The OS2Guy

How did I know that he was the one? That’s a question many of us should ask before we fall into commitment and marriage. At twenty-three I had been dating and sleeping with guys for probably ten years. That’s right. I was hopping in and out of bed, making out with and eventually living with guys I was attracted to. Not every guy was attractive but the majority were. The majority were also bad decisions brought on by sexual lust and in your teenage years when hormones and stupidly reign supreme you can and will make a lot of mistakes. But what comes of those mistakes, when repeated again and again, is wisdom. As I slipped out of my teens and into early adulthood I still made the occasional stupid mistake or went home with a guy just because I wanted sex and he had a hot body or beautiful face but eventually it grew tiresome and by twenty-two I literally backed off relationships and sex with other guys and I began to assess my past experiences, categorizing the guys I had had relationships with be they one-night stands or long-term partnerships. I came to the realization that those relationships that worked always had a good gut feeling about them while the failures – before they were failures – resulted in bad gut feelings. I mean I knew before ever entering into or soon after the relationship that it wasn’t going to work. Yet I went ahead with it hoping it would work out and it didn’t. And when that gut feeling felt good it was telling me that I needed to pay more attention, needed to work at the relationship if I wanted it to succeed.

And it was that gut feeling when I first saw Mike. Michael Charles Ryan is my husband today and has been for the last seven years. He had been married before, to his college girlfriend, for six years before we ever met and he came into my life almost a year after his divorce.

He was a neighbor who moved into a high-rise apartment across the street with a nineteen year old blond pixie flight attendant he had met on the plane flying to San Francisco from his home in Honolulu, Hawaii. I lived in downtown San Francisco, on Nob Hill, in a high rise building with thirty floors. I watched one morning as Mike and Julie were ushered into an empty apartment across the street by the building manager and were given a tour of the small apartment. It was just a studio with a fold-out sofa for a bed, a small cafe table with two chairs, a high-boy dresser, two stand alone lamps, a framed print or two on the walls, a kitchenette and a bathroom.

The place had no curtains but it did have shades which were rolled up high allowing me the privilege or watching the three move around the room. I didn’t pay too much attention at first even though I thought the tall, dark-haired fellow holding the hand of the little blond girl, looked like he was ‘along for the ride’ and certainly not intending on living in the studio with the blond girl. I thought the apartment was her idea and that she was looking for a place to live. But I was wrong because they returned that afternoon and he was carrying a heavy backpack, a large suitcase and a smaller gym-type bag. She too had a pack on her back and a suitcase ‘on wheels’. And they moved in and set up house.

They arrived in the late afternoon and the small apartment was bright with light. I found him much more attractive and I was even more fascinated when he took off his shirt revealing just a white athletic t-shirt and nice sized biceps and a well shaped chest. He looked to be near my age with shiny thick brown hair, all one length, that hung down to his shoulders. I watched mesmerized for a good thirty minutes and finally closed up my shutters because I wanted to keep watching them but did not want them to know I was watching and they would know if they looked out the window and across the street at my window. I could manipulate the slats of the shutters so any view of me from the outside could be disguised.

The more I watched the more intrigued I became and as the days passed I found myself glued to the bay window at every free moment I could muster. They rarely pulled down the shades and I rarely pulled back my shutters fearing the shades would come down the moment they thought someone across the street was watching. With my opera binoculars I watched her climb on top of him each morning and ride his beautiful body. She too had a nice trim body but she meant nothing to me other then my envy that she got to be with him and be held and kissed by him. They didn’t always have sex unless it was a weekend for he got up each morning in a pair of baggy boxer shorts and nothing else, went to the kitchenette and flipped on a coffee maker then into the bathroom where he showered and came out with a towel wrapped about his waist. It was early Spring in the City with temperatures around fifty five each morning. He would slip on a clean athletic t-shirt, drop his towel and slip into a clean pair of boxers then carry his coffee to the small bay window and sit on a milk crate to look at the activity on the street below.

