CHRISTMAS 1973
By Michael Safdiah

I was madly in love with Horace and it was my late teens, just twenty actually. Horace was an undertaker a year older than me and had a good job.His work gave him a kinky sense of humor which, I suppose was essential to deal that closely with Death at age 20. He was my first sexual experience of any duration. I became attached to him. Puppy Love. His mom, a widow, lived in Millville south Jersey, and we went there to see her. It was Christmas eve day. Her house was perfect Americana. Every lampshade had frills the chairs had antimacassars, and the tree didn’t have a spot that wasn’t decorated. Millville was holly growing country, so there was a lot of that all over the house too. The walls were covered with details she had placed there. She had the entire house done up for Christmas, both inside and out. My upbringing never gave me that experience, and I felt underprivileged with only a Hanukah menorah. This was total Christmas. I loved it. She was a good cook too. We had ham.

He had a Bonneville (big front seat) and after dinner (in front of mom) he offered to show me their summer house at Stone Harbor, down south. He was a quiet guy, you never really always knew what he was thinking, but I knew enough to trust him. He didn’t come right out and say what he had in mind that night either, but I guessed, or hoped. You can’t imagine how cold it was that night. We drove down along what seemed like deserted roads for over an hour till we got to the empty darkened house. There couldn’t have been a soul within a mile. No lights were on anywhere near us. A summer house that’s closed up for winter has no water, no electricity, and certainly no heat. But it did have a bed. A cold one with no sheets either. There wasn’t going to be any nookey at mama’s house so this was it! Our own private place. We were young, horny and ready to endure any hardship.

A wicked smile: "You see that bed over there? No one’s allowed in it with any clothes on." I remember how warm it felt when our skins came in contact and how freezing cold it was on the rest of my body. I don’t remember the sex or if it was any good, it always was, maybe I’m embarrassed to say, but I remember the crazy way we went at it. That freezing night in that old house. Trying to stay warm and trying to make love. When we finally exploded we were shaking more from the cold than from the orgasms.
We drove back later and we had shared a secret. Another bond. Mischief. Something we had gotten away with because those were the days that even being queer was something you got away with. We kept one another going the rest of the weekend with secret winks and smiles. We stayed together and dated for a year after that, but he loved to go out and play around so we never became an official couple. He eventually moved to P’town and opened up an inn. We spoke a few times on the phone after that, but I never saw him again. I never stopped loving him.