His Decision

Omar had decided this was the last time he would sleep with another man, the last night he would give in to this
desire. He just wanted to relive the experience once more, to force his mind to consciously remember every detail,
every move, sound, smell, touch, heartbeat, before the feelings were gone.

He hadn't planned on meeting Juan that night at the bar and bringing him home. No, he'd wanted to spend the night
packing away Oren's remaining things and deciding what to keep or throw away. He would keep a few
photographs, especially the one of the two of them in their tuxedos, clinging to each other on the Golden Gate
Bridge that eve of the new millennium seven years ago. The wind was so intense that night that their hair flew up
and flickered like two flames, his a dark brown and Oren's a sandy blond. What struck him the most, though, was
the intense look of love and devotion in their eyes. At the time, it seemed eternal. Stupid fool, Omar chided himself.
He would hold on to the picture until it meant nothing to him anymore - maybe as soon as a few weeks, he hoped.
He would also keep a few of Oren's sculptures that Oren didn't take with him to New York, mostly on religious
and mythical themes, the ones Omar admired the most. His favorite was a bronze sculpture of two hands, old and
veined, clasped in prayer and pointing up towards heaven. He remembered the day Oren made it, entranced in his
vision as he bent the knuckles at painful angles. Having nowhere else to put it since most of the furniture was gone,
he placed it on the bedroom windowsill where it cast a shadow across the room. There were a few other things in
the boxes - old clothes, magazines, CDs. Omar would want to get rid of it all soon anyway, but for right now, for
tonight, he needed to hold these things close to him.

That was his plan, anyway, but the loneliness had returned unexpectedly in the silence of the cold, nearly empty
apartment, and he found himself down at the Castro, San Francisco's gay quarter, his eyes searching nervously for
someone to fill his vacant heart, if only for one night.

"Come closer," he whispered as he motioned Juan to approach the bed. He unbuttoned his own shirt revealing a
soft tuft of chest hair and a loose belly he tried unsuccessfully to suck in. Juan stood by the door and began to
undress himself, throwing his white T-shirt and skinny jeans over the pile of boxes next to the closet. His tall thin
frame and young olive skin shone brightly in the September moonlight, making Omar suddenly self-conscious of his
own aging body. He quickly moved to the window and drew the curtains shut.

"It's a fuckin' ice-box in here, man," Juan complained as he crossed his arms over his flat chest. His nipples had
turned hard and purple. "I can't get used to these cold-ass San Francisco nights!" He stood by the door shivering,
unsure of what to do next.

"Come, it's warm in bed." Omar patted gently on the mattress as he lay down, pulling the sheets over him. Juan
quickly scurried to the other side and jumped under the sheets himself. He began rubbing his hands together and
blowing on them to warm up, then placed them squarely on Omar's chest.

"So what do you want me to do?" he asked matter-of-factly. His long black hair draped across his shoulders as he
propped himself up on his elbows and studied Omar's body.

Omar was taken aback by the question. He hadn't expected to be asked this. Hadn't he and Oren always known
how to begin, to sense each other's desires and move quickly into their rhythm? For twelve years, they had
carefully and deliberately choreographed their caresses and kisses, slowly perfecting their love-making until its
tenderness and purity had nearly smothered the shame they had buried deep inside. It had become a divine ritual
that exorcised their common demons, a sacred dance of redemption and atonement. Now Juan was asking him to
begin anew - now, when this would be his last time. Maybe this wasn't such a good idea.

"Just be yourself," Omar suggested weakly and placed his arm around the boy's waist.

With this license, Juan quickly turned him over on his back and began groping at him wildly, his rough hands
kneading Omar's flesh, and his hard, wet tongue darting like a mosquito around his face. Omar reached for Juan's
hands gently to slow him down, but Juan released himself and began his artless roughhousing once again, this time
lunging at Omar's body with all the greedy hunger of a lion on his prey.

"Wait," Omar implored, "not like this." He pushed himself up on his side. Slowly, he coaxed Juan onto his back and
spread his arms apart on the bed. Omar smelled salt and seawater on him from his having worked all day on the
fishing boats by the wharf. Carefully, with all the tenderness of a mother, Omar began tracing his fingers along
Juan's skin, barely touching, starting with his forehead, around his square cheeks and round chin, across his slender
sunburned shoulders and arms, his hairless chest and stomach, and down his muscled thighs and calves. He then
kissed him on the forehead and repeated the sequence with his mouth, the way he always did with Oren. Now, in
the stillness of the night and with the smell of a man lying beneath him, the memories came flooding back.

