Men in Love: M/M Romance

by Jerry L. Wheeler

  “Please take one another’s hands.”

  I turned toward Jeff, who gave me an impish smile. He hated being reminded of it, but he was small and cute like an elf, or maybe a hobbit from Houston, as he liked to add with an exaggeration of his slight Texas accent. The contrast with my oafish clumsy self made his compact size all the more noticeable. Despite the sunshine, his hands were cold. I put them both inside my grasp to warm them.

  “Do you, Jeffrey, commit your love and life to Matthew, in times of powerful love and in times of weak? Do you promise to respect and cherish him for the man he is, when he is at his best and when he is not? Do you promise to place his happiness on a level equal to your own or greater?”

  Again the elfin grin. “I do.” He wriggled his cold hands inside my big paws. “I really do,” he whispered.

  “And do you, Matthew, commit your love and life to Jeffrey, in times of powerful love and in times of weak? Do you promise to respect and cherish him for the man he is, when he is at his best and when he is not? Do you promise to place his happiness on a level equal to your own or greater?”

  Oh, shit. Shit! I looked upward, willing my eyes not to overflow, but the sun made the tearing worse. The right eye lost it first, quickly followed by the left, and of course the top part of my nose started stinging inside, indicating there was lots more where those two came from.

  Tears streaming now, my nose clogged with them, my voice hoarse, I said, “I do.”

  Jeffrey pulled his hands from my grasp and clasped them around mine, as much as he could. His voice was soft. “Every person here wishes their man cried at the wedding. Commitment ceremony. I’m going to treasure this, Matt.”

  Mara placed one hand on my shoulder, like I was a skittish animal she might soothe. The steadiness of her touch, the strength of her friendship, and her maternal warmth helped. “It’s fine, sweetie. I have a hankie if you need one.”

  I sniffled. “I’m good.”

  “You’re better than good, and you know it, too,” Jeff said.

  “Ready to go on?”

  We nodded. Jeff’s smile wasn’t the cute one I knew so well, but from some deeper store of happiness that radiated from his entire face.

  Mara raised her voice again. “I now ask that you seal the vows you made to one another by the giving and receiving of rings. Their circle is as eternal as your love. Their metal is as strong as your love. Their gemstones are as beautiful as your love. Jeffrey?”

  Now came the scary part, and the reason no children were here. I unzipped the trousers of my new suit and lifted my cock, exposing my balls. Jeff knelt in front of me, crushing petals with the knees of his suit, adding faint perfume to my fear sweat.

  A few gasps came from the folding chairs behind us. I was glad neither one of us could see whose they were, although I’d have happily bet on Karen, Donna, and Jeff Senior.

  My piercing had fully healed, and it was easy for Jeff to slip the surgical steel post from its position on the bottom of my sac and thread the silvery ring through, then screw tight the metal bead with its small sapphire that held the ring in place.

  “Repeat after me,” Mara said. “I, Matthew, commit my life and love to thee, Jeffrey.”

  I said the words in a daze. Although it wasn’t heavy, I was overly aware of the ring dangling, the bead and its blue stone at its lowest point. The sensation did not stop when I zipped up and helped Jeff to his feet.

  I didn’t have his grace as I got to my knees in front of Jeff. His zipper was stubborn for a moment, but at least no one gasped when it opened audibly. His piercing was simpler and healed earlier than mine. I unscrewed the ball at one end and slipped the steel barbell from the base of his cock, directly before my eyes and just below his pubic curls.

  The ring didn’t want to go in, and I was so afraid of hurting him. Finally, he helped by pulling the skin to make the opening in his flesh just a little wider to get me started, then tugging down to make the tunnel through his flesh impossible to miss. I nearly dropped the ball that threaded onto its ends, making the ring a complete circle that twinkled with his emerald, and I was sweating by the time Mara asked Jeff to repeat her words.

  They both helped me up. The knees of my new suit were damp, crushed flower petals clinging to the fabric. I was still crying. And committed, for life.

