the sweet
four years ago, i met him. i was the humble chanter for my church, and he was the new parish priest for our los angeles parish. the bishop asked me to host him for that weekend’s church conference. i had no idea that i was going to fall in love with him, or that he was going to fall in love with me.
the bishop asked him to serve the orthos on sunday; usually, the bishop and i serve that together, so having a completely new priest serving was going to be an odd experience. the bishop and i had learned each other, and when we sang the alternating parts of the doxologia, just barely overlapping, his high voice complemented my bass perfectly. we are really well suited to sing together. the effect is mesmerizing and hypnotic, ecstatic and joyfully sorrowful worship. i’ve seen the congregation have to come back to earth on some occasions when we were on. i know that i have many times been transported out of my body from its dizzying rapture.
back to the story. the first time we sang together, he and i, was unlike anything else. our voices are both low-ranged. he’s a low baritone and i’m a bass. the tone of the day was six, the most mournful of the tones. when we sang together, i could feel my intestines vibrating with subsonics. i could see the power moving through the nearly full congregation. the temperature in the room rose; i became really dizzy, but i wanted to be perfect, so i stayed in the basement during the kathismata and other long monologues that i have to sing, wanting to amplify the ecstatic effect.
after the services were over that day, and the feasting was over, i took him back to my apartment, where we made love all night. and the next day, i sent him off, back to the southland, to his parish and his choirmaster, an incredibly clear-voiced tenor. but i knew that he was changed by our singing.
fast forward a couple of months. i’m down visiting him. we’re having a great time, and cementing the bond between us that phone calls and IM’ing was making. when we lay together, snuggling, our hearts beat to the same rhythm, our breathing complementary. we can hear each other’s thoughts. i can see the love in his gaze, and i’m sure he can see it in mine.
the bitter
a couple more months. the fiery threads of starlight holding us together are as strong as ever. he’s up in the city for some reason or another, and he asks me the question – he wants me for his mate. i want to say yes, but instead what comes out is a bunch of gibberish about needing to stay with the bishop, about how much i love my now-defunct dot-bomb company, a bunch of stupid stuff. he looks away quickly to hide the hurt, but saw i hair-thin glimpse of it…
a couple more months. the fiery threads of starlight holding us together are as strong as ever. he’s up in the city for some reason or another, and he asks me the question – he wants me for his mate. i want to say yes, but instead what comes out is a bunch of gibberish about needing to stay with the bishop, about how much i love my now-defunct dot-bomb company, a bunch of stupid stuff. he looks away quickly to hide the hurt, but saw i hair-thin glimpse of it…
a couple more months. the fiery threads of starlight holding us together are as strong as ever. he’s up in the city for some reason or another, and he asks me the question – he wants me for his mate. i want to say yes, but instead what comes out is a bunch of gibberish about needing to stay with the bishop, about how much i love my now-defunct dot-bomb company, a bunch of stupid stuff. he looks away quickly to hide the hurt, but saw i hair-thin glimpse of it…
i keep having this dream where he proposes to me and i say no. again, and again, and again, and again, and again. why didn’t i say yes? he found a new man, and they have a home together. but, when he was last in the city, for the ordination of our deacon to the priesthood, we spent the night together in his hotel room. his matushka hadn’t come up. oh, but how the starlight burned us, just the same
as before! how i could see his love for me in his eyes still!
now, this past weekend, i drove down there because he said his back was sore. i hopped into my car, and eight hours later i was sitting on their bed, boredly watching their porn dvd’s while i waited for the men of the household to come home from a birthday party. their foster daughter (it’s complicated, just go with it) had let me in, with instructions to show me to their room to shower and relax until they got home. then, i heard that unmistakable deep voice, and my heart started beating much faster. then another voice, and a third and fourth. ah, the matushka and their new boy, too, and the choirmaster. i stood up from the bed, walked down the hall and there they were. our eyes met for a few seconds that seemed to stretch out for an hour, then i was hugging matushka and the choirmaster, shaking hands with the boy and their daughter (again), while looking back at him. finally, i got to put my arms around him again, after so long. our eyes locked as i kissed him, then i rested my head on his shoulder, and his did mine; i breathed in his scent.
he has almost no scent at all, but i can smell it anyway. he smells like a mountain waterfall; he smells like the ozone after a good rainstorm. i let his scent fill my nose and drift across my tongue – he smells just as good as i remember, better. his scent and mine mix together and form a solidly masculine odor, one that they should bottle and sell to gay men who want to know what true male love smells like. my heart starts beating in time to his again, slowing now that i’m in his arms. i nuzzle his neck with my beard, gently kissing his shoulder. i feel like i’m home.
after some conversation, the three of us – him, matushka and i – go into their bedroom, where matushka announces that i’m going to be sleeping with him, while the boy and matushka sleep in the boy’s new room. i learn later that the boy is matushka’s idea. with that, the choirmaster decides to go home, and the daughter bids goodnight to her friends that had been there visiting, too, and we are all off to bed.
we stayed up all night, giggling and making love and talking and holding each other and making love some more. in reality, we got about two hours sleep, and awoke bleary and with that weird upset stomach that comes from not sleeping enough. we made it through services, and the house blessing, and the luncheon after that, and then for the hour long drive home.
i gave him a massage that night after dinner. he had never had a professional massage before. we slept together again, and then woke up this morning and talked about what was going on. i don’t know how to adequately put into words the understanding that we came to, the acknowledgment of the burning starfire of love that still lives in our hearts for each other; it’s so much more than sex. it’s the complementarity of perfect mates. i don’t want to come between him and matushka, though, which is why this is so poignant a tale. they do have a love for each other, and matushka is a great help-mate to his priestly duties, and they have a swirling vortex of love and happiness in their home, but he and i are mates. we are the yin and yang for each other. we energize each other just by existing in the presence of the other.
i ache right now for his touch, to hear the sound of his sleeping breathing. i thought i had buried this deeply. after all, i took another husband, too, whom i love(d). my need became exceedingly sharp as i drove home, so much so that i called the ventura county business license department to find out what it would take to get a license for a massage practice. now, he asked me if i had decided where i would be practicing, and suggested that ventura might be a good place to do it.
i keep kicking myself that i didn’t say yes. but here’s the real kicker: i’m tangled by him, but i have no desire to pursue this. my sense of honor will not permit me to do it, because i also have love and respect for matushka. it’s knowing, though, that if i ha
d said yes to him, i would be his husband now instead of matushka, and he knows it, too. of course, we both know that we are each other’s mates, and the exquisite knowledge sustains me. i can bury this again and keep finding my place in this world.
how the starlight burns.
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