For Ray
 

ADULT M/M

FOR RAY

    It's strange what love can make people do.	For instance, last week
Ray asked me what I missed most about my home.	So many 
things I could have said, the sweet taste of the pine in my mouth as
I pushed the sled as fast as the dogs would go, or the mornings, oh those
mornings, so bright and clear and free.  Instead I told him some story
about a cake that my grandmother used to make that I 
hadn't been able to find anywhere since coming south.  
I gave no more thought to the matter, but three days later, when Ray
came to pick me up, he presented me with a box tied with blue ribbon,
trying to hide how important this gift was behind a flippant manner and
a glib tongue.	Inside was the cake I had spoken of.  I was surprised,
but even then it just seemed another instance of 
Ray's kindness, an attempt to make my exile a little easier.  It was
only later that I found out from Elaine how many places he'd called trying
to get hold of a cake that fitted my description.  In the end he'd had
to make do with obtaining the recipe and asking his 
mother to bake one for him. Of course I never told him that it didn't
taste the same, that some indefinable ingredient that was home was
missing.
I would never have treated his efforts with so little regard and its
taste was really unimportant, because by that simple act he had taken
some of my aloneness into himself and banished it 
forever.

    He has told me in so many ways how much he cares.  Why can't I answer
him?  Why can't I reached back and tell him all that is 
churning within Me?  
So many foolish, impossible things runs through my mind as I look at
him, this man who's heart is so well hidden, yet so easily hurt.  I don't
know if I can give him what he needs, if I can be all he wants.  I only
know that I have to try if he will let me.  Because this room is empty
without his presence, and my life is sad without his joy, and I can give
up anything except his friendship.

    It's strange what love can make people do.	Strange, and rather
wonderful.

Katy Deery  

"But Ray, I LIKE tasting dog piddle."