Cast Stones, and Other Ni-Chome Tales - 2. II. The Third Time

II. The Third Time

 

Every truth passes through three stages before

it is recognized. In the first it is ridiculed,

in the second it is opposed, in the third it is

regarded as self-evident.

Arthur Schopenhauer

 

Between whom there is truth, there is love.

Henry David Thoreau

 

Paul sat on the corner of the bed. Across the room from him, Lionel struggled with a tie in the full-length mirror. Next to the mirror was Lionel's pride and joy, the picture window with the view. Though Paul's hands were kicked back in an easy attitude, his stomach was knotted with queasiness and a long-distracting dread about the evening to follow.

As he watched the normally poised Lionel continued to struggle with his easy task, Paul considered how hard this whole thing was going to be on his partner too. His mind drifted off the reflected image and out the window. The Tokyo skyline blinked its typically manic and over-lit exuberance. Tall buildings not only had delicate points of strobing red light to warn low flying aircraft from the roof, but due to owner pride, the same lights were spotted down the corners of the towers right to the sidewalk, one about every fifty feet. From their apartment in Shiba Koen, they had a great view of the park, many commercial buildings, and front and center, Tokyo Tower. This half-sized, modernist take on the Eiffel Tower was painted a vermillion and white that at night glowed a positive sherbet color, for the whole thing, top to bottom, was brightly lit from the ground. Paul's gaze returned to Lionel in the mirror. He saw the tie's knot was finally under control, and that made him feel a tiny bit better for the both of them. He saw with predicable clairvoyance just the way Lionel would bring his guests into their bedroom later tonight to stand at that window, and he could hear the Oh's and the Ah's; could feel the currents of suppressed envy, and most of all, he could see the way his partner's face would glow in the reflected and sometimes manic blinking light of his accomplishments. Paul felt more than slightly nauseated.

Lionel scurried off to the walk-in closet, to emerge only a moment later with a blazer on a wooden hanger.

"Are you sure this jacket is the right jacket?"

Paul straightened up on the bed. "The right jacket for what?"

The grown man whined: "For my mom to see me in?"

"Lionel," Paul said pointedly "I've never met your mother before, how would I know a right from a wrong jacket for you to be seen in." His head rocked in mock annoyance.

"Just tell me this is the best one."

"We went through it all this afternoon – the tweed is too sporty, the Armani too flashy, the Miyake too 'Take-That.' That one, wear that jacket!" His voice betrayed his edginess, but if he could, he would have laughed for both their sakes.

When he heard himself, he quickly shifted his attitude, worried that he was burdening his husband when he should have been available for support; after all, it was Lionel who had the right to be anxious. Paul glanced at Lionel's short brown hair laying flat on his head, a cut nearly devoid of style; saw his thinish lips, and his small but clear azure eyes from which he wanted to remove the concerted look of stress.

There was something blue-eyed and fair about Lionel that reminded Paul of the heroes of Fitzgerald short stories; youth transfixed and broken open as if from amber, well into their thirties. Lionel's movements were youthful too, jocular in an inborn elitist way that made everything he did look like he was wearing tennis whites, and glowing fresh from the clay courts.

Lionel was thirty-seven, fairly tall, but his midsection had started to catch up in proportion to his height, and as he stood there with his hanger, he seemed younger than Paul, in fact a teddy bear of a boy asking for his help; asking for his love. 'If the people at the brokerage house ever saw him like this,' Paul thought 'they'd never let him live it down.'

Lionel mumbled as he started to move away: "You have better taste than me, I just wanted to check that…" but Paul stood up and went up to him.

"Don’t worry." He took the hanger and deftly disrobed the blazer from it. The hanger got tossed into a chair, as Paul held the jacket open for Lionel's arms. "What time does she arrive?"

"Her train from Narita will get to Tokyo Station at 8:30." Lionel pantomimed a glance at his watch, and raised his brows: "I've got to hurry."

Paul returned to sit on the corner of the bed and watch his man run around the room collecting his keys, and several other things he didn't need. "It's only 7:40, relax."

Lionel stopped. In the middle of the room he stood and stared at Paul as if one of them had just barked.

"Relax?!" he neared the bed. "Are you nuts, relax? For God's sake, think about what you're saying. Relax, when my mother is coming here to stay for two weeks? Relax, when at any moment people from my office will start arriving for a mandatory party that I somehow got rooked into throwing?! Relax, when these two circles of Dante's Hell are about to come crashing through our living room?!? One; I could go through the trial of one," he shook his fist at the ceiling light "but who in heaven has the balls to hurl both of them at me? That I would like to know."

Paul wanted to remind him that Lionel's me should have been Lionel and Paul's we. "Come over here." He patted the bed next to him. "I think you had better sit here and chill out a moment. You can't rush off to you mother in a fate-cursing tantrum."

After a moment's pause, Lionel did as he was bid.

Once his partner was sitting by his side, Paul said: "Now, tell me something about our soon-to-be house guest. What's your mother like?"

"What do you want to know?"

"Age?"

"Fifty-eight."

"Height?"

"Shorter than me."

"What kind of person is she?"

"Strong."

"Can you give me an example."

There was no answer.

"All right, I would describe my mother as a strong person too, so let me tell you something about her. First of all, she named me Paul. That took guts to name a Korean kid growing up in Nagasaki, Paul. Paul-the-Converted, she would tell me, heal their blindness and help show them how to be proud of what they are. But, unfortunately, most Koreans in Japan are not ready for pride in a society that shuns them as inferior. Anyway, back to my story. When I was fifteen and back for my first summer vacation from high school in Cleveland, she said to me:

"'You look fat; are you gay?'

"And mind you I was fifteen, a couple of years into puberty and fully aware that I was into guys, but what the hell was she doing putting those two things – Fat and Fruit – together? I said:

"'No, I'm not fat, but what does that have to do with being gay?'

"She looked at me and said: 'You look both.'

"And that shocking instant was the very first time I ever denied being Gay, inventing a girlfriend in Cleveland right there on the spot."

Lionel dared to ask: "So, you hid it from your mother too?"

Paul was disproportionately hurt. Lionel knew better; Lionel was there when Paul did come out to his parents, knew he was the whole reason Paul did so, and Lionel knew Paul was rejected by them, because of Lionel.

