Will be mine

Thank you to all those concerned readers who contacted me after my last, emotional entry. You cards, bouquets of flowers and love-affirming prayers of faith to God Almighty have sustained me through this difficult time. Also, whoever sent me an inscribed dildo of chocolate that reads “My love waits for you in the dark places” I salute your instability.

I can, however, report that all your concerns are unnecessary. The pain of rejection cannot touch me as I have, for many years now, carried the talisman of a secret love. Also, I am a bitter bastard whose heart resembles the prune you lost behind the couch in ’87, but we’ll go with the glass-is-half-full for now.

I first met Secret Love back in the bitter winter of 2002. The frosts burnt the ground with fire that year, forging iron from the sweet soils of autumn. The winds ran their hungry fingers around the faces of babies, searching for death in thin scarves and hastily buttoned bonnets. And the cloak of night! Oh! How it sought out the hidden shames of the soul and scattered them like fetid meats upon the land for all to pick over.

With the rest of Great Britain I sought solace in the warm glow of television and the tragedy of other people’s lives. Nothing lifts the spirits like watching total strangers indulge their misguided fantasies on a national stage, and it was thus that we all discovered Pop Idol.

I wasn’t that taken with Secret Love at first. He looked like what you’d get if you bred your uncle with your cousin, then with your brother and finally with your uncle again for good measure. Like the kind of man who'd lock the Princes in the Tower.

But that was before he looked out of the telebox, straight into my eyes, and begin to sing;

“Eyes, like a sunrise…”
[Oh my god, MY eyes are looking a bit bloodshot tonight. What a coincidence!].

“…Like a rainfall down my soul.”
[Well I never! People often tell me I make their insides feel a bit moist.]

“And I wonder, I wonder why you look at me like that…”
[You can SEE me?! You really can, can’t you?!]

“What you're thinking…”
[I’m thinking that I… I…]

“What's behind…”
[Can’t you tell?]

“Don’t tell me but it feels…”
[Yes?]

“Like…”
[YES?!]

“Lo-o-ove.”
[Oh my god! I love you too! I love you Will Young!]

And that was that. He announced our love for each other on national television. Now THAT’S commitment.

Our relationship pottered along nicely until Christmas the following year when The Best Friend passed on a beautiful photo album that Will had made for me. Cleverly, not only did it contain 12 images of him at his sultry best, it also doubled as a calender! Like all the best home-made gifts it was personal AND practical.

In 2004 I took the photo album with me on an eight-month work posting to Malaysia. Malaysia was quite a difficult time for me. I felt overworked, socially isolated, and had a parasite living in my crotch.

Will was my rock at this time. I nailed him to the wall beside my bed and his hilarious stories about hi-jinks on tour provided a breath of fresh air in my life. “What do you want to hear about?” he’d ask as I came home at the end of the day. “Anything that doesn’t involve calculating air vortex velocities through fluted hosing“ I’d joke. Oh how we laughed and laughed until we cried. They were good times. Good times.

My return to the UK took us from strength to strength. Two more photo albums were delivered via The Best Friend in 2004 and 05. They were a bittersweet gift for me; whilst smiling on the outside Will’s receding hairline belied the stress he felt at keeping our love secret from an adoring fan-base. I never resented his secrecy, and was comforted to think I must be a wonderful muse for his Art.

And so to now. There were no personalised albums gifted last year, but they were unnecessary. I found the messages Will had hiddien in “Love is a Matter of Distance” and “Keep On”, cleverly only able to be heard when the songs are played backwards in an inverted audio wave-pattern. They tell me to wait for the No. 1 hit entitled “Engineer Of My Heart” which will be the signal that he is ready to declare our glorious union from the rooftops. I have my Special Underwear vacuum-sealed in anticipation.



ENGINEER OF MY HEART

Newton could never have calculated
The force of our attraction,
Nor could Edison have predicted
The wattage of our illumination.

The second law of thermodynamics
Proves our love will grow through time
While the conservation of momentum shows
Our trajectory’s sublime.

Build our love on foundations of reinforced bubble concrete,
Broadcast it on all electromagnetic frequencies through the street,
Write it in the stars using a planispherical chart,
So all may know you are the Engineer of my Heart.