Lucas shivered. He felt Matthew's warm breath cause oscillations starting in the shell of his ear and ripple through the canal causing his very center to pulse.
It is afterwards now. They have gone into the other world together and now they are together, again, in the hotel bed, slowly reentering the world in which they do not belong to each other.
Mathew's voice weaves in and out, riding the warm currents of his breath.
You belong to me, Luc, and I belong to you. Others think they possess us, but they are only temporary. You and I, beloved Luc, we are eternal, even if now we must steal time like thieves, thieves of love, my darling; we have always been thieves of love and we always will be. For you and me duration is measured by the depth of our meeting, not by the length of time we can spend together.
Matthew whispered, gently, so gently, and as he whispered he stroked the muscular, masculine chest of the man he loved.
How I love those words that describe you: strong, masculine, muscular.
How I love the shape of your jaw and the slight abrasiveness of your skin when you have gone a day without shaving.
My wife hates it, Lucas said laughing.
And I love the glow of your auburn hair, its thick and silken texture.
I love the strong silken skin of your strong, smooth, muscular chest and the hard mounds on which stand your nipples which are always erect when I touch them, strong nipples and delicate, sensitive, longing nipples, he said blowing a soft breath upon them before touching his lips to those nipples with offers of reverent kisses.
I love the hard ripples of your belly, the wiry rope muscles of your thighs, the impudent independence of your cock.
I love that you have given me your cock and accepted mine.
I love your heart, your fast beating heart which beats as well within my breast as it beats inside yours.
How hard it is to hold you close enough.
How hard it is to part our flesh even though our souls, our spirits, our desires, and our hearts are never apart.
They kissed; they gazed; they exploded; they slept.
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The morning light fell on Matthew's naked chest through the window through which all that could be seen was nothing but sky.
Matthew woke to the joy of Lucas kissing him. Lucas kissed the smile on Matthew's lips and Matthew opened his mouth to him and consumed his kisses.
It frightens me, Lucas said, this love. I did not expect it. I thought I would remain whole and separate. But now I am vulnerable. I thought I would just see how it felt to hold another man. I wanted to feel the emotions men can feel with each other, that I had heard of, that lurked hidden in my flesh, but I had not thought about love. I thought to free myself. But I have bound myself to love, to you, Luc. There is nothing more I want than for you to possess me. My very being is a poem I compose again and again to you. You are my flesh. You are the words I say, the language I speak.
Thus they made love, not only with their bodies but by immersing themselves in each other's words, surfing together on the waves of their words.
They dressed and after breakfast went back to their room and changed into their black bikinis and wrapped themselves in their white terry robes and went to the Olympic pool and swam for an hour, back and forth, beside each other, each in his own lane, each finding the strength of his stroke in the other's proximate physique, breasting the water like dolphins, their bodies, parabolas breaking the water line, arching and submerging and arching again until they hoisted themselves up and sat on the edge, breathing deep and hard, laughing, without thinking why, the laughter of the bodies of lovers.
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Three years before, each walking with his wife on Central Park West, half attentive to what she was saying, half somewhere else, but nowhere they could locate, thinking about something they kept forgetting, about their work or feeling the shadow of a lost memory, feeling tired, they passed each other one evening, Matthew and Marie on the way to see The Magic Flute; Lucas and Florence rushing, almost late to meet a colleague from the university at The Tavern on the Green.
Both men abstracted, feeling weighted down, it was strange they should catch each other's eye, but they did. And stranger still that each should know how it was with the other, but they did, and involuntarily they exchanged a knowing smile, the smile of those who have committed a similar folly and are making do. And even stranger still that something airy entered them.
And then the couples passed, and the moment passed, and three months passed until they came upon each other accidentally.
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Things which must be, must be, even if it were better for the routine order of the world if they did not come to pass.
Wishes breed in each of us despite what we think is our better wisdom, even though it is disconcertingly true that our buried wishes are really our better wisdom. But it may be better to leave them buried, for once they begin to emerge, they are willful, take command, have no regard for reality, for the comfortable arrangements we have made, for the well-enough in which we live, for the commitments to which we have pledged ourselves.
