Cupid's Sophomore Year, Semester 01

"Stop," I say, as gently as I can. "It happened. It's over. I'm fine. Look around this room--everyone you see here has a story like mine. Some even worse. And we all got through it. Those guys over there--" I point out a couple who look to be in their sixties, "They probably had it much worse. And the ones who come after us, well, they'll have it even better than we do. It's getting better, promise."

"But it hasn't been bad for me," he says, earnestly. "I haven't gone through anything like what you did. You keep saying that 'we' have it better than they did, and that this is a place that 'we' can be safe. I don't feel like I belong to any other 'we' than you and me." He leans close, and continues in a quieter voice, "I mean, all that we have in common with the other people here is that we have sex with each other. I kinda don't see how that makes us part of a whole community."

"But being gay is part of who we are. And that makes us part of this community."

"Does it really? I don't feel any different now than I did two months ago." He notices my startled reaction. "I mean, I'm in love for the first time in my life, and that's amazing, and you're amazing..." He trails off when he sees my eyebrows drop back to their normal position, then continues. "But I'm still who I was. I don't remember signing a membership card for a whole new identity."

"It's not so much the way it feels to you that's important," I reply. "It's the way that the world views you. When you and I got together, we became what some people--a minority, but a loud and angry minority--view as wrong, sick, and perverted. That's why safe places like Alta Avenue evolved. I would love to live in a world where no one cares who you choose to love, but that's not the world we live in. Not yet, anyway."

"So this is all just politics?" he asks.

Oh god, I sound like Sky. Time for a different tack. "It's part politics, but it's also part being able to be honest with who you are. That table over there--the one by the door? All four of those guys have been checking you out since we walked in. In some other parts of town, that could get them beaten up. Here, it's just flattering. We can hold hands as we walk down the street here--try that a few blocks over. We can be ourselves, Clark, and that's why it's important."

He shakes his head. "Honestly, I don't feel like I'm part of this. It still seems weird to me that there are so few women here. It makes me jump a little when I see two guys cuddling in a booth. It's just so new."

"But you kissed me out there on the street just a minute ago!"

"Yeah, but that's us. We're not like, say, those guys," he says, tipping his head at the next table over. "Look at them--they're like living stereotypes. They way they talk, the way they flail their hands around...I don't want to seem prejudiced, but that's not who I am."

"And that's not who they are, either. Just because they conform to a stereotype that you've been raised to look down on doesn't mean they aren't people just like you and me."

He shakes his head. "That's not who I am," he whispers at me, and then turns to look at the menu.

I get that he's having trouble seeing how his personal choice (me) can determine so much about the world he inhabits, but it's still a bit frustrating.

"We'll see." I turn to the couple that he's been referring to. "Bryce, Nestor, would you come over here for a moment please?"

Clark looks at me, stunned. "You know those people?" he hisses, desperately.

I nod as they make their way to our table.

"Now, Josh honey, I thought you would never ask!" says Bryce as he reaches our table. "But I can see why you'd want to keep this one to yourself. Very pleased to make your acquaintance, sir," he says, with a half-bow, half-curtsey.

"Bryce, this is my boyfriend Clark."

Bryce's eyes narrow to judgmental slits. He turns back to me.

"This is Clark? The Clark? The one who reduced my Josh to tears? The one who dates--" here he shivers as if he's touched polyester, "--women?"

I open my mouth to explain, but Bryce has already turned his tight-lipped gaze of disdain upon poor Clark.

"I'll have you know, you brute," he sniffs, "That you reduced my dearest friend to such depths of despair that his brow may be permanently wrinkled beyond the help of Botox. Wrinkled! I hope you're happy, sir!"

Clark, stunned, can only gape at Bryce, who is burning with the intensity of a thousand white-hot drag queens.

"Bryce, it's okay. It was all a misunderstanding." I turn to Clark. "I met up with Bryce and Nestor one night when I was trying to drown my sorrows in virgin daiquiris. They listened patiently to my tale of woe and did their best to cheer me up."

Nestor's brow is furrowed with the memory of how pitiful I was that night, but Bryce's fury is unquenched.

"This saintly man was a shadow of himself, positively parched from crying over you! And after how you treated him, I don't wonder why. We did everything we could to cheer him, didn't we, Nestor?" Nestor nods earnestly. "He wouldn't even take basic nutrition! We tried hot food, cold vodka, and a go-go boy from the club down the street, and not one of them would he let past his pouting lips."

Clark looks at me with raised eyebrows.

"His constant refrain was that you were all he wanted but he couldn't have you," Bryce plows on, unrelenting. "When a man is so bereft that he shuns the sincere and heartfelt gyrations of a pole dancer in a gold lamé thong, then he may as well be dead."

Bryce pauses to survey the effect of his tirade. But Clark isn't even looking at him.

"Oh my god, you were...?" he asks, in a low, stricken voice.

"Well, Bryce may be pimping it a bit, but yeah, I was pretty much like that."

He looks back up to Bryce.

"Thank you," he says, solemnly.

Bryce is not expecting this. He turns to me, confused. Straight men normally wither when smote with Full Bitch Mode. He turns back to Clark.

"Whatever for?"

"For being a good friend to Josh. For trying to cheer him up when we were broken. I'm glad he had you guys."

Bryce is not accustomed to having the rug yanked out from under him when he's got his Joan Crawford on. He huffs and flutters, a wasp without a target. It falls to Nestor to break the awkward silence.