He would finish his coffee, dress in a white shirt, tie and usually tan or blue suit, stop at the bed and say something to her and then leave the apartment. I would see him step out of the building a few long moments later, turn left and head up the street where he again, turned left toward Van Ness Avenue. I wondered where he went each day and figured it had to be an office dressed as he was.

There were there just eight days when one afternoon I saw her enter the apartment with a young man, a hippy type, with tattoos on his arms wearing just a white t-shirt and a pair of black dungarees and black work boots. It took them just a few minutes before the two were stark naked and without opening up the sofa bed he sat on the sofa and she climbed atop his fat cock and rode him for ten long minutes. After sex they moved to the small cafe table and removed fast food from two white bags. They ate and twenty minutes later they were back on the sofa but this time he lay atop her and she wrapped her legs around his waist as they fucked like rabbits. They smoked a fat joint together, he dressed, kissed her and departed from the apartment. I watched him come out of the building some ten floors below and turn to his right. She took a shower and put her clothes back on and then left the apartment again.

I realized then that she was cheating on him and it was just a matter of time before their love affair would implode.

And it was a few days later when it did implode. He must have known something was going on because he came home mid-afternoon, walked in and caught the two together. They weren’t having sex, hadn’t even started but she did jump from his lap to a standing position just as her partner entered the room. I could almost hear their raised voices and when her partner went after the stranger she held him back long enough for the interloper to rush to the door and hurry down all ten flights. I saw him jet from the building and hurry down the street below. Back in the apartment the two lovers continued to argue. He never raised a hand to her but I could tell from his face and actions that he was very angry that she had betrayed him.

I thought that was it. That he would pack his things and leave but he didn’t. In fact, their relationship went cold and they lived in the apartment more like roommates. I had no idea she was a flight attendant and when two girlfriends arrived for a visit on a Friday night they all went out to party. I did not know when they got home but the following morning the two roommates were in the apartment alone asleep in the bed, backs to one another. The two friends came back later that day and I saw them all leave for dinner in the early Saturday evening.

On Sunday morning I looked out the window and there he was, sitting in the his window, shirtless and holding a cup of coffee. The room behind him looked dark and empty. I expected her to come out of the bathroom, naked, towel wrapped around her head but when many minutes went by and she didn’t I concluded she had gone. He was now alone over there and something, I think of it as a gut feeling, said he was free to pursue. But how? How does a gay man convince a straight man to fall in love with him?

The Courtship …

As the days went by I found myself even more obsessed with the man across the street. I began to stalk him – to follow him when he left the building for work and watch him as a bank manager opened the door from the inside of a bank two blocks away on Van Ness Avenue. I thought he must be a teller and entered the bank an hour later looking for confirmation. He was no where in site. I thumbed through brochures, sat in a plush waiting area until a woman came over to ask if I needed help. I shook my head no and got up to leave fearing they might think I was there to case the place. Midway to the door another door opened in the Loan area and he walked out carrying a folder of papers and began a conversation with the same women who had previously approached me. He wasn’t a teller, he must be a loan officer or something more important. I stayed long enough to get a real good look at him. Even though I had seen him up close and personal through the binoculars, this was the first time that I saw him just a few feet away and to me, he was even more striking, more handsome.

All the way back to my apartment I ran the memory of his face, his body, how he looked over and over again. Later, just before five I saw him come home and he was carrying his suit jacket over his shoulder. I knew he would change clothes, have a coffee or cold drink then leave again to either pick up dinner at a fast food place like McDonalds or Burger King, which were both five blocks away, or he would cross the street to the corner supermarket and buy a pre-made sandwich with chips and a beer. I left the apartment and took the backstairs down to the alleyway where I could watch his departure and follow him. It took a while and I almost returned to the apartment wondering if I had somehow missed him but there he was, departing from his building lobby wearing tennis shoes, Levis and a t-shirt. He turned right which meant he was going for fast food. I darted out of the alley in the opposite direction running over to Van Ness then in his same direction. Just as I reached the corner he appeared and though he paid no attention, he walked but five or ten feet ahead of me for the full five blocks until he got to MacDonalds. I didn’t go in because the windows were so big I could watch him wait for his order and I knew he would take it back home. And he did.

