Publication Update

It's been a while, hasn't it?

I've wanted to give you an update for a long time but didn't get around to it––that is, an update in the completion and submission of my novel. As you'll recall from the previous post, my original goal date was June 30, 2019.

Well, I didn't achieve that. I tried, I really did, but my manuscript wasn't ready, and I knew it. After working on it for ten years, I thought I could wait a while longer to submit, until I was certain it was the best I could do.

I FINALLY finished my manuscript, realizing a lifelong dream, in mid-September 2019. Shortly after, I submitted it to several publishers. I also submitted it to several more publishers in mid-January of this year and another in February. Currently, my manuscript is in the hands of five publishers, and I'm waiting for a positive response.

Now, we're all dealing with COVID-19––who knew we'd face the worst pandemic in our lifetimes. No one knows when that will end, or what our world will look like when it does. Of course, there are more important things happening than whether my novel is accepted for publication, but I still hope. We will get through this, and the world will go on, including publishing books and people eager to read them.

In the meantime, I've been working on my second novel, which is the second in the series. The outline is almost finished, and I'll soon begin writing the first draft.

Thanks for your interest.

Hope all of you are well.

Stay healthy.    

June 30, 2019

Yea!

So what's the significance of June 30?

For those of you who are interested, June 30 is the date by which I plan to submit my novel to several publishers. Did I just type that? I can't believe it. It's been a long, long journey.

I can't think of anything I've wanted to be more than a writer. I remember writing a short story with a babysitter when I was a kid. It was a western (don't ask me why I chose that genre, because I have no interest in it today), and I wish I still had that story. That was a lot of years ago (I'll be sixty this October). And, while I wrote a first novel in my early twenties––coming home after work, eating dinner, cleaning up, then writing longhand in scribblers at least until bedtime and often beyond that, for nine solid months––it was a piece of crap and will never see the light of day. But…it taught me something important. It taught me I could write a novel, start to finish. It taught me I had what it took to stick with something and see it through to completion. And it gave me the energy to keep going this time around.

Some of the notes I've kept around writing my current novel have 2010 written on them. That's when I started to figure out what I wanted to write about. But I didn't really start it in earnest until 2012. That's still a hell of a long time––an average of four or five hours a day, Monday to Friday, with short breaks in between, for nearly seven years. SEVEN YEARS. Did I think I could do this? No. I wasn't sure. Am I glad I did? You can't imagine how much.

Thirty-six chapters, 393 pages, 96,747 words––my novel is almost done, and I couldn't be more thrilled. Truly a lifelong dream come true. The query letter is written. The synopsis is written. And now, I'm polishing to make sure my manuscript shines: validating setting details, cutting throwaway words (for example, very, also, rather, really, quite, etc.), and addressing the last issues I've documented on literally thousands and thousands of note sheets since starting this process. I have never worked this hard on anything or felt more fulfilled by something I've done. I've given birth to a book, and I'm closer to it than I am to most human beings.

As always, I'm still available if there's anything in my blog you're interested in and want to ask me about. Or if you just want to talk about something in your life, something you're going through. Simply send me an email at rmodien@telus.net, and I will respond. I'd love to hear from you.

Chapter Seven, "Broken," from "For the ♥ of David," A Novel-in-Progress

Three years ago, I started to write a novel based on a short story I'd written.  By late last summer or early fall, I'd completed a first draft, and I began to work on rewrites.  Since then, the editing process has been long and often frustrating.  But I'm starting to get a sense of what my novel will be once it's done, and that is gratifying.

I'm pleased to share with you Chapter Seven, "Broken," in its entirety below.  The content of the chapter is self-explanatory; all you need to know is it takes place in late 1988.  Oh, and it's suitable for all audiences.

Thanks for taking the time, and I hope you enjoy it.

CHAPTER SEVEN

BROKEN

Two weeks later, I went to David’s for an early Christmas dinner.           

