After the winter, there comes a morning, when I smell spring in the air. It surprises me, when I become aware of it, because I had forgotten this aroma during the last 360 days. I don’t know what makes up the scent, but the sun is always out when I first notice it. Anyway, today is such a day and I am happy just to have a nose.

When I get to Ned’s, I find the doors and windows open, but soon the sweet fragrance of the outdoors is overpowered by the odor of cooking. As noon approaches, I am anxious to leave. I take a sandwich with me and go outside. The air is a little cool even in the bright sunlight. I go over to the garage to see Demitri. We often have our lunches together.

Demitri seems to be in a spring mood, too, because as soon as I get there he says, “Are you up for a noonie?”

“This must be my lucky day. Do you know I sometimes go weeks without any sex?”

“I doubt that,” Demitri rejoins.

“Well, sometimes I go days without any.” Demitri finds his lunch box and we get into his car. “How come you’re not giving your wife a noonie?” I ask.

“She’s gone back to teaching, now that Gregory is one.”

“Oh, so I’m just an expedient,” I tease him.

“You know very well that I like to have a boy once in a while.”

“A boy? What other boy would let you near him with your grimy hands?” Demitri and I are always kidding each other. Actually, he is quite handsome, lean and strong, about six feet tall. His hair his black, as are his penetrating eyes. A lot of boys would want him. But he is mine and Mary’s, he doesn’t cheat on either of us.

“Plenty, if you must know. You’re not the only queer boy in town, not by a long shot,” he counters.

When we get to my place, we get undressed right away. Demitri must be back at work by one, so there is no time to waste.

Demitri likes to screw me on my back. So, I watch his face as he lifts my feet up and puts the KY on his fingers and then rubs it into my opening. I see him staring at my family jewels as he positions himself to enter me. The feeling, as he does it, is intense.

There is more to look at in this position. I can see his big hands holding my legs up. He has left a light smudge on my left thigh. His wiry body looms over me. Muscles play against each other as he moves.

Demitri likes to fuck long and slow. I suppose it must be due to all his practice with women. He enjoys watching his cock come slowly out and then slowly re-enter. But, after a while, he can’t hold back any more. He leans forward, bending my feet all the way back toward my head, puts his hands on my shoulders and pumps as fast and hard as anyone. His face takes on all kinds of expressions, that I never see any other time and sweat appears on his brow.

After he screws me, Demitri likes to suck my dick. That’s one thing his wife can’t give him. I don’t usually let people do that, because I don’t like to suck and don’t want to have to reciprocate. But Demitri doesn’t care if I don’t give blow jobs, because he is happy enough fucking me.

Demitri uses the bathroom, gets dressed and, sitting on the edge of the bed, starts eating his lunch. I am still lying there, basking in the afterglow, feeling relaxed and contented. Demitri strokes my stomach.

“Do you want your sandwich?” he asks.

“In a minute,”

He kisses me on the mouth, Then his hand wanders up my side and he starts tickling. “All right,” I laugh. “Give me my sandwich.”

He gets it for me and I lie naked on my bed, eating.

“You should have a table and a couple of chairs for when we have lunch here. I’ll make some for you when I get a chance. You also ought to have a hot plate and a kettle for making tea and a little refrigerator to keep some milk.”

When I’m done with my sandwich, he hands me a brownie. “Here,” Demitri says, “Mary sent this for you. I told her that I’d probably see you today.”

“Thanks.”

“She also wants you to come to dinner tonight. Pasta.”

“Sure, that would be nice.”

“Well, I’ve got to go,” he says. “Come here.”

I move toward him and he hugs and kisses me. “Don’t forget about tonight,” he says

As Demitri leaves, I feel the rush of cool air from the door, but I still don’t want to get dressed, so I lie there a while, day dreaming. I suppose Demitri and I love each other, but only a couple of times a month, except for the final month of Mary’s pregnancies. Then it is a little more often. I’m sure that Demitri would do anything he could to help me, if I needed it, and I know that I would do anything that I could for him.

I love the feel of his tough hands. He has left a couple of other grease marks on my smooth alabaster body. It is kind of sexy. I think he does it on purpose. I’m getting a hard on, so I go and take a shower.

*****

When I get to Demitri and Mary’s little house, I go right in. I’m not supposed to knock, because Mary says that I’m their little brother. I tell her that she shouldn’t say that, because then Demitri and I are committing incest. She just laughs and claims that incest between brothers doesn’t count because there can’t be children. She says that is what her brothers always told her. I don’t know though, I think she is making it up.

