Page 44 of Midsummer Phoenixes
“You and your half answers.”
“They’re not half answers,” I said, pulling him close until he was propped against my chest. “I’m older and need to remain a fascination for you, my younger lover.”
“Seriously, you are being silly.”
I said, “I know a good number. But you don’t do things for a while, you lose some skills. And others have become outdated. Times move on, my heart, and I always stayed the same.”
He chuckled, finally flung his shirt toward the other end of the couch, and turned until he could look at me.
“That’s such bullshit. You change. Look, you grew a new habit, coming to the Moonlight each night. That’s change.”
My Amory. I couldn’t really fault his logic there.
“As you say.” I kissed him tenderly, but with him, I’d never be able to hide my desire.
Amory pulled away, not looking for sex clearly, but wanting me close. He said, “Do you want me to… do anything to make you feel good?”
I ran my thumb along his bottom lip, remembering that Easter Sunday long ago. The twins, handing out tiny, special loaves of bread to the sick and homeless, to coughing children and destitute mothers who couldn’t afford medicine. The special loaves had contained drops of the twins’ tears. I’d told them to do it that way, so that the healed could always blame any miracle on a deity they’d never met instead of connecting it to the twins’ work. Doing it that way would still allow them their calling, because that’s what healing was to them. They had to do it like they had to breathe. They were too giving in nature.
Amory was the same, in his way. Too good for me, but mine, his affection unearned but complete.
“I can tell you don’t want to have sex with me, so why on earth would you offer me that, my heart?” I asked softly.
He flushed. “Well, because… I mean, you know. I know you’d like it, and you always give me what I want.”
For a very brief moment, I considered getting him to agree to a weekend getaway. I knew I could have gotten it, in that moment, but fuck it, he was right, I had changed, and it was for the worse.
So I said, “So long as I can hold you, there is nothing more I want, Amory. You’ll never have to offer yourself to me in order to keep me, or whatever it is you’ve read you should do or be in a relationship. Do you understand that?”
He nodded.
“And accept it?”
He nodded again.
“Amory.”
“Yes. I do.” He smiled and finally fully rested against me. “No wonder I couldn’t find someone like you on the dating apps.”
“Fuck the dating apps. I simply know you’re mine. No need to put my cock in you every night so everyone and the house pawns can smell it.”
He gasped, but ended up laughing instead of being scandalized. Interesting.
“You always make these crass jokes. Is that an old people thing?”
“Careful. Or next time I chase you, needle and thread won’t be enough to fix that shirt.”
“Okay, fine. I was just kidding.”
“I wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Amory fell asleep like that, me holding him, my fingers spread above his steadily beating heart. I woke him after an hour, knowing he’d rather be in bed, but for that hour, I had the man I loved close and safe. For an hour, nothing in the world could touch or shake the peace between us, and the knowledge that had been growing in me settled in my bones.
After all these many years of wandering the world, I was home at last.
You Walk into the Moonlight Diner
