Today I was suffering from the “I-really-love-you-but-for-some-reason-I-want-to-punch-your-face-in” syndrome. Even after all of my spiritual self-help books, meditation, and beginning yoga classes, I still had this undeniable need to kiss Eric one minute followed by wanting to rip his tongue out the next. It wasn’t anything that he was or wasn’t doing, it was simply that he was THERE–in my face–when all I really wanted was to be left alone. Or did I want to be held, comforted, or slapped around? I wasn’t sure but I knew as I prepared us lunch, that if I had Boston cream pie in the fridge, I’d send it directly into his face.

Eric puttered around the kitchen, going over mountains of paper work Leslie’s lawyers had sent over regarding the Sports Clinic. Leslie might seem like some pretty dizzy queen, but he was pure business and now Eric was about to embark on his dream path of owning his own business. After all we had been through, Eric was going to come out smelling like a rose– again.

Even with the hell of his sexual dysfunction and my thoughts of leaving him, here I was still standing in the kitchen cooking him another meal. Is this what a spiritual quest is about--- getting to the hurts and idiosyncrasies of regret?

“What was it like making love with those other men while you were with me?” I asked, toasting the bread for the sandwiches.

“Two different things, Drew,” he mumbled. “I never made love. I had sex.”

“What was that like?”

“Confusing. What’s for lunch?”

When Eric is confronted by something he doesn’t want to discuss, he conveniently attempts to change the subject but I had started something I was going to finish. While I didn’t have a real cream pie nearby, I certainly did have an emotional one with a homemade crust.

“With tricks you had control but with me you had intimacy, which scared you.”

“Drew, don’t shrink me. I really don’t want to talk about this right now.”

“Well, I do.”

The silence between us was loud and visceral so I decided to pull out the big guns. I asked him calmly, “When you came with someone else, did you think of me? Or was it just a ‘release?’”

“Drew, where is this coming from?”

“I’m curious. We’ve never really talked about it.”

“It was a release. That’s all. It had nothing to do with you.”

“But it did have to do with me.”

“Look!” Eric yelled, dropping a stack of papers onto the kitchen table with a bang. “I’m doing work here, Drew! I have to assemble it for my lawyer and I’m trying to finish it by today. Will you cut me some slack?”

The resentment I had for this handsome man in front of me, who was going to be starting a successful business, rose inside my soul like a tornado hitting a church. “I guess I’m still angry.”

“It’s this new spiritual Drew with the books, the incense and the chanting that’s causing all of these problems. I don’t know what you’re looking for but don’t point your finger at me.”

He was right. I was pointing fingers and it felt GREAT! While plenty of gay men can forgive and forget their lover’s infidelities, I could not. I was still angry, certainly brought on by my recent understanding of what my spiritual path was AND WHAT I HAD PUT UP WITH BEFORE!

Did my future include Eric? I hoped so, but the rage I had inside me to quench my appetite for that Boston cream pie was uncontrollable.