“I don’t have Lucky Charms,” he said. “But I’ll stop today and buy some. For next time.”
“Next time?” Ian gave his curlicue grin. What an amazing, amazing smile. “You’re pretty sure of yourself.”
“Well, I have to keep practicing until I get it right,” Paul said.
“How about right now?” Ian wrapped an arm around Paul’s waist.
“Right now we have to get up and go to work,” he said, peeling Ian’s arm off him.
Mentioning the church brought the larger world into focus. Nothing had changed, and yet everything had changed. He was going to ride to work with Ian like he always did. But today he would be walking in to the church with his lover—his young, male lover.
“We… we can’t tell anyone about this,” Paul said.
“Duh!” was Ian’s reply.
“You have a way with words,” Paul said, because he was too scared to utter the thought that had first flashed across his brain: “I love you.”
He got out of bed. Lying next to Ian, he imagined himself to be very sexy. When he walked past the full-length mirror, he was shocked and disappointed to see his same old self. He stopped and scowled at his doughy midsection, the white hair at his temples and on his body, the first signs of crow’s-feet and lines on his forehead.
“Nightmare,” he said.
Ian came up behind him and put his arms around Paul’s waist. The two were now standing, naked, framed in the mirror with their faces beside one another. “Beauty and the beast,” Paul said.
“Don’t call me a beast!” Ian said.
“That’s good,” said Paul. “You’re full of shit, but that was good.” He raised his hand with the palm up and waved it back and forth to underline each of their faces in the mirror. “What is wrong with this picture?” he asked.
“Nothing,” Ian said. He kissed Paul on the neck. “Absolutely nothing.”
From then on, Paul and Ian were hardly ever apart. Paul found excuses to run into Ian in the hall at church, and they would stop and talk. They ate together in the lunchroom. After work, they would go to eat at a restaurant or straight to Paul’s place for dinner. When they had finished eating, they’d unfold the futon and curl up together to watch movies on TV. Paul let Ian have control of the remote, and he chose films Paul would never have watched normally. He was fond of science fiction, especially older science fiction, and karate movies. Everything he liked was “the best.”
“They Live! This is the best, have you seen it? We have to watch this! Oh my God, the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers. This is the best.” Paul didn’t particularly like the movies, but the fact that Ian enjoyed them made them fascinating. They usually didn’t make it to the end of the film, anyway, before they were making love.
In the morning, they stopped by Ian’s apartment to get him a change of clothes, and the routine would start again.
Sara had never been all that interested in sex. Paul had been able to persuade her a few times a month. He had the impression that it was only something she was willing to do because she liked the way he held her afterward. She insisted that each of them shower before making love. On good nights, it drew out the suspense and anticipation, but for the most part, it turned their sex life into a ritual rather than a spontaneous expression of desire. She always wanted the lights off, as if she thought God was watching with disapproval and in the dark she might be able to hide. Her block against uttering dirty words was total. That language marked the boundary between being a lady and a whore. As much as he tried to reassure her that he would think no less of her, it was an inhibition they could not overcome. He could beg, plead, and cajole her to tell him what she wanted, but the most she could manage was a pained and tearful, “I want you.”
Now everything was reversed. Ian’s desire seemed to have no off switch. He wanted sex in the morning, in the shower before work, before the dinner plates had been cleared from the table. Paul didn’t have that level of energy. He couldn’t quite convince Ian that there was a real difference between being forty-two and twenty-four.
“I’m an old man, you know,” Paul would say.
“You’re not old,” Ian would answer.
“Tell me how you feel when you’re forty.”
Ian would tilt his head down, the better to show off his puppy-dog eyes, wrinkle his nose slightly, and in a boyish tone he’d plead, “Please, fuck me?”
If he had asked Paul for a pony using that expression, he probably would have bought him one. Paul wished that he had been born a little bit later so that he and Ian could have been young at the same time.
Ian was a good lover, more concerned with Paul’s pleasure than his own. As Paul became more comfortable and familiar with Ian, and his level of trust grew, he could sometimes let himself give way to pure experience. At those moments, he did not think about the mechanics of sex, his performance, or love, or even Ian. Ian was no longer in his thoughts but in his arms, in his mouth, on his skin. No longer a being but a set of sensations, and he was aware of Ian experiencing him in the same way. They disappeared into touches, scents, flavors, beating hearts and coursing blood. It didn’t happen every time, but when it did, it was transcendent. And when Ian came back into focus, his angelic face flushed and serene, Paul ached with the depth of the connection he felt for this singular other being and no one else.
One afternoon, about three weeks after their first night together, Paul was in the sanctuary going over some of the music for the service with Emily, who was seated at the piano. Paul stood at the altar beneath the suspended cross with the afternoon sun forming lines on the red carpet at his feet. Ian was vacuuming just outside the door in the pavilion. When Emily had finished, she left the room. Paul stayed behind, making a few notes on his papers. Ian turned off the vacuum and walked up to Paul. He glanced around quickly to make sure no one was watching, and then he leaned in and whispered in Paul’s ear. He told Paul exactly what he wanted to do to him that night, complete with vivid adjectives and all manner of four-letter words. It was the most filthy, pornographic, and delicious thing Paul had ever heard. He swallowed hard.
Ian backed up a step and tilted his head down as he maintained eye contact. This made his eyes seem larger and made his face appear its most childlike and innocent. Then he turned quickly and went back to his vacuum as if nothing had happened.
The contrast between the sacred and the profane—the shocking setting, right under the cross; the angelic face and the obscene language—the danger of being discovered, and the delayed gratification were a powerful cocktail. The anticipation on the drive home was so strong that Paul could barely make it through the front door before tearing off Ian’s clothes.
The next morning Paul made the “offhand” comment that it was kind of inconvenient to keep driving Ian back and forth from his old apartment.