50 Reasons to Say Goodbye by Nick Alexander

I’m scared: New York equals death on the streets, the sound of gunshot, police sirens that wake you up in the night. It’s also a place where I don’t know a soul, not one contact.
    I decide to post an ad in a New York gay forum and see if anyone wants to befriend me. Julian Barclay is the first to answer my ad.
    He replies immediately and the following messages show an openness that astounds me. He’s a warehouse manager; he lives with his boyfriend, Bill. They’re bikers, he’d be happy to show me around.
    After a week or so I have received other replies but they are all either weird, or as the Americans would say, after my ass. I’m quite scared enough as it is.
    Julian and I exchange a few more emails before I leave. He lives on Long Island, they have a big place; I must go and visit sometime.
    My own apartment turns out to be tiny, hugely expensive (for my company) but very central Manhattan, thirty-seventh and sixth.
    On the second day, I call Julian from my new phone. I hear his voice on the answer-phone for the first time. It is rich and masculine. He calls me back around eleven-thirty p.m. – I’ve just got into bed. I tell him this and he asks if I am naked and laughs.
    He invites me for breakfast the next morning, explains how to get to Union square; he sounds funny, clever, relaxed. When I hang up, I drift off to sleepimagining him and listening to the distant police sirens.
    The coffee shop is exactly as a coffee shop should be. A long Formica counter top, chrome swivel bar stools, a girl chewing gum with an order book pushed into the belt of her apron. Like much of America it is standard film cliché and as such it feels instantly familiar to just about anyone.
    A hand waves from a booth at the rear of the bar, it is Julian – he’s smiling. His crash helmet is on the tabletop.
    I cross the bar nervously. He smiles broadly, shakes my hand firmly, says, “Mark! Hello!”
    He’s a big guy, maybe one metre eighty-five, no doubt a swimmer or a regular gym goer.
    He’s wearing leather motorcycle pants and thick biceps bulge from the sleeves of his grey t-shirt. His stubble is longer than his haircut.
    He bangs the table. “Well sit down!” he says.
    As I slide in behind the table, he stares at me. There seems to be laughter in his eyes. The effect on me is unexpected and immediate; I am aroused. I shuffle my feet under the table.
    Breakfast goes well. We talk about my job, about New York, about motorbikes. He tells me about his parents, his brothers and sisters, nothing seems taboo. I will find out that for New Yorkers virtually nothing is taboo, but for now it simply strikes me that this man is exceptionally honest and open.
    I am quite under his manly spell when he says, “I’m afraid I can’t on Friday, I have a GMSM meeting.”
    I sip my coffee, chew on a pancake. Something registers but it remains subconscious for the moment. “How about Saturday?” I ask.
    Julian shakes his head, “Parents for dinner, maybe Sunday? Unless you want to come with us on Friday…”
    I stop chewing. “What did you say? A
what
meeting?”
    Julian signals to the waitress for more coffee. As she swings by to fill his cup he says, “GMSM, the Gay Men’s Sado Maso Group.”
    The waitress offers me coffee and moves on without flinching.
    He peers into my eyes. “Hello! Is anybody there?”
    I laugh. “Sure, just taking in new information …”
    Didn’t I mention that to you in my mails? I was sure I did …”
    I shake my head. “No, but it doesn’t matter, what happens at GMSM meetings? Dare I ask?”
    Julian forks bacon into his mouth. “Oh it’s cool,” he says. “It’s in like a really big bar, and there are, you know, slaves and masters, and spectators …”
    â€œWhat happens to the slaves, I mean, what do the spectators