Ernan made a quick weekend trip to New York. It was great to see his face: that familiar adolescent grin and those affectionate blue eyes. We spent Saturday morning walking the Highline and returned back to my place by the early afternoon for a nap. I woke up and looked over at him as he slept. Most people were confused by our dynamic: were we boyfriends or just fuck buddies? I would often say that he was my “non-boyfriend, boyfriend,” which he hated to hear. Despite the joke, it was important for us to remain clearly undefined because it was honest, and the only way to keep our relationship intact. I think.
“It is what it is,” I’d say to friends when pressured for a serious explanation. “I’m traveling now, but yeah, I love him.”
I didn’t want a defined relationship to begin with, so giving it any sort of shape for the sake of stability seemed dangerous. Perhaps I was afraid of becoming complacent. When it’s undefined, then there’s no beginning or end — just a continuous journey that you share while you slip in and out of each other’s lives.
Ernan, for his part, wasn’t content with how undefined things were between the two of us. He was a traditional Irishman with customary values. I understood that most people feel comfortable with routine and consistency, but I’m not one of those people. It hasn’t been easy — I did, after all, just leave my home to embark on a trip with no fixed end date — but life is far more fulfilling for me when I’m on my toes. Ernan put up with it because he loved me, and I never took this love for granted.
As we lay in bed, Ernan finally opened his eyes, smiled and called me handsome. He then took my hand and placed it on his hard cock. There’s nothing worse falling into a sexual rut — for us, that was having sex whenever we woke up because we’d wake up hard. I don’t mind lazy, just-waking-up sex in moderation, but that afternoon I told him that we were going to come — later.
We walked aimlessly around the city in the early evening, snaking through the streets. I didn’t know where we were going; we were taking things as they came. That’s all we could do. Ernan was being particularly affectionate and I thought how nice it would be to say that yes, now we’re boyfriends, in exchange for some sort of certainty. That was silly though, since I didn’t even know if I wanted to even return to Toronto anytime soon. Such promises would only detract from whatever dynamic we could have because it wouldn’t honest. Who knows? Maybe the distance will bring us together, or maybe we’ll drift apart. All I could do was trust that it’ll end up how it should, good or bad. We loved and cared for each other. That’s all you need, isn’t it?
We ended up at the Eagle for a few drinks. It was busier than normal, filled with a couple of hundred men either bare chested, in harnesses or in jockstraps. It was casual: men laughing, chatting and buying each other drinks while house music played throughout. Upstairs was busier than the downstairs bar — it was difficult to move through the crowd, but nobody seemed bothered.
Ernan grabbed us drinks and met me by the wall opposite the washroom. When he returned, he called me handsome again — but before he could hand me my drink, I got on my knees and unbuckled his pants. He got hard in a matter of seconds, but almost spilled our drinks. “What are you doing?” he said. Without answering, I gave him a blowjob among the crowd. People just continued to chat and joke all around us. He laughed at first, but soon closed his eyes and threw his head back, and allowed himself to go wherever it was we were going to.
<Previous: Slipping into New York (Part 2)
Hole & Corner appears on Daily Xtra every Wednesday. Follow Mike Miksche on Facebook or on Twitter @MikeMiksche.
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