"It's not the same thing."

"Isn't it?"

"No. I was a kid then, dependent on them – so what's your excuse for doing it now?"

Paul scanned Lionel's silent features. He sat staring at his stocking feet, and Lionel spoke as if to them: "I can't imagine the day I tell my mother I'm Gay."

"Why, what would happen?"

"Oh nothing, just the world would end; pigs would not only fly, but be commercial pilots too."

"But, what would happen?"

"Are you asking seriously?" the grown man whined.

"Yes. What would happen if your mother asked you if you were Queer?"

"All right," Lionel looked at Paul with remarkable seriousness "I don’t know what she'd do, but here's an example of what she did do when a man in her life let her down. When I was seven, and one day my father threatened to leave us at the dinner table, she calmly excused herself, went upstairs and threw his bed out the window."

"The whole thing?"

"It was a wooden knockdown type, so yes, rails, springs, mattress and all. And then she topped it off by throwing his bureau drawers down the steps."

"Why not out the window?"

"Because, he was on the steps at the time."

Paul laughed in admiration: "Was he hurt?"

"No. But she always told me she regretted breaking perfectly sound bureau drawers on a worthless man like my father. Anyway, you'll soon see for yourself what kind of woman she is, because…" Lionel's tone rose to frantic pitch "…She'll be here any minute! And won’t leave for two whole weeks!!"

Paul saw the time was right to ask a long avoided question. He placed his palm flat on Lionel's thigh. "What did you tell her about me?"

Lionel's eyes probed Paul's face for a moment, his hand came down on top of Paul's. "I told her you were living here until you found an apartment of your own." He looked back to his socks. "And nobody at the office knows I'm out, so if anyone should ask, you have to be ready to lie."

This was the cause of Paul's uneasiness. He knew he would have to do a bit of 'truth-adjusting,' but still, it was crushing to hear the man he loved tell him so earnestly to deny the very fact of their love.

Paul extracted his hand. "You told your mom I was just living here till I found an apartment? And how long did you tell her this arrangement has been going on? Did you tell the office people the same thing? Or did you happen to mention to anyone at all that I pay half the rent, and that we've been living together for three years?" Paul was angry.

"Don't." Lionel put his arm around Paul's shoulder. His voice was pliant, soft, wanting Paul to yield, but knowing he was wrong to ask it. "Don't. Look, the party will be over tonight, and my mother will be back to Georgia and her bridge club in two weekends, so don't…"

Paul interrupted him, saying sharply and in direct contrast to Lionel's mellow efforts: "You'll be late." He stood up, pulling Lionel to his feet. He took him by the hand to the bedroom door, then brushed the lapels of Lionel's blazer, straightening his tie, anything to avoid looking into his companion's eyes.

Lionel put his hand on the side of Paul's neck. "I love you." he said pushing his fingers through the dark velour of Paul's hair by his ear.

Paul couldn't avoid him anymore. He held his stare: "How long do we have to – " he paused, hoping another word would replace the correct one of 'lie,' "not be what we are?"

Lionel sighed: "She'll be gone in two weeks."

"She'll be gone, but when will we be able to live in the open?"

"Look, it's not like we're closeted. All our friends know we're a couple, in fact, most of them are jealous as hell that we have been committed to each other for five years. Do you think that happens every day in Ni-chome; that people can find a relationship like ours? No. So, just tonight, that if it comes up, tell my company people a fib, and we can get back to our regular life, OK?" He stood there and held Paul's hand.

"OK, OK," Paul said "but you're gonna be late." He pushed on Lionel's chest.

Lionel moved away, saying: "We'll be back around nine." He disappeared under the door lintel, but a moment later he was back. A moment later, his hand slid onto the side of Paul's neck. He kissed him, and did so like a man of business. He wanted his partner to know he was deadly earnest as he told him: "I love you Paul."

A sad, helplessly-come smile split Paul's face into a suddenly beautiful thing. If he could, he would have laughed, for both their sakes. "Go," he said "or you'll be late." and Lionel was gone.

Paul turned his back on the hall, and as he leaned in the door frame, he heard the front door open and slam behind Lionel. Across from him was the window, and now he could see the way Lionel would look as he showed his mother the expanse; saw the smile of pride on his mother's face, and this one not of attainment, but of approval and love. He saw himself in the mirror. 'Average,' he thought 'everything average: looks, weight, height,' but the looks he wondered about. He approached the glass, approached it as if it might jump up and run away. He cast a critical inspection over his short dark hair, the black jeans he was wearing, and the red linen vest that revealed a fine white silk shirt under it. He inspected his round, thirty-year-old face, his eyes that were ever so slightly droopy in the corners, and that perpetually gave him a remotely sad air. He put his hand on his neck the way that Lionel had done only moments before, thought of how many times Lionel had told him his eyes were beautiful, that they were the only ones he had ever loved, especially when he smiled.

Paul was back five springs, the Sunday he met Lionel. It was at a hanami, or cherry blossom viewing party, sponsored by a Ni-chome LGBT group. It was fun with potluck food and beer enough to flow through the night, but Lionel and Paul grew jointly tired of the festivities because their interest in each other jointly grew. They excused themselves and went for coffee. They talked for hours, mutually admiring the other for the difference in the path of their respective lives – Lionel a stock broker, a power-house; Paul an artist, an introspective poet in a visual medium. They parted that first night with nary a hug and a hand shake. Not a whirlwind, but neither was the type of romancer who could sustain anything but a genuine and slowly built upon affection. It was three dates before they held hands in a taxicab; sometime during the dark scenes of the movie of their sixth date that their lips met; and not until a weekend away shortly thereafter that they admitted one to the other what they both felt. But once cemented, the bond was as strong as any comfortable pairing could be; one that grew degree-by-degree and day-by-day as each put in the hard work of building a loving marriage.

In front of the mirror, Paul touched his face the way his love had, and wished he never had to deny that love ever again in his life.

˚˚˚˚˚

More than an hour and a half later, Paul hurriedly looked at his watch. He was making himself busy with the preparations of 'some more' canapés, and fretting over the fact that Lionel was half an hour late. He was upset too; there was a room full of stiff, uncomfortable-looking strangers seated around their living room all wondering just who the hell Paul could be. The kitchen, and something for his hands, was his retreat. Down to this watch again, 9:30, and where was Lionel, the delinquent host of this ghastly party.

