The Last Time We Met

January 1987, Los Angeles, California

As we walked home from Blaine's party, I looked at Brent's pale face and once again thought he looked like he was wearing makeup.

There were guys we knew who wore makeup all the time. Full on, more makeup than Lisa wore. And that wasn't including the drag queens. I didn't care if Brent wore makeup. But most of our friends, if they were wearing makeup, wanted to make sure you knew it. Purple eyeshadow. Winged eyeliner. Cherry red lips. Brent's makeup wasn't like that.

In the streetlights, it looked more like concealer.

He had gotten much drunker than I had tonight. As soon as I saw him throwing back shots of tequila with Philip, I had abandoned my drink and kept an eye on him. He hated when I did that, if he was sober enough to notice. Normally I would have sweet-talked him into heading home early and spending a few hours making love. But it was New Year's, which meant we were stuck there until midnight, at least. And after the ball dropped, and we kissed, he ran to the bathroom. I pushed through the crowd after him. I couldn't hear anything in the bathroom. I didn't know if he was throwing up or passed out or what. Finally he emerged, looking like absolute mierda.

No cabs would stop for us, not the way he was hanging off me, which meant a half hour walk back to our apartment, the one we both worked and paid for, since Brent's father wasn't footing the bill anymore. Brent hadn't told me what had happened. He told me he was going home for Christmas, same as I was, but when I got back to the apartment the next day, he was already there, wearing sweatpants and drinking.

If I wasn't afraid of getting jumped by some homophobic jackoff, I would have carried Brent bridal-style all the way home. But maybe it was better to have him stumbling beside me, since he had to stop to throw up several times along the way. Once I had the key in the door, however, I scooped him up. No way I was getting him up the stairs like this.

"There's something wrong with me," he moaned as I laid him down on the bed.

"There's nothing wrong with you. You're drunk, that's all." I took off his shoes and considered the rest of his outfit before deciding to leave him as is.

He waved his arms. "I'm fucked up."

Sighing, I allowed his arms to catch me and pull me in. "I love you, Brent. That's all that matters."

He muttered something else, but I didn't catch it. His arms went limp, and I eased myself away. On second thought, he had vomit down the front of his silk shirt.

Once Brent was tucked in, on his side so he didn't choke on his own puke during the night, I undressed and brushed my teeth. The tattoo on my arm was vividly bright. We'd gotten them done earlier this month. "To have and to hold," mine said in scrolling letters wrapped around a heart. Brent had chosen Till Death do we part, and a smaller heart pierced through with the points of a star. We had recited the wedding vows as the needles had buzzed across our skin.

We were married now, not that any court of law or place of worship would recognize it.

Unable to sleep, I turned on the television. It was tuned to MTV, as usual, and Peter Gabriel's "Sledgehammer" was playing. The video was a strange one, but the song was fun and I watched through the next batch of videos: "Walk Like an Egyptian" and Janet Jackson's "Nasty" until "Take My Breath Away" came on and I had to shut it off, that song had been overplayed to the point where I couldn't stand it. "Top Gun" annoyed me too, for that matter, in a different way. Maybe because it was about a life I wasn't a part of, although I also didn't want to be a part of it. There weren't movies about people like me, or Brent. Other than porn, which could be found in the back rooms of those video shops with the blacked-out windows, but those didn't feel real, either.

I felt like we were living our lives on the edge.

I would be graduating in a couple of years, with my degree in education, but if anyone found out I was gay, I'd never find a job. Brent didn't seem to have much of a plan. He was a business major, because his father had told him to be. Now, without his father footing the bill, I wasn't sure he'd stay in school.

Finally my eyes began to droop, and I lowered the volume on the television. The glow of the screen and the Christmas lights taped to the walls made it feel cozy and festive, somehow. I wrapped my arms around Brent and kissed the back of his neck.

Whatever Brent decided to do, I would support him. I was his husband.

___

Author's Note: Since my Nanowrimo goal is to finish this novel, and I'm very close to that happening, I'm going to start posting twice a week - Wednesday and Friday!  So this chapter is a little shorter than usual but you'll have another update very soon ;)