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It was snowing and Matthew sat in the locker room pulling off his galoshes.
Galoshes!
Matthew looked up and saw a nearly naked Lucas, looking to him like the statue of a god in a museum, his taut and muscled physique gleaming in sweat.
Galoshes, he repeated.
I haven't seen galoshes since I was in the fifth grade. I did not think they still manufactured them.
My wife insists I wear them, Matthew said before he had time to realize he regretted saying that, letting this gleaming man know he had a wife and, worse, a wife who told him what to do.
But Lucas was not fazed.
I know how it is, he said.
You are married, too? Matthew asked, unaware why the question seemed so important to him or why Matthew's affirmation that he was afforded him such relief.
I've not seen you here before, Lucas added, still standing in only his jock strap and daubing himself with a towel.
I haven't been here before, but I've been feeling all sorts of kinks in my body, at a desk all day. I thought that swimming and using a sauna might do me good.
Are you about to swim now?
Yes, Matthew said, if I can get these galoshes off.
Do some laps with me? Lucas said. I've got to rinse myself off under the shower. See you at the pool in a few minutes?
Matthew nodded and, tugging at the heel, pulled one galosh off.
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It was simple what they did afterwards.
They showered and dressed and went to eat oysters together and drank champagne.
As if it were New Year's Eve, Matthew said.
To our New Year, Lucas said, raising his glass, and they drank and became giddy, and in the dark corner where they sat, they pressed their lips together, and no one saw them.
They walked to Bryant Park in the snow and rented ice skates, and held hands as they circled in grace and breathed in the winter.
And afterwards they drank Irish coffee and laughed, and Matthew, who had the key to a friend's apartment in Brooklyn, in Park Slope, while his friend was in Washington D.C. to testify about net neutrality before a senate committee, said to Lucas, do you have to get home or can we spend a few more hours together? I have the key to a friend's apartment in Park Slope while he is in Washington testifying before a Senate committee on net neutrality.
There's a cab, Lucas said.
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In the morning, sitting in his office, Lucas switched on his computer. When he checked his e-mail, this is what he saw:
you came to me and told me that you loved me and i believed you and told you i loved you too and when i drift off now every part of me remembers my belly contracts my heart beats my chest swells my cock wishes my asshole yields and my mouth and my eyes devour you i am startled by the wish to have you over me my arms and legs wrapped around you your hard man body mine your hard man cock slowly penetrating me slowly entering and withdrawing and with each thrust going deeper into me with each thrust coming nearer to my heart beloved darling mine oh with each thrust your eyes oh my body is a hardness under yours a perfection you have made because you are perfect your words are my words your breath is my breath your body is my body oh, luc you beat in me like an irrepressible tom tom i only want you more there is no part of you i do not kiss beloved
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You thrive on deprivation, Matthew wrote. I don't. I'm needy. I need to feel you with me. We say I love you to each other, and it's real^Åat the moment. But there are so few moments. And the rest of the time^Å
I was afraid of this.
Afraid of what? Matthew wrote.
That I would not be able to live up to your expectations.
But I have no expectations. I only want you to be the way you are.
But it's not enough for you. And there's nothing we can do about it. We're both married. And that's your real life. This is only something else.
No, this is my real life, and there's hardly any of it. My marriage is what I do every day. But the person who is in that marriage is not me.
Who is it then, Luc wrote, if not you?
I don't know, Matthew wrote, the person I'm supposed to be. This is so twisted. I wish we had never gotten into this. And I am afraid you are going to stop seeing me. I'm all in knots, and that's not the thing we both wanted and which we had at first.
I have to go, Luc wrote.
Can we meet Thursday late afternoon?
I'm not sure, Luc answered. I'll let you know. Please don't be upset.
I'm not. I just^Å
I really have to get off.
Me, too, Matthew thought as the green button next to Luc's name turned gray.
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