Those first weeks together were like nothing I'd ever experienced before.

I was absolutely intoxicated with Fox, with everything about him -- his face, his body, his humor -- everything. There was so little time for us to be together, but when we were, I felt -- well, kind of like a kid in a candy store.

I mean, sometimes I'd see him, just walking across the room, maybe wearing those athletic shorts he sometimes wore, and I'd look at that gorgeous body of his and I just had to have it.

Most of the time, when I got that feeling, I'd just go for it. He'd walk by me, and I'd reach out and touch him, and he would always stop what he was doing and let me.

I remember one time when we were watching a basketball game -- it was his beloved Knicks, and I must love him if I was watching that, because of course everyone knows that the Celtics are God's chosen team -- and he got up to get another beer. When he came back, I had another one of those moments -- I reached out for him, put my arm around his waist and pulled him closer to me, nuzzling at him.

I'm glad he understands how overwhelming all this still is to me. Some men would have been annoyed at being grabbed that way in the middle of the game; he just stood there, running his hands through my hair, and let me do whatever I wanted to do.

All that sounds as though I'm the boss in all of this, but really, it's the other way around. Fox is calling the shots here; it's always been up to him what I do with him and when.

He could say no, but he never does.

He lets me treat him as though he's my personal, private boy toy, but in truth, I am a complete slave to his beautiful body; I can't take my eyes off him. I can barely keep my hands off him. I still can't believe that he lets me play with him the way I do.

I would do anything to keep him.

~~~~~

After a couple of months with Fox, I was convinced I had done the right thing in coming out, at least, as far as I had come out. I had all the love, and the friendship, and the emotional support I'd had with Jill -- although not the social respectability, of course -- with all the passion and excitement I can only feel for another man.

And he felt the same way about me. It was almost too much to believe.

Gradually, though, I began to notice a distinct gap in our conversations. When we were together, or just talking on the phone -- which was pretty often, since he had to travel a lot -- we talked about a lot of things, including what I'd done at work that day, but he never made more than vague references to the cases he was working.

At first, I put that down to the secrecy of his assignment. Later, I began to realize that he wouldn't even talk much about the ordinary aspects of his job -- who his friends were, what crazy thing happened in the break room, what his chances were for a promotion, all that commonplace shit that goes with any job.

I tried asking him about his day. No go. "It was okay," he'd say, or, "Another day like that and I may cut my wrists," but never anything specific. He was always more interested in what I'd been doing, or what the Knicks or the Yankees were doing.

It was cosmic retribution. Jill used to complain that I would never tell her anything about work. Well, here I was, making the same complaint about the man who'd replaced her in my life.

I tried to remember that, but after a while it just became painful.

He obviously didn't trust me enough to tell me.

He could discuss my work fairly intelligently, which, I soon learned, was due to his partner, the as-yet-unseen Dr. Scully. He was obviously fond of her, and clearly they spent a lot of time talking to each other. They were frequently out of town together, and some evenings when they were in town, he would go over to her apartment.

What they did there, or said there, he never told me. But I could see that they were close, extremely close. I began to believe that Fox might actually have some physical attraction to her.

I believed that right up until I finally met her.

Not that she wasn't attractive. She was -- and still is -- stunningly beautiful. Red hair, blue eyes, that pale Irish skin, and slender as a fleeting moment.

She's brilliant, too, with a quick, incisive mind and an admirable scientific skepticism. She's the kind of woman any straight man would cut off his arm to have.

I said that to her once, and she and Fox just looked at each other and laughed, but it wasn't a funny kind of laugh. They never explained it, either.

Anyway, back to how I met her.

She walked in on us one day in Fox's office; we were being foolish, I admit it, sitting there holding hands, so when that door opened, I was scared shitless. I'd never seen her before, didn't have a clue who she was, but then I noticed that Fox wasn't worried.

That's when I realized this lovely redhead was the partner about whom I'd heard so much.

She, however, had clearly heard nothing at all about me, and that bothered me, because she was perfectly calm about the whole matter. Clearly, Fox's sexual orientation was not a issue with her, and she didn't have any problem with mine, either, so why hadn't he told her about me?

I wanted to know more, so I asked her to go with us to lunch.

That's when I knew.

She looked at Fox, and he looked back at her, and a whole conversation flew back and forth between them, yet neither of them ever said one word. Not until they'd finished their little psychic chat did she accept the invitation. Somehow, they'd checked it out with each other and reached an agreement.

Without a doubt, they were connected, deeply and powerfully, and on a level that I was excluded from.

I decided that must be what was behind Fox's reluctance to discuss his work with me. Work was their bond. Work was to Fox and Dana what sex was to Fox and me: the glue that bound the relationship together. He would no more share his work life with me than he would take her to bed.

That realization didn't exactly make me feel better about her, I can tell you.

But after lunch, when Fox went to get the car, she gracefully offered to step away and let me and Fox have more time together. She told me, sadly, that she thought he was coming to her place lately just to keep up appearances.

He wanted to be with me, she said. And he should be.

I knew then that what she felt for him was the real thing; hell, she'd actually told me she loved him. I just don't think she realized that I knew now just how much she meant it.

I should have been jealous, I guess, but she was trying so hard to be brave, and to do what she thought would make him happy, that my heart went out to her. I couldn't help it. There was so much pain in her eyes, so much impossible longing.

She looked so much like Jill used to toward the end of our marriage.

I almost cried. She was about to cry, too; I could see the tears in her eyes. So I hugged her, and she hugged me back.

Fox drove up right at that moment and saw us, and he looked happier than I've ever seen him.

I thought at the time that it was because he was glad that I liked her. Of course, it was exactly the other way around.

It was because she had approved of me.

