By the time I get on the plane, he’s recomposed in my imagination. Now he’s coated with that charge of longing and excitement that makes me say yet again that I love him. This isn’t an illusion, I tell myself, merely the clearer vision of distance. As flawed as our relationship is, I’m living out a basic homosexual dream. Current gay politics have covered up the fact that homosexuality is submission to a constant dilemma. The maleness toward which our sexuality is directed is—culturally at least—defined by heterosexuality. No one admits it anymore, but successful gay couples often play a constant game of switching. Each takes turns playing “the man,” while the other temporarily enjoys this sociological projection of masculinity. Those who don’t do this seem to become denatured Bobbsey Twins, unmarried “sisters” living together. I’ve made a different choice, which some would call “unliberated.” Everything attractive about Romulus stems from his heterosexuality, and of course, that’s the very quality that prevents me from possessing him entirely. Well, maybe I’m on a more honest path of homosexual desire.
BRUCE BENDERSON, from The Romanian: Story of an Obsession. New York : Tarcher/Penguin, 2006.