            It was the first time someone, other than a relative, had invited me over for a meal–certainly another gay man.  I was so excited, I couldn’t wait to go.        

            When I arrived at David’s apartment late that Saturday afternoon, I was surprised when he told me it would be just the two of us.  Especially considering how much work he was putting himself through, going all out as though he expected a houseful of family and friends.        

            In addition to the traditional roasted turkey, stuffing, and gravy, the meal consisted of a tossed salad with homemade dressing, garlic mashed potatoes, steamed broccoli, oven-warmed buns, and cranberry sauce, which David told me he’d made using a secret recipe of his grandmother’s.  And, for dessert, he’d baked a pumpkin pie, including the crust, which he garnished with fresh whipped cream and sprigs of mint. 

            Overstuffed, David and I sat at his intimate, candle-lit dining table–the everyday items normally found on it moved to the floor, in the corner and out of the way–where we talked, laughed, and enjoyed ourselves until well into the evening.         

            When it came time to clean up, we worked together to transfer everything back to the kitchen.  Afterward, I stood in the short hallway, leaning against the narrow half-wall, and watched David fastidiously rinse the dirty dishes, piling like items on top of each other.  In amongst his impatient and frustrated mutterings about the lack of counter space, our lively dinner repartee continued.   

            Once everything had been rinsed and stacked, David excused himself to use the bathroom.

            As I sauntered about his living room, admiring the things he had–and, dare I say it, allowing myself to consider sharing them with him, if and when we became a couple–I felt I needed to do something more to show my appreciation for dinner.  After all, David had done everything he could to make me feel like an important guest.  Perhaps, I thought, I should start washing the dishes and help free up some space on the counter.           

             Having rinsed the sink, clearing it of remaining food debris, I turned on the hot water and added dishwashing liquid, just like I would if I’d been home.  As I did, a tingle ran up my spine and spread throughout my body; I found myself humming a familiar tune I couldn’t place.                 

            For the first time, I felt what I imagined it must be like to live with someone, to be in an honest-to-goodness relationship.  Having shared a delicious meal, and after cleaning up, David and I, the two of us, would settle in for a quiet evening together at home–watching TV, talking, or just being in each other’s company.  As I thought of that, I felt warm and full inside.              

            Standing at an unfamiliar kitchen sink, washing someone else’s dishes, admittedly felt unusual, foreign, because I’d never done it before.  But it also felt somehow right, like it was meant to be. 

            I’d never considered the possibility, but I discovered an unexpected intimacy doing such a mundane task–working with those things someone else uses everyday to prepare and eat food.  Perhaps, in some respects, more intimate even than having sex together. 

            That’s when it happened.  Caught up in my reverie as I was, I’d added David’s crystal wineglass to the sudsy water without realizing it.  Then, absentmindedly, I’d pushed the dishcloth into it, snapping off a large piece glass, and driving the resulting sharp edge into the base of my right index finger. 

            Searing pain shot through me, and I instinctively retracted my hand from the water.  In amongst the soap bubbles, I saw a flap of skin.  Blood and water ran down my hand toward my wrist.  When I tried to see if a piece of broken glass had lodged into the wound, seeping blood obstructed my view. 

            The first impulse I had was to dip my hand back into the sink of hot, soapy dishwater, to wash away the blood before it dripped onto the floor.  But I already knew that would sting like hell.  Not to mention, mixing blood with the clean water didn’t feel like the right thing to do.            

            Then the thought of HIV came to me.       

            While there was still some confusion about how the virus was transmitted from one person to another, there was no question contact with infected blood was one of the primary ways.   

            Since I’d had sex with only a few people, I was almost certain I wasn’t HIV+. 

            Still, Kurt and I had engaged in risky sexual activity, just after I’d come out a few years earlier.  And I hadn’t been brave enough, or saw good reason–that is, I hadn’t entered a committed relationship yet–to get tested.  The last thing I wanted to do was contaminate the dishwater with my blood.  Even though, in the unlikely event I was infected, I doubted the diluted virus would be dangerous.

