KOPPELMAN'S OVERFLOW

Bob Koppelman gazed at his partner's naked form as the city lights outside their apartment shone through a gap in the bedroom curtains onto the small of his back and creviced edge of his taut, firm buttocks.

Koppelman wanted to be spontaneous and wake his partner up for sex but had lately struggled to get it up, so didn't want his impulse to be in vain. Impotence was yet just one more thing to add to the coterie of ailments he had acquired in his early 60's.

"Why are you breathing like that?"

'Like what?"

"Like you're about to commit a triple murder."

Koppelman sighed in frustration.

"Believe it or not, I was actually feeling aroused."

"You were?" his partner smirked, knowing Bob couldn't see his face right now.

"I know. It's unusual, right?"

As his partner turned to face him, the thin slither of street light now covered his face making him look like he was being lit by a film projector.

"Well. What you gonna do about it, Koppelman?"

Suddenly confronted by his partner about his lust, Koppelman felt nervous. Their last experiment with viagra had ended up with him calling out the emergency services in the middle of the night convinced he was having a heart attack.

As a consequence of that panic, he'd lost some confidence in sharing intimacy and now looked to explore other ways to help him perform effectively in the bedroom.

"How did you get on with that horny goat weed I got for you from Whole Foods?"

"Horny what?"

"Those herbal thingies I told you about. I left them out on the kitchen counter with a note explaining what they were for. Meant to be good for the old trombone."

One thing Koppelman hated above all else with his partner was the endless supplements he was having thrust on him. He wondered at what point you just held your hand up and said simply no more and prepared for the deathly consequences of a supplement free life, come what may.

"Have a think about what exactly it is you want right now while I go to the bathroom."

The insouciant Simon got up from the bed and padded to their blue tiled bathroom which they'd spent a whole summer doing themselves whilst arguing about what to play as their soundtrack. One thing Koppelman hadn't anticipated early on in their courtship was Simon's terrible taste in 90's disco music.

Hearing the confident stream of his partner's urination seemed to somehow cause even greater anxiety for Koppelman. It sounded like the stream of youth and not the faded dribbles of a spent force. The reality was he was going to have to work to keep this relationship going with Simon, twenty years his junior.

And yet, lying in bed, Koppelman knew only too well what he needed to assist his manhood in performing successfully. He had known for a long time but he also had a feeling it would be a contentious issue for his insensitive younger partner.

"Did you just say something?" Simon said as he walked back into the room.

"No, I didn't."

As someone who had spent his life carefully selecting his words as a music critic of high esteem, he found it strange how inelegant he could be in private.

"Well, I think I have an idea that might just help. And no, it's nothing to do with the horny thingamejig you just mentioned."

Standing at the foot of his bed with an air of precocious boredom, Simon waited for Bob to further elaborate on his solution.

"I'm listening."

"You'll think I'm weird."

"I already think you're weird. Just tell me, Bob."

Koppelman cleared his throat.

"I think it's something I'll have to show you."

"Oh God. I hope you're not going to go dark on me."

Bob groaned as he slid off the bed and tried to correct his terrible posture.

"I think you're safe."

And with that, Simon followed Bob who headed in the direction of the overflow room.

Koppelman flicked the lights on in the overflow room, his term for the space where he kept all his excess classical and opera box sets that had been sent by music companies for him to review.

"Ugh, I literally hate this grubby little hoarders room of yours," Simon said, knowing it would provoke his partner.

Koppelman felt instantly defensive.

"I'm not a hoarder, Simon. I'm a collector!"

Simon rolled his eyes at his exasperated partner.

"Don't tell me you now have a cleaning fetish and want me to clean this room to get you off?"

Bob adjusted his glasses on the ridge of his nose.

"You're getting warm."

"OH NO! NO NO NO NO NO!"

"What?" Bob was alarmed at whatever it was that Simon was assuming about him right now.

"You want to play me that awful Wozzeck again."

"You're only talking about one of the great masterpieces of the 20th century opera repertoire," Bob replied firmly.

"We almost lost our relationship that night, Bob - don't you remember? I'll admit the make up sex was pretty decent afterwards, but I'll be damned if I'm ever listening to that absolute hellish racket ever again."

Koppelman looked wounded by Simon's assessment of Berg's iconic opera as if he had personally attacked him.

"So, is it the Wozzeck?"

"No as it happens."

"Well, what, then?"

Bob struggled to reveal his secret fetish. Part of him still had some of his baptist father's piety when it came to matters of the bedroom.

"You know how I get excited when I receive new music in the post, especially when they're wrapped in tight, crisp cellophane wrappers."

"Okayyyy"

Simon looked a little less casual now.

"Well, what I think might help would if we could take a couple of unopened CDs and box sets through to the bedroom and maybe ..."

He couldn't quite bring himself to say the final part.

"Oh don't be coy now, Mister. You've already come this far."

Koppelman's glasses had slid down his nose again as he pushed them back close to the top of his reddened nose.

"Well, maybe you could unwrap them in front of me."

Simon looked down at the floor and shook his head, not in disgust but disbelief.

"I've heard some things in my time."

"Well, would you?"

The younger man took a moment to reflect on Bob's request and then, looked around at the CDs and box sets in the overflow room.

Noticing a still wrapped complete Rubinstein Chopin box set on the side, he picked it up and left the room, giving Bob the strongest indication yet that he was game.

Koppelman turned off the lights of the overflow room and followed his partner back to the bedroom.

The next morning Simon gazed at Koppelman deep in repose as the early light cut his naked form in two, one in shade, one in light, the ripped cellophane sheet of the Chopin box set discarded just inches from his naked body.

It was unusual for his partner to sleep in so late, but last night had clearly brought its rewards for them both through Koppelman's peculiar caprice of arousal in the form of unopened classical music box sets.

Curious as to the content inside the box, Simon decided to play a random disc from the collection on the hallowed living room music system.

A few minutes later Bob woke up to the sound of Rubenstein's quick silver piano as Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu drifted though into their bedroom.

In recovering some part of his youth, he had also inadvertently managed to arouse Simon's interest in music more elevated than 90's disco.

As the warm spring sunshine spread across the room, Koppelman felt truly alive again.