I love you so damn much, Oren used to moan, their eyes locked in a gaze. And then Omar would feel the heat in
his stomach spread down, igniting his lust, and up to his thundering heart, and still further up to his mind, intoxicating
his thoughts with a primal, ancient desire, and finally, deep within, it would burst into the inner chamber and release
the voice of his soul lying prostrate in prayer. O My Lord! O My God! Magnified be Thy Name! Thou art the God
of power, glory, and bounty. No God is there beside Thee, the All-Forgiving, the All-Glorious, the All-Loving. You
are my heart, You are my life.

Omar gazed intensely into Juan's earthy brown eyes. His penetrating and possessed expression sent fear shooting
across Juan's face.

"You are my heart, you are my life," Omar groaned, almost as a threat, forgetting for a moment that this wasn't
Oren underneath him.

Juan jerked away and sat up on the other side of the bed, not wanting to continue. Omar could clearly see repulsion
and disgust in the boy's face, the same face his Ammiji wore when she first confronted him with the gay magazine
she discovered in his closet. Her eyes narrow and daggered, her nose scrunched and mouth sneering, as if she'd
just smelled a pile of shit. He had almost forgotten that face in the seventeen years since he'd seen her. He turned
away from Juan blushing with shame and on the verge of tears. This is not what he wanted tonight, not at all.

"Listen, man," Juan broke the uncomfortable silence sensing that Omar was hurt, "I'm cool with screwing around
some - I just ain't into all this lovetalk and shit." Omar lay still and didn't respond, so Juan started fiddling around
with a brochure lying on the nightstand next to him.

"Live the life you've always wanted," he began reading, "Let The Institute for Gentic Rehabala.. ili-ta-tion…" he
struggled with the last two words, furrowing his eyebrows.

Omar immediately turned and snatched the brochure form his hand, tucking it firmly under his pillow.

"I think you'd better leave now," he said, trying hard to keep his voice from cracking in his throat.

Juan sat there for a moment, deciding if he should say something, then got up hurriedly, threw his clothes on, and
shuffled out, turning briefly to see if Omar was looking as he shut the front door behind him.

Omar lay in bed for several minutes in the silence. He missed Oren terribly at this moment, and slowly began to
cry, muffling his tears and spasms in the pillow. Why was he so naïve to think that their relationship would last
forever? He had planned to spend the rest of his life with Oren, hoping one day to save up enough money to buy a
nice Victorian townhouse in Noe Valley and set up a studio for Oren to work in. They would go shopping for Ethan
Allen furniture together like those smiling, successful gay couples in the commercials on OUT-TV. But life had its
own agenda, he had lately begun to realize, and no amount of planning could control the whims of the heart. Oren
was gone now, forever, pursuing his own heart's desire, having ruthlessly evicted Omar from the temple of his
dreams, in favor of other gods. Now Omar would do the same.

He pulled out the brochure and turned the lamp on. Putting on his thin gold-framed glasses, he began to examine
the front cover. A couple, a man and woman, in their mid-thirties, the same as Omar, stood in front of a cute little
white house with rose bushes, holding hands and smiling dreamily at each other. Their two little kids were playing in
the front yard while a big golden retriever sat idling on the porch. Live the life you have always wanted, the
brochure promised. Let The Institute for Genetic Rehabilitation restore you to your true self and help you find the
peace of mind you have dreamed of. Inside, in glossy multi-colored diagrams and gushing testimonials, the process
was explained in detail.

The patient would be injected with several million copies of a microscopic retrovirus containing a copy of the gene
HET-1a which would travel through his bloodstream up to his hypothalamus in his brain. There, the spider-like
viruses would attach themselves to the INAH3 region of this lobe and begin injecting the HET-1a gene into these
cells. Immediately, this gene would invade the nucleus of the cell, replace the defective version, called GAY-1a,
and begin churning out its product, the HET proteins. Over the course of a few weeks, these HET proteins would
reach a critical mass and alter the sexual orientation of the patient, reverting him or her to heterosexual attraction -
permanently.