            As I stood in David’s kitchen, holding my hand upright, using a tissue from my jeans pocket to wipe up the blood and water so it wouldn’t drip on the floor, I started to panic.  How could I have been so careless?  Would David be upset when he found out I’d broken one of his wineglasses?  How could I have ruined an otherwise perfect evening?      

            I looked at the cut on my hand.  It was still bleeding.  A lot.  And I didn’t know what to do.  I was no longer thinking clearly.    

            Just then, at the other end of the hallway and across from the kitchen, the door to the bathroom opened.     

            “What happened?” David asked, looking at my hand, then up at me.         

            I pointed to the water in the sink and explained about the wineglass.        

            As I spoke, David went into action.  He opened a cupboard door and produced a roll of paper towels.  Unrolling several sheets, he tore them off and handed them to me.  When I’d cleaned my hand and arm, he inspected the wound.  Blood kept getting in the way. 

            “I don’t think there’s any glass in it,” I told him, my voice shaky.   

            David tore off several more sheets of paper towel, folded them into a thick pad, and gave them to me. 

            “Keep your hand up,” he instructed.  “Apply pressure to stop the bleeding.”  The calm yet earnest tone of his voice reminded me of my mother, on those occasions when she’d shown concern for my wellbeing as I was growing up. 

            Several minutes later, I removed the soiled pad.     

            “It looks deep,” David said.  “You might need to get stitches, to stop the bleeding.”         

            My heart sank. 

            The word “stitches” took me back to a hot summer evening in my late teens.  My father and I had been on our way somewhere in his pick-up truck.  To our right, the driver of a car on a side street missed the stop sign and slammed into us.  In the passenger seat, I was thrown to the left.   

            When we were safely out of the vehicle, my father took a look at me and said I needed to go to the hospital.  Without realizing it at the time of the impact, my head had hit the steering wheel, opening a gash.  I felt something warm on my forehead and touched it.  My fingers were covered in blood. 

            As I laid on a stretcher in the Emergency ward, a doctor injected my scalp with a local anesthetic, then dabbed at the wound to clean it.  He threaded numerous stitches through the layer of skin to close the cut. 

            At the time, I hadn’t felt much beyond a pulling sensation, as the suture thread had been drawn through my skin.  But the idea of what had happened, as if hemming a pair of pants, had made me sick to my stomach.

            Regardless of what David had said, I wasn’t going to Emergency at St. Paul’s Hospital–that was for damn sure.  Not only did I not want to inconvenience him, by having him take me there–even if he did like to drive his car–but also I had no intention of allowing a doctor to stick a needle in my hand, to freeze it or to sew it up.  Eventually, the bleeding would stop on its own.  It had to.               

            Blood kept oozing from my hand, faster than I was willing to accept.              

            Determined to stop it, I returned the compress to the cut and pressed even harder.  David prepared another pad of paper towel and exchanged it for the one I had.  Several minutes later, we looked at the cut again.  The bleeding seemed to have slowed, somewhat anyway, and I breathed a little easier.  Still, I couldn’t get the idea of stitches off my mind.    

            As I continued to hold my hand up, pad firmly in place, David drained the sink and sprayed water over the items in it, clearing the soap suds to find the broken wineglass and shards.  He looked at me and smiled.

            “You drama queens are all alike,” he said.  “Always needing to be the center of attention.” 

            Several times while he worked on washing and drying the dishes himself, David asked to see the cut.   

            Finally, when the bleeding had mostly stopped, he opened a cupboard door and took out a first aid kit.  He unzipped it, made a compress from several feet of gauze, and affixed it to my hand with medical tape. 

            “I missed my calling,” he said.  “I should have been Florence Nightingale.”

*

The excitement of the evening thankfully over, David and I carried our cups of tea to the living room and settled into the two cozy, wingback chairs. 