  *

  “Matt, did you die in there?” Karen again. Shit, we were supposed to walk down the aisle two minutes ago.

  “It’s this tie,” I lie, undoing my perfect Windsor knot. “Can you give me a hand?”

  She is happy to tie it for me, not as well as I’d had it but with love, which is better. I hurry toward the family room and its French doors leading to the yard, where Jeff and I will meet. We put those doors in ourselves, two years ago, with much swearing and some heated words that required dinner out, a few tears, and an evening of lovemaking to cool.

  After so many years together, it often takes something like that to get us started. We talk about our diminishing frequency now and then, agreeing that if we’re both okay with how things are, then it isn’t a problem. “What we have isn’t even about sex,” I remind him. “It’s about love. About us as a unit.”

  “What, you want to see my unit?” He leered at me, ending it with a wink.

  “Ha-ha. You know what I mean.”

  “I do. I just worry that you’re not really okay with it. That you need what I’m not giving you often enough, and that you might get it somewhere else.”

  “Oh, right. Like they’re lining up for me.” He doesn’t need to know how every so often some young guy will come on to me, seeking a bear type. I try to be nice while I reject them. I remember perfectly well how scary it is to approach a stranger because you’re so strongly attracted you can’t not approach him. “You’re a nice-looking guy, for sure, but I’m in a committed relationship,” I say, then make conversation for a while, ensuring they know about the places they might meet guys like me, or like themselves.

  “You’re woolgathering again,” Karen says.

  “Don’t I know it. Every little thing is setting off some memory, you know?”

  “Save it for later. Jeff’s waiting.”

  “Got it. Go sit with Mom and the kids.”

  Her kids aren’t kids anymore, of course, but she still inquired whether there’d be anything piercing-related. I assured her there would not.

  Jeff stands at the glass, outwardly calm as always. “Thought you might’ve changed your mind.”

  “Thought about changing this tie. It’s okay?”

  “It’s fine. You look good. We should dress up once in a while.”

  “I’m free most Fridays after six or six thirty.”

  This time we walk down the aisle to music from a string quartet in the shade of our willows, which I trimmed high enough to keep the dangling leaves out of their hair. The aisle is real, made of circular pavers we’ll use for a patio. The guests’ chairs and high heels sink into the ground, just like last time.

  Reverend Cole leads us through the traditional wedding ceremony, which we’d practiced at the rehearsal because this is really important to Jeff. When his parents’ church officiates gay marriages, when their own pastor Reverend Cole marries me and their son, they have to let go of their bias. Or at least try to.

  This time, when we exchange rings, they’re gold bands each with a small stone, the same sapphire and emerald as on those earlier rings many of these guests don’t know about, which we still wear. Right on schedule, I tear up. The guests make that “Aww!” sound people do at baby animals, and I laugh a little right through the tears. Jeff hands me a handkerchief, bought new for the occasion and kind of hard to find in stores.

  We’re married, at last, in the eyes of the law, in front of our mothers and his father, our coworkers, our friends and family. As married as anybody. I hadn’t thought it would feel any different, but it does. It feels right, like it’s about fucking time.

  *

  We feed our guests and giv
e them a little too much to drink. Jeff Senior, Donna, and Karen arrange rides for the people who really shouldn’t be driving, then it’s literally fucking time, and I’m as nervous as a bride as I get into the car, a pristine vintage Lincoln manufactured the year we held our first ceremony, on loan from a friend of Pat and Lydia’s.

  I park it with great care in the hotel’s lot and check us in. Do the clerks at the desk, the other guests being waited on or lounging in the lobby, realize we’re just married? Or do they think we’re two businessmen saving our company money by sharing a room?

  Upstairs, I lead Jeff to the double doors. The corridor is empty. I unlock the door, blocking him a little, then scoop him in both arms, carrying him across the threshold.

  “Oh, my!” Jeff gushes while laughing. “Look at this place!”

