Leonard drew in a deep calming breath and exhaled heavily, as if that might dispel his over-protective-father tendencies. This past month had been hectic, the period before Christmas always was, so exhaustion was probably contributing to his concern about Andrew. How greatly he’d love to stay right where he was, but he knew he couldn’t; they were going out tonight. He propped himself back on his elbow.

‘You need a haircut,’ he said, brushing a stray hank of hair from the broad forehead.

Winston’s face assumed a wry smile. ‘And you’re showing your age, Leo. The world has moved on from short back and sides.’

Winston always made light of their age difference. It had never bothered him, and when they first got together, it hadn’t bothered Leonard either; in fact, Winston’s youth made him feel better about his own age. But as the years mounted up, he had dwelled on the issue more and more, and now at fifty-seven, with skin sagging and body shape changing, he wondered how long he’d stay attractive to thirty-three-year-old Winston.

‘If only you could see your expression.’ Winston was laughing. ‘You look like there’s been a death in the family.’ He reached for his arm. ‘Even at eighty, Leo, even at one hundred, you’ll always be my extremely attractive lover,’ and pulled him down to the bed again.

A few minutes more would make no difference, Leonard decided, and settled back with Winston’s head on his shoulder. He stroked the smooth familiar skin, and felt his own body relax.

He had occasionally wondered if he might be using the age issue to deflect from more serious issues like cheating on his wife and having sex with men. But the truth was he’d never seen himself as cheating on Sylvie. He loved her, and would always love her; what he did with Winston, or any man for that matter, had nothing to do with his marriage. As for sex with men, from the time he was a schoolboy in Perth it was something he’d always done, an aspect of who he was, and part of the man Sylvie had married; like his tendency to ingrown toenails, he had lived with it all his life and accommodated for it. Some of the men he’d met over the years had accused him of being in denial. He wasn’t. He was not a homosexual, he was not hanging out in any closet; he was a married man, a family man, who liked to have sex with men.