            The table lamps on both sides of the sofa, reminding me of tall, narrow, Grecian urns, cast the room in a warm glow.  Smooth jazz tunes from David’s favorite radio station out of Seattle played quietly in the background.

            I shifted uneasily in my seat and cleared my throat several times. 

            “I have a question,” I said tentatively, as though seeking permission to ask it.           

            “Why am I not surprised?” David responded.  I heard the tick of his teacup as he set it in the saucer on his lap.

            “It’s been on my mind for weeks,” I said.

            That was true, it had been.  Just as it was true I’d been determined not to bring it up.                 

            But the events of the past few hours–from the fantasy of being part of a couple, to feeling vulnerable when I’d cut my hand, to seeing another side of David as he’d tended to me–had weakened my resolve.  If there’d been a time to raise the subject, I thought it was then.   

            I gathered my thoughts and tried to select my words carefully. 

            “I was just wondering, you know, when you told me before…um, that I’m not your type.  I mean, how did you know?”

            “Here we go again.”

            “What do you mean, ‘here we go again’?” I tried to ask it in a joking manner, to keep the tone of our conversation light.  “I haven’t brought this up before.”           

            “Maybe not directly, Priscilla.  But I know where you’re going with this.”             

            “Oh, yeah?  And where am I going?”   

            “We already discussed it.”

            “No, you discussed it.  I listened.”  He gave me that skeptical stare.  “But I don’t get it,” I continued.

            “That’s right, you don’t.  And you’re not going to.”  I attempted a laugh.       

            After a moment, I tried again.  “When you said I wasn’t your type, you didn’t even know me.  How could you be so sure?” 

            “I knew.  Like I said before, it’s either there, or it’s not.”     

            “But I don’t understand.  How am I not your type?”   

            “You won’t give up, will you?” David said, taking another sip of tea.  “Well, for starters, you’re too desperate.  People can smell how needy you are from a mile away.  No one wants to be with a needy, old queen.”  He smirked at me.           

            I shot him a look.  “Thanks a lot.”

            “You’re welcome.  I know you don’t mean that now, but you will…one day.”                

            Neither of us said anything.  Then David spoke up.

            “I see how you might have gotten the impression I changed my mind, that I’m interested in you now.  But, as far as I’m concerned, Gertrude, nothing’s changed.  We’re still where we were before.”                 

            “But–”

            “No more buts,” David said firmly.  “And no begging.  It’s not becoming to a woman like you.”   

            I wanted to say something else, I really did, but I stopped myself.  What was the point?                

            For some time afterward, David and I sat quietly, drinking our tea and listening to the music. 

            But my mind was churning.        

            In less than a year, I’d turn thirty.

            I knew, or I’d been led to believe, anyway, that once a gay man had reached that milestone age, it was all over.  Just like that, he’d be old, undesirable, and invisible, especially to those he most wanted to find him attractive.

            From that point onward, the chance of meeting a partner would be even more difficult than it had been (read: impossible).  Through no choice of his own, the poor sop would live the rest of his life isolated, lonely, and miserable–what he’d probably dreaded most happening to him.       

            Seeing myself end up like that scared the living crap out of me.  I couldn’t conceive of the possibility I’d go through life without ever experiencing real and true love–at least once.  In the event that was the case, I believed little else would have any meaning.             

            The light and airy riffs of George Benson’s “Breezin’” floated about David’s apartment.

            Time was running out.  

            Despite my persistence, the clubs had been nothing but a disappointment, and I had no reason to believe they’d be any different in the future.  Before it was too late, I had to try something else. 

            But what?

            The only other thing I could think of was what I’d told myself I never would.  After all, I had to draw the line somewhere. 

            As I pondered the situation I was in, I knew I might not want to do it.  But the decision had already been made for me. 

Excerpt from "For The ♥ Of David"–A Novel in Progress

Some of my long-time readers may have wondered why I haven't been as engaged in writing my blog this year as I was last year.  Well, the reason is because I've spent most of my writing time working on a novel, which I've titled For The ♥ Of David.

