FREE FALLING

Free Falling

A covert romance opens new worlds-and new dangers

November / December 2006

Bryn Marlow White Crane 

I close the door to the girls' bedroom, roll the old swivel chair against it, stand the laundry basket on end behind that. I turn and smile at Serge. He returns my grin. This is our favorite part of the day. I watch him wriggle out of his red T-shirt emblazoned with a huge mosquito and the caption 'Minnesota state bird.' He slips out of his European-cut blue jeans, into the double bed. 'Are you not coming then?' he whispers. I exhale, long and slow.

Until this summer I believed men's underwear came only in white, as boxers or briefs, and I am still scandalized by his black bikinis. They seem so exotic, daring, a tad dangerous, and, like the things we do in bed, very exciting.

We met in England last year as team leaders at a camp. He followed up with a visit to the States late this summer. Our friendship is going places I have never been before.

I take one step toward the bed when the by-now-familiar sensation hits again. I am a million miles from here climbing a narrow mountain path. My feet slip, I go over the edge. In a panic I grab at grass, dirt, rocks, a branch, anything. Somehow I hold on. My heart pounds, joints quake, everything goes red, black.

The moment passes. I catch my breath, listen to the comforting murmur of my parents' voices from the kitchen. My brothers have retired to their bunks in the boys' bedroom, the youngest to rest on his laurels. He bested us all in Masterpiece, tonight's family board game. To win, one must invest wisely in fine art, avoid forgeries, know when to cash in. My brother is good at identifying fakes. This scares me.

I drop my bib overalls, unbutton my shirt. My skin, almost as white as my underwear, makes a marked contrast to Serge's olive complexion. I caress his face, comb my fingers through his long dark curls.

I love this man, whether I know it or not. He makes me happy. We are always talking-politics, religion, life, its big questions and little ones. We get on famously, and if we do not, I fail to notice it. Last month he got angry at me. He sulked (the French national pastime, he calls it) and avoided me for days. I thought he needed space and let him be, which only fueled his anger. By day four he gave up, we made up, made love. Now we laugh about it.

Pressed against him I shudder softly, breathe his name, 'Serge.' I always mispronounce it. My tongue will not wrap around the proper 'Sairgzh,' so I Americanize it, say his name as if it were a jolt of electricity, 'Surge.' Although it is said wrong, it speaks my truth aright. When it comes to him, what is wrong is right.

Except that it is not. Two men together? When I think of this, an inner voice rumbles in King James English, 'Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? His own iniquities shall take the wicked, and he shall be holden with the cords of his sin.' I copied these Bible verses and others into my prayer journal earlier in the week. I make up for being defective by being holy.

Last wash day my mother nearly busted everything wide open when she turned back the bed to reveal a blue nylon sleeping bag. 'What is this? What is it doing here?' I felt my feet go off the cliff. I grabbed a branch. 'Serge, um, gets cold at night.' She bought my story. In reality, the sleeping bag is our latest ploy for assuaging my conscience. It serves as a chastity belt some nights, allowing us to be close, me to be holy.

Serge reaches back and up, turns the knob of the yellowed bed lamp hooked over the headboard. I love the cataract of muscle rippling in his arm, the flat planes of his body, the sound of his breathing, the sweet-sour smell of him. He is unimaginably dear to me.

A thousand yellow roses bloom on the wallpaper. The soft light illumines the room, and the windows open to the crickets' evening concert. Katydids join the chorus tonight, announcing the first frost in three weeks' time. They have it wrong. The big chill arrives three days from now when Serge boards a plane bound for New York, Paris, Toulouse. Already my bones ache with cold.

He sits up. 'Three days until airplane Black Friday.' This is old news. He pulls me up to sit facing him, caresses my cheek, looks long into my eyes. 'It does not have to be this way. Come to Europe. We could live in England or Ireland, if you like, or in France, even. We could make a life together, you and I.' He exhales a loud puff of air, stretches his fingers wide, expectant. 'What do you say? Will you do it?'

The air in the room gets very thin. Bed and all, I am going over the cliff. What is there to hold on to?

'Oh, Serge.' My voice catches in my throat. 'I could never go with you. I know in my heart there is no future in such a life, no happiness. Not for me, not for you, not for anybody.'

We are silent. My ready answer has landed with all the delicacy of a sucker punch. I watch his face stiffen. He nods. It is OK. He understands. He is sorry he asked. He wants only what I want. He wants me to be happy.

