He's thirty-seven now, and I'm thirty-one, and, to my mind, he's still the most beautiful human being on the planet.

Yeah, I know, this sounds silly to you, but it's important. It's tied in with this morbid jealousy of mine. I know I'm not objective, that's why I say to my mind he's the most beautiful human being; and the fact that other people might disagree doesn't invalidate my judgment—not in the least.

You should see how successful he is with young boys, say between fifteen and twenty. They go wild. When we go out to clubs, I have to shadow him everywhere. I even walk him to the bathroom. They might ambush him if I lost sight of him for one minute. It has happened, in fact.

All right, so I know his nose is very slightly crooked, I know his hair is receding a bit, and his eyebrows aren't totally symmetrical, but that's precisely what makes him so gorgeous.

I buy all those fashion magazines, American, French, English, mostly Italian, it's part of my job, I have to know what's going on, and I look at all those models who look as if they were made of plastic, and they're just too… I don't know, remote, artificial, bland? And I always think none of them can compare.

His body is perfect. Flawless, impeccable proportions. A dream. He goes to the gym twice a week, you see, the only place he goes without me? I sit at home watching TV and getting a beer gut and I worry frantically because of all the competition I have there.

That's the main problem, I think. I can't take anything for granted. He says he's faithful. In fact I know he is. And he says there are things that matter more than looks. He says he loves me because I'm me, not because of my external envelope, but I can't stop worrying and wondering about the future. He's years older and he's in so much better shape than I ever was or ever will be. And you know what gays are like, so into looks, looks, looks, look.

You'd think after so many years I'd relax a bit, start enjoying his company, I mean the relationship, and I do, God knows I do, but it's exactly the opposite, I worry a bit more every day. I feel I'm getting old and my body is going to pieces, and, apart from his hair, he's younger and more beautiful every day, and I keep thinking one day a boy will steal him from me, and I'll have no option but to kill myself, because I just couldn't live without him.

I know I'm lucky actually. When I turned thirty I began comparing my situation with that of my friends. I never used to do that before. I looked around me and I saw all these single people, feeling lonely and depressed half the time. Of all my heterosexual friends, only one is happily married.

All the others got a divorce or never stayed with anyone long enough to establish anything serious. As for our gay friends, not one of them ever had a long-lasting affair, although these days with AIDS and everything that's all they dream about.

So, okay, I should consider myself lucky. And I do. But it doesn't stop me from worrying. On the contrary.

And the other thing is that he's not so much into sex, which, again, as far as I can judge, isn't very characteristic of gays. He says he loves having sex with me, but it doesn't matter all that much to him. He says there are more important things in life. And, instead of feeling grateful, I tell myself it's only because the sex we have is not so good, and that's why we only do it two or three times a month, and maybe one day he will realize what fun he could have with a younger guy, one with a better body, and he will look for novelty.

I mean, years of only me, however sweet and loving and tender I may be - could be - seen as boring, right?

Its not the same for me, of course, I stopped feeling the least desire for anybody else when I saw him. I mean I still view some guys as, uh, desirable, in the abstract. I recognize a beautiful smile or a pretty ass when I see one, but I don't want them, know what I mean?

I want him though. Badly. I want him all the time. Night and day, wherever we are. Even at the store sometimes I try to drag him to one of the changing booths when the place is quiet, but he won't let me. I'm not really frustrated, I don't think, I just never have enough of him. Maybe I'm not as randy as I was when I was, like, fifteen, but I still want sex as much as I did then.

Maybe it's got something to do with age or something, maybe that's why he's not so much into sex any more. Come to think of it, he wasn't more into it when I first met him, but I just can't help thinking sometimes that it's got something to do with me. I mean with me being me.

Charlotte says I'm just being paranoid. She sees a shrink too, you know. She's been seeing hers for seven years. And my friend Gerry started, I think, four years ago.