I find Mary in the kitchen, the two kids are there in a playpen. She stops washing lettuce long enough for hugs and kisses. “So you saw Demitri at lunch time,” she says.

“Uncha Bobby,” Christine chirps.

“Yeah. Do you have the rag on?” I reply.

“Uncha Bobby, Uncha Bobby!” Christine shouts. Gregory babbles something unintelligible.

“Where did you get language like that, you little snot,” Mary, mockingly, demands to know.

“Rag on,” this from Christine.

We both laugh. “From you. I’ve heard you say that a hundred times,” I counter.

More noise is heard from Gregory, who is now standing up, holding on to the rail of the playpen, looking at us with interest. “Not a hundred times, I haven’t known you that long. But, to answer your question, yes, I am. Is he that predictable?”

Christine has sat back down and is occupied with something else, since we have failed to take proper notice of her.

“The odds are pretty good that if Demitri comes to call, you’ve gone off somewhere or something.” I smile to show that this doesn’t bother me.

“At least it’s not like you have no one else.”

Mary is considerate of my position as I am of hers. It makes sense to me that Demitri puts his wife and family first, even though I have known him longer. From the beginning, Demitri told me that he went out with women and wanted to marry someday. When he and Mary began to get serious about each other, he told her about me. He told me that his wife would have to be understanding about his other desires, because he wasn’t going to go sneaking around.

I thought that she’d run for cover, but instead she asked to meet me. I was scared stiff, but Demitri insisted. We went to Craine’s Beach together, We had a wonderful time. Mary told me that she has a brother about my age and that he was a little funny, too. I met him at the wedding, we were both ushers. If he is queer, I couldn’t tell. He is a nice kid. At the time, I thought that he was rather innocent. I think she makes up things.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” I ask her.

“Play with the kids for a while, They could use some attention.” I lift Christine out of the playpen and set her down. “Come out to the living room with me,” I tell her. I pick up Gregory and carry him out, following Christine, who has gone on ahead.

We sit on the floor and play with their toys. Then we play, “What’s That.” I point to things and ask what they are. Christine always answers first, even though Gregory knows some of the answers. When he doesn’t know, he tries to repeat whatever she says. After a while, Christine takes over the “What’s That” role. At first I answer correctly, but then I make mistakes. She points to a chair and I say, “ball.” She laughs, and corrects me. Gregory doesn’t get this variation of the game and loses interest. He finds something to play with.

Mary comes and hauls Gregory off to be fed. I read one of Christine’s books to her. She sits right up against me, leaning over my leg and looking at the book. She interrupts my reading to point out things that she sees in the pictures and telling parts of the story that she remembers. Then Christine starts to get a little wild, so I figure that she is getting tired. I put her back in the playpen, and she cries and hollers that she doesn’t want to. I give her a little kiss and a pat and sit down at the kitchen table and look out the window at the buds becoming leaves.

Mary comes back and we set the able. I pull the high chair up. Christine will eat with us until she needs to go back to her playpen. Then Demitri will put her to bed, while we do the dishes. Mary sets wine glasses on the table, a good sign. I love red wine with pasta.

We are ready, so Mary calls Demitri from down cellar, where he has been working on something. He washes his hands and we all sit down. Demitri opens the wine and pours some for each of us. We start on some antipasto and bread, then there is pasta and homemade tomato sauce, that Mary put up last fall. This is followed by beef and onions in a marinara sauce. For dessert there is fruit and cheese, cappuccino and galliano.

When I get back from having supper, I see that Murray is home, so I go up to see him. Unlike Ned, who doesn’t want to know anything, Murray requires the full story of my adventures, with complete and accurate details. I give them, because Murray is an old friend, my oldest friend. I mean, the friend that I have had the longest.

Murray makes some hot chocolate. By the time I finish telling him about my day and evening and answering questions, I can barely keep my eyes open. I go to my apartment and sleep like a log.

I am awakened by the telephone, that I keep on the night stand. It is Alan. He asks if he woke me. I lie and say that I’ve been up for minutes. He wants to know if I will come to his apartment for diner on Friday, tomorrow night. I should plan on staying the night, if I want to, he says.

I accept, of course. Alan seems to be making some progress. I think that he is becoming less uncomfortable with himself. I am lucky that he doesn’t ask to see me on Saturday, because I usually spend Sunday with Walter, arriving there by mid-morning. I’d have to explain leaving early or put Walter off. But Alan likes to work all day Sunday on his dissertation. That’s why he prefers an early Saturday evening at home by himself.

