solo un numero

[Delahada]

Sunday - March 20, 2022
I-I-I got this feeling, yeah, you know

I hate birthdays. People make such a big deal about them. Especially certain numbers.

They all speak as if there is something important about the number, as if when a specific one comes everything changes. This day you are a man, or a woman. Not one second before. I feel for my cousin who has two more years of dismissal and disrespect to deal with before her magic day comes. She is a woman grown now. I see it. Why can’t they?

For me, nothing felt different about this morning at all. Everything was exactly the same. I woke long before the sunrise, as usual. I breathed deep the scents of sugar, skin, cat, magic, and man. His scents. A comforting familiarity that has remained a constant for the past two years. Or near enough.

I pulled him close and pressed my nose to his neck to breathe in more of him. I can never get enough. The sweetness of his flavors on my tongue. I was never very fond of sugar until he came along, but now I want to devour him, always.

We stretched together when the sun crawled over the horizon. We greeted its rising with our bodies twined together. I can think of no better way to wake on my birthday than this. Even his sounds taste like sugar, and I’ll remember them the entire day. I may have washed his scents from my skin after, but his taste will stay with me.

He knows I don’t like to celebrate. They all know. Dan tried to sneak it in and mix it up with my cousin’s earlier this week. I’m glad he did not tell anyone outright. Those who know, know. No one else needs to know. I like it better that way. I hate surprises. And yet the ones I have found being left around the house make me smile.

I never had much care for decorative things. It’s not a thought that crosses my mind, to go out and find things to cover the walls. Little things keep adding up, though, and I treasure every one. This morning I found a crystal decanter shaped like a king, filled to the crown with pacharán. For some it may have been too early for drinking, but we both sipped from the rook shaped cups with our breakfast this morning. I would have spread him out on the counter had we not somewhere to be.

My mother slept in longer than me this morning. This happens sometimes. The hour of her rising is never the same. Sometimes she wakes before the sun, and other times long after. It was still morning when I took his hand and pulled him into her Grove with me.

Doubt and maybe a little fear clung to his skin, but he smiled when he greeted Her. Were she capable, I think that she might have smiled, too. It is impossible not to smile in his presence. His sweetness shines. He is warmth and radiance. I brought the sun with me into the dark and cold of Her domain, and she did not scold me for it. No. She embraced him and let his heat thaw even her frigid bones.

Today is a very good day. Feliz cumpleaños a mi.

[Delahada]

Tuesday - March 22, 2022
I'm still my number one

This year I was ranked as the number one seed in the annual Swords Madness tournament. Looking at the names of all the entrants, I’m not really surprised. I don’t think anyone who was paying attention was either. Nobody else on the list has had nearly as many accomplishments in the sport this past year as me. Though the way it was announced it seems like the only noteworthy feat to put me in that spot, and in that division, was being el gatito’s lover.

If there is but one reason to be glad for my loss in the first round, that is it. I don’t want to be remembered for winning a tournament in which my only mentioned defining achievement is being the previous year winner’s known companion. I am so much more than that.

Yet this is all people see of me. I am someone’s lover or I am no one at all. It was like this before him, and it will be the same after him.

Someone else can have the glory this year. For me there is always the next, and if not then, the year after that. I’ll keep trying until I win. But wouldn’t it be something if, this year, the one who beat me made it to the very end? I’d like to see that.

[Delahada]

Sunday - March 27, 2022
I never get enough of you

I’ve lost count of the number of lovers who have come and gone. Some lasted much longer than others. There are those who are fleeting moments in time, and those who stuck with me for years. Until they tired of me and gave up on thinking they could have me all to themselves.

There are only two who have lasted through the trials of time. We found our balance and the love lingers no matter how the circumstances of our lives have changed.

I wasn’t expecting this one to find his way into my heart too, but he did. The words get stuck on my tongue when I look at him. They prickle sharply and sting. I don’t want to ruin what we have by saying that one thing that has broken me so consistently in the past. I don’t think I have the strength to give that much of myself to another anymore. And it hurts, but it is a wonderful hurt. I can’t remember having been this happy.

He did well for himself last night. He doesn’t think he did, but I saw his miracles with my own eyes. I saw how so many others congratulated him on his loss. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone tell others how well they did for losing. Their love for him is wonderful to see.

What struck me most of all was a moment. As he was turning from person to person to gather hugs and encouraging words, I stood beside an elder and let her approval crack some of the ice from my heart.

She was shoulder to shoulder with Sal and gave him a little smile as she inclined her head toward Gatito. "You've chosen wisely, Salvador." Not that she needed to tell him that, but sometimes it was nice to know people agreed.

"No, señora," he replied quietly. "I didn't choose." Lifting his chin, as he watched the gatito flit happily from person to person, that soft smile blossomed again, and he said, "I was chosen."

I remember well the day I first saw him, thinking him little more than a hallucination. I was out of my mind on the taste of my Nightmare’s blood. Full of visions of color and things that I was uncertain were even real, but I saw him. A man in a cat’s skin. I saw him for what he was then, and I still see him for what he is even now.

Mi marea. Mi dulzura. The light of the rising sun. Warmth and kindness and a man who deserves so much better than a terrible, heartless creature such as me. But he chose me, and he continues to choose me every day, and I cannot bear to think of a time when he will stop choosing me.