We Were Just Friends

It started simply enough, I guess. See, we were

just friends

and we were happy with that. Not to say that we aren't happy now, but we were happy beforehand, too. I guess. Alright, I'll shut up and tell the story. It was a simple argument, well, at first. And then it turned into sooo much more!!

He was probably my dearest friend. He was engaged to someone else, and I was

:totally

happy for him. Nice girl, I even helped him pick out his proposal. It all started with his fiancée getting upset over a picture I had on my web site. He was in it, and she was flipping out. He asked me to change it, to stop her from getting on his case about it. I flipped out. I mean I went NUTS. We fought, yelled, and otherwise made each other miserable for a week or so. I was furious that he wanted me to change so his home life would go more smoothly. He was furious because I'd mentioned losing his friendship, and came back at me with all barrels firing. We fought for a week or so, fangs bared, tempers flying. At one point, he asked me to come over so we could talk. I accepted. And everything changed.

I got to the house, and to make things easier, he was cooking dinner. I helped, happy for the opportunity to avoid an uncomfortable silence. We cooked, his kitchen not small enough to constantly run into him physically. We talked as little as possible, the air charged with the tension from our previous arguments. We both had much to say, but neither knew how to begin, nor what to say.

We sat down to dinner, he is a fabulous cook. We talked over the pleasantries of work and daily life, avoiding looking at each other's eyes for very long. After taking a bit of my meal, I put my wrist on the edge of the table, and his hand covered it. "You are my closest friend. And this whole argument is just killing me." I looked up, and saw the pain of the last week written in his face. " Can we just go back to the way things used to be?" he asked me. He picked up my hand, and led me away from the table.

We went into the living room, and he pulled me down to sit on the couch with him. "Please, let's talk things out and get things back for us." He said. So we talked, and the words came haltingly. We talked over the origins of the argument, how things developed, and where I got pulled into it. We must have talked for over an hour, explaining, asking questions, trying to put back what was lost. Then, just when things were loosening up between us, it all went tense again.

Suddenly, he grabbed my hands, and pulled me to him, up onto his lap. Wrapping his arms around me, he pulled me against him, face-to-face. " I love you." I'd always known this, so it was no surprise to me. Friends always love each other. He read my face, and knew what I was thinking. "No, not like that. I mean, yes, of course I love you as a friend. But I think this runs deeper. " I didn't know what to say, and I'm sure the shock showed on my face. "It's just that with this fight, and how much it took out of me, I realized that this is more than just a friendship. I realized that I can't go any longer without telling you I love you. Not simply as a friend. As a man loves a woman, as a lover." I was floored. I hadn't expected that.

I sat there, shaking, emotions that had been suppressed hitting me like a ton of bricks, and I couldn't stop it. I loved him, and it was just hitting me, full force. I opened my mouth to speak, to tell him what I was feeling, but nothing came out. I felt tears roll down my cheeks, and I couldn't stop myself from crying. I just stared at him for what seemed like an eternity. He stared back, understanding what was in my eyes.

In the blink of an eye, we were upstairs in his room, pulling each other's clothes off. Lips and skin met, we tumbled into the bed, anxious to be one. We elbowed each other's ribs, clumsy in each other's arms. Kisses produced no physical reactions, things weren't supposed to going like this. We tried and tried, growing more frustrated as the minutes passed, and still to no avail. No matter how we tried, that first night, we couldn't join. No love would be made that night. We fell asleep, in each other's arms, confident that things would work out later.

Only if it were that simple. It's been months now, over a year actually, and we are still together. He didn't marry his fiancée, after all. He left her, and I moved into the house with him. We have tried, multiple times, to make love, and nothing. Our love remains unconsummated. So upset it has made us, that we don't sleep in the same room. I live in the bedroom next to his, and downstairs, at least, we live as husband and wife. We love as husband and wife. But, cruelly, we can never make love to each other.

So you see, it started out simply enough. We were

just friends

. And we were happy that way. And now? Well, at least we have our love.