Descending the stairs leading from the upper to the lower bar of The Brief Encounter that March night, I heard Orlando the DJ calling out over his microphone for a cork.  Situated at 42 St. Martin's Lane, just up from Trafalgar Square and set out on two levels, 'The Brief' had the dubious reputation of being 'one step up from a toilet'.  Presumably that was on account of the dinginess of the lower level, where I preferred to be.  This was not for any kind of seedy sexual gratification but because the downstairs bar housed the DJ's booth and was also where my casual friends tended to gather.  While 'You Spin Me Round' by Dead or Alive began to play, I handed over my coat to the cloakroom attendant before grabbing a drink at the bar.  Intrigued as to why Orlando had called out to the bar for a cork, no sooner had I reached the DJ booth than I understood why.  Having realised I'd just walked into a fart cloud, I asked Orlando if he was the miscreant.  Quick to exonerate himself, Orlando explained that he'd just been talking to “some old judge” who'd decided to drop one at the DJ booth before leaving.  As 'You Spin Me Round' faded out, Orlando exclaimed, much to the amusement of the other revellers, how the fart had “spun him round” and that he “could still smell it”.  

Giggling to myself as I left the DJ booth, I soon found my friends and was pleasantly surprised by the presence of two new members. By coincidence, two chaps among our group had friends visiting them, both Americans, and had decided to bring them both to 'The Brief' on the same night. Although strangers to each other, both men were soon engrossed in conversation and took little notice of the rest of the group. The taller of the two had his back to me, while the other, a handsome dark-haired chap around my age, stood facing me. Catching up with my friends, we began discussing the terror of the Dunblane massacre that had occurred earlier in the week in which a teacher and sixteen of her pupils were shot dead while fifteen others were injured. Just then, the taller of the two men turned around and looked at me. Waiting for a suitable moment to interject, he asked me if I'd recently been up in Scotland. I replied by saying that I'd never been to Scotland and that I must have a double. Introducing himself to me as Warren, he agreed and explained that he'd just met this so called double during a short trip to Scotland. Despite only having just bought a drink, he asked me if I wanted another. From there our conversation began and an exchange flowed freely. Warren revealed that he was thirty-five years of age and from Fort Worth in Texas. Being a leggy 6'2”, Warren was considerably taller than me and also twelve years older. A dark-haired and not at all unattractive man, he came across as polite and well-mannered. However, I found the other American, a fellow named Paul, the more attractive of the two and remarked to Warren how deep they appeared to have been in  conversation. To this, Warren explained that he and Paul had been discussing the possibility of reversing a circumcision. To my enquiry into his knowledge on the subject, Warren revealed that he was on a study year abroad as part of his undergraduate degree with the St. George's School of Medicine in Grenada. Having spent the first part of his third year at Poole Hospital in Dorset, he was now based at the North Middlesex Hospital in Edmonton, North London. To the disclosure that he'd taken a room in shared accommodation on Broadwater Road in nearby Tottenham, I explained to Warren the notoriety of that particular area following the Broadwater Farm riots eleven years earlier. At this, Warren scoffed, revealing that as a paramedic in Fort Worth he'd witnessed, and been involved in, far worse.

Finding Warren's self-assuredness and good manners alluring, he and I began spending as much of our spare time together as we could. I didn't really delve too deeply at that time into what we had in common, although we'd later indulge our mutual love of tennis whenever we could. It didn't escape my notice that we dressed very differently. Having been swept up in the seventies revival in the early to mid 90s, in addition to my cherry red DMs and white jeans, I regularly wore wide-legged trousers with Cuban heel boots and fitted shirts. Despite this look being a common sight in London at the time, when Warren and I began going out to the bars he'd be openly critical of my dress sense, referring disparagingly to my outfits as “disco fever”. My look contrasted sharply with his more conservative button-down 'Polo' by Ralph Lauren shirts, blue jeans and Timberland boots. What my naivete prevented me from realising at the time was that Warren's casual put-downs betrayed something darker in his character, something which would reveal itself to me fully before long.

In the meantime, and much to the chagrin of Warren's housemates at Broadwater Road, I began to sleep over regularly during my nights off. The inevitable fallout from this led to Warren and I moving in together, first of all renting a converted loft from a couple in Wood Green in North London. Then, in June, once Warren's internship at North Middlesex University Hospital had ended, he expressed a desire to return to the south coast and within a matter of a few weeks we'd moved to Southsea, in Portsmouth.

