September 20, 2007

It was eight weeks since I last saw M. He’d been scrounging around for a date for coffee, and when it finally came last evening, I cleaned myself up and put on my best, like a high school kid on a date. His busyness has always been a barrier between us; I’ve never mentioned how oddly the twenty things I do and the two things he does compare in the time they seem to devour. If he called I’d come now. Then. Whenever. With him it’s weeks of waiting for the unencumbered moment. It turned out he could spare me about 40 minutes, because he had to meet the cat sitter he and Judy are going to employ when they go to the beach in three weeks. I said, as I always do, that it was OK. But it wasn’t. One looks back on the effort one puts into relationships sometimes, really working for the benefit and the affection of someone you like. One day you realize they have understood this and appreciated it, without in any way feeling the same. I believe I’ve tormented M with my attentions. He wants to be left alone to paint and work and brood, and he has said so in as many words. I thought he didn’t mean me, but he does. Our forty minutes were spent largely in sexual innuendo, which he employs to flatter me, or to acknowledge what he knows at least part of my interest in him to be, but at the same time to insure nothing serious was said. I’ve noted that when we’re together he can’t seem to enjoy himself for apologizing for the times we aren’t together. This is something I thought we’d move past, but we never have. I felt humiliated. I felt that I had bothered someone for years without knowing I was doing it. I feel humiliated as I write of it now. It was a sad way to end a good day.

Handsome Sam was here and clearly repaired the porch. If he got to the roof too the next rainy southwind will tell. He hurt himself between his first visit and this one, and he has one of those beards men grow when it’s too much bother to shave.

Adonis is on Amazon.com.