| I
had been in San Francisco for five years.
It was April of 1993, I was 25, and I was
mildly drunk at the end of a long and not
very eventful party. I had drifted over
to my landlady, a family friend who'd brought
me to the party, and saw her chatting to
a young couple.
I noticed Hannah first.
My inhibitions relaxed, I remember staring
at her long straight blonde hair and cornflower
blue eyes and feeling, quite simply, a wave
of desire wash over me. I asked her where
she was from.
"Michigan,"
she replied. This puzzled me, because her
boyfriend (I did not know yet they were
married) spoke with a foreign accent. He
was from Prague, I gathered, and they had
just arrived in San Francisco after spending
six months at her parents' place in rural
Michigan.
Milos was a large, sturdy
young man with a goatee, slightly tinted
glasses, short-cropped hair, an intelligent,
somewhat earnest manner... As he spoke about
the war currently raging in Bosnia, for
there were many Eastern Europeans at the
party, I found myself observing him closely.
This was unusual on two counts: interest
in straight guys was pretty rare for me,
and what he was saying about the Serbs not
being the villains the West thought they
were, that there were two sides to every
story, was quite problematic. But I was
struck by his intelligence, his confidence
and fluency in a foreign language. In fact,
they both piqued my interest in a way I
didn't fully understand.
"They're so nice!"
I babbled to my landlady, as they were leaving,
and then felt mortified because Milos turned
back towards us for a moment and I thought
he’d heard me. I had not expected
to meet anyone at the party, least of all
a straight couple. I was shy and defensive,
not used to making friends easily, and definitely
not used to gravitating towards couples,
around whom I usually felt uncomfortably
"different." But they hadn't intimidated
me. They seemed open, somehow.
They had rented a studio
at the edge of the Tenderloin, a seamy part
of the city, just where it begins to slope
up towards Nob Hill. My landlady and I went
back to their place for tea one day, and
I remember looking around in fascination
at the many books and pictures that filled
the room, giving it a quirky, charming atmosphere.
They told us more about themselves. Milos
was an artist; he drew graphic, rather sinister
comic strips and was interested in doing
mosaics. Hannah wanted to be a midwife.
But neither of them had very pressing ambitions,
they were just glad to be out of the Midwest
and back in a cosmopolitan city, for it
seemed like their happiest times together
had been in London, where they’d met.
I felt comfortable with
them immediately. It was as if they were
no longer strangers. Even then I had an
urge to get closer. But my landlady got
up to leave, and I remember looking at her
pleadingly, not wanting to pull myself away
from these people yet.
"Gaby doesn't want
to go," Milos said. He glanced at me
kindly. He understands me, I thought with
a thrill of pleasure, instead of embarrassment.
But did he understand everything? I was
not sure my motives were very pure, right
from the beginning, yet I sensed from them
both in those initial months a willingness
to overlook the ambiguities of the situation.
We began to meet frequently.
I told them a little about myself, about
growing up in Ireland, that I wrote. But
our common interests were more immediately
apparent: film, books, music, nature. We
all shared a similar sense of humor and
cynicism, a taste for self-deprecation and
understatement; we were also stuck in boring
administrative jobs that demanded little
of our intelligence and paid badly. Hannah
seemed happy to have me around too, in those
early months, for they were both very conscious
of being new in the city and having no friends
or connections. She seemed grateful for
my company, which amazed me. It all felt
too good to be true.
Hannah and I were always
a bit formal with each other, though. Once
she sat close beside me in their apartment
and said sweetly, “I like your hair.”
My glossy dark hair was thicker than hers,
yet to me she always seemed very attractive.
“I like yours too,” I said awkwardly.
She shrugged, making a face. She was always
down on her appearance, and seemed to feel
prematurely old in some ways. I got the
feeling sometimes that she did not enjoy
being married; at 25 she acted as if she
was tied down, laden with responsibility.
I felt bad for her, yet I also thought she
was lucky. She had a loving husband. She
had Milos.
Spring passed into summer.
When I began dating a woman, my first serious
involvement with anyone, they faded into
the background a bit. After a few months,
though, the once-promising relationship
was becoming very unhappy. Because my lover
was in a relationship with a man that she
had decided not to end, and only allotted
one day of the weekend to me, I still had
lots of time, and little inclination to
spend it by myself, brooding. I would usually
spend Saturdays with Milos and Hannah; we
would drive out into the countryside with
a picnic, we would hike and talk and drink
wine. One day, as we were driving somewhere,
Milos said apropos of nothing, as he sometimes
did, "so you're attracted to women,
but you also have some interest in men.
That seems good..." I smiled, warmed
by his approval.
Milos began calling
me every day at work. I worked for a Jesuit
University; he worked at Berlitz, the translation
service. We had plenty of time to kill during
the day; our unrestrained conversations
were addictive and exciting. He managed
to be kind, flattering, tactful, yet honest
and real and very much himself. His interest
in non-stereotypically "straight male"
things like gay film and alternative sexuality
intrigued me. He was a wonderful, supportive
friend and I liked myself when I was around
him.
