The obstacle

You asked me this morning why I was so affectionate, not that you were complaining. I lay awake since 4:00, you by my side, trying to answer your question. Is there anything more to my love than sex, you wondered.

My heart melts at the thought of you, but it’s not because you’ve got a shapely foot or luscious curves. It’s because I see your sensitive, vulnerable side, the side that tells me what it was like when your mother forgot to pick you up from school, what you felt like when boys picked on you at school, how your father treated your sister when she started dating. Your sensitive side … it wraps around my heart with a cozy warmth.

It’s because you make me laugh more than anyone else. I burst out laughing when you tell me the Plantation capers of Mike and Mike. I laugh when you spit out that Marie Curreri accent that comes from the sewers of Brooklyn. I laugh when you poke fun at my insecurities, my complete lack of common sense, and my intellectual inconsistencies. Your funny side … it excites me and tickles the ends of my nerves.

Your enthusiasm for travel, for ocean liners, for places yet unseen, for exquisite hotels, for your home and the homes of those you love, your dedication to your family – I treasure your enthusiasm for new experiences, and I love most of all that you want me to share in your pleasure for those things. We’ve been to Spain, Portugal, Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, and seventeen of the United States together. We’ve renovated our home, though we still have much to do. We’ve been a part of each other’s families for years. Your companionate side … it makes me feel like we’re our own family unit.

There’s our daily routine, our breakfasts. When you go to Whole Foods and get beets, leeks, carrots, cilantro, shrimp, and all the ingredients that go into a fabulous meal that’s healthy, wealthy, and wise, that makes me feel good. When we play cards at night, when we watch old Bette Davis movies, when we debate the merits of Davis v. Hepburn, de Havilland v. Leigh, that makes me feel like, “Hey, I’m really not all that queer at all.” Your domestic side … it makes me feel safe and secure.

I’m a creative writer, I’m a pianist, and I’m a software engineer. I’ve got this insatiable need to express my feelings, my thoughts, and my love. When this need gets suppressed for too long a period of time, the frustration begins to creep into other places. The room grows a little colder.

You’re the center of my life, the one and only person I’ve chosen to love. I have sex with you to express all the different facets of my love for you. Without those other things, we’d have fizzled long ago. We’d have had a six-week affair that we’d have recounted to friends, “Hot guy, pretty good in bed. You should give him a try.” Instead, it’s been eight years.