Dair's Window - chapter one

I read through this on the plane. It's the opening chapter to Dair's Window...and I rather like it.

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My last morning with Dair was the first day of spring as warm comforters lay over us and snow drifted soft against the French doors of our bedroom, caught in the barest of early light. I woke first, as always, and breathed him in deep to hold him even closer as I gently sang... 

"Dair it's Adam. Dair it's Adam.

Dormez-vous? Dormez-vous?

If you were awake, now. We could have some fun, now.

Foolin' 'round. Foolin' 'round." 

Touched with the lightest of laughter. 

He sighed and shifted, like a sleepy kitten, and his oh-so elegant hands grasped mine to pull me closer to him. His lovely body adjusted to my form, and his deep, dark, elegant eyes squinted a bit tighter as he drew in his first waking breath. With the hint of a purr, he rubbed his morning whiskers against my forearms and murmured, “Snuggle.”

I chuckled and shifted under the comforter to let my nose nuzzle his ear. Mornings like this were always so perfect. Ooh-la, how I loved the feel of his body. Strong. Well-fitted. Touched with hair in just the right places. His form was not as carefully crafted as mine, nor even as solid. Merely human and real, with a soft layer of perfection to cover him. Someone to hold you and be held. 

To trace my fingers down his elegant back always brought a surprising joy. To draw my hands through the dark hair cropped close to his head was the embodiment of fulfillment. To feel him breathe under his sleeping shirt was intoxication. Even the light scruff around a chin so neat and strong, for it to rub against mine as his lips touched mine was to know heaven. How I loved to caress the lines in his face, soft creases brought about by joyous smiles. So many times I had told him they made him better looking than I, and on each occasion he would laugh and call me liar and draw me into his embrace...and peace would surround me. He was the very meaning of comfort. 

Of home. 

How could that have been possible? For one such as me to find a man so wonderful? What had I done right for this reward? Nothing in my life had prepared me for it. Nothing. Nor had anything prepared me for the fear that I might lose him. 

But at that moment, on that last morning, I was his and he was mine. My only world. And to love him was to love life in all its beauty. And cruelty. 

His full name? Adair Carwyn Llewellyn. “Welsh,” he had told me, though I had not asked. “Dad was a freak about that. That's why he named my brother Gareth, which is almost normal. I got the brunt of it. Not as sexy as the French, or even French Canadienne, but...” 

“Québécois, mon ange,” I had replied, smiling. 

“C’est vrai,” was his reply, but he pronounced it, “Say veray.” 

I had to laugh. His French...ooh-la... 

He was four months short of his thirtieth birthday, that morning. Born and raised in Fairview, a small town in the mountains east of Seattle, his world had been one of comfort for much of his life. Safety. Protection. Parents who loved him, even if they did not love each other. An older brother who would leave him to himself. People who liked him. Cared for him. His fortress against the few who did not, reinforced by a rambling home halfway up a foothill. 

He was one of those rare few who, from an early age, knew what they would become. And he did so well, with it. So happy and alive with it. That he let my world join with his? That he let me taste of the joy that had seemed to surrounded him? The support? Sometimes at night I would hide and weep in the shadows, I could not believe how much joy surrounded me. 

My name? Adam Henrí Lécuyer, once of Terrebonne, by Montreal. I was three years his junior, in age only. In my life? Well, in my heart and spirit I often felt I was ten years older than he. And in my own reality, twice that. Suffice it to say, while he have been nurtured in a world of safety and care, I had not. But that may be discussed later. At this moment, my focus must remain on that last day. 

As reference, I worked as a ski instructor at his mother’s lodge, during the winter. Sophisticated and cool, was I, to the primitive minds of those who saw me only as an example of easy, masculine sexuality. Were any to mention this to me, I would shrug and reply they should see me in the off-season, when I would do occasional work as a handyman, gardener, and carpenter, with all of the dirt and sweat they entailed. And that would be the end of that. 

But it mattered not to Dair, for he was an artist of the honest ethereal world, where filth and grime were acceptable. And it is with no hesitation that I name him as an artist. He took the purest pleasure in building them from exquisite colors blended in ways I had never seen before. Not only flowers and landscapes and elegant vistas to hang prettily in windows, but portraits and sculptures and items of exquisite grace created in ways that never ceased to amaze me. An existence caught in the midst of glass stained in a thousand colors built to make objects of heavenly beauty. 