During our brief stint in Southsea, Warren received word from St. George's University advisinghim that if he hoped to secure a graduate post, he'd stand a better chance by applying while completing his fourth year back in America. Returning home one afternoon from the temp job I'd undertaken to be met with the news, I automatically thought Warren would be heading back to America alone. Unable to hold back the tears, I began to cry. To my surprise, Warren explained that he wanted me to go with him. As certain as I could be of my affection for him and having concluded that if he didn't feel the same way about me, he wouldn't have asked me, it felt like the right thing to do to go with him. So, we set about planning the next steps in our future. While Warren began frantically applying to various U.S. hospitals for a placement to complete his year four studies, I secured a visitor's visa which would allow me to stay for an initial period of twelve months. With Warren having successfully gained a post at University Hospital in Newark, New Jersey, on Friday 26th July, 1996, we landed at Newark International Airport where we spent the night at one of the airport hotels.

Making good use of their connections, prior to us leaving the UK, Warren had contacted his father, Warren Sr, and his mother, Kitsy, (which she preferred to her real name, Katherine) for help finding somewhere to live in New Jersey. Warren's father was a minister in the Presbyterian church of Fort Worth and a fellow minister with whom he'd worked had transferred to the ministry covering the Newark diocese. As luck would have it, a recently refurbished house attached to the Second Presbyterian Church located in downtown Newark on the corner of Washington and James Street remained empty and may be available for our short-term use. Warren Sr had arranged for us to meet a lady named Carrie Washington at the house in Newark the following day. Unsure of exactly how to get there, Warren asked a room service waiter at the hotel for directions to which he replied that nobody goes downtown unless they really have to! Despite those foreboding words and weary from our long journey, Warren and I slept soundly that night, huddled on one side of the most enormous bed I'd ever seen. The next morning, my apprehension would be roused when we awoke to news that a bomb had been detonated overnight at the Olympic Park in Atlanta, Georgia.

The real cause of my unease was the fact that the next day, Sunday, Warren was booked to fly from Newark down to his home in Fort Worth. The idea was to fly down to Texas and retrieve his personal effects stored with his parents, collect his Honda Accord car then drive the sixteen-hundred miles back to Newark, arriving sometime the following Friday. This meant me potentially staying alone in a house I didn't know in a city seemingly considered too dangerous in which to set foot. Voicing my concerns to him as we headed in a hire car downtown, Warren told me not to worry and that he had a plan. Feeling less than reassured, I found the sight of several pairs of Converse sneakers tied at the laces and dangling from the telegraph wires stretched across the residential streets leading into downtown a curious albeit temporary distraction. Our destination, the Second Presbyterian Church of Newark, lay on the corner of Washington and James Street and, having pulled up outside the first house after the church on James Street, there waiting for us was our contact, Carrie Washington.

Standing on the steps of the three-story brownstone at number 19, Carrie, with her full set of luminous white teeth, greeted us enthusiastically before unlocking the front door. The door to this house was unusual in that, apart from a brown metal trim and central bar, it was full glass through which you could see from the street into every room on that floor. What I instantly noticed from the steps I would also observe on the two upper floors, that the house, although clearly recently renovated, contained absolutely no furniture whatsoever. Warren had arranged for a removal van to transport the bulker items among his belongings, including his bed, from Fort Worth to Newark, although delivery would not be until the end of the following week. With Warren in agreement that the house would be ideal and Carrie similarly pleased that we'd be staying, 19 James Street looked set to be our new temporary home. Carrie's warmth towards us had taken me somewhat by surprise, having initially thought that most American's of faith were automatically prejudiced against homosexuals. Warren's disclosure to me that in their spare time his parents judged drag shows coupled with Carrie's friendliness towards us led me to challenge my own pre-conceived ideas on this matter.

To Warren's aforementioned plan to help me through the next five days, while he'd come good on his plan, he'd do so in a way I hadn't expected. Assuring me that I wouldn't be alone during his absence, no sooner had we left James Street than we pulled up outside a warehouse type building which was home to the Humane Society of Newark. Unlike Warren, I hadn't considered us adopting a dog but before I knew it we were peering into metal cages stacked several high, with equally inquisitive faces staring back at us. With each one appearing more frightened and desperate than the last, I found myself beginning to well up. Just then, Warren turned around from one of the cages further along and asked about the dog with ears like a bat. Having joined him, I peered into the cage and looked straight into the eyes of a trembling brown and white Jack Russell, which sported the kind of deer-like ears that were completely out of proportion to the rest of its body. With its head bowed down yet looking up, it was clear our little friend was more uneasy in its surroundings than I'd been at James Street earlier. So, rather than getting a dog for my protection, Dee Dee, as we later learned was her name, ended up with me for hers.Stopping by a local supermarket, we grabbed enough by way of groceries and dog food to see us through until Warren's return the following week. With Dee Dee firmly ensconced between us, we went to sleep on the top floor of number 19 that Saturday night without the need for any blankets, courtesy of the sultry July heat. Although I more than likely imagined it, I swear I could hear the sound of gunshots in the distance each night.