From that adventure I found he was a bit taller then me and we both arrived at a corner stoplight but I held back a bit to check him out. He was so incredibly handsome, his long brown hair was still in his work pony-tail, he wore no jewelry and had no piercings or tattoos – items I might have missed looking at him through the binoculars. I never once gave him an opportunity to acknowledge or even look in my direction. He went ahead of me and I let a near half block separate us as I walked behind him giddy and walking on air. There was just something about this man that gave me happiness inside.

By now most of my time was spent spying on him. I thought nothing wrong in my stalking him as long as he didn’t know I was watching and I didn’t know why I was watching but told myself it was because I wanted to know him before he knew me.

On Thursday I had errands and chores to accomplish and his routine had become familiar enough that I felt it no problem to spend time away. When I finally finished and came into the apartment around seven p.m. he was across the street, in his apartment and was hanging up his white dress shirts. He must have gone somewhere in his building to wash his clothes. There was a public laundry just a door down from his lobby entry and I was sure to have seen him if he was in there washing his clothes.

The following morning I saw him leave his building and through the binoculars noticed that his white shirt was now a light pink. I didn’t recall him wearing a pink shirt before and didn’t give it much thought until Saturday when he crossed the street a little before noon and entered the corner grocery store. I hurried down and out of my building, rushed up the half block and into the store. It wasn’t a small store and offered eight aisles of goods. I went past one aisle then another and spotted him in the house goods section where the laundry soaps and cleaning supplies stood. I slowly walked down the aisle and he was reading the back of a box of soap. His arms were bare and he was wearing an athletic t-shirt often called a “wife-beater” with jeans and tennis shoes, his long brown hair fell just below his shoulders and he sported a day’s growth of beard. I too stopped close enough to him. “It’s never easy finding the right soap, huh?” I said. He looked out and seemed to take a longer moment then necessary to look at me and then he smiled. “I fucked up my shirts and stuff. Everything came out pink,” and he laughed. It was the first time I had heard his voice and looked at his smile which was warm and friendly. He had a beautiful set of white even teeth and the darkest of dark brown eyes. I almost didn’t speak I was so taken aback by him. “Easy to fix…” I said pointing to the bleach. “Rewash the clothes and pour in a cup of that bleach…” I offered. He looked at the bleach, put the soap back and picked up the bottle. “That won’t fuck ‘em up?” he asked. “Shouldn’t. Don’t use more than a cup and wait until the washer fills up before you pour the bleach in, swish it around then put your whites in and let the machine do the rest.” He was staring straight at me as I said this. There was a long pause. For him it seemed he was still skeptical or fearful of ruining his clothes so I spoke again.

“You live in the neighborhood?” “Yeah. Just down the street…” he said stilll holding the bottle of bleach. “You’re kidding. Me too. You like soccer?” I asked and he smiled broadly. “Loooove soccer,” he said. “Soccer game this afternoon on ESPN. Why don’t you bring your clothes over – with some bleach – and we’ll throw them in my washer and watch the game…” I offered.

I knew this was a perfect setup. I guessed at the soccer because I had seen him punting a small bean bag around his apartment with his feet and I also knew he would generally go up to his roof to lay out in the sun for most of the afternoon. He looked away and back to the bottle. “You’re sure this will work?” he said holding the bottle. “It should..” I said, adding, “get your clothes and come on over in … say a half hour. I’m just a few doors down, next to the Greek clothing store, number 912 on the directory. I’ve got a washer and dryer right in the apartment – and beer!” and then I laughed. “We can order up a pizza and check out England as they slaughter the Scots!” This time he laughed. “The Scots will murder ‘em!” he laughed back. “Oh, you think so?” I challenged him. “Come on. I’m not doing anything this afternoon and I’d be watching the game anyway. What’s your name?” I asked sticking my hand out. “I’m Chris. Christoper Giles…” He shifted the bottle of bleach and took my hand. “Mike Ryan…” he said adding, “it’s a date. Half hour?” “Yeah. What do you like on your pizza?” “Pepperoni and sausage. I’ll bring the Bud…” he offered. “Ok. Date. See you then…” I said and he was still looking at me when I turned around and walked toward the front of the store.