He considered the way his partner's guests had arrived: stiff in their workday suits, ties, binding collars and support hose, while Paul - opening the door for them – stood in the hall as an outsider in his own home. They infiltrated and took over with dull business talk and expensive tailoring, while he looked like he was going out to the bars any minute, the carefree artist that he was – or was before this night started.

A large woman peeped her head from behind the door to the living room. Paul, wrapped up in his thoughts and his creative dexterity, didn't notice.

"Can I get myself a fresh drink?"

She startled Paul who dropped a mustard-covered knife. It rattled noisily on the stainless steel counter and splashed acrid yellow in a radiating circle. His then freed hand went up to his chest like it was protecting his heart.

"Oh," the hand relaxed and fluttered a couple of times where it was "you scared me."

"Sorry," she said coming in "I know, except for the music, it's quiet as a church out there."

"Well, come on in and help yourself to the booze." Paul offered, half to the knife, half to a fleeting glimpse of the woman. He grabbed a paper towel and cleaned up the counter and knife.

"Thanks."

Paul glanced at her from behind as she walked over to the spread of alcohol, and continued to watch her from the posterior view she showed him. She was a big woman, about five-inches taller than Paul; 'or maybe' he thought 'that's because of her heels.' She certainly had poundage on him, but that was just about the right size for her frame. Her ample hips were tightly showcased in a broad-field navy pinstripe skirt. This went down to the knees, while black 'power shoes' balanced below her bulging ankles. Her suit jacket matched her skirt and above the top collar, her white blouse was artful arranged to show a bit of neck. She had black lower-ear-length kinky hair that gave her head the silhouette of Cleopatra. Paul guessed by her speech that she was North American; he had trained his thinking to consider her in those terms because he had offended too many Canadians by identifying them with their 'American' accent. She turned around to face him, a new gin and sofa fizzing in her glass.

"How long have you known Lionel?" She took a sip, her eyes never leaving Paul, as she leaned her backside on the counter's edge. She intended to stay a while.

Clanking his knife in the jar of mustard, he turned as if just reminded of her presence. "Lionel?' he asked "Oh, about five years." Now he could see she wore a chunky string of pears.

"Wow, old friends." She poked a grin at him, and Paul glimpsed the intensity of her curiosity. He pictured her leaving the living room only moments before, the whole company prodding her to 'get in and find out who that guy is.' She was a mole, an infiltrator, and Paul grew deeply wary watching her supposedly friendly ways. "Yeah, we've known each other a long time," he feigned confidentiality to appease her nosy appetite "so I said I'd help him out tonight – with his mother coming and all."

The woman nodded, and Paul thought she did so to help her aid the digestion of, not only everything he said, but also the way he was saying it. She asked: "So, where is Lionel now?"

"He's picking up his mom at Tokyo Station." He needlessly looked at his watch, hoping she'd get the idea he needed some alone time.

Instead, the woman stood, and came close to him.

"Want some help?"

"I can manage, thanks."

"My name's Linda."

"Oh hi, I'm Paul."

"I thought you were Japanese."

"Actually I'm Korean, although I grew up – in fact was born – in Nagasaki."

"But – " she hesitated as her dull green eyes probed for something on his face "you speak English," she hesitated again "very well."

"I went to school and college in Ohio – Cleveland and Columbus."

"Oh really! What do you know? I'm from Michigan – " and when she thought about it, she couldn't find an immediate connection, so she let it drop. "Cleveland, how did you like it there?"

He fiddled with a package of smoked salmon. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable with this Linda person, but if she was going to bother him, at least she should have the courtesy to ask less run-of-the-mill questions.

"I love it there, and…" he got a jump on her bound-to-be next inquiry "I made a lot of friends there, and they're the ones I really miss." He said this almost as if he had rehearsed it.

Because of Linda's stature, standing next to her made Paul feel diminished. Her lips periodically smacked a sip from her glass, and her eyes wavered from quick inspection of the overly crowed platter of food, to long probing stares at his face.

She said almost seductively: "I haven't known Lionel for nearly as long as you, I've only seen him around the office. What kind of guy is he?"

Paul held her glance, wondering what that tone had been for. He told her matter-of-factly: "He's a nice guy."

"Well, I guessed that much. But what can you tell about him?"

Paul thought of a short list, quietly to himself: 'he never refills the ice cube trays, insists on wearing the world's oldest pair of baggy boxers to bed on Saturday nights, and he likes to have his head stroked while he's falling asleep,' but he said: "He's an all-around good guy, isn't he?"

"Is he gay?"

A certain bleakness settled over him. He felt like he was in a stone courtyard will high walls, and maybe that he was a fifteen-year-old again before his mother. The question was disjointed and in a bizarre context. She looked thrilled with the intrigue of intruding on his life, and like she had him trapped.

Paul regained his composure. "I don’t think I'm the person you should be asking. Why don’t you ask him?" He held her eyes coldly, and expected to see them deflate. But, instead there was something there like an icy fire, and that put him back in his courtyard. An odd bit of catechism was with him in this desolate inner space; a memory of Peter after Jesus was arrested. How he waited the long hours of the dark night in the priest's small plaza, in the center of which burned a fire. In that horrible light, Peter was recognized.

Linda's face cracked into a smirk. She said without the slightest bit of humor: "Because you're his lover, aren't you?"

His eyes flinched, for a moment catching the bright color of the salmon in his hand. He spoke to her victorious scowl: "No," he ridiculed the notion "and I don’t know if Lionel is Gay or not. If you think I am, why don’t you ask me that?"

Her Tutankhamun hair snapped to the side, a contemptuous sigh fated through her nose, and she sauntered away. "Somethings – Honey – are too obvious to waste questions on." and she was gone.

Paul leaned forward on the counter. He tried to retrieve a slice of smoked fish from its plastic bindings, but the moment it was free, he only stared at it.

'What a bitch,' he thought 'an nosy, stinking Bitch.' And Paul goaded himself into anger; anger at Linda, anger that he hadn't been smart enough to see it coming and steer away from the wreck, and he was angry at Lionel.

