QColumn: A Gay In The Life: Walk It Out

EDITOR’S NOTE: This is the very last installment of AGITL. To read about the series and why it’s ending, check here. To start reading from Steve’s first column, click here and then click on every image at the top of each column to go to the next one.
Also, Steve promises to stop by the QComments section here this weekend to bid his fans a fond farewell and talk a little about his future plans, so tell him how you feel and stop back to see what he said. Goodbye Steve Prince! Much love and luck from your fans at QueerClick!
Walk it Out
By Steve Prince
Peter yawned as he folded up his blanket. The early morning sun hung behind his right shoulder. I squinted as I watched him, his naked torso giving him the effect of a cloud with a silver lining.
I smiled. I had only seen a cloud with a silver lining once in my life. I was driving home from college for a weekend in Oklahoma. It had rained all day but as I crossed the Texas/Oklahoma border the clouds broke apart. It was late afternoon. I rolled my window down taking in the smell of fresh rain. I looked out my passenger window and there it was, covering in the sky as if frozen into place. I’ll never forget how the dark the inside of the cloud was in contrast to its edge. It was this dark bulbous, billowing dark cloud while it’s edge radiated a blinding white gold—a light so bright you could barely look at it.
“What are you thinking about?” Peter said.
My thoughts slipped back to the present. I shook my head. “Nothing, really.”
He bent low and kissed me.
We made love again.
Forty minutes later, I was folding the blanket while Peter lounged on the truck bed.
“Do we have to?” he pleaded.
“Yes,” I said, “I need to get back. The last thing my Mom needs to worry about is me right now, she’s still upset about her brother dying.”
Peter sighed as he fiddled with the edge of the blanket. “Do you think your Uncle Jerry was gay?”
“Where did that come from?” I asked.
“Well, he was single all his life,” Peter said. “That’s kinda weird for around here.”
Honestly, he might have had a point. A part of me always did wander if Uncle Jerry was gay. When I was younger it seemed he and I were a bit closer, but when I came out to my family he had nothing to do with me. He could have distanced himself from me because I was someone he wanted to be. Maybe.
“He could have been,” I said honestly, “but I didn’t really know him that well. He was kind of an ass, bless his heart.”
“Hmm,” Peter stood, “Well, I’m glad.”
“You’re glad he died?” I said with a smirk. I knew Peter was changing the subject.
“No,” he said hugging me, but then he reconsidered. “Well, yeah actually. If he hadn’t died, you would be here, and I wouldn’t be doing this.”
He kissed me again, and tried to pull me closer.
“Stop,” I said smiling, “I really have to go. I’ll see you tonight.”
Peter’s face seemed to grimace at the thought of returning to the real world; we both felt so comfortable in our little private pasture. We loaded up the truck and climbed in. The light of day had changed the look of the place. At night with the stars, it felt so romantic, mysterious, and exciting. But now has the May mid-morning heat began to sink in, I could see most of the grass had been trodden on by cattle or was dead from lack of rain. A part of me already missed the mild Los Angeles weather. I wonder what the boys were doing right now. What would they say about me and Peter?
As Peter pulled onto the dirt road, the mood seemed to change. We both knew we were heading back to the reality at the end of that road.
“How are you going to tell her?” I asked.
Peter bit his bottom lip nervously.

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