Three days all calls I received went unanswered.

Excuses are easy to make and when I did answer the call from Lucas, he was more than willing to accept my lies. And there is no guilty in my actions.

Our talk took me back to the days when nothing mattered and it surprised me how easily I slipped back into the old me. Almost an hour chatting about his life and only glossing over the highlights of mine, Lucas invited me to join him and some of our old friends for a few drinks after work. I guessed he sensed my reluctance, and I put it off to the amount of work I had due. Lucas accepts my excuse, but I suspect he will ask again.

The difficult part about reminiscing and catching up with old friends is the emotional letdown after it’s over. No amount of effort can pull me out of feeling I’ve let myself and everyone else, down. A part of me wants to see those friends again. But the reputation I had as a teen would be talked about. They would joke about it. Remind me of the people I once slept with. Ask me about April. Want to know if I’m seeing anyone new? Why I’m not married? When am I having children? The more these thoughts persisted the more despondent I became. If not for my work I wouldn’t leave my bedroom.

Over the next five weeks until Lucas contacts me again, I fall back into a depression that leaves me isolated and miserable. In those five weeks my arousal still comes when I least expect it and I’m no closer to controlling them. The second time I turned Lucas down; I’m pushing him away and rejecting my past. I don’t want to but what choice do I have.

One Saturday afternoon almost two months after I last heard from Lucas, I found him and three other friends, Henry, Mike and Dale at my front door. The sight of me was enough for them to recognise something was wrong. Even if I wanted to slam the door shut and ignore their concerned expressions, their immediate concerns overwhelmed me.

“Bloody hell, Alex. Either you’ve had one hell of a night or something more is wrong?” Lucas pushes his way inside, leaving me no choice but to stand aside and let him and the others in.

“Jeez, Alex,” Mike says, “What’s the matter man. What’s happened to you?”

I shrugged and looked away. Already my body betrays me and I want to run and hide, crawl into a hole and never come out. I don’t realize I’m crying until all four men gather around me, comforting me, asking to know what is wrong.

I don’t want to tell them. I’m so ashamed.

In the living room, Lucas drags me to sit and silence surrounds us.

Their faces are scared and confused but I also see compassion in their eyes. As though a balloon with a slow leak, my body slowly crumbles and the weights of all my issues fade. Tired of being scared and dealing with my problem on my own, I cried and they comforted me until my body calmed and my erection slowly dissipated. A calm sensation flooded my body, and I wiped my face ready to tell them what was wrong.

Part of me sat in limbo in a constant fear I would be laughed at or be thought less off. But they don’t laugh and every time I paused, they encouraged me to continue. The more I spoke, the more absurd my problems began to sound. Shame took over as four faces continued to stare and I began to experience the sensation of being judged.

I stop talking. I want them to leave. To be alone so I can rebuild my walls around me.

“You need to get laid.” Mike says.

“What?” I ask.

Lucas shakes his head; there is confusion in his expression. “There’s nothing wrong with you Alex. You have an over stimulated sex drive. You dealt with it during school well enough. I mean hell, we were all jealous of the fact you could have anyone. I don’t know what made you think it was a problem, but we’re going to bring back the old Alex.”

The other men in the room agree, and I nod but I’m not ready for what they are suggesting. I’m not that Alex anymore but I don’t like who I’ve become either. Exhaustion creeps in the longer the men remain. I want to ask them to leave but they're determined to help me. When I stress my need to return to work, it only leads to them wanting to see my work and with reluctance I have no choice but to show them around my workshop.

They can’t sense my awkwardness with them being there. They’re talking about the past, life and general talk and I’m attempting to hide my displeasure. There are no excuses I can use to encourage them to leave but it’s Lucas after some time who calls it a day.

“I’ll be in contact.” Lucas says.

There’s a look in his eye and the firmness of his hand shake that lets me know he’ll talk more when the others are not around. I nod but there’s a part of me that would be delighted if I never saw or heard from them again.

I spiralled for days after their visit. Many more calls from Lucas I ignore until he once more appears on my door.

“I’m not going to let you hide yourself away.”

“Why not? I can’t control my body and I’m not going to make a fool of myself in public.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. You have the medication if you need it. And Mike is right - you need to get back out there, get laid, find someone who can support you.”

I want to believe that’s all it will take but I don’t.

