14 Perfect Never Lasts
Jack broke the kiss off. Breathless and flushed, he rolled onto his back, then side, reaching for his notebook from his jacket pocket. “I made a diagram!”
Gael had shed his clothes during the last dance, a very slow waltz with more body contact than style. Naked, erect, and confused, he asked, “What?”
“I made a diagram about how our bodies might join. Let me show you.”
Long past ready for this consummation, Gael didn’t wait for the diagram, but moved his kisses to the back of Jack’s neck while reaching around him to unbutton the good doctor’s shirt. His reply was mostly a mumbled moan as he kissed down the back of Jack’s neck, wet and intense, a little teeth. “Don’t need a diagram.”
“Yes, well,” Jack groaned. His hands shook too much to get the notebook up where they could see it. “It’s just, I mean, well, a plan, it might be helpful.”
“I got a plan,” Gael said. His hands undid Jack’s belt, then his pants, kissing around his hips as he inched the slacks down. “Trust me.”
“I ejaculate in my sleep once or twice a week,” Jack whispered. He lifted his hips and let Gael pull his slacks down and away. “You must have practiced as an orderly a lot in the last few days. You unclothed me so quickly.”
“Yeah,” Gael said, eyes rolling. “Lots of practice.”
It was easy enough to get Jack to spread his legs and then Gael was on him, gently pulling a testicle into his mouth. Washing it with his tongue, stucking tenderly, wanting to take his time and tease Jack until the angelic man couldn’t stand it anymore. Jack groaned, bit the side of his thumb, and came all over his bare belly. Panting heavily, fists full of bedding his hands, Jack lifted his head up and gapped at Gael. “That was amazing! That is so much better than a dream! Thank you!”
Gael stared back from between Jack’s legs. Blue eyes just stared. “You ... finished.”
Fully energized, Jack sat up and reached out to caress Gael’s face. “I love you! I think I’ll sleep wonderfully tonight.”
“I bet you will, right after you to me.” Feeling wicked, Gael ran his tongue right up Jack’s bare belly, cleaning and teasing at the same time. “This goes both ways.”
“Yes, yes, of course! I just, my mind was like fireworks and I wasn’t thinking clearly!”
Gael moved up to straddle Jack’s lap and guided Jack’s hand to his own hardness. “Do me just like you do yourself.”
“I don’t,” Jack confessed. “Masturbation is a sin.”
“Uh, and what we’re doing isn’t?”
“While men’s law isn’t perfect, in god’s law we are celebrating the love he created between two souls. This is worship.”
“You’d make a shit Catholic,” Gael said, fingers combing through Jack’s hair. “Just hold me and I’ll do it.”
Jack was just a bit bigger of the two and he rolled them so Gael was on his back, Jack’s arm under his neck. Jack hooked a leg around Gael’s leg and snuggled close. “Show me everything you like. Tell me how to make you feel the best.”
“A little at a time,” Gael moaned. He licked his hand and reached for himself, but Jack caught his hand and licked as well, then got inspired and started sucking on each of Gael’s fingers. Between each finger, he whispered, “You’re brave.” “You’re clever.” “You’re beautiful!”
Jack’s hand followed Gael’s lower, but then went to gently lift and hold Gael’s scrotum. “I cannot even imagine any sight more beautiful than you are, Gael. Before you my life was empty and I hope never to live in such a way again.”
“Hush,” Gael groaned, both stroking and lifting into Jack’s touch. “Kiss my nipples?”
“Yes, yes, always,” Jack said, shifting his weight and moving to swirl his tongue around Gael’s nipples.
When Gael came, he splashed the side of Jack’s face. Body leaner and more muscular than Jack’s, his belly tensed prolonging the peak of the experience. The rise and recovery was familiar to Gael. What wasn’t familiar was Jack wrapping his arms around him, crying against his chest, and muttering poetic sweetness about life and love. Gael couldn’t understand half of it, but he shifted so he could wrap his arms around Jack, and rub his back. “It’s okay. Everything is okay, baby.”
“But what if I’d never met you? What if I’d gone my whole life without feeling like this? I love you so much!”
Gael’s first instinct was to tell Jack that he could have had any cute guy in New York, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. “I love you too. I’m never leaving you. We’re together for life. In sickness and health, for wealth or poverty, that stuff.”
“Yes!” Jack agreed, lifting his head. “Let’s wash up. When you get home from work tomorrow I’ll have us a wonderful dinner and we can spend all evening chatting.”
“Something like that,” Gael said, wondering how many times it would take for Jack to develop enough stamina to have a real go at it.
“Are you disappointed in me?” Jack pulled back enough to search Gael’s face.
“No.” With tenderness and vulnerability that felt risky. “This was the first time sex ever meant anything to me, so I guess we’re both virgins, or were.”
“New York must be soulless if someone could touch you and not find themselves swept into God’s presence. You’re divine.”
“I’ve got to read you more poetry,” Gael teased, kissing Jack’s forehead. “Let’s clean up. One of us has to go to work tomorrow.”
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The following day went quite well. The days that followed grew more harmonious. Jack gave Gael’s family checkups and vaccinated the children. For Gael’s father, who was mostly bedridden, he prescribed ginseng and turmeric, which the mother said wasn’t Irish and wasn’t coming in the house.
They talked about getting a bigger house, so the kids could live with them. They talked about adopting. They talked about how wonderful it would be if they could march in the streets and demand equal rights for homosexuals the way women were doing in the streets. Women were also being jailed and beaten,which would have made it hard to take care of the little kids, so they went about their lives, but there were dreams.
And so 1915 passed. They argued at Christmas because Jack didn’t want to go to mass. In the end he went to mass and Gael went to a Christmas play at Jack’s church. It was hard for Gael to really get his mind around the point of church if there was no confession, no eucharist, and no priests.
Together they managed to get all the kids into school, including Kate-Marie. Alfred had never stopped paying the family’s bills, which made Gael deeply uncomfortable, but Alfred was a lion and he didn’t think he was Daniel, so he kept his head down.
The war in Europe progressed. They worried about if there would be a draft if the US entered the war. There was a real polio epidemic in 1916 and Jack didn’t make it home for three weeks. Gael worked as an orderly in the evenings again and they argued. Jack was terrified that Gael would get polio. Gael said he wasn’t afraid of anything.
He did get polio, but it was a very mild case. Gael got better and promised he’d never stop dancing. Many others did not recover. Jack prayed nightly for a vaccine, but if there ever was going to be one, it wasn’t happening in 1916.
By the start of 1917 Jack had built up some stamina for their alone time. It turned out there was to be a draft and they both registered. Jack got an exemption because he was still, technically, a medical student. Gael didn’t worry about it. He was lucky and always had been. He got permission to take the bar and he passed. Everything in Gael and Jack’s world was pretty near perfect.
Perfect never lasts.
