THERE WAS SOMETHING IN THE AIR THAT NIGHT

So after crashing with Becs for over a week I stayed at The Bat and Ball backpackers hostel with a one of my best buddies, Rob. Only with both of us disillusioned with Australia - it just doesn’t match up to the romantic visions we had, we went out for a walk and a beer, but I managed to piss him off with advice that I would have liked to have heard from a mate if I were in his shoes, but it seems everyone isn't as reliant on friend's advice as me... I do get so confused sometimes.

The next night I spent at Fernando the Philipino's apartment. He had seen my ad asking for a couch and called me the night before. Cool, free accommodation! Sweating from carrying my two-tonne laundry around for two days, as I'd left my rucksack at Bec's and Philippa's I arrived to a warm welcome and lamb steaks with carrots and broccoli and custard tart with ice-cream to follow. My first home-cooked meal in Australia. Score!

Mentioning the giant poster of The Lord's Prayer which adorned his bedroom, and the guitar he kept in there, I made small-talk. Knowing that I was working as a handyman the next day, Fernando asked me for some help erecting an Ikea bed in his bedroom. Not a problem. I took charge of making sense of the instructions and we set about this bunk bed...

Yes, bunk bed. Now you might be quicker on the uptake than me, but I was in engineer mode and so not so good at multi-tasking. It therefore took me a good ten minutes for the self-same thought you just had to flash across my mind.

"Wait a minute! Bunk bed? Where does he want me to sleep?"

Boy it was H.O.T.! Not just boiling, more how Wham would have used the term. Putting a bunk bed together in England would be sweaty work but on a balmy night in Sydney it was oppressive. As lightning lit up the room with immediate thunder claps crashing under the stars like canon-fire or distant drums, I opened the sliding window as far as it would go, but the noisy bird calls on the ledge trumpeted like bugles so he closed it. He disappeared and reappeared in a pair of shorts. At least he was cooler, but I was starting to get uncomfortable. In more ways than one.

After mentioning my girlfriend about a thousand times over the next hour it took to construct the bed, it transpired that I was to be on the bottom while he took the top bunk.

Now, I'm not too versed in this kind of thing but I took "top" and "bottom" as gay slang for "give" and "receive". I've heard it's better to give than to receive but it was late and I wasn't about to do either. Besides, in my world, Christmas is the time for giving and receiving and that was a full three weeks away. I wasn't about to end up the sixpence in his Christmas pudding, the brandy butter on the end of his brandy snap, the pork and chestnut stuffing in his turkey, the joke in his cracker, the fairy on top of his tree nor the bread sauce on his Brussels sprouts...

Fernando complained about the temperature; "We could open the window again" I proffered but it seemed to me he'd rather take his top off. Which he did. I was sitting on the floor of a homosexual man's bedroom (the bedroom he intended me to sleep in) trying to avoid his gaze... or moreso, his gays.

In nothing but his skimpy shorts; no shoes, no socks, no top... that's when the touching started.
At first it was the kind of innocent punch on the arm any two straight building contractors who knew each other might make. Then when I made yet another nervous joke he touched my knee. 'Terry Wogan used to touch people's knees; it's fine' I told myself. Only it wasn't really was it? Then he ruffled my hair and touched me on my love-handles, like an uncle might do to his niece to test the nonce-coloured water.

I don't care who's house it was, this was completely fucking inappropriate.

Punching my arm; fine.
Accidentally brushing my knee; hmm.
Ruffling my hair; errr.
Grabbing at my love-handles; Hang on! I know what's going on here! I've read about this...

When he was not looking I pulled up a corner of the carpet and hid some of the vital screws so that the bottom half of the bed could not be finished that night. He shook and scratched his head as to where they could have disappeared, for they were right in front of him a minute ago. We searched and searched but it was getting late so he suggested we turn in.

"Turn into what?" my internal monologue asked.

After ten minutes of very English insistence I convinced him I was fine sleeping on the couch in the lounge. I waited fifteen more minutes making idle chit-chat about the terrible export we had given his country, that of Holby City on the TV but he simply would not leave the lounge. Desperate, exaggerated yawns, more mentions (this time without the space to hammer the message home) of how much I missed MY GIRLFRIEND who was in Russia... I even showed him the picture she gave me to put in my wallet. Nope; nothing would budge him. My mind was groggy but racing. Come to think of it, my mind was really groggy...

He lit a fire.

Very, very groggy...

Picked up his guitar...

Unusually groggy!

And gently started playing...

What was that fine powdery substance floating on the bubbles of that last orange cordial he gave me?

So tired, if I could just...

No. We're four storeys up...

I'd fall to my death, it was no good.

So... Very... Tired.

I drifted and slumped off the sofa, my legs splayed, my arse cheeks in the air; ready to be hewn apart. Cleft in twain. If my arse-hymen remained unpopped tonight it would be a miracle.

As I explained to this oh so righteous Christian I was not religious but if ever there was one, now was the time for Psalm 23:

"Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil..."

In my spiked-drink induced state I remembered long ago another starry night like this. In the firelight, Fernando was humming to himself and softly strumming his guitar. I could hear the distant drums and sounds of bugle calls were coming from afar, they were closer now Fernando...

Every hour, every minute seemed to last eternally, I was so afraid Fernando, and I'm not ashamed to say the roar of guns and cannons almost made me cry.

There was something in the air that night, the stars were bright, Fernando:

They were shining there for you and me.

There's no regret... If I had to do the same again, I would, my friend, Fernando

I awoke alone, with a funny taste in my mouth. but that's smoking roll-ups for you. I had been asleep for the last twenty minutes; must've nodded off. Fernando was in his bedroom with the light on, probably planning another, non-imagined attack. I could feel what he was thinking: The night was young and the prize was my unpicked and therefore over-ripe arse cherry.

I was back at square one, dreaming ABBA lyrics hadn't done any good whatsoever so I volunteered to take middlewatch (that's midnight-four to the uninitiated) Cowering like Withnail awaiting Monty up at Crow Crag I surveyed the darkened room for something, anything to use as a weapon. American horror-movie style lightning as my only guide. Nothing.

If he came towards me I'd have to beat him off with my hands.
My feet, anything. Fists. Mouth. Teeth.

And that’s what I did. I beat him off.

He said it was the best thirty bucks he had ever spent.

He was happy, I was happy. I had thirty bucks and my very own pearl necklace.

And as I walked down the stairwell I swear I could hear the sound of a bunk bed being dismantled, ready for the next hot young English boy…