He saw himself picking up a glass; pictured it shattering into a million shards in the stainless steel sink. He saw the people rushing in, the concern if anybody was hurt, because Paul was hurt. He longed for the noise, the commotion and chaos of a frightened bustle. That he knew would be able to drain the enraged denial out of him, but he couldn't. There were plenty of glasses, but none available for him to break; no comfort to glean from its symbolic destruction in the real world. No, there was only the salmon in his hand, the groaning platter of canapés, and under him, the frustration and isolation that only self-negation can bring.

˚˚˚˚˚

A few minutes later there was a rustle in the hall. Paul heard Lionel's voice. Much relieved, he went out to greet them. The few paces to the entry brought visions of what Lionel's mother would look like. He imagined he would see a youngish woman of near sixty restlessly moving about their genkan, but reality proved different.

"Paul," Lionel sang brightly "I'd like you to meet my mom."

"How do you do?"

A frail-looking, petite-sized woman stood quietly in the hall wearing an inappropriately warm coat. Her eyes followed her son's to Paul, but regarded him with a look of amazement, and without even the smallest attempt at social consideration. Paul thought she looked shocked, and was wondering why that kind expression had greeted him, when it passed back to Lionel. Paul realized that whatever engendered that surprise had been caused by something seen in her son, but an instant later she reached for Paul's hand and spoke to him in a voice both warm and cordial.

"So you are Paul, the Paul my Lionel wrote me so much about. It's such a pleasure to finally meet you, dear." She clasped both hands over Paul's palms and stroked them a little.

He felt him sinking into her warm and waxy demeanor, the one manifested by her holding onto him. "It's a pleasure to meet you too."

"Well mom, I have to go see how my party is going. Paul will show you to your room, and after you freshen up, please come out and join us." He touched Paul on the shoulder as he edged past him, and into the living room full of his coworkers.

"Aren’t you hot, Mrs. Cameron?"

"Why no, I'm just right. Very sweet of you to be concerned, but you must call me Nina, or – " she waited a dramatic moment, "if you like, you can call me what Lionel does – mom."

That wasn't anything like a reassuring offer to Paul, who nodded, grabbed her bags, and led the way to the guest room. There was no trace of a stereotypical 'Southern' accent in her speech, but all her words ended in a kind of lulling sweetness that had the effect of assuring the hearer that anything he had to say in reply would be received graciously. Every other syllable she uttered had a comforting, confidence-seeking timbre that put Paul on guard. He had known her for only a few minutes, but he found it hard to believe the mild-mannered woman following him down the hall, and away from the hushed rabble of Lionel's company, was capable of throwing a bed out of a window.

Her very easiness made him wary. It was like the first few minutes on a new ship; sea legs come with a queasy feeling, and he felt she could knock him down to the deck with but a casual wave.

"Here we are." He set the bags by the side of the bed. "The bathroom is over there…So, when you feel up to it, just come out to the party."

He turned to leave.

"Paul," Mrs. Cameron called gently "I've been on the go since ten o'clock yesterday. Won't you sit with me a moment?"

He hesitated. "All right."

"Thank you so much sweetheart, I just want to spend a quiet moment with someone as kind as you, and have a smoke." She was suddenly concerned: "Do you mind, if I…"

"Go right ahead." There was no ashtray in the room, but he pulled a flea market find – a small Ming plate – from the dresser. He handed it to her with an awkward glance, and then went to crack the window.

Mrs. Cameron took off her coat, and bent her knees until her backside met bedspread. Paul sat in a chair near the door. She dragged her large purse to her, rummaged inside, then stared at Paul as she lit up.

In the initial quiet, Paul contemplated her looks – tweed skirt and billowy pale yellow blouse – juxtaposed with the frightening woman of Lionel's description; there hardly seemed any muscle beneath her silk chemise to toss dresser drawers at a man trapped on a staircase.

Nina tapped her ashes and asked: "Paul dear, you must forgive my ignorance, but Lionel tells me you are 'Korean,' but that you were born in Hiro…Nagasaki. Can you explain to an old fool such as me what that entails?"

"Yes, I was born in Japan, as were all my relatives, I believe for about five hundred years, but the system here is set up to keep us separated – not like apartheid – I mean we're free to do, live, be whatever, but we all have passports from the South Korean government. And it's a big deal if one of us wants to marry a Japanese person; it's only allowed if the 'foreigner' is granted citizenship by the government. A lot aren't. Otherwise, there are no hassles, only some awkward social stuff when people find out."

"Well," Nina said truly enlightened "I know whom to ask with all my future quarries. Thank you."

As Lionel's mother said this and lifted her cigarette to knowing lips, he recognized that his partner's request for him to stay partially closeted with him was like being a Japanese-born Korean. What he didn't tell Nina is how Japanese often tell him he is inferior, the same as society tells Gays that they don’t matter, that they're dead ends. Only it's worse, because Lionel knows better, and what can be worse than oppression from within? What pressure more maddens than the voice-internal saying 'you're not good enough?'

The painting above Paul's chair caught the eye of Lionel's mother. It was passionate, an abstract onrush of red and vermillion, and there was something familiar about the upstroke of the merging colors near the top into a unified peak.

Nina brushed her hair with open fingers after gesturing above Paul's head. "Lionel tells me you paint. It's wonderful dear – "

"Do you like it? It's Tokyo Tower."

"I can see why he praises your work so highly, and tells me how commanding the prices are becoming. You must show me more. Where is your studio?"

"In the apartment, in a spare bedroom."

The mother's tone was gently probing: "Four, bedrooms?"

"Three…" Paul caught himself.

"Oh."

Paul did the mental calculus on Nina's 'Oh' – master bedroom, presumably Lionel's; guest bedroom, where they were now; third is Paul's studio – 'Oh.' That means he sleeps where? Being deceitful was such hard work. He gulped down an excuse: "I normally…"

She stopped him with a gentle hand in the air. He couldn't be sure, but it seemed she wanted to prevent him from forming a lie. "I see, dear." she said "I see."

She brightened: "Lionel tells me you studied in America." Her tone was probing, but still within cordial limits.

"Yes. High school in Cleveland; college in Columbus."

"My word, just like any other Ohio boy." She laughed.

Paul grinned.

The woman's genteel ways were slowly hypnotizing him into a relaxed manner that he himself could utilize. Paul was beginning to like her.

