I awoke in the morning to an empty bed. Sunlight streamed in through the patio door, which had been propped open, and I could hear a lawnmower in the distant buzz of the outdoors. I was frankly still tired, but since I found myself in bed alone I decided to wake up and begin the day. I stood up at the side of the bed. My thighs were sore from the previous evening and I let out a slight whimper. I stretched and yawned while my eyes scanned the room for my clothes. They were nowhere to be found. This didn’t alarm me as it was customary for Bliss, the man I’d been seeing, to do my laundry on the weekends when I stayed at his place. I shuffled to the bathroom to grab a robe and then wandered downstairs to the kitchen. To confirm my suspicions I heard the washer and dryer tumbling in the utility room nearby. I opened the refrigerator and poured myself a glass of orange juice, fresh orange juice of course, as this was one of Bliss’ predilections. I had initially presumed it was a function of his Floridian upbringing. There, such a thing was surely commonplace and I thought that his insistence upon juicing 12 oranges every few days was simply his way of brightening things up here in stormy Denver. My assumption was soon rebutted, however, when I discovered that he wields the same obsessive perfectionism with nearly everything he sets his mind to. He is, naturally, a fabulous cook because of it; not to mention a stellar athlete and world class lover. As I sipped the juice and nudged my numb legs against the vibrating dryer, I noticed a note taped to the washer:

“Yours- dryer, Mine- washer”

I smiled and crumpled the paper. Bliss was likely in town at the aquatic center. He swam numerous laps every Saturday. To be sure, I don’t quite know how many laps he did or what the distance amounted to, but he would come home completely tired and always ready for a nap. He and I have done this Saturday routine now for over a year. We started seeing each other during our sophomore years at UCD, and have continued on quite amorously since then. I practically lived with him, though I would make the commute into town every few days to get some fresh clothes and anything else I needed. This was the best situation currently, as he lived in a nice summer cabin in a quiet suburb outside of Denver, whereas I lived in an apartment complex in the city with the majority of residents being loud college students. I was also not quite ‘out’ yet, and I didn’t wish to discuss with my roommate why there was a guy sleeping over with me all the time. Not that it would be too difficult for her to figure out. I just didn’t want to have the whole ‘I’m gay’ talk with her at this particular point in time. Especially since Bliss was the first, and as far as I was concerned, the only guy I intended to be with.

I still wrestled with defining myself as gay and, other than Bliss, not a soul on earth knew I was such. Bliss on the other hand had known he was gay since high school, and he’d confided to his mother everything about his sexuality ever since he knew. His father was a different story. Being a military man, he just wouldn’t understand, and so Bliss and his mother