Deifying Man

He slept like Christ hanging on the cross, arms flailed out, head turned sideways, one leg turned just so over the other. During the course of the night, even the sheet would curl around his naked waist like a loincloth. It didn't matter how he began the night's sleep; that was how he always ended.

Frequently, I'd fall asleep in his arms, only to awaken in the wee hours of the morning, pushed to the floor by his unfolding limbs. I swear his dogs laughed at me. "You again?" their looks seemed to say. Great, huge beasts his dogs were, Wolfhounds, I believe. As soon as my body hit the floor, all three of them would move to the bed, surrounding him before I could return. Off to the couch I'd go yet again.

On one morning, awaking to the smell of freshly brewed coffee, I sat up and rubbed my eyes. He placed a steaming mug in my hands almost immediately.

"Some people would say you have a Messiah Complex," I said.

He chuckled. "If I thought I was Christ, would I have Cerberus?" he asked. The three dogs were curled around his chair. It really was unnerving how much he looked like a god, naked in the morning light. Cerberus was the name he used for all three dogs; none of them had its own name. They all responded to the name Cerberus and were amazingly well-trained.

I groaned in response.

"If I thought I was Christ, would I be with you?" he asked, crossing the room to me. He gently raised my face from the mug and kissed me. I thought I felt electricity in our intermingling morning stubble.

I moaned in response.

He took the java from me and placed it gently on the coffee table. His arms wrapped around me and turned me away from him, kissing the back of my neck. I've been able to turn away from some beautiful men in my life, but never from him. He was inside me before I knew it, reaching around and stroking me as he rocked his hips against me.

That was fairly typical of our conversations about his sleeping habits. He never apologized for ousting me from the bed, at least not in words. His love-making always served as his apology and I always forgave him.

I'd doze off on the couch while he finished getting ready to face the day, putting in his time as an up-and-coming lawyer. When I'd wake up, I'd find myself back in his bed, surrounded by Cerberus. I always assumed he carried me there, but perhaps it was Cerberus. It wouldn't surprise me.

Eventually, I'd collect myself and leave his brownstone to head to my own job tending bar at RKO, a gay bar downtown. Somehow, in spite of our wildly different work schedules, we always ended up together at the end of the night.

Up-and-coming young lawyers don't always stay put, though. It wasn't long before he found himself in Washington, working with the big boys, speaking languages of PACs that I'd never understand. I continued tending bar at various places in town, never really ambitious for much more.

I think of him often these days. His picture appears in the paper too much to allow me to forget. He's still the same beautiful man and he's frequently pictured with the same damned dogs. They're probably different dogs—it's been twenty years—but they look the same as the ones I remember.

He's almost always at Camp David in the pictures, sometimes pictured with the latest tyrant of the Middle East, sometimes with the current president. He seems apolitical, appearing as part of the "peace processes" through both Democratic and Republican administrations.

His sexuality has never come out, although I don't remember him ever taking any pains to hide it. While he was with me, he was monogamous. Perhaps he's always been in committed relationships with men who felt no compulsion to tell the world. I'm fairly certain that I wasn't an experiment. He was far too assured in our relationship for me to believe he'd never been with another man.

But for that period of fidelity with him, I've lived the stereotype, engaging in anonymous bathhouse sex, being every inch the fag that middle America fears. I've watched friends and lovers die by the hundreds. I should probably be dead myself. I promise myself again and again to change, to find one good man, but the only one I've ever met appears and re-appears on various "Most Eligible Bachelor" lists.

This morning, I awoke early. The summer heat had caused me to cast off most of my bedding. Only the sheet remained, and it was wrapped about my waist and groin. I honestly didn't think anything of it at the time.

I stretched from the bed and went into the kitchen to make coffee. A voice from the couch said to me, "Some people would say you have a Messiah Complex." My heart froze.

For a brief miraculous moment, I thought it was him, that we'd somehow switched roles for one wonderful night all these years later. It wasn't, of course. It was just last night's date, a fairly young guy whose name I couldn't immediately place. Ironically, if memory serves, he's a lawyer.

After that brief moment of surprise, I composed myself and forced a chuckle. "If I thought I was Christ, would I be with you?" I saw a look of wonder on his face, reflecting the same look I must have worn twenty years ago. It stopped me as I crossed the room. Again, I had to recover. Once I had, I made love to him as gently and lovingly as ever I had.

When he left for work, I knew he'd find me again, and the thought made me happy. I wondered briefly if I should get some dogs.

We make our own gods, we mortals. Some of us do it well. I believe the man I mythologized was and is a good man. But it took another man deifying me to realize that the god I'd long worshipped was, like me, just another mortal.