Read Men Who Love Men for Free Online Page B

Because the idea of settled domesticity unnerves me? Because I don’t want that to be me, curled up on a couch eating brownies, getting fatter, becoming more and more forgotten by the boys on the dance floor?

    No, that’s not it. I’d be only too happy to go that route if it was Lloyd next to me.

    Or anyone, for that matter.

    I’d give anything to have what they have, to not be alone.

    Marriage. What a strange concept. I grew up never thinking marriage was an option for me. For my sisters, yes. For other people around me. But not for little gay Henry Weiner. In some ways, never having to think about marriage made things easier. You didn’t have to worry about not finding the absolutely right person because, after all, there was nothing that legally kept you together. Now, as I watch all those happy faces on television—all those happy gay faces running down to apply for marriage licenses across the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—it just underscores how alone I really am. Am I for gay marriage? Maybe—if I could find someone who wanted to marry me.

    See, here’s the thing. When the state Supreme Court ruled that the state had to allow gay couples to marry, I just never thought Jeff and Lloyd would be among the throng who scampered down to Town Hall. They’ve never been the type for convention of any kind. They make great shows of rejecting old, failed paradigms—like monogamy, they say. But here they are, sitting across from me like two little high school lovebirds. Be happy for us, their faces are pleading.

    Be our best man.

    Best man.

    What a strange turn of a phrase.

    How can one feel best when one doesn’t even feel all that good ?

    “Well?” Lloyd is asking.

    I take a deep breath.

    “Of course,” I say.

    Lloyd is up off the couch in an instant, his arms encircling me. Jeff doesn’t move quite as fast, but he comes over, too, tousling my hair. “Thanks, buddy,” he says. “You’ll look grand in a tux.”

    “Tux?” I look up at him as Lloyd moves off to uncork the champagne. “It’s going to be that formal?”

    “Sure thing. All the trimmings. It’ll be the event of the season.”

    I smirk. So that’s part of the motivation, too. Since Jeff’s become a success, he likes to put on a good show. I can only imagine who he’s getting for entertainment.

    “We’re bringing in Connie Francis,” he tells me, as if reading my mind. “You know, ‘Where the Boys Are.’ I met her in New York a few weeks ago and we got to be friends. I’d like to get Kimberley Locke, too—you know, this year’s second runner-up on Idol . I met her at the Abbey in West Hollywood last month.”

    “Cat,” Lloyd says, using Jeff’s nickname, “let’s not make this into a three-ring circus.” He’s pouring the bubbly into three glasses.

    “Hey, it’s our wedding. A once-in-a-lifetime event. Let’s do it up!”

    Lloyd hands me a glass of champagne. “I just can’t imagine the two of you, married,” I say. “Legally and everything. Until death do us part and all that traditional mumbo jumbo.”

    “Happens to the best of us,” Jeff says.

    The best of us.

    But not the best man.

    I figure I ought to offer a toast. “To the two of you,” I say, not sure where I’m going with this. “To…what moments lie ahead.” Not very romantic, I suppose, but the best I can muster.

    We clink glasses. We drink.

    The loneliest sip of champagne I’ve ever had.

ON THE PIER

    E ven though the sun has failed to make an appearance today, hiding stubbornly behind a dreary gray haze like a sulky child, Luke wears no shirt, just a backpack slung over one shoulder. A breeze is blowing in off the water, making me shiver, but the boy seems oblivious to it, striding ever closer to where I’m sitting, parading that flat little belly of his, the lines of his damn obliques running down into his loose-fitting cutoff cargo shorts.
    Why the hell am I doing this? Why did I agree to meet him when he called? The