Des Downunder On Sundays

Today's Column Appears In Two Parts

By Des Rutherford, Adelaide, Australia- A Night in Reality

I just read another story. Boy meets boy, they seduce each other and then live happily ever after.

That wasn’t as bad as the previous story I read where boy meets boy and they entered into a relationship that was plagued with every plot device from every daytime soap opera on TV.

Boring.

So I showered, shaved, shat and shampooed, not necessarily in that order, and went for a cruise in the car.

A full two hours later, I returned home with my conquest for the night. He left like two minutes after he came.

So I once again did the aforementioned ablutions, hopped in the car and again returned home, this time in 75 minutes with another conquest.

He spasmed in record time, and left shortly thereafter.

My shower was wearing out, but I just had to find someone for the night.

This time, I returned home in 45 minutes. What can I say? It was late, we were desperate and wham, bang, thank you, man, and it was over.

I lay there wondering what was wrong. It takes longer to read the stories than it does to enact them.

Suddenly, it hit me what was wrong with the stories; especially those that didn’t finish.

It’s all about the hunt, the conquest. It’s not even about meeting someone for a never-ending romance.

The careful preparation, the thinking about the excitement that lays ahead, the chase, the hopefully exotic hunt for the Red October’s torpedo, the desire to conquer, to submit and be conquered, to be taken to the lair of the beast and be enthralled in the cave of our unearthly imaginings, to soar above the clouds only to fall to Earth, dripping in Heaven’s moisture, locked in an embrace of mutual masculine muscularity.

And then as the dawn breaks through yonder window, I stretch and realise the son of youth has fled the night like an unfinished star, a story that can never have a satisfactory completion.

Alone, I sit on the edge of the bed, looking at the computer on the table on the other side of the room. I know it contains a window to a net full of stories like I just experienced; a dizzying roundabout of hopeful beginnings that end in wishful thinking, or not at all.

How many times do I start reading a story, only to pace the author and like him, lose interest at the very moment that he has revealed the primal conquest of one, or both, of the heroes? Most times, the author has lost the firmness of the plot at the same moment as my interest has gone limp.

So the stories were basically following the same path as a promiscuous pick-up, probably inspired by the horniness of the author as he began writing, only to come to an abrupt ending when the keyboard became clogged with his excitement. End of story, or never to be finished. Just like my night in reality.

It was just sex.

Today, I will seek love.

To Love in Silence

I sit in silence, awaiting his return,

Silent thoughts wandering alone in my mind,

Thoughts of his happiness, and of my sorrow,

Sorrow that began when he told me all his dreams,

Dreams I must ever guard with my silence.

It hurts that his dreams are not the same as mine,

Mine, unknown to him, were already realised,

Realised when together we bought this house,

The house we have shared with each other as home,

A home where I could love him in silence.

Perhaps it would be best I quietly leave,

Leave while he’s away proposing to his girl,

The girl of his dreams and of my shattered hopes,

Hopes that as they must, now become my despair,

Despair I must conceal with my silence.

He will come home to announce his happy news,

News that will rend my heart from my chest,

Still beating and beating till it is still,

While he dances his steps of life and love,

And my love lives and dies in its silence.

He once told me friendship can give life to love,

My love is for him but his love is for her,

And she deserves it all, for she adores him,

With devotion that makes me love her as well,

I am cursed to love them both in silence.

I must be seen rejoicing in their union,

I shall give them both my blessing and this house,

I’ll sign the deed to him as a wedding gift,

A gift for him to find after I have gone,

To applaud their love and deny my silence-

I must hurry because he will soon return,

My tears try to sign the deed. I hear his car,

I cannot see where to sign it. He is here,

I’m too late to escape with myself intact,

He walks in. No word, no sound can be heard.

We stand facing each other like ancient statues,

Carved from the granite of youth, by the tools of gods,

Gods so envious that they make us both to cry,

But he should not be weeping. What has happened?

“She will not have me. She says it’s you I love,

And she is right. I have loved you, in silence.”