The months passed and
to my delight all three of us began to smoke
pot together. Hannah usually only took a
little; I noticed she never drank as much
as he and I did either. The first time we
shared a pipe, we were watching a video
of "Pandora's Box," the 1920's
silent film where a childlike and appealing
Louise Brooks lures everybody into committing
desperate acts while remaining strangely
innocent herself. I felt very relaxed, very
dreamy. I remember lying on their couch
drowsily imagining us all touching, how
easy that would be for me ... yet how impossible,
how taboo it all was. Suddenly Milos, who
was sitting on the floor, put his arm up
on the couch so his wrist touched mine.
I sensed he had guessed what was going through
my head, picked it up somehow, and was silently
telling me, "it's all right. Take this
for now." After a moment I slid mine
away.
My increasing desire
for his attention was mixed with my ever-present
guilt, my denial of the situation, my eagerness
to take what he offered and not demand more...
I wanted the friendship to last.
I didn't want to be in love.
Love was there between
us, though. It was in what we said, in what
we didn't say. It was in our body language,
the way he would stroke his chin, look at
me for long moments, his eyes big and vulnerable
behind his glasses, laugh unexpectedly at
something I'd said. I bloomed around him
too, laughing easily, animated, teasing
and flirting with an assurance I hadn't
known I possessed. He gave me a sense of
security in my own attractiveness, and a
safe place where I could bring my troubles.
He wanted me to be happy, and that knowledge
meant the world to me. It was summer, we
had known each other for over a year, I
had broken things off with my girlfriend,
we were spending a lot of time alone together,
and I could sense my loyalty to Hannah waning.
Perhaps I could sense his loyalty to her
waning.
I'd been attracted to
men before, but had never had a close male
friend. It was our closeness, I thought,
that made me long for sexual intimacy, not
his gender... He had taken over my dreams
and fantasies, and he seemed to be making
them better, healthier, and in the case
of my fantasies, hotter. He often talked
about masturbation, but I never dared to
ask, "do you think of me while you...?"
I knew somehow that he did.
In my dreams he was
a kind, loving, brotherly figure. He would
hold me. Just letting myself rest in his
embrace was a blissful feeling, and I would
wake up happy, yet slightly panicked. At
first I hardly dared to admit to the hopes
and longings that these dreams evoked in
me. What about reality? What about the fact
that I was friends with them both? |
 |
I
began to see myself as a Trojan horse, creeping
into the center of their lives with a deceptive
covering, slowly revealing my true agenda
as time went on. I worried that they viewed
me that way too. I found myself drunkenly
confronting Milos the best I could one early
fall afternoon in 1994.
"Doesn't it bother
you, that I'm single and you're a couple?"
I blurted out.
"I really don't
think about it that much," he said
with eyes averted. He seemed very tense.
I didn't know what to say. The shame of
asking the question and being stonewalled
was enormous. Yet what could he have said?
"Yes, we talk about it..."? I
was sure they had. I was even convinced
that they had already fought over me.
Months later, I tried
again.
I had met a woman who
seemed nice, stable, very different from
my ex. Milos had encouraged me to pursue
a relationship with her. I was getting less
certain. I knew her good qualities, but
I also saw the one crucial thing that was
missing: the feeling I had when I sat near
Milos and he said something affectionate
to me, and I melted.
I called him from an
old wooden phone booth in a deserted corridor
at work. It was early summer of 1995. I
told him I didn't know what to do about
my friend, that I just didn't feel any passion
for her.
"That will come
in time."
"What if it doesn't?"
"Look," he
said impatiently, "nobody's special.
You just have to find someone who likes
you and work at it. You have this attitude
that I'm afraid is going to get you in trouble
sooner or later."
It already has, I thought.
"But what about
you?" I persisted. "Haven't
you ever looked around?"
He began to stammer.
I had really caught him off-guard. I knew
he hated the conversation, yet felt a dreadful
compulsion to continue it, no matter how
painful the truth might be. Still, I couldn't
be completely direct and talk explicitly
about him and me; those words just wouldn't
come.
He spoke hesitantly,
trying not to hurt me, I suppose.
"Of course ...
of course there have been people I've been
interested in," he said. "But
there always ends up being something wrong
with them too, if you know them for long
enough ... basically, the way I feel about
it is that only someone supernatural
could tempt me at this point."
There was a long, awful
silence. Finally, I began to laugh nervously.
I laughed for a while. Partly what I was
laughing at was the hopelessness I was feeling,
the sense of having a door slammed shut
in my face.
I should have ended
it then, for my own sake. I thought about
it. A couple of days later, Milos called
and invited me to see a movie with them.