Without doubt, the best thing about our brief stay at the church house on James Street was meeting our charismatic neighbour at number 21. Epitomising the blonde-haired blue-eyed all-American stereotype, Ingrid was a law student at the Newark campus of Rutgers University, a few blocks away. Notwithstanding her academic abilities, Ingrid's charm lay in her love of life, her infectious laugh and, most importantly, her compassion for others. Meeting Ingrid and her boyfriend, Regis, during that first week at the house, we hit it off instantly. With Ingrid already the proud mum of a pound dog herself, a black 'Toto' type terrier by the name of Lennie, Warren and I won plaudits from Ingrid for having adopted Dee Dee, who Ingrid in turn adopted as her own. Having Ingrid nearby during Warren's absence reassured me and a few times that first week I found myself climbing out of the kitchen window on the first floor of number 19 onto a flat roof and then in through Ingrid's kitchen window at number 21 to share a Chinese takeaway. We'd also take it in turns to feed a homeless man named Joseph, heavily clothed despite the oppressive July heat, who'd climb up onto the flat roof and stop by our respective windows for some food and a chat. This would all come to an abrupt end one afternoon approximately three weeks later when Warren received a call from Carrie to ask if he and I were a couple, With Warren then confirming that we were, Carrie explained that we could no longer stay in the church house and asked us to move out as soon as possible. So, for the next three months, Warren, Dee Dee and I lived in a three story townhouse on a new development on the other side of Newark, in a rather posh sounding area called Society Hill.

Perhaps it was just as well that during our time in Newark I remained unaware of the fact that between 1990 and 1995, the city had the third highest average yearly violent crime rate in America. While a hive of corporate and academic activity during the day, downtown Newark at night resembled a ghost town. Regardless of our direction of travel, leaving and entering the city always involved driving through neighbourhoods blighted by poverty and deprivation. A few months later, along with my friend Daniel from The Lanesborough, Warren and I drove through Detroit en route back from Niagara Falls. Having left The Lanesborough too, Daniel had come to stay with us for a few weeks before setting off on a three month North American tour. As we made our way through Detroit, the forbidding sight of seemingly endless decaying buildings roused within me the same sense of soullessness and despair I'd experienced in Newark. However, being in such close proximity to New York City had its compensations and with Warren at the University Hospital during the day, I'd take the opportunity as often as I could to ride the PATH train from Newark to New York for a dollar and spend the day wandering around Manhattan. On the other hand, it wasn't all play as I had an important objective to fulfil if Iwanted to stay in America and, fortuitously, I had Daniel on hand to help me.

Having sought legal counsel prior to leaving the UK, I'd been advised that the only way to remain in the U.S. following the expiration of my visitor's visa was to change to student status, which would be recognised as long as I remained in the country. To leave for any reason meant having to apply at a U.S. embassy abroad for permission to re-enter as a student. In view of my original purported intent being to return to the UK, any application to re-enter as a student would likely be rejected on the grounds that my real intent had been to study in the U.S. all along. Therefore, I'd been cautioned against leaving the U.S. if I wanted to maintain my student status. Having said that, becoming a student and entering higher education required something I didn't have in the shape of formal qualifications. Fortunately, in 1942, the U.S. created the General Education Development program (GED), a series of four academic subject tests certified as equivalent to an American high school diploma. So, having registered to sit the GED in October, I set about salvaging whatever I could of my own fractured education and hit the associated text book with gusto. While the English, science and social studies elements presented no real difficulties, being more proficient with words than numbers, the mathematics section absolutely baffled me. Yet, all was not lost and with Daniel being a whizz at maths and on hand to allow me the benefit of his tutelage, I'd receive notification in the December that I'd passed the GED. For now, all that remained was for Warren to pass his fourth year studies and secure an internal medicine residency, which involved a further three years of post-graduate study. He would of course achieve both, although doing so meant moving for the fifth time in six months, this time to a place I'd never heard of, somewhere by the name of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Although I knew he'd been writing one, I was not aware of the contents of the diary Daniel had kept during his American tour. Years later, he'd disclose to me that he'd written in his diary about his observations of my relationship with Warren and how controlling he felt Warren was. History would prove Daniel right. I was too immature and oblivious to recognise the more subtle attempts at control, although a more blatant example, when Warren told me before leaving the UK to get rid of my disco fever clothing and cherry-red DMs as nobody where we were going would be wearing that type of thing, didn't escape my notice. My emotional attachment to him at that point remained strong enough for me to overlook what would shortly become too much to ignore. For now though, with Dee Dee on a pillow on my lap as he drove, Warren and I headed two and a half hours westward towards Harrisburg, where, unbeknown to me then, the darker side of the man would soon emerge.