Free Private Party by Graeme Aitken

building, things I should be informed of. Don’t hesitate. I need to know.’
    GymHotJock plainly wanted to cultivate a Stasi-like network of informants in The Altair. ‘But now that you mention it, what apartment number are you?’ he asked. ‘In case I am ever feeling horny.’
    I felt like saying that I hadn’t mentioned it, that I hadn’t been able to get a word in for the past ten minutes, and that he was being incredibly presumptuous. But instead, I just smiled, gave him the number of the middle-aged woman who lived next door to me, and hurried back downstairs.
    When I got back to my apartment, there was a Gaydar message from Mischief. We’d developed a somewhat curious online friendship; curious as after three weeks of contact, we still hadn’t managed to meet. Nor had his face photo eventuated despite repeated requests. Usually I had a very strict rule (I was finding I needed numerous rules on Gaydar)—no photo, no further communication. But Mischief was so attentive. He sent me a message every day without fail and they were always eloquent, witty, and thoughtful. He liked to address me with a new variation on my initials CSI. I knew that these names weren’t that easy to come up with and that Mischief must have invested considerable time and thought into the likes of
Constantly Surprising Individual
or
Cock Shy Imp
. Clearly, he wanted to impress and demonstrate that he’d been thinking about me.
    His messages were also written with perfect spelling and grammar. Not that I’m an absolute stickler about written English but sometimes my desire faded when I received messages from boys who wanted to ‘fuck my whole’ or ‘sick my cock’. I’d once had a bedroom disaster with a very drunk boy who threw up when we were going at it, so ‘sick my cock’ was a scenario I was familiar with. Sometimes I would receive messages where every word was misspelt except for fuck. Once or twice I replied, declining the offer of sex, but suggesting that ‘i before e except after c’ was a useful spelling rule.
    Although I appreciated the time and intelligence Mischief put into composing his messages, after my experience with the fraudulent Trade-Up, I became very suspicious of Mischief’s anonymity. I gave him an ultimatum: if he didn’t send me a face photo, I would no longer communicate with him. He responded by asking for a photo of my cock. Naturally, I refused to oblige and pointed out that a face pic was completely different and far less intimate than what he was asking for. But Mischief thought otherwise.
    Mischief75:
For you it’s the face that’s all-important, but for me, you Cock Shy Imp, it’s your dick. I can assure you that I am equally frustrated about you not revealing yourself to me. I think about your cock constantly, fantasise about it and long to see it.
    I typed a reply, admitting that I fantasised about what he looked like too, but when I re-read my message prior to sending it, I realised how ridiculous our situation was. We’d been messaging for three weeks and I’d begun to feel attached to the guy. Yet I had no idea what he looked like or if anything he’d been telling me was true. I was communicating with a phantom. It was scarily reminiscent of the Ant/Iain debacle. I deleted what I’d written and logged out of Gaydar.
    Then I ignored Mischief’s messages for several days. I figured if I went silent on him, he might come to his senses and send me that face photo. He didn’t, but nor did he stop sending me messages either. They still came daily and he expressed no recriminations or curiosity about my silence. Finally, after three days of ignoring him, I decided it was time to insist on moving things forward.
    CSI-Sydney:
Let’s meet. It’s high time that happened.
    Mischief75:
I would love to. But I’m in London.
    I wasn’t sure if I believed him. He hadn’t mentioned anything about going overseas in any of his previous messages. He’d also put me off twice before when I’d