I've decided to share an excerpt of my novel with you, from Chapter 20. Please keep in mind this is still a work in progress and requires a good deal of ongoing rewriting and editing. But I couldn't be more excited to give you a peek into the story that's occupied my mind, life, and heart for almost three years.            

My hope is that, by the time you finish reading this excerpt, you'll want to know more about Brian and David, what brought them to this point in the story, and what happens to them next.

Be aware this excerpt contains some sexual content, which is critical in the telling of the story but which may make some readers uncomfortable.  Please use your discretion accordingly. 

I hope you enjoy this excerpt from For The ♥ Of David.  I welcome your constructive comments or feedback.

***

Afterward, David drove us home.

On the sixth floor, the elevator door opened, and David got out.  We talked for several minutes, about nothing really–as usual, he did most of the talking–and I held my finger on the button to keep the door from closing.

Then, David got back on.  "I'll ride up with you," he said.  "No use holding the elevator."

Moments later, the door opened on the sixteenth floor.  This time, David stayed on, and I got out.

Again, he kept talking.  It's not that he had much to say, he just went on about whatever came into his head.  

When it looked like we could be at this for some time–that is, when I realized he didn't want to be alone–I asked him, "Would you like to come in?"

"Oh, no, no, I have some things I need to do," he said, gesturing to downstairs.  He looked at me.  "Well, as long as you're offering."

In my bedroom, I changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants.

"Would you like something to drink?" I asked David.  He said no, he was still full from dinner.

When I walked into the living room, he was laying on the sofa, his head resting on a side cushion, his long legs folded beneath him.  I'd never seen him like that, at his place or mine.

"Do you want the TV on?" I asked, sitting down on the sofa at the end of his feet.

When he shrugged and didn't answer one way or the other, I turned it on and lowered the volume.

I picked up the latest issue of Architectural Digest from the seat cushion to my left and placed it on my lap.  David looked up.  "I saw that at the store today," he commented, but he added he hadn't bought it yet.

All I kept thinking was, who is this David?  In all the time I'd known him, he'd seldom settled down longer than a few minutes at a time, instead bouncing around, dropping snide, obscene, or sarcastic remarks like small bombs, calculated to get attention and laughter from those within earshot.  The David to my right was an impostor–low-key, serene, even vulnerable.  This version confused the hell out of me; I didn't know what to make of him.  

Idly, I paged through the magazine and glanced up at the TV.  From time to time, I turned to David, but he didn't look at me.  His gaze stayed on the TV, the audio low and muffled, and I watched as fatigue slowly overcame him, and his eyes began to close.

Several minutes later, he turned around on the sofa and faced the back cushion.  His legs still bent into him, he reminded me of a child, home sick from school.  

"Are you cold?" I asked quietly.  "Would you like a blanket?"

He shook his head.

For some time, we went on like this.

Then, unexpectedly, David stretched out his right leg and rested it across my lap.

I stiffened.  What the hell is he doing? I asked myself.  

Apart from pecking lightly on the lips and embracing quickly whenever we got together, we'd never touched each other.

Sometimes, when we'd been out for a walk on the seawall, the back of his hand had brushed against mine.  One recent, warm evening, I counted this happened five times.

"Don't read anything into it," David had cautioned me, when he sensed I thought something funny was going on.  "It's just an accident."

Five times?  

Holding the issue of AD above my lap with both hands, I looked down at his bare, hairy foot on me, then over at him, calmly and quietly resting at the opposite end of the sofa, his eyes closed, his body motionless.

Still, his foot freaked me out.  Should I say something, I wondered, ask him what the hell he thinks he's doing, tell him to move it?

Or should I say nothing and let him leave it where it was?  It wasn't hurting me.  In fact, I had to admit it felt kind of good, satisfying.  I was happy David felt at ease enough with me to make himself comfortable.  For a moment, it seemed as though we were a couple, settling down for a quiet evening at home together.  I hadn't felt that way in years.  Maybe I never had.    

