Free Ode to Lata by Ghalib Shiraz Dhalla

like those horrifying pictures.  His hollow eyes would look at me, vacant and insipid, and this passionate creature would be reduced to a sack of bones and dwindled spirit.
    Is that how much I loved him? To want to possess him at any cost?  Any price?  Any sacrifice? Even his own?
    I buried my face in my hands and shook my head. No, this was not how I wanted Richard after all. This was not how I wanted things to end. Not even as punishment for his rampant promiscuity while he remained unavailable to me. Not like this, dear God.
    Time for mental bargains with God. That same God that I had hoped at first would help me procure him, I now wished would work in his mysterious ways to free me.
    I would walk away from him if he recovered from this.  If the tests came out negative.  No turning back.  Wish him well with whomever he chose and not interfere again.  Just please let him live, God.  Let him come out from this to be the buoyant, energetic boy that I fell in love with.
    And in return, I would do my maker proud. Finally live up to my full potential and exploit every talent I had wasted in pursuit of Richard. But he had to live.
    Together, we were both doomed. As long as I felt this way about him, this third entity that we had both created, a relationship that eluded a name, would never allow either one of us to feel any intimacy with anyone else. We would remain together, too weak to sever the ties, still punishing each other for the inadequacies of a strangely mismatched relationship.
    He had touched parts of me that perhaps no other man would know.  Secret rooms that would have to be barricaded for good.  He had done things I didn’t have a name for, kept me feeling ecstasy, anguish, doing back-flips through my soul. I had loved him the way we love unspeakable perversions, the ones that are unshakable.
    But the time had come.
    The answer that I had prayed for so fervently had arrived in the disguise of this adversity, and procrastination was suddenly an unaffordable luxury.
    Over the years I had given him many gifts. My last gift to him would be my absence.

CHAPTER 10
     
    THE SILVER FLASK
     
    For a while, Adrian dated someone called Jeremy, who was positive.  These were the years that we both refer to as the “Jeremy” or “Richard” years, a time we were both mostly out of touch.  An unfortunate reality of gay life.  When single, friends become a replacement for the absent mate.  And Adrian was the kind of friend I had spend Saturday nights with, dancing in the clubs and pounding down drink specials.  The one I’d call late Sunday afternoon with a dreadful hangover and who always remembered a little bit more than I would and didn’t hesitate to recap my escapades. The one I’d call on Valentine’s Day and on public holidays because being with family was either unendurable or geographically impossible.  And Mr. Last Night – well, he had zipped his pants up and driven home to the “open relationship” he had clocked a few hours out from.  Adrian was the friend that I’d distance myself from when the eligible one came along.  I’d claim exhaustion and the inability to sustain any more late nights, disinclined to return any calls.  Until, much to my chagrin, the relationship would miscarry and I’d resurface to the barstool I had previously disowned, the loyal friend having reserved it for me, his hand patting it gently, a wry smile masking the relief of my prodigal return, confirming that I was indeed doomed to cruise clubs and parks and sex clubs for the rest of my gradually enervating existence.
    While Adrian acquired both sexual and emotional skills in conducting a relationship with someone who had to suddenly base his life on a count of T-Cells, I grappled with my obsession of Richard.  And once in a while, in the spirit of those who kept a lifeboat handy in case of disaster, Adrian and I would call each other and quite superficially inquire about one another’s lives.  Most of the