"Tell me…" her mood swung markedly to the serious; too serious, because she checked herself and started again. With her old polish reapplied, she said: "…Lionel has told me so many times how much he trusts you, I feel like we've known each other a long, long time, so may I presume to ask a question?"

Paul, with newly found stiffness, said: "Go ahead."

She looked at the young man before her with intense intrigue poised to erupt, but she said softly: "How is Lionel?"

Paul blinked haplessly, as if he had somehow missed the real question.

Lionel's mother continued: "Is he happy in Japan? I mean, this is the sort of thing every mother wants to know of her child, but can’t ask directly for fear of getting a brushed-off answer, or of feeling like an intrusion into their life. You know him well, tell me Paul – Is he happy?"

His head spun. Not only was this a completely unexpected question, it was also a highly complimentary one. Paul glowed within to be able to answer honestly. He did so slowly, in a way he felt did not reveal the pride he felt to be made the measure of her son's happiness. "Yes Mrs. Cameron, I think he is very happy."

As she watched him say this, she witnessed his face change. The lines she had seen before of worry and tension were transcended by a smile that brought his whole face up to a plane of natural loveliness. Where she had seen a young man sit fretful and ridged, she now saw beauty.

"Good, Paul. I'm so glad to hear that. So very glad indeed."

"Well, Mrs. Cameron, I better go and help Lionel with the drinks and so forth." Paul rose and stood before the door.

"Paul," Mrs. Cameron called gently "won't you call me Nina, or…" she didn't finish.

"We'll be waiting for you, Nina." He closed the door softly behind him.

˚˚˚˚˚

Paul felt good. He felt nourished by the truth, and brave enough to confront the room of strangers. He brought the platter of hors d'oeuvres into the living room, looking around for Linda, and a proper way to avoid her. Lionel was gone, and so were a handful of people. He set the tray down on the coffee table with a plea for everybody to help themselves. Paul sat himself on the floor, a bit removed from the chatting troop camped out on the sofa.

He noticed one young man glancing at him from their midst. The moment following saw that same young man rise and re-seat himself next to Paul. He was Japanese, and Paul was on guard because the stranger was also quite handsome. Whenever somebody attractive was next to him, without knowing if that other was Gay or not, Paul inevitably feared the torment that could follow. Before Lionel he had suffered too many crushes on straight guys not to be circumspect.

"You're not one of the company staff, are you?"

Paul smiled: "No, but you are, aren't you?"

"Yes, but I don’t know any of them, I'm from the Osaka branch. Someone brought me here tonight…"

"Was it Linda?"

"No, I don’t know her."

Paul nodded, whispering under his breath: "Good."

"Are you from Kyushu?" The young man asked Paul.

"Is my accent that strong?"

"No, not really, but I thought I recognized it."

"I'm Korean; from Nagasaki."

The other was surprised to hear that Paul was Korean. If the other hadn't said it, he never would have guessed. He admired what he thought of as Paul's courage. He felt he had to offer something personal in return, but after a pointless search, he simply said: "My name's Matsuda, Hiroshi."

"I'm Kim, Jun Paul, but everybody calls me Paul."

"Paul-san?"

"Yes."

Now he could be personal "Call me, Hiroshi."

"I can tell, you do not have a Kansai accent. Are you from Osaka?"

"No, I'm from Tokyo, but I was recruited to go to the new branch last year. Osaka is going to be the port of Asia for the new century."

"Oh really?" Paul had to chuckle. Business didn't interest him.

"Do you have a drink?" Paul asked his guest.

Hiroshi started up for it: "It's on the table."

Paul pushed him down, getting up to his knees. "I'll get it for you." He leaned over the table to get the young man's drink, and as he did this, Hiroshi admired Paul's black jeans, and how admirably they shaped his handsome backside. "This one?" Paul asked, and Hiroshi's eyes quickly flickered up, embarrassed, to his host's face.

"Yes, that's the one." And Paul kneed his way back with the drink in hand.

Hiroshi smiled: "Thanks for the trouble."

"My pleasure."

'Mine too' thought Hiroshi, but he asked: "Have you known Lionel long?"

"Five years, and speak of the devil – " both of their attentions drifted onto Lionel as he appeared leading his mother like a devoted son. They watched him introduce her to the crowd on the sofa as they parted to make room for her. The congregation, half Japanese, half foreign, began to shift conversations to her, and Nina, quite used to it, glistened like any well-honed center of attention should.

Hiroshi and Paul went on with their conversation, eyes watching Lionel's mother. "Five years," Hiroshi said "that's a pretty long time." He was thinking of it correctly in terms of a relationship of hearts. And from then on he began to subtly flirt with Paul, with the intention of revealing that he was also Gay. It was a game, one both of them had played often in social settings where they thought they were talking to one of their own, but wisely decided to check before making a potentially uncomfortable faux pas.

He looked at Paul.

Paul looked at him, a smile coming as Hiroshi asked him: "Did you happen to go to that film festival, they had last week, in Kichijoji?"

Paul thought: 'The International Gay Film Festival?' but asked instead: "The one held at the Baus Theater?"

"Yeah."

Little snickers came over them as if they were seeing each other for the first time, which they were.

From that point on, Paul started to play along, curious to see how far this feigned naïveté could propel them.

Paul relaxed. For the first time in the evening, he could be himself, and enjoy somebody else's company. He asked with applied innocence: "Did you get to see any of the films?"

"Some."

"Like?"

"Um, I saw one called Saito-kun and Yoshinaga-kun."

"How was it?"

"Good."

"What was it about?"

"Well, it’s about a love triangle between two high school boys – Saito and Yoshinaga – and a girl that had a crush on one of them."

"Oh yeah, I read about that one. It was originally a television broadcast, wasn't it?"

"Yes, late night in Hokkaido."

"Yeah, I wanted to see that one, but I couldn’t find the time. But, in a way, I'm glad I didn't."

"Why's that?"

"It's like the movie, Okoge, where the happy couple is split up by a spiteful woman who has all the power of the world and convention on her side. It seems all she has to do is say no one likes Gays, and one of the boys spends a miserable, loveless married life with her. It's just so sad."

"Yeah, I agree. A lot still needs to change." Hiroshi paused a moment, a sly grin pumping suggestion in: "Next year, I'll give you a call, and you and Lionel, and me, we can all go."