I look at him across the divide of our desires, through curtains of tears. I want him to be happy, too. What can I say? I envision our future. 'Serge, we are both going to get married, find a woman, be very happy. You wait and see. Tell you what, when I get married I want you to be in my wedding. I will send you a plane ticket, OK?' Sure. We make a pact. We will attend each other's weddings, each pay the other's plane fare. Fine. This takes care of our future, but what do we do with this present space between us?

Serge moves first. He slides his feet into the sleeping bag, zips it up to his chest, lies on his back, staring at the cracked ceiling. I lie beside him feeling no holiness in our chastity tonight, only an aching emptiness that swallows the world, this lonesome, noisy, knockabout world. The katydids have it right. The cold is coming. What do we have but this moment? I unzip the bag, tug it off him, let it dangle over the side of the bed, slip away.

The second time Bryn Marlow married, he wed a man, Dave. Serge was involved in both marriage ceremonies. Reprinted from White Crane (Spring 2006). Subscriptions: $22/yr. (4 issues) from 172 Fifth Ave. #69, Brooklyn, NY 11217; www.whitecranejournal.com.

This excerpt appeared in Utne Reader, November/December 2006.

WHAT TWO MEN DO IN BED

I crawl into bed, pull the covers up over my head, scrunch my knees up to my chin, stick my arm out at an odd angle over my leg, hold up the blankets on that side. My husband Dave finishes brushing his teeth, comes into the bedroom. I lay very still, try not to breathe. His soft snicker is the reward I’ve been hoping for. 

Dave’s gentle laughter means several things: “Up to your old tricks again, hey?” and “You better not be waiting to reach out from under the bed and grab my ankle” and “So you’re not in bed. But where exactly are you? And how long before I find out? And what is going to happen to me if I do? If I don’t?”

I hold very still. Again the snicker, for me an expression of exquisite joy, of being in the moment, suspending blankets and time, waiting, watching, aware of my breath, aware of his unseen presence. Aware of the love that cords between us, a shared bond 10 years strong, seven times that in dog years, twice that again in gay male couple years.

“It'd be some sweet life,” Jack tells Ennis in the movie Brokeback Mountain, proposing the two men make a life together. Ennis refuses point blank. "Told you, ain't goin' to be that way." Jack's heart fails, hopes fall. He knows a life is built in part on choices made. “Some sweet life” has become a catch phrase betwixt Dave and me, a reminder of what we have, of the hard choices we’ve made to get here, the pain we’ve walked through, this very present blessing of our shared life.

Nights like this, when I actually am under the covers, I try to make it look as if I am not. Other nights I artfully arrange pillows and extra quilts in the shape of my recumbent frame. After 10 years, Dave’s getting harder and harder to fool. 

I successfully employed a new stratagem the other night. I arranged the buffalo robe under the sheets, crouched on the floor beside the bed, slipped my arm up under the bedclothes, let my hand stick out beside the pillow. When Dave turned in, turned out the bedside lamp, I withdrew my hand. He snuggled up against me only to find it wasn’t me at all. He burst out laughing, as did I. After so many years together, new tricks are both hard to come by and doubly appreciated.

There are several old stand-bys. Dousing the lights before he comes in, so he has to walk through the dark to reach the bedside lamp. (Prime the imagination and those few steps can be harrowing.) Hiding in the closet, under the bed, beside it, in it or in another room altogether. Calling out to him, “I’m going to bed now. I’ll be waiting for you.” Even when I am. Slipping out the far side of the bed as he slips in the near side. Laying in bed—and staying there—upside down. 

These antics are by now a ritual between us. A way of showing affection. Of sharing laughter. Being playful with life. Of reminding ourselves that all is not what it seems.

In coming out as gay men whole worlds opened to us. Life. Vitality. Living in integrity, true to our deeper selves. In coming out as gay men, whole worlds closed to us. Society’s easy acceptance and approval. Relationships with spouses, children, family, friends. Our religious communities. Employers.

We chose to face our pain, feel our feelings. Discovered that deep pain hollows out a place inside that may later be filled with deep joy. Learned that what lurks in fearful darkness may after all be love. Learned not to trust the initial form of things but to ask: Does this warm to my touch? Does it hold life for me?

Tonight my breathing gives me away. Dave sees the rise and fall of the covers. I am found out. This my consolation prize: “I didn’t think you were in bed,” he says as we snuggle in together, share each other’s warmth, our sweet life.   

A version of this essay appeared in the anthology Charmed Lives, edited by Toby Johnson and Steve Berman, White Crane Books, New York, NY, 2006