I put the magazine down on the sofa and stared at the TV, seeing nothing, taking in the sensations of being so physically close to David, to another man.  I did not touch his foot.

Then it moved.  Its toes curled and began to press into my lap.

I looked over at David, wondering what was going on.  Perhaps he was adjusting his position, making himself more comfortable, nothing more.  He continued to face the back of the sofa–his eyes closed, his face expressionless, his body still–while his foot moved as though it were separate from the rest of him.

It became increasingly active, beginning to rub me through my sweatpants.  I felt my penis stir. The rubbing continued for several minutes, his foot applying increased pressure, becoming more purposeful in its task.

I looked down at what was going on in my lap, dumbstruck.  I did nothing.  I couldn't do anything, I felt paralyzed.  

To look at David laying so peacefully, you would have thought his foot had a will of its own.  Who knew what it's intention was, what it was so determined to do?

I learned soon enough.

In a few minutes, his insistent toes found their way not only under the loose waistband of my sweatpants but also of my shorts, and they were moving downward.  They made contact with the head of my partially erect shaft, and with that sweet spot just below. All the while, I stared at what was happening in my lap, wordlessly allowing it.  

Still laying down, his eyes closed, his face without expression, David shifted onto his back, as if moving in his sleep.  In that position, he was able to use his large and index toes to grasp me.

I was stunned and mute, waiting to see where this would end.  When it became clear, as I looked down at my bare, erect dick, and at David's toes, stroking me up and down, I found my voice.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?"

I'd awoken the old David.  All at once, he leapt from the sofa, bursting into laughter as though possessed, scaring the hell out of me.

"Pretty talented foot, huh?" he asked between whoops of laughter.  I watched as his hands began to unbutton his shirt.  "Looks like someone's up for fun tonight," he continued.  "Literally."  As he nodded at the bulge in my sweatpants, he tossed his shirt on the sofa, opened his belt, and unzipped his pressed jeans.

I watched in horror.  His getting undressed unnerved me.  I'd never seen his body naked, covered in all that revolting fur he'd laughingly compared to Grover, from Sesame Street, that first time we'd talked on the phone.

How had our evening together, starting off so peacefully, and with such promise, turned into this?  I felt as though the room around me was spiralling out of control.

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said.  I told him I'd been sitting on the sofa, relaxing, minding my own business, enjoying the evening together, when this foot began doing things I didn't understand.  "I had nothing to do with this," I said.

"But you didn't say anything, did you?" David asked.  "You didn't stop me.  You knew as well as I did what was going on, and you did nothing."

"I was too shocked to do anything."

"Oh, what a pile of shit," David said laughing.  "Just admit it–you want this as much as I do."

"No.  I don't," I objected, shaking my head.  Seeing David wearing only his boxers then felt foreign to me, inappropriate, even disgusting.  "Just because I have an erection doesn't mean I want to have sex with you."  I realized how contradictory that sounded. "You're the one with the 'talented' foot, rubbing my crotch, remember?  Not me."  

Still laughing, David bounded for my bedroom around the corner, his underwear now off, his erection bobbing in front of him.  I heard him crawl inside my bedding, all the while giggling like a little girl.  

"You have this all wrong, you know?" I called from the living room.  The laughter in the bedroom continued.  "You might as well get out of my bed," I added a few moments later.  "We're not having sex."

The idea of getting into bed with David, let alone being intimate with him, mortified me.  Seeing him naked for the first time turned me off, not on.  I couldn't imagine touching him without becoming physically sick to my stomach.

Besides, David was a friend, not someone I'd considered having sex with–at least not since the first time we'd met (and even only slightly then).  I'd heard about sex between friends, and how close friendships had been ruined that way.  Being intimate with David would change everything.  How could it not?  

As much as I'd begun, unconsciously, I see now, to put some distance between David and me, I didn't have so many friends that I could risk losing one, because we'd been stupid enough to cross that line, to treat each other like a one-night stand.