And that’s how our relationship began. We became friends first. Our time and our days began to meld together. I had worked as a chef for a few years and was a great cook so he came over for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I was fascinated with him and no matter what he liked to do or talk about, I accommodated him. I wanted this man as close as I could get him, even if he was straight and there was no chance of anything else between us, just being with and near him made me happy.

Did he know I was gay? Yes. Of course, I can’t hide something like that and he seemed to take it very well. The more we got to know each other the more I found out about his previous marriage and divorce, that he had moved to Honolulu to attend Hawaii University and was a math major. “Did you work in a bank over there?” “A coupla times but I really liked managing a night club right on Waikiki called the BeachComber,” he grinned. “Yeah! I know where that is! Hell, I’ve been in there quite a few times.”

And the more we talked the closer we became. My grandparents lived on the big island and as a young boy through my teen years I flew over every June and spent the summer in a small Hawaiian town called Volcano. He knew exactly where that was and those conversations simply brought us closer then ever. He called me from work to ask, “what’s for lunch?” And we went to Giants baseball games courtesy of a neighbor who had primo seats behind home base but couldn’t use them because he had knee and leg surgery. He surfed and we took a special Muni bus out to Baker’s Beach on the weekends and would strap his surf board on a rack on the outside of the back of the bus. As the days and weeks went by we found our time was rarely spent without the other – in fact the only real time we spent apart was when he went to work every day and even then, I would see him at lunch and on Friday’s he began to spend the night, first on the sofa, then in my big California king so we could get an early start for the beach the next morning or just because he didn’t want to go home.

I had all the necessities – big TV, kitchen, he could go up to my own roof garden to tan in the sun – and he loved to tan in the sun. We laughed and joked all the time and we loved movies – all kinds of movies and television.

One day he joked that he should just move in with me. I wanted that more than anything but I knew me and I knew if he did move in with me that I would want more from our relationship then just a buddy to live with. I didn’t respond to his suggestion because I was afraid to tell him what I really wanted. He took that non-response as a bad sign and as we walked up Van Ness after watching a new said he was going to go on home, to his home, when I mentioned cherry pie and ice cream at my place.

“Thanks but I think I’ll go home tonight…” We both went silent during the next two or three blocks and as we turned down California toward our street a rush of fear ran through me. “Hey, you wanna move in you can, really. It would be great to, you know, always be together, it’s just that …” and I hesitated going further but knew I had to be honest, “Don’t freak out or get mad or anything but …” I hammered out slowly and then blurted: “You ever kissed another guy?” He was silent as we walked up the dark street. “No … don’t know that I have,” he finally said. “Not even as a teenager when you know, your hormones were raging – did you ever wonder what it would be like?” “You wanna kiss me?” he had stopped walking. “More than anything,” I said slowly. He looked up and down the street. It was pretty deserted except for a several cars stopped at the stop sign at the end of the street. He looked back at me, shrugged and stepped into the deep recess doorway of Brownie’s Hardware store. “Come on…” he said there in the near darkness. “You serious?” I said breaking into a smile now more scared than I had been in a long time. Not scared physically but mentally that he was just kidding around. He shoved his hands into his jean pockets and just stood there.