~~~~~~~~

After that, things were much better for a while, I thought. Fox spent his free evenings with me, at my apartment or at his; when he was traveling on business, he called every night, and we talked for a long time.

It was as good as it gets for two closeted gay men who are deeply committed to one another. I thought it was absolutely perfect.

Such a dope. I mean, I was such a dope.

I'll tell you when I began to see the truth. I had just finished afternoon rounds when a nurse told me there was a hostage situation at Fairfax Mercy Hospital. The TV news folks were carrying it live.

And the FBI, they said, was on the scene.

We all rushed into the break room -- a situation like that at any hospital is guaranteed to keep the house staff riveted, and my heart was pounding for another reason altogether. Somehow, I just knew that Fox was there, and that he was in danger.

About 20 minutes after I started watching the televised reports, the anchors began solemnly announcing that it was over, and that SWAT officers had shot and killed the criminal.

Not exactly killed, as it turned out, and definitely not by SWAT -- but I didn't find out for sure who it was until later.

But I knew almost right away that my intuition was right; Fox was involved. The TV cameras caught him walking out of the hospital, wearing a blood-spattered T-shirt and a face like death.

I gasped, and everyone turned to stare at me. Then I realized he wasn't hurt, and that I had just made a major boo-boo.

"I know him," I offered, lamely. "We play basketball."

Uh-huh, their expressions said. Nobody gets that upset over a point guard.

But fortunately for me, Dana was walking out right behind him.

"There," I said, pointing at the screen. "That's his partner, Dana Scully." I paused, just long enough to seem a little bashful. "We're seeing each other," I said, in what I hoped was an off-handed manner.

Thank God, the announcers had Fox and Dana's names pretty damn quickly, because my credibility got a boost when people realized I wasn't making up her name. Everyone seemed to accept that it was Dana I was seeing.

Ooh, that was a close call.

What the announcers didn't say, of course, was that Fox had shot the guy. But I suspected that he had.

I was supposed to be on call that night, but I managed to argue persuasively that I should go see my "girlfriend," and I got Dave McDermott to take my shift.

I could tell from the look in his eyes that Fox would need comfort tonight.

And he did.

Just not from me.