“I’ll consider it.” But I won’t.

“We’re not going to let you give up on life.”

I refuse to get into any conversation about this with him. If anything I’ve learned over the years, if I refuse to talk about it, eventually it no longer comes up for discussion.

The invitation to Henry’s engagement party I planned to skip. But neither Henry, nor the others were going to let me avoid it. It was in a small restaurant Henry’s parents booked out. A sit down dinner with only close friends and family. Lucas offered to pick me up but in the end I agreed to come, telling them I would drive myself.

The night of the dinner I received calls from all four friends, making sure I was on my way. As much as I appreciated their influence in my life, there were still instances I didn’t feel comfortable being in. Dinner in a small restaurant was one of them. When I pulled up in the car park, I may have pulled out again, if not for Mike waiting for me out front.

My friends don't consider my condition a problem. What they saw as the problem was me overworking and not making the time to get out of the house. And I found this difficult to understand. My condition was the problem, but they refused to accept this.

We made our way inside as Mike chatted about his week at work and I pulled my blue coat further around me when I observed the twenty or so people inside. I had made an attempt to dress nicely for the evening but I wasn’t able to walk out my front door without my big coat.

I greet Henry and his fiancée Clare, and handing Clare my gift, I congratulate them both. Clare greets me like a long lost friend and I chat to her and Henry, all the time my left hand is in my pocket of my coat, fingering the small pill bottle. I hope the small container would give me the strength to get through the night without using them.

Before long, we are seated. I am reluctant to remove my coat but do so, hanging it over the back of my chair, before quickly sitting down. Once seated, I don’t need to get up for the rest of the night and I begin to relax a little. I’m able to forget for a short while my condition controlled me and enjoyed the evening and the dinner. When the night drew to an end I once more pulled on my coat and left, happy I was able to enjoy the night without any problems.

After that night, my friends began to invite me out to various places where it was small and quiet. Where I could relax and have a few drinks and laugh about the old times. My arousals would come and go, but I found I could ride through them when they happen. My life was never going to be the same as it used to be, but slowly I became determined to be involved again.

The mind has a strange way of fooling you into thinking you don’t have a right to be the person you are. It had taken no time for me to go from being an outgoing sexual deviate to a man afraid of his own body.

Once your mindset has been altered in a way where you cannot believe in anything else, you don’t see the things in front of you that can help you. When I let my friends back into my life and began to talk and deal with my condition, slowly I began to realize it needed to be dealt with head on. Of course I had no idea how I was going to do this, but one morning I woke after only a few hours’ sleep and decided I was tired of living alone. And like that I was back into the world of dating.

The transition wasn’t as simple as the thought, but now that I had made the conclusion I slowly began the changes to reflect this. Mike and Dale were both single, and it was with them that I began to see a side of the world I had long forgotten. The side of one-night stands and sex with strangers.

Like my parents had forgotten all about my condition, so too had my friends brushed it off. My over active sexual appetite as they referred to it as, was something they longed to feed. But after several weeks of this my depression had me at my lowest I had ever been. My last night out with them, before I finally snapped, was to a nightclub. I had downed several shots to break my inhibition, and the night became a blur of lust and sex. The following morning I woke in a room I did not know, with a woman I could not remember, and it left me questioning what was it I really wanted.

With my appetite for sex now awoken and a condition that demanded satisfaction, I was on the hunt for someone who was the same as me. Someone who did not shy away from sex when it suited me or them. That person existed; it was a matter of finding them. Male or female I didn’t care, and with new determination my outlook on life changed again.

I threw my blue coat out although I didn’t leave the house for the next two weeks after. Work remained busy, and I dedicated a lot of my time to that, which helped me to stay on track. One day during the week, Sophie paid me a visit. She commented on how I had changed and that she was pleased I had reconnected with my friends when I told her the reason for the change.

Her visit was to place her order and inform me of a friend of hers, who owned a gallery in the city. This friend had seen my work and was interested in exhibiting some pieces. I had never exhibited my work before and Sophie gave her friend great praise and thought it would be a good opportunity for me. She gave me the details of the gallery and the owner, and I told her I would make contact.

She didn’t question if I would or not although I suspected she believed I would not. If she had asked six months prior, I would have never taken the details from her. Now I was determined to change my life and if I could get my work seen by more people, then perhaps I could meet the one I was looking for.