Boy

Today is Boy's birthday.

This is the 4th birthday that Boy has been in my life.

The first birthday I did not know about. It was right around the night we first really talked, at the annual Goth party at what would be come our House. He told me about troubles he was having with the girl he had been kissing, about a lack of desire to continue kissing her and how to best handle that. It began what I am now convinced was a necessary period in our relationship. We talked a lot. We gave each other back rubs. Our feelings were uncertain and to a certain extent undiscussed, but through accident and happenstance we built a very sturdy foundation for the relationship we never thought we'd have.

The second birthday was bad. It came during a terrible period in all our lives, and on a particularly, drastically bad night. A night that stands out in infamy. I had bought him 'bondage rope', which was simply black nylon marked up ridiculously and sold at the local sex shop. But the sweetness of the gift, what there was, was pretty well drowned out by misery, complications between myself, him, and a 'mutual friend', and troubles that ought to have had nothing to do with it, but in the end had everything. Anyhow, it was a bad night, and marked one of the least healthy periods in our relationship.

The third birthday stands out to me now because I can't remember it. I don't remember what, if anything, I bought or made or did for him. It was his 21st birthday, and I seem to recall thinking I would more or less leave celebrating it to those who could take him out to the bar. I think that he had a huge quantity of work to do, and planned to get himself ruinously drunk as soon as it was over, some bit of time after his birthday. But I think that by the time the work was done, the drinking had been forgotten about.

This is the fourth birthday. I have purchased two presents (2 15foot lengths of pumpkin orange 6mm Twisted Monk rope and 3 months access for both of us to Lee Harrington's amazing site, Ropelover), and will be making another in the form of a feast of a meal for us and some close friends. He was allowed to make any requests or demands he wanted, but not to put any work into planning it. I am planning a scene.
He has a paper due tomorrow and a paper due Thursday, but I am attempting to help organize my life and his so that both of these can be done with a maximum of efficiency and a minimum of stress. The feast will be on Thursday, when all the work is done. Friday begins our short fall break, one night of which we will be in NY, and with luck will get a fabulous meal, somewhat birthday-centric, from my parents.

A final present, then. Here are some but not all of the things that I love about Boy, without any premeditation at all.

I love his hands. They are calloused and thick fingered and in the winter he has to put udder cream on them to keep them from cracking, but I love them because they are workman like and because they are comfortable on me and electric on me, and because they just exactly fit my breasts.

I love the noises he makes. All of them. The grumbly working noises and the gaspy playing noises.

I love the look on his face when he figures out something that's been bugging him for ages.

I love that he was the first boy I was with to wet his fingers in his mouth before sliding them into me, making him the first boy I was with to finger me in a pleasurable way. (In fact, he's the only boy to do either of these things)

I love that he didn't understand when I told him this was a rarity.

I love that he doesn't know how rare he is.

I love his feet.

I love his eyes, which are deep set but not sunken, and unlike mine, which are colorchanging conglomerates, are one pure striking brown. The color of root beer jellybeans.

I love that he lets me wear his clothes.

I love that we are still working on this relationship, and he is working on it with me.

I love that he is constantly scavenging for interesting bits of metal or machinery. And that he brings them back from the dead, when he finds them.

I love that he makes impossible improbable unlikely amazing plans for the rest of our lives with me.

I love the patches on his pants, the pain that gets in his hair, I love how he looks when he's concerned and I love how he kisses me on the neck and only ever gives me hickies when he's intending to mark me, I love that he marks me, I love him.

Happy birthday, Boy. I hope I am with you for four more, and them for the rest of them after that.