| "Territorial
Imperative 1:" |
| Blair and Jim are on stake out
in the truck. |
| I get as close as I can and I
watch him as long as he'll let me. See, I'm
memorizing him. Because one of these days, he's going to figure it out.
Someone's going to tip him off. |
| "Research?"
they'll say. "The only thing he's researching is your ass." |
It's
inevitable. So I take these hours when they come. These middle-of-the-
night hours, just the two of us in the cab of the truck. I take them
because they're safe. I take them because they're what he offers. And
it
beats the hell out of lying in bed in the loft, knowing goddamn good
and
well that if I jerk off he'll hear me, and smell me. And that just
makes
me want to do it more.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 2:" |
| After
2 weeks of non-stop sex, Blair finds out Jim thinks what they have
is love, while he's been thinking in terms of sex only. |
| "Let
me just make this perfectly clear," he's saying now, real calm, matter-
of-fact. "My love life is not an experiment. It is not something we are
going to analyze, scrutinize, theorize, tabulize or any other kind of
ize. Do you understand me?" |
| Whoa. |
| Love
life. Love life? His love life? Wouldn't that mean our love life, in
this particular instance? Well, shit. No wonder he's pissed. I've been
thinking sex. Sex. You know, chemistry. Pheromones. Biology. Genetics.
That old territorial imperative. |
| He's
talking love. |
We
are so not on the same page, here.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 3:" |
| Blair and Jim are still fucking
like stoats
when Simon sends Jim off for a week of special training. |
| is the big problem? This is
what's causing
clenched jaws and high blood pressure? Oh, man. The relief is like,
staggering. I try to keep my brain from crossing all those bridges, but
our life isn't exactly stable, you know? I mean, our secrets have
secrets. So when Simon gets serious, and doors get closed and James
Ellison sits with his head down, I start wondering whether I should
make
airline reservations or pick out funeral clothes. |
You
know you're at a strange place in your life when anything short of
death
or forcible removal from the premises seems completely manageable.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 4:" |
| Simon finds out that Blair and
Jim are
lovers and Jim is finally freaking out. |
| Simon
knows. |
| About
us, I mean. |
| That
there is an us, for one thing. And that there's more to it than just
slap and tickle. I guess he got all the news in one big flash.
Biological reaction, territorial imperative, two guys falling way off
the straight and narrow, all of it. |
I
think it will be all right. I mean, Simon's all right with it. Maybe in
about ten years, we'll look back on this and think it's kind of funny,
but to tell you the truth, that's not how it feels right now. Right now
it feels like that feeling you get when you're almost asleep and some
renegade body part decides to jerk you wide awake again. I read
somewhere that that's the closest we get to dying, and that muscle
thing
is the body's way of going WAKE UP GODDAMNIT. I don't know if it's
really true. I read a lot of crap.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 5:" |
| Blair and Jim are still fucking
like
bandits 4 months on but Jim still hasn't told his family. |
| It
works on a personal level, too. Want another example? He's never going
to explain me to his brother, not as anything more than just one of the
Major Crimes guys. He says he will next time we see him, and I tell him
I know, I know, but I know he won't. And he knows he won't. But it's
better for us both to say he will. Makes it livable, see? |
I'm
not even touching the dad thing. That's in a big box with a big lock
and a big sign that says in big letters, "There be dragons here." Yeah,
I'm curious, wouldn't you be? Maybe curious isn't the right word.
Furious is more like it. I don't go there because anger like that's not
good for the soul and it wouldn't help Jim any, and helping Jim is what
I'm all about, so I don't go there, and that's that.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 6:" |
| Blair and Jim seem to have
swapped places:
Blair is snarky and bad-tempered and Jim is being accommodating and
appeasing. What's going on? |
| "Don't
get it on the couch," I tell him, pointing to where his head's leaning
against the arm of the sofa. |
"Don't
get it on the couch? We have mind-blowing kinky sex and all you can
say, 'Don't get it on the couch?'" He's shaking his head. "You are so
predictable."
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 6a: Interruptus:" |
| After Blair drowned in the
fountain, Jim
stands vigil at his bedside in hospital. |
| Blair
was wrong. He thought we could handle anything. It's not true. Those
weren't just items on an agenda, those bridges we had to cross. They
were real, and ugly, and ultimately, bigger than we ... okay ... bigger
than I could cope with. |
| What
seems really clear now, now that it's all fucked up, now that he's on a
respirator and his hands are quiet on the blanket, is that I did the
one
thing sure to destroy us. |
I
separated us.
|
| "Territorial
Imperative 7:" |
Set after Blair's
drowning, Simon
has
moved in to look after both men.
|
| Okay,
so here's the thing about having a near-death experience. Not even near
-- having a death experience: When you drag yourself back to the land
of
the living, all the shit you used to worry about's still there waiting
for you, but you can't bring yourself to care, not even a little bit.
And all the stuff you love, well, you just love it even more. You love
it so much people look at you funny. You love it so much you're
standing
in line at Wonder Burger, hoping, hoping, hoping they just made the
fries fresh because now you can't get over how much you love Wonder
Burger fries. |
|