It was all so brilliant, Omar thought, and so simple. Although the treatment was only a year old, several hundred
men and women had made the change with astonishing success, living lives of heterosexual happiness. There were
before-and-after pictures on the back cover. One showed a pale, sickly looking man with a shaved head, dressed in
leather biker clothes, slouching in front of a sleazy gay bar. He was smoking vacantly into space. His female
counterpart in the photo below was a fat lesbian, sans make-up, with cropped black hair sitting in a dungeon-like
coffeehouse with other fat, depressed lesbians, staring blankly at Xena, Warrior Princess reruns on a digital TV.
The 'after' photo was hardly recognizable, but it was the same two people completely transformed in both physical
appearance and demeanor. They stood hand-in-hand at a church altar, the man in a tuxedo and full head of hair,
the woman now a perky blonde and thin as a rail in her wedding dress, beaming with joy. The caption read, "…and they lived happily ever after…"


Omar smiled at its corniness, but also felt happy for the couple, knowing for himself the loneliness of his kind, the
affected, emotionally-detached, hedonistic identity taken on by so many gay men and women as a way of battling
their shame and alienation. Now all that pain could disappear with a single injection, Omar thought, amazed at the
possibility. But, then, what else would it take away?

"You're making the wrong decision," he remembered Audrey warning him last week when he decided to tell her.
She had been his best friend since they were freshmen at Berkeley, and they had even tried dating each other for a
while before both admitted that they were attracted to their own sex. She met him at the Bagdad Café that Sunday
morning, a popular Castro lesbi-gay hangout. With her tiny, perky frame dressed in a white floral dress and her
beautiful green eyes and smiling cheekbones, she looked much younger than her age. The fog that morning hadn't
burned off completely, leaving an intense white glare in the sky that made everything appear disturbingly bright and
revealing.

"I need to know that you've thought seriously about this," she said nursing her coffee with both hands as she leaned
over the table and looked directly into Omar's eyes. She smelled of jasmine and had a soft, delicate quality that
helped to calm his uneasiness.

"Audrey, I've thought about it ever since I was a kid and realized I was a faggot," he blurted, cringing at his
self-deprecation. Then, becoming more pensive, he asked, "Didn't you always feel, deep down, when you weren't
trying to rationalize your desires, that being straight was the right way to be?"

"No. I've always felt that was bullshit." She looked at him squarely.

Omar had hardly heard her curse and was a little surprised at her reaction. This meant a lot more to her than he
had originally thought.

"I just mean… I've always just wanted to live the life I know can make me happy," he continued, "To get
married…have kids…see them grow up - to build something… a family…something real… for myself." He
stammered, losing confidence in his own words as he spoke them. "To become whole."

Audrey smiled at him dryly, unconvinced.

"And you aren't doing this because of Oren? Out of spite?" she asked point blank. "It's only been three months
since he left, Omar. Maybe you should give yourself more time before you make a decision."

"No, it's not that." Omar shook his head defensively and turned his eyes down into his scrambled eggs, looking
embarrassed. The breakfast crowd was slowly growing around them, walking up from the subway station on
Market Street. Many came with their lovers, holding hands and dressed head-to-toe in the latest fall fashions, while
others sauntered in sweaty from their morning jog. The tourists were easy to spot, with their oversized digital
cameras, tacky logo T-shirts, and gigantic hi-tech sneakers, gawking at this otherworldly gathering of same-sex
couples.

Audrey moved her chair closer to Omar and placed her hand on his arm, her voice turning less confrontational.

"Omar, I'm really worried that you're going to change more than you realize. You seem so eager to throw away
your whole past, all those years you spent discovering yourself and becoming the wonderful, caring person that you
are." She held his hand. "All the pain and self-hating that we both went through growing up has made us who we
are, whether you want to believe it or not. What'll you remember once you change? Will any of it still mean
anything to you?"

Omar glanced at her sheepishly, feeling like traitor, as she continued,

"And what about all of us out there who're trying to make a life for ourselves as we are, like Beth and me? What
kind of message are you sending us? That our lives are worth less? We've come too far to go back to those days."