Now you know why his body was strong. His art required strength, agility and control, for these were neither indelicate materials nor lightweight. They demanded a care and focus unlike any other form of creation. He once told me he could not set the glass into its frame -- no, into her frame; I should use his references -- until she was ready. In this, he was never quick. Always patient. Listening. Watching. Waiting. Even with his portraits. While he may have worked from photographs or sketches, still he would sit for hours to merely gaze between the simple images on flat paper and shattered pieces of colored glass to determine which was right and which was not. 

"Each fragment has a soul," he once told me, "and she'll reveal herself if you let her. Give her time." 

It is funny to remember, but when first I met him, this struck me as the epitome of childish self-indulgence, his actions and attitudes shallow, confusing. Do not mistake me; even then I knew his work was excellent, but I thought his reasoning merely the sensibility of an artiste who was oh-so full of himself and trying to prove his sensitivity, and I had no tolerance for such foolishness. 

Until one day, I caught him in his studio seated on this old lounging chair, looking as if he was doing nothing. It was in his lodge's old garage -- a structure of wood slat walls and semi-shingled roof, neither of which were completely solid; the thing really should have been torn down. I had done what I could to make it work, but it was not optimal. Then with winter fast approaching, it would be far worse of a work space. 

We had just begun to discuss alternatives, which is why I had come up the drive...to ask if he had decided on what he wanted done, yet. I do not know why, but the way he sat on the lounger, a bit hunched over, deep in concentration, his body loose in feel, his hands open before him, his legs crossed and his head cocked to the angle of a wondering puppy...despite the number of times I had seen him like this before, I stopped. For something about it was...I cannot think of another way to describe it except somehow...something in the way he sat...in the soft quiet of late afternoon...with even the forest sounds grown gentle...it was almost religious. 

His fingers held two pieces of glass. In his left, one that was a red as deep as blood, gleaming like the finest ruby; in his right, one clear and pale with the cleanliness of a freshly cut diamond. Both were caught by the last rays of sun drifting between the slats to dance over him, casting reflections of both on the wall and against the rough plywood floor, the beams boiling with dust from the late hour. An elegant image of him, yes... 

But it was his face that jolted me to stillness. There was a vague frown in his eyes as they shifted from one piece to the other, moving each at a slightly different angle so their colors would change with the light, making their reflections dance around him. 

At that moment, his entire existence was nothing but those two simple slivers of glass. He positioned them side by side, then one atop the other, then switched them around with a focus that reminded me of the youngest children in my skiing classes. So intent on doing everything just right. Turning their feet just so. Holding their poles and skis at the proper angle while drifting down the beginner slope. Even on snowboards they maintained this ability to block out the world and all its distractions. A focus only someone innocent can manage. 

Only a child. 

Oh, dear God, I cannot begin to describe how beautiful he had suddenly become. Shadows around him. A touch of the sunbeam glancing off his hair and his black shirt. His strong chin jutting out just a little, in supple concentration. His dark eyes caught by those two simple little bits of colored glass. Searching. Searching. Searching for...I had no idea what. 

Inspiration? 

Agreement? 

Acknowledgement? 

Understanding? 

Acceptance? 

I wanted to know but dared not break the spell. I actually held my breath for fear I would startle him. It was then I could see his world was nothing like ours. He was one who could touch the unknown and draw beauty from it and for him...for him...this form of grace was his very meaning. 

I had gained hints of this other world when reading my books of poetry. Most would be lovely and touch your heart and soul, but sometimes...sometimes a verse or even a line would transport you to another sphere of existence, and you would sense the purest truth imaginable. 

This is when he sensed my presence and slowly looked around to me, moving as if drunk, and he saw me and his magnificent smile slowly filled his face and what I saw in my Dair was joy and beauty and wonder and peace, and my heart filled near to bursting. 

From that moment, he was My Dair. I did not understand the depth of my feeling, at the time, but after watching him delve into that other world, I knew...I knew from that point forward we would be mine until death parted us. 

I had no idea how true that would be. 

Or how soon.