She went to see hers in the first place because she's a damn intellectual, in the strongest possible sense of the word. She is totally intellectual. She's the sort of woman you can't have a normal, plain conversation with. You can't ask, 'Would you pass me the salt?' without her going off on an endless speech about the significance of salt in extinct pagan cultures, or pulling your question apart with a psychoanalytic slash at your linguistic point of view, and then quoting half a dozen feminist semioticians in the process. Okay, she had a rotten childhood, and she is messed-up, but I bet she started her analysis only because she thought it would make her more interesting, and because she's a Woody Allen fan.

And Gerry began his because he emerged from an nth failure, yet another painful relationship, and he thought it was time to do something, to try and understand why it always goes wrong, and why he's so much of a masochist—I don't mean physically—and maybe come to terms with his homosexuality. At last.

Charlotte doesn't think she's mentally sick, and Gerry doesn't think he is. It's different for me. I seriously wonder, sometimes, if I'm not actually ill, mentally ill, I mean, really deranged. All I want to talk about is my obsession. My fantasy, my morbid dream, my wish, whatever you call it. I told you, it scares me. I really want to get rid of it, and I've tried, God knows I've tried.

I know, I'm constantly telling you about it, but that's the whole point! I don't want to tell you about my childhood, and recollect the distant past; I don't want to try and remember when I stopped wetting my bed, or if my father beat me or whatever. I don't want to discuss my first sexual encounters. I don't know, maybe it would help, maybe there's an explanation somewhere, and we'd find it if we examined things carefully, possibly. But I have the feeling that it's urgent, it's like a tumor that needs to be removed. It's making me so miserable. I have to tell you. I have to explain. You're going to think I'm a criminal. I can't help it. I think about it all the time. It's almost like visions.

I see him blind, totally blind and helpless.

I don't want it to happen, but I dream about it.

I don't mean I just fantasize, well I do, I fantasize about it, every day, but what I'm saying is I wake up in the morning sometimes with the precise memory of a dream, and it's always the same, just like my fantasies. Except in the dreams I'm happy—not the least scruple.

It's very simple: he has an accident of some kind, and that's it, he's blind.

He goes blind and, bang, it changes my life. For the better.

When he's blind he's totally mine, you see?

He's helpless, he's vulnerable, he's at my mercy; I can do with him as I please for the rest of our lives.

Of course the rest of him is intact, and, even though he's blind, he's still got those beautiful blue eyes, and they remain expressive and everything. But he's blind.

So it means he can't see the boys and men he might have found attractive, so he's not tempted.

He can't see me anymore, so he doesn't see the fat accumulate around my stomach, and he can't see my wrinkles deepen.

But mostly he can't go out without me, he can't go to the gym, he can't go anywhere; he can't do anything without me!

He becomes utterly dependent on me. His very survival is in my hands.

At first he's shocked, and depressed, and I behave admirably. A real saint. I nurse him, I look after him lovingly, I spoon-feed him, and he feels grateful and everybody says how good I am. Then he sort of gets used to it, he learns to accept the situation. Then when he wants a dog. I persuade him we don't need a dog, and I don't even let him have a white cane. I just never lose sight of him, and he needs me desperately all the time. He can't even go to the bathroom on his own.

Every day I take him to the shops with me, and he sits in a corner and smiles benignly. He can't see the handsome customers, and it’s me he calls into the changing booths. In the evening I take him back home and we sit around, maybe watch TV, and I describe what’s on the screen, so he follows the film or whatever.

And I change the furniture around all the time—he can't even walk from one room to the next without my assistance. Isn't it shocking?

God, I hate myself.

I think blindness is one of the worst things that could happen to anyone. How can you be in love with someone and imagine horrible things like that?  And here I am, wishing it on the person I love most in the world, wishing it on a wonderful guy I would kill for. And all because of my stupid jealousy, my damn possessiveness.

That's why I came for help.

I want to stop thinking about it.

There's got to be something wrong with me. I mean, even if you assume to begin with that everyone is basically selfish and self-centered, even if you see the world in terms of who dominates and who's dominated, there's got to be something wrong with me.

He's been faithful all these years, and he says he always will be, but I would only be totally certain of his fidelity forever if he were blind.

Or dead.