cael posting for randall - yes get over the shock
In two days I will be forty. Not thirty-nine. Forty. 4-0.
I wasn’t supposed to live this long. Does anyone ever really think, “When I turn forty….”? No. We never see it coming, even at thirty-nine. Forty is cruel, cruel, cruel.
Even though I weigh the same as I always did, the weight looks different on my frame. I have to work out twice as hard to hold my own, not to improve my body. There is no improvement any more, there is only hanging on to what you have. I still have my hair, but every time I look in the mirror, my forehead has a new crease. There is puffiness under my eyes that wasn’t there before. My face seems to be frowning even when I am not. I had Lasik so my eyes work okay, but an allergic reaction to Botox put that needle back in the box.
I’ve thought about plastic surgery, a lift here, a tuck there, but when I pull my face up with my palms and tighten it, I look like that white guy who played Charlie Chan in the old movies. It just doesn’t work for me. I act like I don’t care, like I am still the handsome heartbreaker and heartless stud, retired now due to a domestic partnership that doesn’t have room for random studliness.
But it’s bullshit.
I know gay.
Walking into a club now, looking for meat, I would be regarded as a chicken hawk and a pathetic old geezer, and rightfully so. All that remains for gay men my age is hooking up with another old geezer, paying for it, or attracting a younger lover who wants the good life on your ticket. Well, fuck that. I’m sticking with what I have. He may not be seventeen anymore, but he’s still twelve years younger than I am and I love him. Still love him.
There, I said it.
I love my partner.
It’s not the gooey kind of love. I still forget his birthday and some arbitrary day he’s picked as our “anniversary” at least half the time. I still get pissed at his bossy ways and his opinionated views. Not that I don’t get bossy and opinionated, but that’s different. Thing is, I still want to fuck him as much as I did on the night we met and that says it all. No Viagra needed. Not yet, anyway.
Okay, it may not be five or six times in one night, more like five or six times a week, but sometimes it’s more than that and it’s always good when it happens. Usually it’s really, really good. I’m proud of what he’s accomplished with his talent, he is a true artist, and I’m proud to be seen out with him.
My business is a huge success, we’re rolling in it, and I recently launched a branch of Kinnetik in San Francisco. Justin is surfing the web to find a place for us in that city, just a pied a terre where we can stay when business calls me to the other coast. I gave him a strict budget of nothing over a million, so we will be lucky to get a broom closet in that housing market.
Still wet from my shower, with a towel around my waist and my hair in my eyes, I reach for the shaving foam just when I hear a scritch-scritch-scritch at the bathroom door. God damn it, that burled wood cost a fortune and now it looks like a family of bears has tried to claw their way in. I fling it open and glare at the offender. He glares back, his ugly, scrunched up face like something out of Faust. Of all the dogs in the world, why do we have to have one so ugly? And demanding?
Justin said Henry (originally AHHHN-reee, but how pretentious?) is a French Bulldog with an impeccable pedigree. I think the French pulled another one on us. “Gus! Come get this damned dog!” I yell down the hall of our converted jail that we call home. All four of us. Justin, Gus, Henry and me. Henry came with Gus and Gus came to us when his mother and his other mother were killed in a horrific car accident six months ago. While I tried to convince Michael, the father of Gus’s younger sister, to let her come to New York with Gus so they could stay together, it was a no-go. I understand. I would never give up Gus to him, either.
The loss was tragic for all of us, but more so for these two kids. Gus is ten now, and he is still dealing with a monstrosity of emotions that hit him when the accident occurred. It’s hard for me to wrap my arms around losing Lindsay and even Melanie, but for Gus, it’s a deep, life altering loss. He deals pretty well most of the time, and I am sending him to grief counseling, but not only did he lose his two moms, he lost his sister, for the most part, and was uprooted to a new home with a father he knew only as a part-time dad before now. I remind myself of all that pain every time I want to strangle the kid.
“What?” He grumbles at me, leaning in my doorway, ignoring the dog scratching at his skinny calves. Gus is a lanky kid, like I was, just starting to travel the road from cute little boy to slightly awkward adolescent. For now, he’s still more cute than awkward. Seeing how tall he is, how grown up he is starting to look, it all comes back at me about how old I am.
“Could you take Henry out before he pisses all over the floor? We have a rooftop garden for that. It’s an easy elevator ride.”
With a deep sigh that tells me how unreasonable I am to have asked him to boil the ocean, he escorts the dog towards the elevator. I finish shaving. Dress. Where the hell is Justin?