Paul, who was enjoying the company of one of his own, abruptly foresaw what was coming. 'What if he asks if we're a couple? What can I say? It'd be alright to tell him.' He thought: 'What would be wrong with telling him?' But then again, he sadly considered Lionel's fears of being outed at work; about his love's career at a straight-laced company. He watched Hiroshi almost as if in slow motion. He begged silently for the inevitable to wait for a time when the truth could return to the merit it deserved.

"Are you and…" Hiroshi glanced at Lionel on the sofa "…a couple?"

Paul slowly turned to the sofa too. 'Why?' he wondered. 'Why do I have to have to deny it now; why to one of our kinsmen?' He watched the way Lionel smiled at his guests; the way his hand rested on the back of the sofa, bent at the elbow; these attributes were those of a grown and confidant man, they were manly, Lionel was manly, so why did he acts so damn immature! So, why was he scared like a teenage boy of letting these people find out the real nature of just one of those manly aspects? Paul considered if he were strengthening his love for Lionel by doing as he had been bid, or if the denial of Lionel's love was a sin far worse than disobeying the command of a loved one. He thought of that frightened look Lionel sometimes got when they were out in public, a fear showing itself as a gangly grin. That scared expression would come up suddenly and appeared like Lionel thought all the world was going to accuse him of something, and would know the certainty of it because Paul was standing next to him as both testimony and defense. He hated that smile, hate the fear it seemed, but Paul loved the man capable of producing both.

Paul turned back to Hiroshi, a surprise whitewashing his face. That look, he thought, must have been the same that Peter wore in the sparking light from the priest's fire pit, and like Peter in front of Caiaphas' house, Paul denied a belovèd for the second time in an evening.

"Are we a couple?" Paul repeated "No, is he Gay?" Paul opposed the words as they left his own mouth. 'What am I doing?' he wondered.

Hiroshi was silent.

Paul sat motionless, his sight almost without focus as he scanned the handsome young man; as he witnessed the wave of incredulity and amazement wash over Hiroshi. He felt sick, clearly the other didn’t believe him, and he was embarrassed, and he felt silly to once again retard the path of the truth.

"Do you want another drink?" Paul got to his feet, careful not to make eye contact with Lionel, whom he could sense was watching him. Hiroshi's glass was full, so he shook his head 'no.' Paul was left to go back alone to his sole place of retreat – the kitchen.

˚˚˚˚˚

Paul stood before the bottles of liquor arrayed on the counter. He picked up a fifth of rum, examining the label. He poured some over ice.

Lionel came up quietly behind him. "You can't…"

Paul spun around, startled.

Lionel repeated: "You can't hide out in here all night. The guests will start to think you're the houseboy." He was joking and wanting to see Paul smile.

"It might be better if I was a houseboy."

"What?"

"At least then I'd have an identity, not like now, a nameless, purposeless person for them all – including your mother – to puzzle over."

"No, why do you say that?" he came next to Paul to lean on the counter.

Paul sighed. "I met some cow of a woman who grilled me for any information about you that I could give."

"Linda?"

"Yeah. Linda."

"She's the office know-it-all. What did you tell her?"

Paul had to turn from Lionel's questioning glance.

"Nothing."

"Did she ask, if you…"

"She asked it we were a couple."

Lionel saw that Paul was tired from the whole stress of the night. He hesitated to ask: "What did you say?"

"That she should ask you if you're Gay. That I wouldn't know, and if she wanted to find out, that's what she'd have to do." Paul prodded him verbally if that had been a satisfactory enough reply.

"Well don’t worry," reassured Lionel "she'll never ask me; she's scared of me because I hate her nosey guts. Don't let her bother you again, just give her a nasty look and she slithers away like any snake from a stick should."

"Not only her."

Lionel tried and failed to hide the concern in his voice: "Who else?"

"Do you know someone named Matsuda?"

"That cute guy, Hiroshi?"

"Do you know he's Gay?"

"No? How did you find out?"

"He told me. Well, practically told me. He was going on and on about the Gay Film Festival in Kichijoji."

"Well, what do you know? Matsuda-kun is Gay."

"He asked if we were a couple."

Lionel chuckled. "Maybe he's interested in you. Or…" he prodded his love gently in the side "…maybe he's interested in me. You never know. A cute kid like that just might need a good…"

Paul was angry.

"Stop it!" He cut Lionel off, knocking his poking finger away. "He asked if we were a couple, and I said no. Is that good or bad, tell me, I want to know. Are you glad that I lied to him, or not?"

Lionel stopped grinning. He straightened up a little bit against the counter. "I guess…" he didn't like the demanding tone in Paul's voice "…it's better that you didn't tell him. You never know who he might tell, you know, he could turn around and blab to Linda, then by tomorrow the whole company would know."

"And would that be such a bad thing?"

"It'd be horrible, a disaster, the end of my career."

"Do you still think…"

"That I am Gay is my personal business. I don’t see how Linda or her types have a right to the key to my bedroom door."

Paul whispered, turning his back on Lionel: "Our bedroom."

"What did you say?" Lionel grabbed Paul's arm.

"Nothing."

"What did you say." He tugged on him arm, growing unnecessarily annoyed.

Paul pulled away, going to the center of the room. "Our bedroom. Not Yours, but ours. How long do I have to live here to get the credit for being here." Paul was initially pettish at Lionel's annoyed tone, but now he grew justifiably so. "Why do I wish I were the houseboy?" he came close to Lionel, intensifying his voice "It’s so I can have a place here, even if it’s a shitty one! Then at least I can exist. But you, all you want to do is pretend I'm not actually in your life; tell your mother, tell your friends, that I'm just a guy here because I can’t find a place of my own. And what does that make me in the eyes of your friends, in the eyes of your mother – a freeloader, a bum, an anything they want to put a name to – but, what am I to you? Can you tell me? Am I a bum, a freeloader? No I'm worse. For you I'm just the somebody you have to pawn off to your coworkers as anything more legitimate than your husband."

There was a short, violent silence, broken only by Lionel's hands pushing the air down to get Paul to lower his voice. "What the hell are you talking about?" his voice was a pleading whisper.

"I want to be what I am. Why can't We be open?"