I was dreading seeing him face to face.
I remember walking nervously down the corridor
to their apartment, feeling as if I had
committed a crime. I was right to be apprehensive.
When I came in, Hannah barely looked at
me. I realize now that he must have told
her, but at that moment I could not bear
to analyze her hostility. She was sitting
down and eating some cherries. I sat down
near her and in my shaken state I began
taking cherries off her plate and eating
them without asking. I wouldn't have been
surprised if she had thrown down the plate
and punched me in the face, but I concentrated
on Milos. He was agitated too. When our
eyes met I held his gaze for a long time.
I looked at him with desire. He seemed relieved.
We talked to each other giddily while Hannah
sat silent and fuming. It was clear from
the way I felt that evening that his rejection
served only to increase the power he had
over me.
On New Year's Eve of
the previous year, we had all taken Ecstasy
and gone to a rave. Surrounded by teenagers,
we'd huddled together, Milos in a chair,
Hannah in his lap, me on the floor with
my head resting on her leg. Every now and
then she would bend down and touch her head
to mine. The acceptance and the love between
us had found its fullest expression then.
It was blissful; I never wanted it to end.
But Milos was the one who suggested we move
on to the next room, the next spectacle
Later, we all stood
in line for an entertainment ride. As the
big wheel moved lazily above us, I rested
my elbow on his shoulder. He seemed embarrassed,
but I did not take my arm away this time.
"Have you never been friends with a
gay woman before?" I remember asking
him. He appeared to find the question odd.
It was odd, because I did not feel "gay"
around him now, I felt like a woman, a woman
with needs and desires that were focused
only on him.
Although Milos didn’t
appear to hold a grudge against me for our
disturbing phone conversation, it was becoming
clear that Hannah was no longer the affectionate,
trusting girl who had touched her head to
mine during the rave. The movie we ended
up seeing that night was “Burnt By
the Sun,” a bleak Russian film about
the life of a doomed general under Stalin.
As we walked silently down Fillmore Street
in the chilly wind, the sense of things
being wrong between us continued. The three
of us were not in sync now, not like before.
I hoped it would be a phase, but as time
went on I realized with despair that it
was permanent.
Things were slipping
out of control. The old ease we'd felt together
was gone. Milos never spent time with me
alone. Hannah was consistently angry or
moody when I was around. He seemed to be
trying to appease us both, manage us both.
It couldn't work. I was amazed he tried.
It was hard to understand why he didn't
drop me. He was keeping me hanging, but
for what?
We still hung out on
the weekend. On one of our car trips that
summer he brought along an old bluegrass
version of "House of the Rising Sun."
I listened to the words, really hearing
them for the first time:
I've got one foot
on the platform, the other on the train
I'm going back to
New Orleans
To wear that ball
and chain
The image of the platform
and the train seemed so crazily right. I
was in between; I was in a place where I
ought not to be. I was giving my love and
attention to a married man who would never
leave his wife, who would never even be
sexual with me. I knew this, yet remained
entranced, hooked on the moments of euphoria
and pleasure that I felt with him. No one
had ever paid me this much attention, or
spent this kind of time with me. All those
hours of time we spent together had forged
a powerful bond that I could not bear to
let go. It felt like he cared. I knew he
cared.
Early on we’d
recognized and hooked into each other’s
vulnerabilities in a strange way. My father
had left when I was five. His mother had
died when he was 17. We had both been solitary
children; he was an only child, I’d
been one till I was nine. We’d pored
over books and music as depressed adolescents.
He said once that his existence had been
“monkish,” and that he felt
in his early 20s as if he was from another
planet. I had felt something like that too
– always human, but deeply separate
from the crowd, as if some basic connection
would always be denied me. Now I had it,
and I was supposed to let it go. And yet
keeping up this friendship was increasingly
a burden, a huge, guilty burden that seemed
to be crushing me.
Once he called me at
home, and in the midst of the conversation
said something idle about the virtues of
friendship. "Friendship is...."
he began.
"Like a ball and
chain, sometimes," I retorted.
"Are you referring
to anything in particular?" he said
nervously.
"No, just being
cryptic," I muttered, backing off once
again. Of course I was referring to us,
and of course he knew it. But neither of
us really wanted to join the dots, to fill
in the outlines of the blurry picture we
were immersed in drawing together. I felt
that I did own a part of him. I know he
felt possessive of me too. Letting go was
so hard. The fact that I had to be the one
to do it was cruel, that I finally uttered
the words, "I can't do this anymore,"
and he responded, "Well, do whatever
you need to do." He didn't fight for
me in the end. But he put his marriage on
the line for years.
Looking back, I’m
not sorry that we met; I can’t imagine
those years being filled in with good relationships,
happy experiences that I could have had
if I hadn’t known Milos and Hannah.
It was meant to be the way it was, and after
all this time the richness of it lingers
with me.
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