“Justin!” I shout as I leave our bedroom. No answer. What’s he up to now?
I wasn’t supposed to live this long. Does anyone ever really think, “When I turn forty….”? No. We never see it coming, even at thirty-nine. Forty is cruel, cruel, cruel.
Even though I weigh the same as I always did, the weight looks different on my frame. I have to work out twice as hard to hold my own, not to improve my body. There is no improvement any more, there is only hanging on to what you have. I still have my hair, but every time I look in the mirror, my forehead has a new crease. There is puffiness under my eyes that wasn’t there before. My face seems to be frowning even when I am not. I had Lasik so my eyes work okay, but an allergic reaction to Botox put that needle back in the box.
I’ve thought about plastic surgery, a lift here, a tuck there, but when I pull my face up with my palms and tighten it, I look like that white guy who played Charlie Chan in the old movies. It just doesn’t work for me. I act like I don’t care, like I am still the handsome heartbreaker and heartless stud, retired now due to a domestic partnership that doesn’t have room for random studliness.
But it’s bullshit.
I know gay.
Walking into a club now, looking for meat, I would be regarded as a chicken hawk and a pathetic old geezer, and rightfully so. All that remains for gay men my age is hooking up with another old geezer, paying for it, or attracting a younger lover who wants the good life on your ticket. Well, fuck that. I’m sticking with what I have. He may not be seventeen anymore, but he’s still twelve years younger than I am and I love him. Still love him.
There, I said it.
I love my partner.
It’s not the gooey kind of love. I still forget his birthday and some arbitrary day he’s picked as our “anniversary” at least half the time. I still get pissed at his bossy ways and his opinionated views. Not that I don’t get bossy and opinionated, but that’s different. Thing is, I still want to fuck him as much as I did on the night we met and that says it all. No Viagra needed. Not yet, anyway.
Okay, it may not be five or six times in one night, more like five or six times a week, but sometimes it’s more than that and it’s always good when it happens. Usually it’s really, really good. I’m proud of what he’s accomplished with his talent, he is a true artist, and I’m proud to be seen out with him.
My business is a huge success, we’re rolling in it, and I recently launched a branch of Kinnetik in San Francisco. Justin is surfing the web to find a place for us in that city, just a pied a terre where we can stay when business calls me to the other coast. I gave him a strict budget of nothing over a million, so we will be lucky to get a broom closet in that housing market.
Still wet from my shower, with a towel around my waist and my hair in my eyes, I reach for the shaving foam just when I hear a scritch-scritch-scritch at the bathroom door. God damn it, that burled wood cost a fortune and now it looks like a family of bears has tried to claw their way in. I fling it open and glare at the offender. He glares back, his ugly, scrunched up face like something out of Faust. Of all the dogs in the world, why do we have to have one so ugly? And demanding?
Justin said Henry (originally AHHHN-reee, but how pretentious?) is a French Bulldog with an impeccable pedigree. I think the French pulled another one on us. “Gus! Come get this damned dog!” I yell down the hall of our converted jail that we call home. All four of us. Justin, Gus, Henry and me. Henry came with Gus and Gus came to us when his mother and his other mother were killed in a horrific car accident six months ago. While I tried to convince Michael, the father of Gus’s younger sister, to let her come to New York with Gus so they could stay together, it was a no-go. I understand. I would never give up Gus to him, either.
The loss was tragic for all of us, but more so for these two kids. Gus is ten now, and he is still dealing with a monstrosity of emotions that hit him when the accident occurred. It’s hard for me to wrap my arms around losing Lindsay and even Melanie, but for Gus, it’s a deep, life altering loss. He deals pretty well most of the time, and I am sending him to grief counseling, but not only did he lose his two moms, he lost his sister, for the most part, and was uprooted to a new home with a father he knew only as a part-time dad before now. I remind myself of all that pain every time I want to strangle the kid.
“What?” He grumbles at me, leaning in my doorway, ignoring the dog scratching at his skinny calves. Gus is a lanky kid, like I was, just starting to travel the road from cute little boy to slightly awkward adolescent. For now, he’s still more cute than awkward. Seeing how tall he is, how grown up he is starting to look, it all comes back at me about how old I am.
“Could you take Henry out before he pisses all over the floor? We have a rooftop garden for that. It’s an easy elevator ride.”
With a deep sigh that tells me how unreasonable I am to have asked him to boil the ocean, he escorts the dog towards the elevator. I finish shaving. Dress. Where the hell is Justin?
“Justin!” I shout as I leave our bedroom. No answer. What’s he up to now?