If there’s one thing thing that Artem and I have promised to never forget is the miracle of our lives. You see, we are keenly aware that the life we lead is a miracle. It’s a miracle how we met, its a miracle how we’ve sustained, and it’s a miracle for the future we have forged. Against all odds God had brought us together and it’s God that keeps us together.

Every time we kiss it’s as though a universal God is kissing us. This isn’t a fantasy or an infatuation. We are all too aware that the love we share is a love forged out of steel. Much like King Arthur’s infamous Excalibur, our love has been shaped by distance not closeness. We treasure every chat, every text and every telephone call. We see each other as a soul mate. We are bound by our hearts. We have been blind to physical attraction. Our hearts see for us. Our hearts have perfect vision. And so I want to share with my readers, The Story of Us.

I’m not embarrassed to admit that we met on an online dating site. We had both signed up at the same time and on the same day. I was busy flagging texts from potential suitors as I had been surprisingly popular. Then I happened upon his text.

“Hi,” he said, “I think you’re handsome.”

What happened next was unbelievable. I set eyes on his photograph. It was simply beguiling. Here was this younger, stunningly handsome man sitting on the ledge of a concrete wall. He was so handsome that I was immediately bewitched. His half-smile, his muscular thighs, his delicate hands must’ve been captured by a lover. Only a lover, I’d thought, only a lover would take a photograph like that. So he had a lover.

I shot him a text back to him, “Well, if you think I’m handsome, then you are gorgeous,” I confessed.

“You are handsome. Very handsome. I love your face, your beard, your eyes. You look so handsome and confident,” he added.

Me? I thought to myself, Me? I introduced myself and gave him my email address and suggested that we leave the world of the dating sight and communicate via email. He said he’d write immediately.

A day passed. No email. I went back to the dating sight and texted him. I gave you my email address, but you didn’t write. I won’t bother you again.

“Wait,” he responded, “Ive been busy. Do you give up so easily?”

Do I, I thought, do I give up so easily? Surely he’s been busy with his lover and couldn’t find free time to write. I responded, No I don’t give up so easily. I’m just not in the habit of stalking my prey.

“I’ll write to you today, I promise,” he texted back.

And he did and then I did. Pages and pages and pages of emails. I finally understood what we were doing: BedSpeak. That confessing of secrets post-loving. We were strengthening a bond. Then I asked was it a lover that took his photographs?

“I don’t have a love,” he replied to me, “You’re my love.”

And so it began, our little miracle in a world that doesn’t believe in miracles. I don’t know if the world at large is jaded or cynical, but I’ve often wondered what God thinks about her humans. I can just hear her now: “I give them miracles but no one sees. That is, no one but these two men. Blessed be they and their love for one another.”

I’m about to become an ex-pat. In approximately fourteen hours the wheels of my 757-200 jetliner will lift from runway 2-R at O’Hare International Airport and carry me some 4,000+ miles to a much anticipated rendezvous with Artem in the 2nd most romantic city in the world, Paris (the 1st being Venice according to Travel + Leisure Magazine’s 2017’s Most Romantic Destinations in the World).

Falling in love in Paris has been a dream of mine ever since I knew there was a city called Paris. My former partner and I traveled to France over fifteen years ago, but we flew on a shoestring budget, stayed in a shoestring hotel, and visited all the sights inside and outside of Paris. We had a wonderful time.

But this trip is feeling different somehow. The former trip was a vacation. This trip is a lifetime. As I leave Chicago today, I’m wholly uncertain if I’ll ever call this city my home ever again. As I leave America today I’m not sure if I’ll ever be willing to compromise myself and my ideals thus allowing myself to be called an American. I suppose I’ll always be called an American, but I’m hoping, like Hemingway, that one day I’ll be considered an ex-pat, living abroad, and writing about my experiences. I hope that one day I’ll miss my motherland. I hope that one day I learn Artem’s native tongue as my own and that we teach our adopted son, Jack, to speak it as well. I hope that one day, I’ll place the first fifty-five years of my life behind me and focus only on falling asleep every night in the arms of my beloved Artem.

You see, my 757-200 jetliner is transporting me directly into Artem’s powerful arms. But I’m not fleeing into his arms. I’m walking, patiently, as patiently as I’ve done these past many, many weeks as he and I have been forging the massive I-beam which is the foundation of our relationship.