I stepped forward and into the doorway, placed both my hands on his waist, he was wearing just a t-shirt and the touch was almost as though he was not wearing a shirt at all. I leaned in and as softly as I could I placed my mouth on his. His hands came out of his pockets and I felt them on my rib cage. I pushed my tongue forward and he opened his mouth. It was a wonderful feeling and I my fingers dropped to the bottom of his shirt and slipped under it to feel the warmth of his skin and then up the sides of his torso. The kiss grew longer, more urgent and he pushed his tongue into my mouth. His hand reached up around the back of my head and for what seemed like a long minute or so we just kissed. We we finally pulled back he brought his other hand up so that both were now engulfing my head and he kissed me again with much more passion, pushing his body against mine. I could feel his hips grind against me and my right hand reached down to his crotch. He was excited and hard, I could feel the outline of his cock and I was so taken that I pushed him against the glass door of the hardware store. For the next five minutes we couldn’t stop kissing. His hands were now under my t-shirt and he was running them everywhere and driving me insane. I slipped my fingers into the top of his Levi’s and felt him suck his already taunt stomach in inviting me to reach down and I did. I felt the warmth of his crotch and the full length of a very hard cock and followed it down to a thick bush of soft pubic hair. “Oh my God…” I whispered coming up for air. I could feel his hands on the outside of my Levi’s rubbing at my own hard cock. I tugged at the buttons of my Levi’s to make it easier for him to touch me and when he did his hands reached deep feeling every inch of my hard staff and down to my balls.

And then it was over. He pulled back, stopped kissing me and whispered “I have to go home…” I was still in a haze of sexual excitement, not sure I was hearing correctly when he stepped around me and out of the doorway and back to the sidewalk. Trying not to look stupid I quickly adjusted myself and re-buttoned my jeans and pulled my t-shirt down over my throbbing crotch and took a few steps toward him. Without waiting for me he began to walk up the street. He had only to walk through the cross walk and up half a block and he would be home. I didn’t catch up with him until he had stepped all the way through the crosswalk and onto the next block. “Hey…” I said trying to get him to slow down. “Let’s go this way….” I said motioning to across the street, to my building, convinced he didn’t really want to go to his own place but he kept walking and reached into his pocket for the front door key. “I’ll call ya…” he said shooting me a quick almost blank look. “Wait…” I said rushing the last few steps before he had unlocked the iron gate and had stepped into the foyer of his building. “Later…” he said and walked ahead toward the elevators. The gate closed before me and I was left standing on the sidewalk. “Ok…” I said almost silently more in shock then disappointment.

Once inside my apartment I hurried to the bay window and looked over at his place. It was dark. I was confused and wondered if he was freaked out by the whole moment in the doorway. Was he mad? He liked it, I knew he did. Maybe he didn’t want to like it. Maybe he didn’t like the way he felt but he had to, I mean, he kissed me back, he touched me. I could tell he was enjoying everything that we were doing. What was wrong?

And for three days I repeated that question again and again and coming to the conclusion that he must not have wanted to be ‘that close’ or that maybe he felt I had pushed the gay thing too far. Or that, and this is what my gut was telling me, he had feelings for me and he didn’t know how to deal with them or if he even wanted to feel that way about another guy.

I saw him, of course, from my window when he left for work each morning and came home each night but he didn’t call or try to communicate with me. He kept the shades down on his apartment and in the evening he left the building for dinner and came home with a grocery bag that looked to be beer. I wasn’t sure. I called his telephone and left several messages, some pleading an apology and begging that he not give up on our friendship.

By Wednesday I had come to the conclusion that we were never going to be the same friends we were before the doorway incident. I blamed myself but I couldn’t hate myself because I ran the memory of the incident over and over in my head. I couldn’t stop thinking about his kisses, feeling his body so close to mine and holding him like I did.

It was a little after seven when there was a tapping at the door. I assumed it was my building manager dropping by to collect the rent and didn’t bother to look out the peek hole. When I opened it Mike was standing there.

“Hey…” he said. “Hey…” I said back and there was a short silence before we both spoke at the same time. “I’m sorry…” we said in unison. He held up his finger. “Let me.. I am so sorry … I’ve been really stupid …” he began. “No, I’m sorry. I’m the stupid one. I shouldn’t have ever … you know…” and I looked down. I was embarrassed. He stepped into the hallway and closed the door behind him. He put his hands on my waist and I looked up. “I want this..” he said and he leaned forward and kissed me on the mouth. It was a long loving kiss and when he pulled back he was smiling. I probably held a blank stunned look on my face because he laughed. “You okay?” I smiled. “Yeah. More than okay,” and I took ahold of him and kissed him. We held each other there in the hallway and it was then that my gut was telling me this was real and would last. Holding Michael was everything I ever wanted.

