What followed with Alec was month after month of passion,
friendship, and exploring what we both wanted from life, and our relationship
flourished. We took every opportunity to
be together, phoned each other daily or more often. Alec called me all kinds of endearing names I
wasn’t used to: Sweetheart, Beautiful, My
Love, simple little things, but to me, they were a novelty that I soaked in
like a purring kitten.
“I adore you. I need
to feel and taste you. I worship you. When we are apart, I am hurting.” I was
counting the days till we met again.
“Four and a half,” I once said when he called on a Monday
morning.
“93 hours, to be precise,” Alec replied. Longing is such a delicious need when you
have someone who is longing back.
We had wonderful times together in different places. Christmas and New Year’s Eve together in Dublin and a trip to Rome
for my birthday, which was so memorable that it took away the sting of getting
older. Alec was the most intuitive and
considerate man I’d ever met, and I didn’t exaggerate when I told Chuck that
Alec was the best lover. I couldn’t find
any snag about him except that dispensable cash seemed to be a rare commodity.
A niggling thought kept creeping out of the woodwork and
showing its nasty head. Did it matter
that we needed to look for the absolute cheapest flights and best deals and
that we didn’t go to expensive restaurants? I had a good-looking, loving man on
my arm. Did it matter that his Christmas
present looked somewhat cheap? I had hankered for a certain watch, and he gave
me a cheap imitation. On the other hand,
he sent me wonderful roses on a regular basis so that the local flower shop
deliveryman greeted me like an old friend when I opened the door. Did it matter that he didn’t buy any tiny
Christmas present for my children? I suspected he didn’t expect them to give
him any in return. Did it matter that he
didn’t own a monkey suit for our New Year’s Eve ball, but had to rent one?
Wasn’t it most important that he worshipped me?