"I told you a million times that – "

"That this, that that, but fuck: Why? Tell me why we can’t walk into Our living room and act like it is Ours? Why." There was a finite demand in Paul's last statement.

"I don’t want to be out in the company."

"You don’t want to be Gay."

Lionel swallowed hard, and changed the subject. "What do you think of my mom?"

After an initial silence, Paul sighed: "She seems like an honest-souled person."

Lionel felt the jab directed at the quality of his own soul. "I'm glad you got along."

"Did you show her the view from the bedroom yet?"

"No. I'll go do that right now." And seeing no other reason to stay, Lionel put his hands in his pockets and walked to the door.

Paul turned and their eyes met for an instant. Lionel disappeared into the living room, but came back in the same moment. He walked straight for Paul.

Acerbated, Paul asked in eye-darting quietness: "What’s up."

Lionel said nothing, grabbed Paul by the arm and took him to a place by the side of the refrigerator where no one coming from the party could see them.

Lionel tried and failed to soften the emotional intensity in his voice. "Don’t say I don’t want to be Gay. I may not have always, but people grow up, and, corny as it sounds, I was lucky enough to mature in your caring." Lionel forced Paul's squirming sight onto his own. "When I'm with you, I know being Gay is nothing but what I feel towards you, and that is nothing but love, and only idiots think that love is ever wrong. But why do I have to be open to the ridicule, the hatred, the abdominal scorn of those fools and strangers who know nothing of This? They're the ones that should be frightened; scared because they don’t have an inkling of their ignorance, but aren’t because, unless they know what love is, how can they appreciate it, much less respect it, in others."

Lionel kissed him, excusing it with: "I can't resist you when you look so sad. I think you’re never more beautiful than when lost in yourself." He kissed him again. "Now, why don’t you go show my mom the view from our bedroom window."

Lionel moved away, disappearing through the door to the living room, and for a moment Paul wanted to cry. It did all seem so sad.

Paul, left alone, still pinned by Lionel's phantom force between the refrigerator and the wall, considered his partner's three kisses of the evening. The first in the bedroom had been business-like and something perfunctory. It had a message to convey and did so as clearly as a well-worded memo might. But, here in the kitchen, that second kiss had a thaw in it. A reaching out to Paul for reciprocal return; and Paul, mired in the queasy feel of this whole deceitful event, could not reach back to him. 'Maybe,' he thought 'that explains the third.' Paul's fingers drifted up to his lips; felt the pressure of Lionel's assuring presence still on them. 'The third, that asked if I still loved him; asked me to forgive.'

Paul started to feel sweat gather under his arms; he could feel the growing blight on his silk shirt, and was back in his mother's house.

Paul was forced to feel the stifling humidity of a Kyushu summer again. The acrid smoke from a ceramic pig's nose, meant to keep the mosquitoes away, only seemed to draw them like Helen Hunt Jackson's 'moths to the flame.' Now he hated the scent of that smoke, dreaded the sight of those cutesie household working pets because it seemed that when he came out to his mother, the pig was the only one in the room who listened to him.

Three years ago Lionel sat Paul down and very business-like laid out his plans for them, but his eyes became moist as he held out a key. "I love you Paul. Let's make this official."

Soon after, the public holiday of O-bon, or the Festival of the Departed, presented a unique opportunity for Paul to present his partner of two years to his parents. They traveled with all the standing masses, for the entire country travels within a span of two days to get 'home.'

Sweaty and tired, Paul lugged his luggage and a haggard Lionel through his family door and was greeted by a darting-eyed and pursed-lip woman; Paul's mother. Christians as they were, their O-bon was spent with a morning in church, but the rest of the four days, the boys did as they pleased. She barely spoke to Lionel, and it broke Paul's heart. 'Convert the masses' she had said to him many times before, 'live up to your name,' and yet here he was unable to inspire even a spark of love for a blameless one in the heart of his own mother, for the one he loved.

On the last full day before Lionel and Paul were to return to their 'real' life, he sat with the middle-aged woman on the veranda and watched the sun fade over the expanse of beautiful Nagasaki bay. The pig smoked, the mosquitoes were buzzing, and in his heart he wanted his mom to be his mom for real, just not the woman who had given him life and raised him.

"Mom, you hardly spent any time with Lionel."

She didn't respond, but he saw a tensing of her lips.

"His Japanese is good, and he's as nice a Gaijin as you will ever meet."

She stared him down: "You dating in Tokyo?"

At fist, for only a glimmering moment, Paul thought she was asking contextually about Lionel and he, but instantly he knew different. "I don't date women, mother. You know that."

She let out a high-pitched force of air between her lips; the sound of disgust.

Paul swallowed down the lump suddenly in his throat. "Two years, mother. That deserves respect. That's two times longer than you and father were together before you had me. Can't you see something in your son to be proud of?"

"Proud – " she chewed on the word " – of what?"

"As I said, proud of me, proud that I've met the one who makes me happy and whole. Just, proud."

She inhaled a long draught of the smoky and acrid air, her vision was far away and she didn't care that the orange sun at the water's edge was burning her sight. She rather be blind than look at her son.

Paul watched the burning orb too, but he minded the pain it caused. Sadly he thought of another Helen Hunt Jackson quote. One that said a woman who sustains a home, and under whose hand her children can grow to be strong and pure men and women, is a creator only second to God.

"Why didn't you even try to get to know Lionel?" Paul was getting heated, it was all so unfair "He's – he's family now."

Still she said nothing.

"Don’t you like Lionel?"

"Like?!" she gasped "What's like got to do with it? You need a wife before you can think about what you 'Like.'"

The train ride home was less packed. Neither had gotten any sleep their last night in Paul's family home. Now, sitting in their Shinkansen seats, the summer landscapes rolling by at a hundred miles an hour, Paul slept, and Lionel didn't really care who saw him support his partner's head with his shoulder. He didn't care either who saw him raise a hand to stoke the slumbering young man by his spiky hair, for he loved him, loved him more that day than the one past, and less than the one he knew would follow.

Paul, with his fingers still to his lips, regretted not returning Lionel's kiss just now. Why wouldn't he? His love was unaltered despite all the bullshit. He should have been there for his partner, and he began to need to make it up to him, and he would.

