Boy Love

One of the first persons I ever fell in love with was actually way older than me. He was almost as old as my dad.

I was looking through some artsy gay pictures just now and I saw one that reminded me of him. It evoked the kind of intense affection I felt for him, and that perhaps he felt in for me too.

He was one of my bosses during my third year in school. I was slacking at the time, so I didn’t mind working a lot.

The first time I met him was during the interview. Having gotten squared away with the staff, I waited in his office. When he walked in, I instantly got nervous, the way I do whenever I am not only forced to meet someone new, but also when my subconscious subjugates me to physical attraction before my brain has even had a chance to size up the features. I knew I was attracted to him, before I even knew I thought he was hot.

He was in a hurry and barely noticed me until he sat down. I was taken aback not only by his imposing masculine features, but by the way that maturity had brought them out. Although his face abided by the youthful symmetry that contemporary aesthetics today espouse, he wasn’t young. It wasn’t that his skin sagged or that he had wrinkles—its just that his skin didn’t have that nubile brilliance younger skin tends to give off.

His hair, had begun to recede and grey slightly, but it was still full and bodied. His features were beyond articulate—they each stood out on their own. Brow, eyes, lips, cheekbones, forehead, and jaw were in agreement, but each had their own thing going on. His frame was lean. Even though he wasn’t at all bulky, his shoulders were broad, his chest noticeable, and his waist tight. We were about the same height.

I balanced my nervousness and shyness with my professionalism to put forth a tempered confidence. But in the initial moments, as he plopped down on his leather chair, when his intuitive sense preceded his mental words, I could tell he had picked up on something in me. For a moment, and perhaps he didn’t even know it, I could tell his mind paused, incisively looked at me, and quizzically wondered about some reaction he must have perceived in me. Even though it happened within a split second, I wondered if perhaps, I had not hidden my reaction to his appearance as well or as quickly as I thought I had. He didn’t react to it to though. He only knew that he had seen it, found it unimperative, and proceeded with the formalities of the interview.

We talked about the generic shit, and were able to move through all the topics smoothly. We were not unalike in conversational style, and so he found it easy to go through the steps. He liked the ease of it, and I could tell that he would weigh this enough to give me the job. The interview ended, and later the following day I got the news that I gotten the job.

Although I was just joining the staff the supported him already, I would be working most closely with him. I would do a lot of reporting to him, assessing shit, writing, and interpreting shit. I was still shy.

The staff liked him a lot, and he was known for all the expected things—intelligent, confident, and sensitive—and of course hot. He was a hunk. Just as known were his happy & fulfilling marriage and two kids. Though he worked a lot, his schedule did reflect obvious exemptions for family.

Eventually, I got into the rhythm of shit, and I lost my insecure tepidness. He was easy to work with. I thought of him as a mentor, and felt lucky to have such a cool boss. He respected me as well. He trusted me, and had no problems challenging me with tasks that required initiative.

The more we got along, and the more I got into the work routine, the more my thoughts of attraction for him faded. Reality was setting in.

We eventually got a rapport going. He liked me. I think I reminded him of himself when he was young—a typical response amongst those who give me jobs. I could tell in the half nostalgic way he would gaze at me. He asked me more about life at school. He seemed surprised that I didn’t have a girlfriend. I could tell he didn’t know what to make of it, but he managed to disregard it. He commented on one of the other girls in the office that was about my age. I said I already found out she had a steady boyfriend. “Oh,” he said, while smiling.

Eventually, he realized I picked up on the dynamics of the office beyond my immediate work. I could tell what was going on with the business and clients without being told. He asked me about my views about the industry. Although we talked a lot about work, we also talked about life in general. Goals, politics, and what makes a person happy. He was a deep thinker and so was I.

As expected, the topics eventually included family—and although at first he thought mine was the normal American defunct home. He picked up rather early on that there was more to it, but didn’t press on. He demonstrated awareness and genuine maturity. That was my cue, and we, basically, became friends.

I was elated—here was this guy I really liked. For whom I worked, and who wasn’t so insecure as to prevent a friendship with someone younger. Shit couldn’t be better.

Over the course of the year, he told me about his school days, and his career decisions. He had more than a few talents that had been institutionally recognized and had to make some tough decisions about a focus.

He told me about how he met his wife, and how they got married soon after grad school. They had been together since then—incredible—a one woman guy with no divorces. I did notice however, that in telling me about all his school years, including his teens, he never mentioned any other relationships. Perhaps, I thought, he just didn’t think about any of them after meeting his wife, but that didn’t make sense. Plus, he was really hot—that didn’t make sense either. I dismissed this shit as aberrant and as probably motivated by other things.

He was all that, and I started to fall for him without knowing it. I was as fucken green as could be. Still, I didn’t start feeling this way because he was hot, successful, or smart—I knew most of that before I even met him. Instead, I had come to decide that he had character—a moral center and conviction. Fuck—nothing can beat that in combination with everything else. I fell for him hard.

Work picked up and it didn’t matter if I had to stick around to finish work. I could leave early or come in late later, or even get paid more—either way. On occasion, I was asked to come in on the fly, especially during krunch times.

One time, the call came at an unexpected time--about the middle of the day. Shit usually wasn’t happening at the time, but apparently this day was an exception. I was at the gym in the middle of a workout. I hadn’t started to stink so, still in sweats and a loose shirt, I asked if it was okay not to change. He said it was fine.

I arrived, and he started briefing me on what he needed done. Reports needed to get read, results needed to be in by the afternoon. I could leave out some shit I usually do, but had to focus on this other stuff. There were a lot of directions to listen to, and it wasn’t ending any time soon.

He got up to go get water. I leaned forward and looked across his desk at the stacks of files. I was not looking forward to this. Although I hadn’t done this before, I think I knew what the rest of his directions were going to be.

He came back, and as he was sitting back down and taking a gulp of his water, I leaned back and slouched into the chair in anticipation of the continuing slew of information. My loose shirt had clung onto the leather of the chair. As I exhaled and sunk into the chair, my shirt reactively tightened and uncomfortably constricted around my torso. My low hanging sleeves rode up to my shoulders.

In discomfort I started shifting up, and when I looked up, my bosses jaw was hanging low, and his eyes were wide open in a look of sheer disbelief.

I balked—what the hell was going on? My eyes darted to the left and to the right wondering if something was headed in my direction or something had happened near me. I looked back, and he was intensely transfixed. Right away, my mind triangulated the trajectory of his gaze—he wasn’t looking directly at me. He was looking just beneath my face.

As the realization of what he was looking at set in, my eyes grew wide and my jaw dropped as well. Self-consciousness began to grip him, but the conviction of his disbelief wouldn’t let go. He didn’t know whether to keep looking or finally break away. I felt my face flush—I couldn’t look away either. I had to know that my eyes were not fooling my mind either.

His shoulders twisted to his right, and his neck and face followed. His jaw never made it up. As he turned in profile, his chest tightened, then his shoulders, and finally his temples—the shame gripped him from beneath, and its intensity supplanted his disbelief.

I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. I don’t know how I remained aware of anything, because the whole office seemed suddenly devoid of sound or movement.

A cold and tightening feeling spread through my chest and in a flash pushed its way over my whole body and out onto my skin before dissipating. The next thing I became aware of was my heart beating.

I dropped my face, and twisted to my right. I swallowed. And waited. “Um, well, ye-e-e-a…,” he said. His voice wavered with uneasiness, but a few syllables more, and he managed to start again, like nothing had happened.