  I did, before I reserved the suite. It’s perfect, and the management did everything I asked and more. “There’s champagne on ice,” I show him, sweeping my arm at the tray with pearl-draped goblets.

  “Crystal flutes!” Jeff says.

  Right, flutes. “There’s canapés and fresh fruit. Bubble bath.”

  “Seriously?”

  “Sure. Don’t you want to take a bubble bath with your new husband?”

  “Of course I do. But first I want to fuck his brains out.”

  That tells me he’s had a bit much to drink already; he’s not usually that direct. Which is fine, and why I drove. It’s our wedding night. “Right this way.”

  The bed is turned down, the sheets sprinkled with a few yellow rose petals.

  It’s Jeff’s turn to tear up. “For me?”

  “You’re the yellow rose of Texas.”

  “I love you so much. Come here.” We kiss, and it only starts out the pure love kind before mutating into the horny kind, with some tongue and bodies pressing through navy suits.

  It’s been a while since we did it. Planning a wedding and doing as much of the work yourselves as you can takes all your spare time, for months and months.

  “I did something for you, too.” Jeff sounds almost shy.

  “What?”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about the first time, the commitment ceremony. God, it was so long ago. And we were so out-there, with our piercings. Nobody straight had them back then.”

  “Yeah, probably not. I still love looking at your ring when I give you head.”

  “That’s why I put it there, for you to have something beautiful, literally and as a symbol, to look at.”

  “Are you trying to make me cry again? Because that handkerchief is already a mess.”

  “No. I’m trying to make you happy. Look at what I did for you this time,” he says. His zipper is loud in the stillness.

  Oh. My. God! “What is that?”

  “It’s called a magic cross. An ampallang piercing—that’s the side to side one—and an apadravya going up and down. With little barbells in each.”

  I’m sinking to my knees already. What will all that metal taste like? What will it feel like?

  “You be careful,” Jeff says. “The piercer said it’s easy to break a tooth.”

  “I bet.” The stupid fucking insurer says I can’t be added to Jeff’s dental plan until after the wedding. I told Jeff he’d better call from Vegas, honeymoon or not. “I’ll be careful.”

  “So will I,” he says, “when I put it up your ass.”

  The thought of that does something to me. I fold up inside, my needs and desires forgotten in exchange for his. This is my man, my husband, and I am his. I truly want nothing more than whatever my husband wants to give me, including a magic cross I’m not entirely sure I can take. I’ll learn, I know I will.

  I wait until morning to tell him about my wedding gift. The things we packed for Vegas will do, so we don’t even need to stop at home. It’s not Tahiti but a full week at a beach resort in Hawaii, and I got a package that includes everything, even tips.

  By the time we fly home, we’re lightly tanned, happy, and by-God married. Jeff has bought me so many Hawaiian shirts we had to get a cheap backpack to add to our luggage. I got him a bracelet made of silver and koa wood, a carved bone pendant on a leather cord, and a short necklace that’s tiny disks of pale pink shell, which makes his skin glow bronze. I wanted to get him a rosewood watch, but he got a little snippy about overspending ourselves, soothing me by swearing he’d wear at least one of my gifts all the time.

  In Hawaii, I came to love the magic cross. We agree we need an annual beach vacation because we have never been so relaxed, or so sexual, and that when retirement comes around, it will be in a beach community. “A little house someplace warm. Not necessarily a tourist destination or anything. We don’t need that.”

  “Or the higher prices. Simple is good,” Jeff says. “Two bedrooms, one for guests. Morning sun in the kitchen. A patio. Tile everywhere. Hey, speaking of tile…”

  The bathroom is gorgeous, with a terrazzo tile floor, walk-in shower with two heads instead of a tub, double sinks, and lots of cabinets.

  “I had them mount one showerhead high enough for you,” Jeff says.

  Naturally, I have to cry again, but there’s Kleenex in a holder that matches the tile. When we undress, he’s wearing all the jewelry.

