“To be completely honest, I often fantasize about running away with you,” the man said sotto voce, looking down at the ancient wooden floor below his feet.  “You and I would be so deeply in love that we’d drop everything about our normal, workaday lives, sell everything we owned and move to another state, somewhere far, far away.  We’d start over from scratch; maybe even change our names so people back here could never find us.  I could finally go back to school and the two of us would rent some grimy apartment near campus.”

His companion nodded almost unperceptively but was otherwise as still as an oak. Original watercolors hung on the walls of the room, thick chrysanthemums overflowing tiny vases. It looked almost as if the flowers were about to grow over their frames, down the wall and over the couch that the man was sitting on.  

“Go on,” his companion prompted. 

“We’d sleep together in a twin bed,” Mark continued, “and I’d feel your warmth next to me every night. Knowing you were there would calm me.  Every night I’d sleep so deeply knowing that you were right there besides me, that you would always be right there beside me.”

“Is that what you want, Mark? Is that what you want more than anything?”

Outside, two leafless trees swayed rhythmically back and forth keeping time with the winter wind.  Framed by the window, they looked like a black and white photo of dancing corpses.

“Yes, I want that more than anything,” Mark said meekly, barely able to form the words through a quivering voice. “Just to be with you, away from everything that’s real, in our own world, away from traffic, mortgages, alarm clocks…”

“You want this so badly. I can see that. I can hear that in your voice.”

“But it can never be, can it?” Mark asked already knowing the answer.

“No, it can never be,” the other man said as he shifted awkwardly in his chair. “Your dream just isn’t possible, Mark. I know that’s hard for you to hear but that’s the reality.”

“I know it is,” Mark said with resignation. “Your wife would probably never sign on to a plan like that, huh?”

“I doubt that she would,” Ramon said leaning back comfortably in his chair.  Ramon let the silence soak the room for a moment and tried to sneak a furtive glace at the clock on a table behind Mark.  “It’s good for you to talk about this, Mark,” Ramon continued. “It’s good for you to be honest about your yearnings, too.  I’m glad that you and I have the kind of relationship where you feel safe enough to share this with me.”

“Me, too, Dr. Gaston.  Me, too.”

Charles D. Thomas is a writer and psychotherapist who made Three Rivers his home for over a decade. Feedback is welcome at [email protected].