*****

Alan has the ell, to the left of the main house. Once inside the front door, there is a set of stairs leading to the second floor, where the owners live. But, they do not use that entrance. Alan’s door is to the left.

You enter a living room with a fireplace against the wall away from the street. To the left of the fireplace there is a square hole in the brickwork, like another smaller fireplace. Alan says it is a beehive oven, however, it has nothing to do with bees, but is for baking. To the right and back is a small eat-in kitchen, that is part of the main building. Immediately to the right of the fireplace, there is a door that leads to a small unheated space behind the chimney, with two windows, that is used for storage. To the left of the fireplace, there is a passageway to a small bathroom with just a shower, toilet and sink. At the end and to the left of the passageway there is the door to Alan’s bedroom.

The furniture in Alan’s bedroom is pretty raggy. There is a nineteen thirties rock maple bedroom set: desk, bureau and bed; that Alan has had since he was a kid. There are two metal filing cabinets, a typewriter table and an old Royal, about the same age as the wooden furniture. All this sits on a nondescript gray and black rug with a rubber under pad that is disintegrating into powder, because it is cheap and because the roof leaks. This was abandoned by the previous tenants, a pair of airline stewardesses. Alan also found a man’s white gold wedding band, probably left by an admirer.

In the living room there is a beat up old couch; a couple of mahogany bookshelves that had belonged to his minister uncle, now deceased; a nice dark wood end table and lamp that were apartment warming gifts from his parents; a blond coffee table, that was a present from a friend, who didn’t want it anymore. A second hand, black and white TV on a metal stand with only a little rust on it, Alan had picked up at a tag sale. The braided rug is a genuine heirloom, made by his grandmother. A black wicker armchair with red cushions, an unpainted wicker basket chair in a metal frame and a pressed plastic armchair the color of animal glue, compete the décor.

We eat in the little kitchen, at a little wooden table painted a light green, sitting on mismatched wooden chairs the same color. Alan had made what he calls, hamburger cake. It is like meal loaf, but in the shape of a big hamburger. It is meatier and chewier than meat loaf. It has chopped onions in it. There are oven fried potatoes and lima beans. It is very filling. Also, he has made a salad. I drink milk and Alan has a second bourbon. He doesn’t offer me any liquor.

After dinner, we watch TV for a while. We have dessert, vanilla ice cream with sliced strawberries. Then it’s off to bed, about nine o’clock. I don’t think that Alan knows that you can get undressed and stay in the living room.

*****

I wake up to Alan kissing my neck. I am lying on my side with his arms around me. I feel a stiff rod pressing along my bottom and his legs against mine. The sun is shining bright, it must be after eight.

“How did you sleep?” he asks me.

“I don’t know, I don’t remember,” I say.

“Do you have anything you have to do today?”

“I have to be at Ned’s about six to help close up.” Ned doesn’t stay open after seven-thirty. His customers eat early.

“Shall we go for a walk down by the harbor?”

“Sure.” I’m agreeable.

We shower and dress and set out. As one goes toward the harbor, the streets become smaller and more crooked. The houses become older and closer together, until right at the water there are new condos and apartment buildings, that block the view in places. At the harbor there are fish markets, stores where you can buy marine equipment, boat yards, the docks where people store their dinghies to row out to their sailboats and motor boats at moorings. These vary in size from open ten footers to yachts.

During the walk, Alan asks me to move into his place. This comes as a surprise to me. That I don’t accept at once, seems to come to Alan as a surprise. Then we could be together all the time, he says. I don’t think that I’m ready to live with someone, I tell him, thinking fast for reasons to give. He points out that I could get out of the basement. I tell him that I like my apartment. He asks me why I like a place like that. Because it’s mine, I tell him. Alan counters by saying that his apartment would be mine.

“How much is the rent?” I ask.

“What difference does that make?”

“Because, I would have to pay half. I don’t think I could afford it.”

“I wasn’t planning on your doing that.”

“Then it wouldn’t be my place, would it?”

“Sure it would,” Alan asserts.

“It wouldn’t feel like it to me,” I tell him.

“Please think about it,” Alan requests.

That I agree to do. Alan and I see each other more often, after that day. A few weeks later, Alan announces that he has been offered a job at Hampshire College in western Massachusetts. He will be an assistant professor. He expects to finish his dissertation by early summer. We go out to a restaurant to celebrate. It’s a good thing that I didn’t move in with him, I tell Alan, because I would only have had to move back to Murray’s. Alan tells me that he would like me to go to Amherst with him.