"Sure we are," David said, still giggling, although less enthusiastically now.  "Come here."

Reluctantly, I walked to the door of my bedroom and looked in.  There, in the darkness, I saw the mound of David's body under my sheets and quilt, his head on my pillow.  You would have thought he belonged there, that this was not the first time he and I had been here.  

I leaned against the doorframe, looking at the goofy smile on his face, the excitement in his eyes, and I shook my head.  I couldn't believe we'd been relaxing together on the sofa just a few minutes earlier, and now, he was naked in my bed, thinking the two of us were going to have sex.  

It wasn't going to happen, no way in hell.  I'd make sure of that.  

My thoughts turned to how I'd convince him to get out of my bed and into the living room, where he'd put his clothes back on.  Then, the boundaries of our friendship still in tact, he'd unceremoniously leave my apartment.  In the days to come, we'd be able to look at each other again without feeling embarrassed, and neither of us would ever mention what almost happened.  He'd thank me later for my level head and good sense.

"Come lay with me, Brian," David said then, opening the sheets to me.  

And, just like that, his mood changed again.  As he spoke, he was different, subdued like he'd been at the restaurant earlier in the evening, where we'd enjoyed a peaceful meal together.  A calmness had overtaken him.  He was no longer laughing, not even a giggle.

"I'm not having sex with you," I said.

But the tone of my voice surprised me.  It didn't sound nearly as determined as before. Had David noticed?  I hoped not.

"What's the problem?" David asked, his voice low and soothing now.  "You're single. I'm single.  No one's going to get hurt."  He paused.  "It's just a little fun," he added, quieter still.  "Nothing more.  It doesn't have to change anything, if we don't let it."  

When I continued to object, with less conviction than I intended, he stopped me.

"We love each other, don't we?" he asked.

I suppose we did, in our own way.  I'd never thought of it like that.  I'd never considered two close friends could love each other, probably because I'd never had a friend as close as he was before.    
  

"Take your clothes off and come lay here with me," David continued.  His voice was so inviting now.  I felt my resistance breaking down.  "You know you can trust me.  I won't hurt you."

By then, I knew anything I said would betray me.  

I paused.  I watched him look at me from under the covers and slowly stepped into my bedroom, where I'd slept for over two years, where I hadn't brought even one man in that time.  In some strange way, the room, and everything in it, no longer felt like it was mine.  

Hesitantly, I began to undress.

David had never seen me naked before either, and I didn't want him to now.  What would he think of how I looked with my clothes off?  Would he be reminded of why he told me years before that I wasn't his type–because, I discovered later, I didn't have the looks or the body or whatever it was that made him look at one attractive man one minute, and another the next?    

With his calm, reassuring voice, David told me everything would be fine.  He repeated he wouldn't hurt me, promising we wouldn't do anything I wasn't comfortable with.   

Naked, I got into bed, laying as close to the edge of the water-filled mattress as I could. My back to David, too frightened to face him, I held the covers close.  He moved toward me and wrapped himself around my body.  We were spooning, even though I didn't know what that was.  

At first, David and me naked in the same bed together was one of the most unusual experiences I'd ever had, and it took everything I had not to get up, not to flee into the living room and pretend none of this was happening.  

Still, there was something about being there with him, even in our vulnerable state, that felt oddly right, as though it were meant to be, on that particular night, at that particular time.  After all, it was just the two of us, wasn't it?  And no one would ever know what we did.    

"I'm so scared," I whispered, exhaling the words.  I couldn't stop myself from shaking.

"There's nothing to be scared of.  You're safe with me."

David held me firmly against his warm, hairy, and consoling body, saying little, focusing only on helping me feel secure.  It wasn't until some time later my teeth stopped chattering, and my body no longer shook.  

Eventually, after we'd laid quietly for a long time, and I knew I belonged where I was, I found myself willing, when David asked, to make love to him.