  6th & E

  Gregg Shapiro

  It began with a whistle. Two notes. One high, one low. The kind of whistle construction workers at a construction site blow at passing women showing even the most negligible amount of skin. The kind of whistle an amateur bird-watcher might attempt to get the attention of a bird high up in a tree. All I know is that it got my attention.

  At the time, I was living on Capitol Hill. On E Street, between 6th & 7th, Northeast. The townhouse, which was in the middle of the block, was owned by two friends of my lover Matt. Bob was a former teacher of Matt’s, Jack a former classmate. I rented the only finished room, second floor, center of the house, to the right at the top of the stairs.

  Bob and Jack had bought the house in 1986, a year before the summer I moved in. They were in the process of slowly remodeling it. Bob had a booming interior design firm in the neighborhood, walking distance from the house. Jack taught at one of the local universities. I moved in with them when the house I had been living in in Mount Pleasant became uninhabitable.

  In August, when Matt and some of our friends helped me move in, we had been dating for a little over a year. During that time, we never actually lived together, although the subject arose many times. While he was working and residing in Washington, Matt lived six blocks from Jack and Bob’s house. By the time I moved in, he had already left town. Matt had moved to Baltimore in June, to go to graduate school at Johns Hopkins, in a program not offered in any of Washington D.C.’s fine institutions of higher learning.

  At the time, we had talked about me moving to Baltimore with him. It reminded me of Boston, where I grew up, before my family moved to Bethesda, Maryland. It was on the water, it had history. But I was in the process of quitting graduate school. I had a job that I hated as much as I loved. My parents were begging me to move back home, stop paying high rent in Mount Pleasant, where I had been living with a neurotic woman, her sister, and their three cats.

  I wanted to write. To be with Matt, and to write. I was working as a receptionist at the hippest hair salon in Dupont Circle. I sat in the window, looking bored, making appointments for boring people from all over the Washington metropolitan area. I thought I would have plenty to write about after spending my days looking out onto Connecticut Avenue, watching the parade of pathos. But I longed to be in school.

  When I got to class and listened to another endless lecture on the importance of neo-formalism in late twentieth century poetry, I wished I was back at Bouffant Circle, filling in the appointment book with a #2 pencil and gossiping with the clients and stylists.

  Matt and I talked on the phone every day. I loved him more than I’d ever loved anyone else. He was very supportive of my writing and encouraged me all the time. Whenever I had a p
oem published in some small college literary journal, he would buy three or four copies and give them as gifts. He would subscribe to them, to “keep them alive” as he said, so I could publish in them again and again.

  Matt believed in me more than I had ever believed in myself. We had complete trust in each other. I believed in absolute monogamy, total commitment to one person, and he said he felt the same way. Neither of us had been promiscuous before we met, and with the health crisis being what it was, we vowed to be true to each other. And we were.

  Until the man in the first floor apartment on the corner of 6th & E, NE, whistled at me.

  I was walking home from the Metro stop at Union Station and was waiting for the stoplight on the corner to turn green. The batteries on my Walkman had died on the subway, but I left the headphones on anyway. It discouraged strangers from talking to me, asking for money or directions to the Smithsonian.

  Traffic was unusually heavy, and I actually had to wait for the green light. While I was standing there, I heard someone whistle. It was coming from behind me, and I considered turning around to look at the source. But then I remembered I was still wearing the headphones, and in keeping with my policy of ignoring the world around me, I stared straight ahead.

  When the light turned green and I could cross, I stood on the corner, not moving for about ten seconds, to see if anyone had come up behind me who looked like a whistler or a whistlee. I was the only one there, on that corner, at 6:00 that Tuesday evening. I crossed the street as the Don’t Walk sign started to blink.

  He whistled again on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. I say he, because I saw him, or part of him. Nearing the end of a summer I spent working full time at Bouffant Circle, I pondered what to do about my future. My schedule almost never varied. I was on the corner of 6th and E by six every weeknight. The salon was closed on Mondays, and I started earlier on Saturday and was home by three thirty. Neither of us was around much on weekends, but you could set a clock by him Tuesday through Friday.