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The Samara Founda _ Vermont is a
charitable foundation" ose mission is to
support and strengthen Vermont's gay, lesbian,
bisexual, and transgendered communities
today and build an endowment for tomorrow.

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AQUAMARINE and
GOLD RING

Aquamarine and 18k
‘ hand granulation.
by Kent Raible

 
  
  

Church & Bank, Burlington - 660-2032 - M-Th & 5 10-6 0 Fri 10-8 0 Sun 12-5

11 I wanted was to get
out of the house and
away from my com-

puter for a little while.

I was going to sip my
cranberry juice and soda,
watch the two guys playing
darts and, then, be on my way.
Instead, the man who planted
his ass to my left decided that I

. was going to be the one to hear

his life story.

I attract the woebe-
gone. And, before I could say,
“Whoa, be gone,” my next-
stool neighbor began pouring
out his heart to me.

He complained about
his kids and called his wife a
bitch. When he put his hand on
my thigh to emphasize a point,
I figured he was the standard-
issue closeted married guy

Making Fo Lost Time

“They can kiss my
ass,” he grumbled. A- couple
days later, I had a conversation
with an acquaintance who
mentioned that he was
involved with a man who had
been married and had teenage
children.

“He moved out of his
house on a Wednesday and we
met that Friday night,”
Terrence related. “He moved in
with me the next aftemoon.”

I All was not instant
bliss, though, for Terrence and
his new man. Within three
days of their hasty cohabita-
tion, the hound on the rebound
was already out on the prowl.

“He told me about it,”
Terrence reported. “So it’s dif-
ferent from when he screwed
around during his marriage and

reestablish a connection to his
grown children. During his
promiscuous phase, immedi-
ately after his divorce, he’d
distanced himself from his
family. At the time, he thought
it was better to keep his then-
teenage kids as far away as
possible from their horny dad’s
steady stream of sex partners.
What Ed regretted was
that he hadn’t explained the
situation to them a little better.
He had just pulled away with-
out telling them why. He’d
begun to correct the damage
that the estrangement had
caused his children and they
seemed receptive to his efforts.
My friend, John, took
an even healthier approach to
his late-in-life coming out. He
was honest with his wife and
son. They participated in coun-
seling and turned what could
have been an embittering expe-
rience into a workable transi-
tion. There have been chal-
lenges, through the years, but
John maintains a good friend-
ship with his ex-wife and close j
ties to his son. l
It might have been . l‘
easier to be selfish. It might j
1

I don't envy anyone who’s struggled
with coming to terms with his homosexuality

while in a heterosexual marriage.
It can be "a hellacious journey. I

looking to pick up a trick to
discretely take the edge off his
hominess before returning

' home to his domestic discord. '

Turns out, he was
divorced. He’d come out to his
wife and four children a couple
yeags a_gQ..His assumptions
about the wild-sex life that
awaited him, when he was no

longer encumbered by familial .

trappings, had been misguided.
“I got laid more often
— and the sex was hotter -
when I was sneaking around,”
he confessed. “And it was easi-
er for everyone concerned.” He
believed that an often-absent
spouse and father. was easier
for his wife and kids to deal
with than a gay ex-husband
and dick-loving dad.
According to the for-
mer family man, the only con-
tact he had with his children,
now, was when they called to
ask for money. His wife occa-
sionally phoned to blame him

for how her life had turned out.

kept it a secret.”

It may not be a secret
but is it really different?

In my twenties, I had

"brief associations with two

men who had previously been
supposedly straight and mar- A
ried to women.,I met ‘the first »
one about a week after he’d
left his family on Long Island
and moved into Manhattan to,
as he said, “live the gay
lifestyle.” Which meant, of
course, to be an unbridled slut.

He couldn’t get
enough. He was in constant
pursuit of his next carnal caper.
That left him little time for any
kind of ongoing relationship
with his ex-wife or children.
“This is my time and I’m mak-
ing up for lost time,” he was
fond of saying.

Ed, the other fence-
jumping gentleman, was intro-
duced to me at a party hosted
by my friend, Todd. Ed had
been divorced for five or six
years and was working hard to

have been more fun to just
make _up for lost time.
I don~’t envy anyone’
who’s struggled with coming
to terms with his homosexuali- : ~ I

ty while in a heterosexual mar-
’ riage. It can be a hellacious
_ journey. “3

'3 ‘  3 l
Here’s to the onesjwho

haven’t lost sight of what’s
really important, while they’re 2
making up-for lost time. V

Dennis Scott-Bush is work
appears throughout the coun-
try. E-mail him at
NakedCurz'osz'ty@aol.c0m.