Chapter 16--To Change
The bags were quickly check. Security was smooth; the T-shirts were not taken out for inspection. The had a quick supper at a small café; the food was expensive and mediocre. Tom gave Chris a quick tutorial on his tablet, enough for Chris to have email and read a book. Tom was busy texting.
"Who are you texting?" Chris asked.
"I texted my friends Zoe and Slim that I will be at their Easter dinner Sunday," Tom smiled at Chris. "and to plan for two."
"Now I'm texting my friend Toby, I'm letting him know I will be home tonight."
"Toby, the guy who has a crush on you."
"We are not that kind. He was an occasional fuck buddy and friend, but it is all casual."
"I don't know that sex can ever be casual. It not like sharing a pizza."
"I've found it mostly casual."
"With me?"
Tom looked at Chris deciding how to answer. "The first night, yea casual. At least it started that way but. You felt different from the beginning. I can't explain it but I was doing more than exchanging body fluids and orgasms. Your pleasure was more important than mine. I've never had sex like that before. I knew then you were special."
"I tricked occasionally on the street; Hank didn't like it so I didn't do it often. You would think those encounters would be casual, but I never felt that way. I never felt they were love or a relationship, but they were not casual. Most men were confused, in pain, lonely, frightened. A few were assholes because of it, but most were really sweet and tender lovers desperate for the same." Chris looked at Tom to see if he was shocked or surprised. Tom was just listening. "It is a shame that people are too afraid to be who they know they are. Even in our more accepting society, many men are afraid to be gay because they do not want to see that in themselves."
"I think all people are self-delusional to some extent. I try to picture myself in twenty years and see a hole. But since meeting you, it is not a hole but a tunnel to I don't know. But you are standing there at the entrance. I see a future." Their flight was called.
"I'm scared Tom." Chris buckled his seat. The terminal lay just outside his window, uninspired concrete, yet it was where he was, home, not a home, a place where he abode, but rather a familiarity, like a chronic pain--reassuring that one is still alive. What happens when the pain is gone?
"Why?"
"It's New York and your life and friends. I am the outsider. I am not sophisticated, traveled, or worldly." Chris looked intently at Tom. "New York is your home. I worry that that home will suck you away from me. I cannot compete with that life. I fear you will find me an embarrassment, a rube. I fear so many things."
"Chris, I will be there for you, with you. You are the most amazing man I have ever met. Just know that. We may have our difficulties; we have already had a few. But at the end were are meant for each other. Ariel has said so, and you know she is never wrong."
Chris smiled, not totally reassured but he watched the ground fall away, the runway, roads, houses diminish in size, the Willis Tower and the John Hancock Center turned into push pins holding Chicago down, Lake Michigan burning rivulets of fire in the setting sun. Chris watched it all disappear into a darkening east, an unknown future. Chris stirred in his seat ready.
End of Part 1