Gray （2019）
He grinned. “Come,” I said grabbing his hand, “dance with me.”
He pulled away. “No. I’ve never danced with a man.”
“It’s no different to dancing with a woman.”
I suddenly remembered the time we were at a house party with MJ, and I hurt her feelings by refusing to dance with her because I didn’t want anyone to think I was straight.
“Dance with me,” I said, “and you can cross one more thing off your ‘never have I ever’ bucket list.
“Can you even salsa?”
“I sure can. Jackson and I took ballroom dancing classes for years. We danced competitively, too. Won a few. Lost more.” I laughed, remembering the days without bitterness.
“Speaking of Jackson…”
“Yes?” He seldom brought Jackson up.
“You told me once that when he betrayed you, he broke your heart, that’d he left behind only a small piece of your heart for living and breathing.”
“It was true,” I said quietly. “That’s how I felt.”
“But even with that little piece of your heart with just enough room for living and breathing, you’ve made me feel more loved these last few months than I have in my entire life.”
Friday, October 11, 2019, St. Jude—Today is my birthday. MJ video-called this morning to sing me happy birthday as she always does.
“Thanks, hon,” I said.
“So, any big plans for today?” She and I and Rio are going out to dinner to celebrate tomorrow because she is off on weekends.
“No. Yesterday, Rio took me on a cheese-and-wine train ride to celebrate. The train stopped in a town literally named Paradise before starting the return leg of the trip.”
“How was it?”
“It was great. We were seated in soft, upholstered captain’s chairs that swiveled so we could take in the countryside as it sauntered past. Built in 1911, the parlor car in which we—and a handful of other couples—were seated was resplendent with late-Victorian elegance.”
“That sounds awfully romantic,” MJ said.
“I suppose it was.” And it had been, until we stopped in Paradise and our waiter came over with a new wine for us to sample and remarked, “Y’all are so cute.
” I guess we were. Rio had attempted to tame his wild curls with little success.
Between his wild mane of hair and his rumpled, slightly snug wool blazer and plaid scarf, he looked charmingly eccentric.
I, according to MJ, with my small frame, stellar wardrobe, and poised confidence, look like an undernourished former model.
“I hope me and my boyfriend are still together when we’re your age,” he continued brightly as he poured wine. “How long have y’all been together?”
“We’re not…together,” Rio said.
“Oh,” our waiter said, just as another passenger called out to him, allowing him to skip away from his embarrassment. I stared into the distance over Rio’s shoulder.
“Sorry,” he said suddenly. “I really blew that, didn’t I?”
I looked at him but said nothing.
“I’m sorry,” he said again. “In my head, we’re together. But it never occurred to me that other people would look at us and see that we’re together.”
“Wow,” MJ said when I related the story to her. “How can you have a romance with someone who is straight? Rio is straight, isn’t he?”
I shrugged. Who needs labels? I wondered. Labels are neat, orderly, convenient, but life, love, attraction is messy, disorderly, so what is the point of assigning labels to any of it?
I sighed. “Rio is…actually, I don’t know what Rio is…or what being in a relationship with me makes him. I’m not sure he does either. I’m not sure it even matters.”
“Let me ask you this: are you happy?”
“I am,” I said, “but I’m frustrated too.”
“Why?”
“Rio doesn’t do anything. He says he wants to write this children’s book—”
“Why does everyone think they can write a children’s book?”
“I know, right? Still, at least it would give him something to do. I bought him a new laptop, thinking that would help because the one he has is so crappy. I seem to make all the decisions for us—”
“Well, in all fairness, you did that with Jackson, too.”
“Oh, I suppose I did. I wonder why?”
“Because you’re a bossy bottom.”
I looked at her in surprise.
“Oh, don’t look so surprised,” she said. “I have other gay friends. I hear…things…”
“Point taken. Wait, what makes you think I’m a bottom?”
“Oren, that cannot be a serious question.”
With a chuckle, I said, “OK, I’ll concede that point as well.”
“OK. Next question. Do you love him?”
“Maybe.”
“But not like you loved Jackson?”
MJ knows me so well. Still, I was curious. “Why do you say that?”
“I’ve been around you and Jackson, and I’ve been around you and Rio…”
“And?” I prompted.
“Rio seems…enchanted by you. He exudes desire, an urge to merge with you, get under your skin even. Jackson wanted only to love and care for you. You wanted to succeed so you could give Jackson the world. I see a little of that with Rio—you seem to want to shelter him while at the same time surrendering yourself to him. And that’s fine.