"Please permit me," he suavely murmurs, his voice dripping with Cuban sugar, his hand extended. "I am Nestor."

"I am very pleased to meet you, Nestor," Clark returns heartily, giving Nestor's delicate hand a firm shake. I'm not sure there are actually any bones in Nestor's wrists, so exotically limber are they.

"This one is strong," he sighs to Bryce, while he cradles the hand that Clark has released as if it were a divine artifact. "And he smile like the sun."

Clark's smile is a luminous thing, I admit. Nestor basks in it. Even Bryce is not immune.

"Well," he grumps, disappointed to have worked up a righteous dudgeon for nothing. "If you've patched things up, and Josh is happy," he looks at me, and I nod, "Then I am pleased to make your acquaintance." He extends a hand delicately.

Clark takes Bryce's hand, winks at me, and brings it to his lips. He lays the daintiest of kisses on it.

Bryce squeals. He can hold no grudges when he is treated like the princess he believes himself to be. The chivalry of Clark's gesture has whisked away his former fury.

"Where did you find him, Josh?" Bryce asks conspiratorially.

"We met on campus a couple of months ago. Clark's on the water polo team."

Nestor looks about ready to faint at this, and Bryce fans himself dramatically.

"So you pack all of this," he gestures up and down Clarks lanky frame, "Into a little tiny speedo, and then watch as he smashes himself up against others just like him? In the water?"

I nod.

"Nestor darling, we have a new favorite sport." Nestor nods fervently.

Bryce turns back to me. So, you're absolutely fine now? Your tears have turned to bliss?"

"It was all my fault. I jumped to conclusions. Clark has been a perfect gentleman."

Bryce turns to Clark, eyebrows raised.

Clark sees that it's his turn. "Josh is the only man, the only person, I've ever been with. I think he's a miracle, and I love him."

Both Bryce and Nestor gasp in a breath, and then turn to me. I'm blushing like a fire engine.

"You'll need help with the wedding. We'll get to work on the plans. You will not," Bryce shakes a finger at me, "Let this one get away."

"I don't plan to," I reply. "Thanks for coming over, guys. This is Clark's first time on the Avenue, so I wanted him to meet the most important people here."

"Oh, piff. I'll bet you say that to all the boys." Then he thinks over the implications of what I've said. "Do you mean that he's new to town, or new to...?"

"Like Clark said, I'm his first."

Bryce slowly turns to Clark, his face aglow, as if seeing him for the first time. "Welcome, my darling. I wondered what had put the starch in your shirt. You may now unclench, for you are among family here. You know," he says, leaning back and looking at Clark appraisingly, "I see what's what now. You fell for our darling boy here, and then suddenly you have stepped through the Looking Glass into a strange new world."

Clark opens his mouth, but nothing comes out.

"No words, darling, no words. You will soon find out that we welcome all who land on our shore, be they fabulous," here he points to himself, "Or charming," he points to me, "Or the strong silent type," he nods to Clark. "Come as you are, my dear, and know that you have friends here." He offers his hand to Clark once again, as does Nestor, and then they sidle back to their table like a tropical storm voguing back out to sea.

"So, now you've met some actual people here," I say, brightly.

Clark's looking down at his palm, into which Nestor managed to slip a piece of paper. He studies it.

"It's a 25% off coupon for a place called 'Grindstone,'" He says. He looks up at me, bewildered.

"That's the clothing store where they work. Nice place. Maybe we should stop by there later. But what did you think of them?"

Clark considers for a moment, glancing over at Bryce and Nestor's table, where the conversation has once again reached an animated fervency.

"They were there for you when I couldn't be. I will always owe them for that." He sips his water. "I guess I'm starting to see what you mean about this place."

"And what would that be?"

"Well, it just never occurred to me that there was anyone in the world who would have understood what I was going through during those weeks that you wouldn't talk to me. I only confided in Porter when I was just about out of my mind, and I still couldn't tell him the whole story."

"Yeah, I'm not sure the whole story is something we could tell anyone--it gets a bit dirty in places."

He laughs and it's like the sun is shining again.

"I wish," he muses, "That Christmas dinner could be like this. We're a couple, and we're normal, and no one cares."

"Are you planning to tell your family at Christmas?"

He turns serious. "I have to, Josh. They need to know. And I can't keep going back home and pretending that nothing's changed."

"Do you want me to go with you?" I'm not sure, as I say this, which way I want him to answer.

"I would love for you to go with me," he says, "But not yet. I want them to know that I have changed, and it will be better if they accept that before they meet you. That way if they freak out, they'll be freaking out about me and not you. I'd hate for them to go all ape-shit conservative on you."

Images of Calvin and Reese's last Thanksgiving flash into my mind.

"Then maybe it's best to wait," I offer, as casually as I can. I haven't told Clark about Calvin and Reese's experience. I don't want to make him any more anxious.

"No. I'm going to do it at Christmas, and the chips will fall were they may. If I'm suddenly damaged goods just because I've fallen in love with a guy, then screw them."

"It's your choice, of course. You do it when the time is right, and I'll be there with you whenever you are ready to show me off to your family. Just give me a little advance notice so that I can get something stunning to wear."

He reaches across the table, and takes my hands in his.

"I am the luckiest man in the world. I love you so much."

"I love you more, ya big stud. I'll bet you every man in this room would kill to get into your pants, and I'm the lucky bastard who gets to."

We ever actually make it to Grindstone that day, as urgent business required us to return to Clark's apartment and get naked right away. Sometimes things just come up.