Ex gay husband - 6. Sunset

In the evening, they returned to their place and I to mine. Shortly after my arrival at my shared flat, Colin texted me and we talked about the day. It wasn't long until we got to my sociophobic moment earlier that day on the Alster. He assured me that I could have asked him and encouraged me to do so the next time. So I planned to be more courageous then. Somehow, his words helped.

∞

The next day, we met again. Together, we visited Planten un Blomen—a park in Hamburg's district St. Pauli—and realized quickly that Mark was hungry once an hour and got whining when we didn't get to a takeaway right away. Again, I had the feeling as if I was looking after Mark with another person—in this case, Colin.

In the evening, they wanted to see the Lange Reihe. That's Hamburg's gay neighborhood. It was Wednesday evening and there wasn't a lot going on. The only guests in the bar, we decided to go in, were a man and a woman sitting on a table in the back of the bar talking. Straight people are common in the Lange Reihe. On sunny days, all of Hamburg seems to come here. To steer clear of the street wouldn't come to most of the people's minds.

The only gay stuff here in St. Georg—that's the name of the district in which the Lange Reihe is located and in which I lived for three months when I first moved to Hamburg—were a few scattered pride flags. Besides that, everything looked disappointingly ordinary. A few clubs that host adult events are located in the backstreets and constitute an exception.

∞

Around this time, we had the Dom—a quarterly fair in Hamburg, which Mark calls "kermess" what nobody says up here—in town, and the next day, when we went there, it was LGBT* day. Mark had taken two of the paper pride flags that were everywhere and walked around with them in his hands. To have a ride for half the price, Mark and Colin pretended to be a couple when they bought their tickets. I waited for their return outside the rollercoaster because I'm not that fond of these kinds of rides. When the ride was over, they came up from behind, and suddenly, someone held his hands in front of my eyes. No doubt, that must have been Mark, who was well known for these kinds of jokes. But I was wrong: It was Colin. I haven't seen that coming. I hadn't thought of him that way, even though I knew him considerably well because of our extensive chats and Skype calls. He seemed to be in high spirits. We decided to try the labyrinth next. Mark was the first to be out again and had to wait for us. When Colin and I took the stairs that appeared in front of us, we reached the rooftop after which the exit wasn't far. From up here, we had an excellent view over the Heiligengeistfeld on which the Dom was located dating back to 1893. One could see the St. Pauli stadium, the flak tower–a high-rise bunker—and parts of the district, after which Hamburg's second soccer team is named. Just a few steps and we could be outside as well. But we didn't want to yet. We weren't in a hurry. I reached the rooftop second after Colin. He stopped at the handrail and I joined him. That must have been the first time, he saw St. Pauli from above. But he didn't just have a bird's eye view of the city. He enjoyed the sunset, which reddened the sky. I had no objections against taking that view in for a moment.

"Beautiful, isn't it?" Colin commented without adverting his gaze into the distance.

I made an affirmative sound—careful not to interrupt this moment with too many words or distracting noises. It made me happy that both of us could appreciate the beauty of such a spectacle of nature. He seemed so fascinated. Then, something else brought the moment to an immediate end. Colin's phone vibrated.

"Mark," he informed me after he checked the screen. "He asks us to come down and wants to know what takes us so long."

I could hear both annoyance and disappointment in his voice.