Without looking at her, Omar muttered softly, "This isn't a political statement I'm making, Audrey. It's a personal
decision."

But he knew how everyone would react. There would be the mock funeral procession once the news got out that
he'd made the change, where they would burn his name and photo in effigy on a huge funeral pyre along with those
of the other hetero-convert pariahs. Aggressive, loud-mouthed ACT UP members would march up and down
Castro Street dressed in black, shouting "Never Again!," deploring the new genocide while they juxtaposed pictures
of the Institute with scenes of Nazi concentration camps. They had begun harassing patients in front of the clinic
and prevented them from entering, echoing the abortion riots of previous years. Omar tried to push these images
out of his mind. He knew he would lose many friends, make several enemies, but the sacrifice seemed worth it.

Audrey sat quietly for several minutes, searching his eyes and studying his furrowed brows, finally seeing that she
couldn't change his mind. It wouldn't be the same between them after this, but she didn't want to leave him feeling
that he'd lose her friendship.

"We'll," she sighed, "I can't say I understand, but you know I'll always be here for you if you ever need me. You're
my best friend, Omar." She smiled at him sadly, tears welling up in her eyes, and reached over to give him a long
tender hug, kissing him sweetly on the cheek.

"Just promise me one thing," she added as she tilted her head coyly to one side and leaned against his shoulder,
"When you do become straight, don't fall in love with me, OK?"

He let out a little muffled laugh of relief and smiled as his eyes met hers.

"It's too late for that, darling!"

Mitch put down the brochure, more at ease with his decision knowing that he'd still have at least one friend. His
thoughts turned to Olivia at the office, a young, sassy little thing with wild frizzy red hair and swinging hips. She
was always flirting with him, even though he had made it clear to her that he was gay and only interested in her
friendship. Perhaps now, after the change, he would feel differently. He imagined desiring her body, kissing her
glossy red mouth, caressing those jiggling round breasts, penetrating her. He had rehearsed this many times in his
head, trying to make himself horny, but it had never worked. Now, at last, it would come naturally.

He started for the pile of boxes by his closet, tip-toeing hurriedly to avoid catching a chill from the cold hardwood
floor. He grabbed a small box in the corner and brought it back into bed with him. Buried at the bottom was his
crushed and musty smelling prayer rug along with a book of prayers and exhortations he'd bought back in college
when he was still trying to bury his love of men with fervent religious exploration and devotion. During that spiritual
frenzy, he'd tried delving deeply in to Islam, then became a Buddhist, a Taoist, a Baha'i, and had almost become a
Mormon, digesting one religion and moving on to the next in his insatiable hunger. The love of God was a drug,
intoxicating him completely, killing off the pain for once in his life. He was running way from himself, he later
realized, towards the light of God, hoping to immolate himself in the holy fire. But then one night he met Oren, and
all those noble yearnings and spiritual discoveries became hollow and crumbled, subsumed in the tangible heat of
his sexual passion. He had no need of a distant, invisible god now that he had Oren right there in the flesh. Or so he
had thought.

He pulled out the book and dusted off its jacket with the edge of the bedsheet. Adjusting his glasses and propping
up the pillow behind him, he began to read:


O Son of Man!



If thou lovest Me, turn away from thyself;

And if thou seekest My pleasure, regard not thine own;

That thou mayest die in me and I may eternally live in thee.



O Son of Being!

Thy heart is My home;

Sanctify it for My descent.

Thy spirit is My place of revelation;

Cleanse it for My manifestation.



As he kept reading more and more, the words suddenly stirred him like they once did long before. Gradually, he
remembered his old feelings of certitude and purpose, feeling giddy with excitement at a treasure rediscovered.

A cold breeze blew in through the window, causing the curtain to fly up and billow out like a parachute. Omar's eye
caught the silhouette of the bronze clasping hands against the moon. He leaned over, opened the drawer of the
nightstand, and took out the framed picture of Oren and him. Stroking the outline of Oren's soft face, his heart
remembered the years of warm kisses, the I love you's, and pounded with bitter longing. But he resolved to cut off
these feelings, to divorce them from his memories, to cleanse his heart and sanctify it for God's love. After the
treatment, he would be a new man. He would be free.