Shyly sweet.
We are on a road trip to his lake house to retrieve gear he needs for a weekend fishing trip. This is the first time we have been together in many years. As we drive the meandering Texas roads, we sing along to the tunes on our iPods, and I remember the night I saw him last, many years ago.
He had come by my place on the north side of town to say goodbye. He was leaving for California to become a movie star, and I was sending with him a basic necessity of Hollywood life, a futon. We had met at a BBS party (an early 90s kind of thing) and I fell for him instantly. He was all charm and tantalizing promise, a mysterious straight boy dizzying in complexity and impossible to know. I was in love with him, and though I vaguely realized that he loved the love rather than me, I loved loving him and would take what I could get. I wished in those days that the world were mine so that I could deliver it straight away to him, but I had to settle for a futon.
We drive up to the lake house and he points out trees his grandfather planted, giant towering things appropriate to the scale of the lake. Inside, he browses and putters, reads notices and tells me about parties he has had in the past. He observes a leaking faucet in the kitchen and shuts off the water to it, leaving an explanatory note, and we go out to the boathouse. He grabs a rod and reel and fishes for a while as I attune myself to the place.
Waves and ripples, urged on by a lackadaisical breeze, break half-heartedly against the aging wooden dock, rhythmic crashing counterpoints to the susurrant evening song of cicadas. From a shaded spot on the outermost corner I revel in green and blue. The desire and uncertainty he fuels within me coalesce one final time, shadows of passion that can no longer be (and perhaps never were), then subside at last into nascent and fragile friendship. He catches a fish and shows it to me happily before releasing it once again.
Back at home, we move fishing gear from my car into his, and I reflect on time well spent. He leans in, brushing my cheek me with the shyly sweet kiss that straight men sometimes give their gay friends. I hug him for a moment then, and know that what he offers at last is true.
He had come by my place on the north side of town to say goodbye. He was leaving for California to become a movie star, and I was sending with him a basic necessity of Hollywood life, a futon. We had met at a BBS party (an early 90s kind of thing) and I fell for him instantly. He was all charm and tantalizing promise, a mysterious straight boy dizzying in complexity and impossible to know. I was in love with him, and though I vaguely realized that he loved the love rather than me, I loved loving him and would take what I could get. I wished in those days that the world were mine so that I could deliver it straight away to him, but I had to settle for a futon.
We drive up to the lake house and he points out trees his grandfather planted, giant towering things appropriate to the scale of the lake. Inside, he browses and putters, reads notices and tells me about parties he has had in the past. He observes a leaking faucet in the kitchen and shuts off the water to it, leaving an explanatory note, and we go out to the boathouse. He grabs a rod and reel and fishes for a while as I attune myself to the place.
Waves and ripples, urged on by a lackadaisical breeze, break half-heartedly against the aging wooden dock, rhythmic crashing counterpoints to the susurrant evening song of cicadas. From a shaded spot on the outermost corner I revel in green and blue. The desire and uncertainty he fuels within me coalesce one final time, shadows of passion that can no longer be (and perhaps never were), then subside at last into nascent and fragile friendship. He catches a fish and shows it to me happily before releasing it once again.
Back at home, we move fishing gear from my car into his, and I reflect on time well spent. He leans in, brushing my cheek me with the shyly sweet kiss that straight men sometimes give their gay friends. I hug him for a moment then, and know that what he offers at last is true.