My Mr. Policeman friend and I have, as in the line of the old music hall song: 'been together now for forty years, and it don't seem a day too long' – well, except during the times when it did. We loved one another in fits and starts, through ups and downs, and ins and outs. Sometimes we did not meet for months on end, our lives meandering off down different paths and up different slopes; but through the decades the love remained there as our mainstay. There were years when we saw each other daily, sometimes falling in love all over again, and talking again about finally living together. We loved and laughed, argued, occasionally gave pain, cried – then loved and laughed some more. Happily, through the years we remained sexually compatible, fitting like gloves, gloves that actually fit – sometimes rubber, sometimes silk, fur-lined, heavy-duty or metal-studded, depending on the mood and inclination of the moment. Yet we also accepted one another's freedom to come and go without too much sorrow or jealousy. A caring and respectful relationship which we knew would last until the day one of us dropped dead; which it has. I told my Mr. Policeman friend: "I hope I go first, because I know you won't be able to survive very long without me." "Yeah, okay, sure," he replied. "Anything you say." These things are what this diary/poem memoir is about. The joys and pains involved in any lasting love affair and friendship with deep ties that do not bind.