helena was her usual self-absorbed self. But Astrid really helped me. We worked together, we got on well, we got married. Now, it's easy to see I was making a mistake, but at the time it wasn't obvious. It's only recently that I've realised she isn't what I want."

"And you think what you want is a man?"

"Yeah. You."

Patrick turned to Michael and smiled awkwardly. Michael didn't know what to say. He thought for a moment that Patrick might kiss him, but it didn't happen. The nurse looked away and put down his drink.

"I'd better be going," he said. "I need to sort things out with Astrid before I start making moves on other people."

"Yes. I suppose you should."

Michael nodded, a bit overwhelmed by the turn the evening had taken. This was definitely wrong. He didn't want Patrick to leave his wife and four children because of him. That was preposterous! Patrick couldn't be that stupid. Michael would have to talk him out of it. In the meantime, he escorted Patrick to the door.

"Thank you for the evening," said Patrick. "The film was wonderful. And that moustache is really sexy."

He kissed Michael's mouth, and all the latter's misgivings vanished. Michael barely noticed as Patrick opened the door, went through it, and closed it behind him. Left alone, Michael stared in disbelief at the closed door. Maybe there was hope for him after all.

Created: February 2000 - Updated: April 2000