It seems to make your relationship work. ”
“You’re right,” I said. “I suppose I don’t love Rio like I loved Jackson. But see, here’s the thing, all our lives together, I could never imagine myself with anyone but Jackson.”
“And now?”
“Now, I know the only other person I could be with is Rio.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s Rio. Because I like who I am when I’m with him. Because he feels the same way.”
Saturday, October 19, 2019, St. Jude—Rio pulled back and his weight eased off me as he lowered my legs from his shoulders.
Sex with him is always intense. But tonight, there was a kind of desperation in the way he made love to me—like he was searching for something he feared he’d lost. I thought about what MJ had said about him wanting to get under my skin.
He flopped onto his back. I leaned over and kissed his nipple.
“I’m gonna go hop in the shower,” I said.
When I returned to the bedroom, Rio was turned on his side, his back to my side of the bed. I spilled into bed, and inhaling his scent, I curled around him and kissed his back. He pulled away. “Something wrong? I asked, startled. He rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling.
“I love our connection. I love you. I’m happy. In this house. Here. With. You—”
“But—”
“But what?”
“I don’t know, but I sensed a but coming.” He struggled to sit up and I knew his hip was hurting. I cleared my throat. “Are you still upset about that waiter?”
“He labeled us a couple,” he blurted.
“He did. I didn’t. I’ve never asked you to label us…or yourself.”
“The fact is that we are a couple. And no matter how often I say I’m with you because you’re you and I’m me—the fact of the matter is I am in love with a man.”
I remained silent, whether from the shock of his admission or the depth of his unhappiness, I did not know. Watching me, he sighed and said, “I’m sorry. When I started this affair with you, I was curious. I thought it was a phase, a new adventure…”
“And now?”
“Now this—us—you—is starting to feel like habit.”
“Oh,” I said.
“Listen,” he said, crushing me, “I’m gonna go sleep in the other room. OK?”
“OK,” I said and watched him, naked, walk away.
Friday, October 25, 2019, St. Jude—When I woke up this morning, Rio wasn’t in bed beside me. This wasn’t unusual. Often when his hip is particularly painful, he’ll get up and go sleep in the guest room, and it had been rainy and damp yesterday, which always makes his hip hurt.
The guest room was empty, and the dresser drawers were partially open, the closet door ajar.
I set about straightening the room—his messiness and inability to complete tasks frustrates me.
As it was early in the morning and I was still half-asleep, I just slammed the drawers shut and closed the closet door without realizing they were empty of his clothes.
In the kitchen, there was freshly brewed coffee—Rio, like Jackson, held the secret to making great fresh coffee.
After pouring a cup, I wandered through the open front door to find Rio loading his things into his ancient Subaru.
Its bright-yellow color seemed faded, and its red-and-black pinstripe was flaking off in places.
“Morning,” he called, seeing me, but not pausing in his efforts.
“Morning,” I repeated, then asked, “What’s going on?”
“It’s time for me to move on,” he said. He turned to face me, his hand shielding his eyes from the sunlight.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh. OK.” And just like that, our—whatever this was—ended.
I can’t say I wasn’t hurt, even though I hadn’t expected anything else, hadn’t been able to quantify our relationship or define what I wanted from him.
Still, like Peter Lawford in Sweet November, I wanted to postpone this parting; I wanted to add days to the calendar to prolong our togetherness, to give us time we did not have and which perhaps I did not deserve.
In the end, I did not throw myself at his feet and beg him not to leave, beg him not to be another man I loved leaving me behind in the dust. I did not attempt to alter the calendar to trick him into believing our time together hadn’t come to an end.
Instead, I simply went back into the house and sat on the deck of the kitchen from where I could hear him humming as he finished loading his car, then the sound of his car sliding down the gravel driveway.
I was reminded of Sidney Poitier’s character singing “Amen” while packing his wagon and slipping away at the end of Lilies of the Field.
I suppose, like Sidney’s character, Rio felt that having rebuilt the chapel of me that Kitt had burned to the ground, it was simply time for him to move on.
I stood and watched for his car as it backed down the driveway.
I’d always been frustrated by his unwillingness—his inability—to finish anything he started.
But he had finished something at last; he’d finished us.
I watched until his car, smoking, eased off the gravel drive onto the road and disappeared.