          ˚˚˚˚˚

As Lionel's mother scanned the pricy view, Paul reviewed how he had gone up to the sofa and extracted her to bring her to this spot. Linda had jumped up from her seat next to Nina and leered at him with a wry smile. It was the unnerving look of a confidant gone traitor; 'you're not fooling anyone' the look said. Paul glided away from her, supporting Nina by the elbow, but he was mad at himself and his cowardliness for not being able to stare the big woman down, and wrestle that smirk off her face.

At the head of the couch was Hiroshi. This young man's look was one of disappointment; and it broke Paul's heart to know he'd ruined a perfectly good chance with a new friend because of what Lionel wanted.

He had taken these looks with he and Nina to stand here, before Lionel's pride and joy. He said mechanically: "To the right is Tokyo Tower, while in the background, that tall building is called Ark Hills."

"My, my. Lionel told me it was quite an expanse, and it is, isn't it?"

Paul did not answer. Mrs. Cameron and he were planted perfectly still in front of the scenery, which in contrast, blinked and seemed all motion before them.

As Paul watched, he pictured the smile of pride that Lionel should have been enjoying at this moment, as it was, Paul felt he had little to smile about.

"You have to come to Atlanta," Nina was saying "we have plenty of room, and I'm sure Lionel would love to show you all the sights – both historical, and personal – in the city in which he was born."

Paul didn't respond. She turned to look at him.

"Are you all right, dear?"

He faked a grin. "More or less."

"Sometimes the less of 'more or less' can be an awful thing, can’t it?"

Paul nodded. He didn't think she could possibly understand what he was feeling, but he was charmed by her attempt.

Her eyes drifted back to the view. "When Lionel was young – well, after he entered high school – he often suffered long bouts of the blues. I would try to cheer him up, but I knew already that he was too grown up to feel a mother's love a comfort anymore."

This news of teenage melancholia was something that had been unknown to Paul before. Mrs. Cameron asked: "Does he still have bouts of depression?"

Paul opened his mouth to answer honestly, but in the pause that followed, he realized that that was something he, a friend, a freeloader, shouldn't have knowledge of. He changed his honest reply to: "What makes you think I would know about Lionel's moods?"

She again turned away from the view to hold Paul's gaze. "I thought…" her purely social veil was slipping. She pulled it up again and restarted. "Lionel hasn't written me a letter in four or five years that has failed to mention you in it."

This was also news to Paul.

"And I thought; and I know," she smiled warmly "if anybody on Earth knows my Lionel's heart, it would be you. You see, he used to be such an open child. He would tell me everything, and I'd try not to laugh when he told me something like: 'I want to be a carpenter when I grow up so I can make a rocking chair for you when you are old.'" She chuckled. "Even then he knew I would be an old lady who sits her golden years away with a book and a lemonade on the porch. But as I was saying, he used to tell me every little secret, every little dream he had, but that all changed when Lionel turned thirteen. Suddenly everything was a mystery; and his eyes, I had to watch his lovely, honest eyes seal off day-by-day behind some mask of sadness. And he was sad, so sad, and so desperate that I started to worry for his future. I was afraid he might do himself some harm."

Paul was pulled along by her story. The sometimes dejected-looking Lionel that he knew was suddenly explained by the one person who knew him – had a right to know him – best of all. Through her eyes of shared pain and worry for him, Paul began to love Lionel all over again, began to love him in the way this other had for so long, and that love came back to him as a feeling for Lionel's mother herself.

"But Paul, I don’t want to be an intrusion in your life together, but only to find out for myself: Is Lionel happy now?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cameron, he is." He took her hand.

She squeezed him where he held onto her, and smiled. "I'm glad, because that's the only thing a parent has a right to ask of their child, everything else we say we want for them is only for us, and not them."

Paul wanted to put his arms around this strong woman, this mother who lived the proof of Helen Hunt Jackson's words about the creative force of being a mom, but he resisted. And then the phrase 'Your Life Together' came to the fore of his mind, as if he hadn't heard it at all the first time; neither heard, nor realized the implications. His face involuntarily relaxed, unable to control the possible import of Nina's expression.

"I knew he was happy," she said with soft conviction to the window "the moment I saw you together." She turned a tear to her son-in-law: "The way he looked at you, I knew he was back to the person he was before the cruel days of his middle youth."

"Mrs. Cameron…"

She latched on, shook his hand. "Nina, sweetheart, call me Nina."

"Nina, I don’t think I quite follow what you are saying…"

"What don’t you follow Paul? He loves you, and I'm glad. I'm sure time will give us a love to match what both of you have built already."

"Then you know?"

"Then I know, what?"

"That he's Gay?"

"Sweetie! Bless your heart; I've known for ages. And to tell the truth, I was beginning to be concerned that Lionel didn't know – but, then his sweet letters began to come five years ago – full of you dear, full of love. Now, the only problem remaining is how to get him to unburden himself to me. If he can come to that point, then I know he'll be free of so much more than just the weight of his growing up."

"Mrs. Cameron…"

"Nina…"

"Nina, I can’t believe that…"

"There's nothing to believe dear. I love him, and have been patiently waiting for him to find a way back to love his old mom again. When we were open with each other, we had a natural, naïve love; but the day he tells me he loves you, will be the day he and I have a relationship made of true, mature love, the kind that only comes with age and understanding; and I think, with perhaps you on my side, that day is coming nearer for Lionel and me – because – you do love him, don’t you?"

Paul smiled shyly, his face suddenly a beautiful sight for Lionel's mother to behold. It compelled her to regard the sights outside for what they were; cold, distant and unknowing places.

"May I hug you, Nina?"

"Why, Honey, that's the best offer I've gotten all day."

And as they came together, her 'Honey' sang soothingly in Paul's ears, washing away the ugly stain of Linda's slur.

"Now," Nina gripped his hand with some force "let's see what we can do to help Lionel. It would be best if we joined forces, don’t you think?"

Paul nodded, and Nina went back in for another hug, but this one replete with a strong squeeze and exuberant rocking.

Straight into his ear, Nina repeated her query in nothing more jarring than a whisper: "You do love Lionel, don’t you?"

And then, just above the manic blinking of his heartbeat, Paul answered: "Yes, I love him so much. I love him!" And he would have laughed if he could, feeling luckier than Peter not to have to deny his love for the third time.

         

                    

~