That was seven years ago.

Mike never really went home after that night. And later, near five a.m. I woke up with a tingling in my right hand. I thought maybe I was laying on it oddly and when I tried to raise it up I found Mike had interlaced his fingers through mine and we were sleeping like that. I knew at that moment our relationship was going to work. I leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He lay placid for a moment then his free hand came up behind my head and pressed me to him.

Sex-wise he was shy at first not knowing what to do but soon he let the physical passion take over and our relationship grew closer and stronger as the days then weeks and months went by.

In June of 2004 same-sex marriage had come to San Francisco. I watched with curiosity as celebrities and other gay couples lined up at City Hall for a license and barely mentioned it to Mike. We were happy enough and I figured he’d never want to marry again. All this gay stuff was new to him and as July arrived I found him much more accepting of our lifestyle personally and in the public. At a street fair down on Columbus Street also known as “Little Italy” we sauntered along with the crowds past booths of art and crafts, ceramics and paintings stopping to buy food and listen to live music from Jazz to Rock. People are always friendly and at one point a young straight couple engaged Mike in conversation. We were all standing on a crowded barricaded street and I really wasn’t paying much attention to what they were saying when cool as a cucumber I felt Mike slip his hand into mine. He had never done anything so intimate in public before and when I looked down at the hand and then up at him he smiled and leaned into me. It was just a look but I knew that he was a happy man and that made me feel just as happy.

The young guy he was talking with looked down at our hands and smiled at his girlfriend who looked at Mike. “We just got engaged,” she said raising up her hand and displaying a hand crafted silver band on her wedding finger. “Hey! Congratulations!” he said dropping my hand and shaking the young man’s hand. “Yeah,” said the young man pulling his girlfriend to him and kissing her lightly on the mouth. They were very much in love. Mike did not hold my hand after that but he was much more comfortable in public – standing behind me with his hands on my shoulders, nuzzling my ear – small intimate thing. It was a feeling for me and I hoped for him too.

It was the following early morning that held a special moment for me. We were up early, just after six and he was in the shower. I was in the kitchen making him breakfast in just a t-shirt and boxer shorts. “Hey!” I heard him call out. I pulled the scrambled eggs off the burner and walked into the bathroom. “What?” I said. He was standing naked in the shower and looked as handsome as ever with water running down his head and body. “Come here…” he said motioning me toward him. “What?” I said with a half smile on my face. When I got close enough he reached forward and took my wrist. “No here,” he said pulling me into the shower drenching my t-shirt. “Hey… I said protesting his action. He pulled me against him and kissed me long and passionately as water ran mostly on him. When he finally pulled back I complained. “Now look at me…” I said tugging at the wet t-shirt. He pulled it from the bottom up and over my chest and off my head then with a mischievous look on his face ran his hands over my torso and then down into the boxer shorts. “You’re going to be late…” I smiled not wanting him to stop.

“I can be late today…” he said his mouth all over my neck, his hands reaching around the shorts to my ass. “No you can’t…” I said wrapping my arms around him. “Yes, yes I can…” he said into my ear. “Christian Giles,” he said pulling back and looking into my face. “Will you marry me?”

He was smiling from ear to ear. I was totally surprised. He had never mentioned the marriage thing before. Then the memory of the newly engaged couple the day before ran through my mind and I wondered if that had been the reason for his proposal but I wasn’t going to ask. “Seriously?” I asked and he nodded yes. “You sure you want to get married?” “Yes,” he said assuredly. I looked at him then kissed him on the mouth. “Yes …” I whispered back. “If you hadn’t asked me I would have asked you … I was just afraid you would say no…” “No?” he pulled back and stared at me. “I LOVE you! I’ve never loved anyone as much as I love you. I want us to have babies together, to be together always…” he said these words as though wounded. I laughed. “Michael Ryan … will you marry me?” and we both laughed.

That was how we proposed to each other.