Ever since his one-night stand with big, butch, bisexual Bill, Marty’s been in the hopeless grip of a passionate yet seemingly unrequited love. Housesitting for the object of his affection, all he can do is cry on the scaly shoulders of Bill’s exotic fish ... until he meets the tipsy time-traveler who lives upstairs.<br><br>Arthur Prefect (not his real name) is a refugee from a dystopian time, and he’s pining, too, for the man he left back in the future. Over the course of a drunken evening, Marty dreams up a plan to reconnect the lonely young man with his lost love ... but he’ll need to do more than dream to fix his own future with Bill.

Back from the Future

“I don’t think…Ah! Yes, here it is.” I opened the door. Arthur pressed up behind me.


“Come in,” he said in my ear. “Come and sit down with me.”


I cast a critical eye about the place. There was a spanking new computer set up in the corner, its screen showing a 3D model of something frighteningly technical, but in other respects the flat was sadly lacking. “You have no furniture,” I said, because I deemed it entirely possible he hadn’t yet noticed.


“There are plenty of cushions. Chairs make me dizzy.”


“Don’t spin round on them, then?” I suggested.


I nodded sadly. “It’s to hide the tears.”


We sat, cross-legged, on the cushions and drank vodka from the bottle while I waited for my kneecaps to ping off like buttons from a hastily ripped-off shirt. When I handed out the nibbles, Arthur eschewed my cheesy balls, but devoured my nuts rapaciously. “What do you cry about?” he asked.


Chapter 3