As many of my readers know, the early stages of any infatuation begins with an unending carnal desire to tear clothing, place mouths on every bare inch of delicious flesh; of BedSpeak; of ManFights; of Upsets. I’ve written about them right here on my blog. But to answer a very important question posed to me several times on different social media platforms: Was this fantasy or did this happen?

I’m the writer and you’re the reader. That’s a question only the reader can answer for themselves.

Or, I guess it depends on a greater question: Do you believe in miracles?

When does Trust arrive in a relationship? And, more importantly, does it exit? What causes Trust to appear? Any yet, what causes it to flee like a flock of frightened pigeons? Is Trust a declaration or a given? I believe that a significant particle of the love equation is Trust.

When I told Artem a couple of weeks ago that I’d fallen madly, deeply in love with him, I’d also professed another less obvious emotion: Trust. Trust’s synonyms include: confidence, assurance, expectation, faith, hope, and certainty. When I talk of trust, I’m not talking about an implied emotion. I’m talking about a fundamental tenet of a relationship. Any partnership, whether it be professional or emotional, is based on many things including a commitment toward a common goal. In this case that common goal is trust.

Trust, when we’re talking about emotions usually has something to do with fidelity. But about the more evidential items? Like property or money. I’ve always wondered why American’s as a society, seem to place a higher value on the evidential items like property and money when discussing trust in a relationship, but seem to turn a blind eye towards trust when it comes to affairs of the heart. Are American’s cold-hearted? Not all of them, and certainly not me.

I trust my Artem implicitly. On both fronts: Heart and Hard Evidence. In our relationship it is impossible to say to one another that we’re in love without Trust. Put another way, once in a swimming pool he asked me to dive in from the high diving board.

“But,” I stammered, “I can’t swim!”

“That’s okay,” he said in his Ukrainian lilt, “I can, and Trust me, I will save you Harlan.”

And he has. So many, many, many times.

I try to be empathetic. Honestly, I do. But sometimes my ego gets bruised and the cake just doesn’t seem to rise. And then I become defensive, hurt, and angry. When that happens my diplomacy gets sucked down the drain along with hope. Artem elicits a greater degree of empathy than I. He calls me negative. I call it Age.

Age differences in couples isn’t a new phenomenon. In ancient Greece, it was common for an erastes (adult male) to welcome an eromenos (younger male) into an erotic and homosocial relationship. It’s hard to debate the age differences between these two men in our 21st-century morals, but in ancient Greece, it wasn’t the age of the younger male that determined his fate, but his consent. Today there are couples that are attracted to each other that are the same age or decades apart. In America, we tend to turn a blind eye to age differences so long as the younger man or woman has achieved the age of consent (eighteen, nineteen, twenty or twenty-one years of age).

So what’s it like for an older man or woman to fall in love with a younger man or woman?

Heavenly.

Oh yes, and challenging!

Being in love with someone that’s a generation apart requires the adult male to accept the challenges of a yearning, sexually active, inquisitive partner. The younger male’s Joi de Verve is intoxicating. The adult male’s temperament provides the younger male with aspirations.

Both Artem and I have fallen in love with each other. And not with our generations. You see, I spy a younger me in Artem, and he sees an older self of he in me. We’ve found that both he and I mirror ourselves in the other. But we’re clear of this one important thing: Age doesn’t matter, for the heart knows no bounds and doesn’t understand the man made construct called time.

While I very much enjoy devouring inch by naked inch of Artem’s naked torso on a daily basis, I also enjoy the gutteral sounds eminating from throaty voiceboxes heralding his oncoming eruption of ecstasy. But even more than satisfying a carnal urge, I enjoy that simpler, drowsy time post coitus. That moment when the throaty growls become the soft purring of BedSpeak.

BedSpeak is that delicate and quiet conversation whispered between lovers as the pyre of passion has burnt itself out and the pair lay shivering in the dankness of sheets and littered clothes. BedSpeak isn’t limited to just utterings. Oh no, it can take on mews, giggles, and tender moans. Sometimes it can be heard amidst the pouring of rain showers or as an elipse between the popping of bathtub suds.

My favorite BedSpeak occurs over cappucino in the sidewalk cafes of Paris or while strolling the 8th arrondisment arm in arm with Artem.

BedSpeak is the only language lovers ever speak. It doesn’t matter where or when or why. Lovers know of no other language than that of BedSpeak: BedSpeak is the language of the heart and understood only by those whose souls are bound. Just like my sweet Artem and I.