Free The Men from the Boys by William J. Mann Page A

him, biting down onto his neck.
    We gingerly stepped into the hot oily water, scented with jasmine. I gritted my teeth as I suffered the sting of the heat on my butt and my nuts. I lost my erection, but it hardly mattered. We sat in the tub, facing each other, toes intertwined, daisy heads floating by like lotus blossoms. The water lapped against our chests with every subtle stirring we made. I felt its warmth pervade my body, soothing me. I closed my eyes. I could hear Lloyd’s steady breathing. He began to stroke my calf.
    Later, on his bed, our skin soft and moist, we made love. My lips discovered the places on his body that gave him particular pleasure—his neck, his balls—while his hands caressed me with a tenderness I’d never known before. It had been worth the wait. The fragrance of the scented bathwater clung to us and aroused a passion in me that I’d never experienced with Javitz, never encountered with any boyfriend or trick. I kissed Lloyd as hard as I could. When I entered him, there was such delirious pressure in my throat, as if I might cry or laugh, I wasn’t sure. His legs encircled my shoulders and with every thrust I heard my own heart, high in my ears. We went on like this for a long time, and then we reversed positions and went on even longer. When we came, within minutes of each other, I didn’t feel spent. I felt invigorated. Ready to go again.
    We didn’t sleep at all that night. We watched the sun come up, and I talked: talked a mile a minute, talked a blue streak, talked, talked, talked. “I’m such a Chatty Cathy tonight,” I gushed. Usually it had been Javitz who talked: solving my problems, offering answers, giving advice. Maybe because solving problems was what Lloyd did for a living, and not what he wanted to do on a date, he simply listened. He listened to every word of it. I told him about my family: my brother, my sister, how my mother had turned her back on me when I told her I was queer. I told him about my dream to write a novel someday, to give up the job at the newspaper and really write. I told him about Javitz, and how hard it was to end that relationship, but I had to, really. “It was just time, you know?” I said. He nodded.
    That night, Lloyd found my soul, touched it in a way it had never been touched. Six years later, we’re still together. It hasn’t always been easy. When we moved in with each other, just four months after we met, I thought we’d never survive our first laundry crisis. “I’ll wash clothes if you take care of the garbage,” I offered, and so it was agreed. But his pants came out of the dryer too wrinkled, an expensive blue shirt was ruined by a stray dot of bleach. “Then do it yourself !” I shrieked. “All right, I will!” he shouted back.
    Yet we survived. We survived his going back to school. We survived his coming out to his folks back on the farm in Iowa. We survived my leaving my job, my career crisis, my father’s death. We survived Javitz’s bout with pneumonia. We survived him getting better and then getting sick again. We survived our own tests, sitting together on one chair, holding hands, waiting for the joint results. True, there were a few more ruined shirts in the course of six years, that damn jug of bleach never fully secure in my hands. But Lloyd said we could survive anything, so long as we trusted the universe, and each other.
    So what had happened to change that? Why did it feel so hard now to trust?
    â€œThe drugs wore off,” Javitz had said simply when I asked him what he thought.
    â€œThe drugs?”
    â€œCome on, darling. That silly, ridiculous attraction that lasts a year, sometimes two. I call it the Bob and Rod Syndrome. Even with all their muscles, our pinup boys for gay marriage were still vulnerable to all those unleashed endorphins running through their bodies. But once the chemical flurry settles down, so, I’m