I guess we’ve all had our gay sex idols at some point in our lives. I remember my first being at university: this guy was a legend on the gay scene; I wouldn’t say I knew him well, but I happened to orbit his sphere a couple of times. On one occasion I ended up in his car after he offered to drive me from god knows to wherever; he seemed in a great hurry to dispose of me. Another time I ended up in his dorm room – there was a whole group of us – on the way to somewhere. I remember the moment I was given a flash of ‘the list’ when one of his friends mischievously opened the guy’s wardrobe and showed us. I had heard about this list; a long column of names stretching virtually the length of the wardrobe door; all the guys he’d had sex with.

I never made it onto that list and I don’t think there was ever any danger of it happening; for some reason, he just wasn’t that into me. I was about 19 at the time. If I met him know I wouldn’t idolise him, I’d think, “what a big gay whore” for sleeping with half the gay men in town (plus the same number of straight).

More recently I have a new gay sex idol. No, ‘idol’ is the wrong word, but this guy has my respect just for the sheer audacity of his sexual conquests – the first guy was all about numbers; this guy is just ballsy.

I’ve never actually met him. No that’s not true, I met him for the first time on Tuesday. But prior to that, all the anecdotes and stories about his sex life came to me via a mutual friend, Alison. She is one of the least discreet people I know and a great source of gossip! We meet up regularly for coffee and play a game whereby we compete with each other to have the most sordid or outrageous tale to tell – Alison usually wins.

I used to work with Alison; then she worked with Andy; then he left to become a plumber. It was when the two of them worked together that I started to hear about, and enjoy, the gay sex adventures of Andy, second hand from Alison. There was the time he picked up a closeted farmer at a gay club and disappeared to the countryside for a weekend of hay rolling; the time he cruised a doctor on the beach, fucked him so loose that he finished off with a swift arm up the guy’s butt. There was the birthday when he got bang-banged for a present; all the married men he fucked (and the occasional wife), not to mention his dick, which Alison assured me was the size of two coke cans on end!

So when I had to call out a plumber on Tuesday because of a leaking toilet, I was kind of taken aback when Andy turned up on my doorstep. I knew it was him because of photos I’d seen. Shit, this was gonna be awkward.

You should never meet your idols; they turn out to be nothing like you imagined, and after years of visualising Andy’s kinky goings-on, I had painted quite a picture. He turned out to be weirdly normal. If I hadn’t heard stories about him I wouldn’t necessarily have guessed he was gay – very straight acting. He was polite, quietly spoken, unassuming and kind of average looking, up close. I thought I was going to get away with anonymity, but he asked the right questions and put two and two together – I’m not naive enough to think that Alison’s gossiping is a one-way street!

So, there we were, in the bathroom, two hot-blooded, young homosexuals, both knowing intimate details about each other’s sex life and how the other one likes it. I showed him the problem and he carried on speaking, so I stayed. I couldn’t resist a sneaky glance over his body while he crouched down over the toilet, his slim lower back showing and tools protruding from places – two coke cans ‘ey?

He asked me to hold a screwdriver in place while he tinkered about. I hovered low and he leaned in close; we were practically touching cheek; he looked at me briefly and the silence and drip-drip made it all so erotic. When he asked me to tighten the ball-cock I nearly got an erection.

He took the screwdriver back and I left him to it; that was quite enough excitement for one afternoon. I made him a cup of tea and resisted asking if he wanted ‘one lump or two’. Wait ’till I tell Alison about this little encounter – I think she’ll be buying the coffee next time we meet.