Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
1969
I
WOKE to find my eyes scratchy and reluctant to open, my
nose cold. It t...
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
1969
I
WOKE to find my eyes scratchy and reluctant to open, my
nose cold. It took me a moment to realize why I was awake in the first place—my body heat had created a toasty-warm space under my quilts, and I was inclined to ignore the world outside my cocoon until morning. From the pale blue moonlight angling across my bed and floor, it was obviously not morning, no matter how bright a waxing moon it was. “Aldridge!” The urgent whisper at my door had me sitting up suddenly, shivering as the cold air of the room rushed into the space created, sliding up under my shirt with icy fingertips. My heater had stopped working in the middle of the night as it was wont to do, but I didn’t take the time to give it the kick it would take to make it start rattling out warm air again. I knew that voice at my door. “Osborne?” I opened the door, surprised to see my former professor and current colleague standing there, bundled in his thick coat with an eager expression on his face. “What on earth…?”
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
The next day we were supposed to be moving to a twobedroom house off-campus where we would set up our swinging bachelor pad, just two teachers sharing the rent in a house that had better heating and insulation than the dorms at the old all-boys’ preparatory school. Except one of the bedrooms was just for show. Philip Osborne and I had been lovers for six years; in fact, we’d had our anniversary only a few scant weeks before. Though latenight trysts were familiar to us in our sneaking around, I hadn’t expected to see him that night. We had agreed that since we would be moving in to our house the next day, we should sleep apart in order to keep suspicions down and hopefully get a little rest. “Get dressed, Aldridge. show you.”
There’s something I want to
I gave him a suspicious look, but if there’s one thing I knew about Philip by then it was that going along with him was usually not boring, whatever else it might be. “All right. Give me a minute; let me find my boots.” “And your coat, hat, scarf, gloves. It’s cold outside.” He grinned like a little boy. “It started snowing again about an hour ago.” “Again?” I sat down on my bed and looked underneath it for my snow boots. They were kicked halfway back under the mattress, and I had to get down on my hands and knees to reach them. “Are you sure we’ll even be able to get the door open to go out?”
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
“Absolutely certain,” he said in the tone that told me he’d already tried it. Great. I had no idea why Philip wanted to go outside in the middle of a snowstorm, but if I fell into a snowdrift, at least someone would eventually come looking for me. Philip stepped into my room while I looked around for all my cozy things. He had his hands jammed deeply into his coat pockets, and I could see his breath in the air as he looked around. “It’s cold in here, Aldridge.” His voice was quiet, but even whispering he took care not to call me by my first name while we were on campus. Hiding our relationship was second nature to us by now. “Heater’s not working again.” I finally had my boots in my hands and sat down to put them on. “You should get them to order you a new one.” Philip walked over to the small electric unit, one of the newest models, and kicked it. It sputtered, shuddered, and hummed as the filaments began to glow a soft orange. “After tomorrow, I won’t need a new one,” I said with a smile. Philip looked up at me then, eyes sparkling in the moonlight. He knew what I meant. Not only did our house stay warmer in the winter, I would be sharing the bed with Philip, who was a space heater all unto himself. He used to say it was a benefit of spending his adolescence in Poland; he’d learned how to stay warm in the winters.
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I didn’t like to think of the winter he’d spent in the concentration camp in Stutthof. He probably hadn’t had much besides his natural body heat to keep him warm there. I hoped he had been warm enough—I hoped that Saul and the other prisoners had kept him in a huddle of bodies and shared heat. I didn’t like to think of all the others who hadn’t stayed warm enough. I didn’t really like to think of Saul, who had died just before the prisoners were rescued. As I often did when I thought of the man who had kept my lover alive in Stutthof, I sent a grateful prayer to Saul’s spirit, wherever it was. I included the thought that Philip was alive and well, that he was—as far as I could tell— happy, and I was taking care of him. “You’ve got that serious look on your face again,” Philip chided, holding my coat out to me. I realized I had been sitting on the edge of my mattress, staring at my booted feet for several long seconds after I finished tying the laces. “Sorry,” I said with a wry smile. “It’s the winter.” It might not make much sense to most people, but Philip knew why that brought on solemn thoughts. I had first learned of his history in Poland’s labor camps during the winter break one year when I was still a student. I had found him singing the Hallel, the prayers of Hanukkah, out in the snowy woods late one night, and the story had come pouring out of him: how Saul had been his friend, his first love; how he still sang the prayers of Saul’s people out of honor and gratitude even though the faith was not his own.
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
Hanukkah was long past this year, however, and I had no idea why Philip wanted me to follow him out into the snow. “I’m not entirely sure I’m happy with this idea,” I confided as I let Philip help me into my coat, and then tugged on my gloves. He draped my scarf around my neck and tightened it efficiently, making sure it covered my neck and jaw. He tugged the wool up over my chin and mouth. “They say you will continue the year as you began it, and this is New Year’s Eve.” “That’s why we’re doing this tonight,” Philip said reasonably, checking me over one last time to be sure I was well-covered. “Because you want to go play in the snow in the middle of the night all year long?” I asked, confused. “No.” I waited, but he didn’t elaborate. He just gave me one of his enigmatic smiles and leaned in, briefly brushing my cheek with his nose. I couldn’t help noticing how much warmer his skin was than mine. “Now stop asking questions and follow me.” I grumbled, “Pushy,” but there was no real heat in it and he understood that, giving me an amused look over his shoulder. We sneaked out of the faculty dormitory like two naughty schoolboys. The moon was bright enough to illuminate our path, reflecting off the white snow. I looked up at it and thought with a deep-ringing awe that men, men
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
like myself, had put their feet on that surface just this past summer. I imagined I could see their boot prints on its silvery surface like I could see my own in the snow. The words of the astronauts had echoed across every television, radio, and newspaper for weeks afterward. “One small step….” “History,” Philip had said at the time, sitting beside me as we both leaned forward to try to see the tiny television set better. “History in the making.” I followed him now, making a game with myself of trying to step directly in his footprints. It reminded me of the first time I had sneaked into the woods, trying to follow him without his knowledge, hiding my tracks by stepping in his. It hadn’t worked. Every day, I was grateful it hadn’t. “Are you dawdling?” Philip’s voice came from farther ahead than I had thought and I looked up from my footprints game to see where he was. The snow was swirling thick and fast around us now, though thankfully there was very little wind to chill our flesh. Already the footprints I was stepping in were becoming less defined as fresh flakes fell into them. “Just imagining I was walking on the moon,” I said honestly, feeling a foolish grin spread across my face. Remembering the moonwalk never failed to make me feel like a little boy getting his first glimpse of acrobats on the circus trapeze.
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
Philip chuckled and held out his hand, waiting for me to catch up. I took my time, making exaggerated jumping steps, imitating the video feed we had seen of Aldrin and Armstrong. By the time I reached Philip he was laughing openly and I felt pleased that I had been responsible for the sparkle in his eyes. We were far enough away from the school by then that we felt safe keeping our gloved hands joined, walking side by side through the deepening snow. I still didn’t know where we were going and I was still cold, but at the moment I was happy to be walking with my lover through an alien landscape of silvery white. The thick-falling snow obscured most of my field of vision, but eventually I did recognize the direction Philip was taking us. It was the same place, the same circle of tangled trees, where he sang the Hallel during Hanukkah. I had accompanied him a few times since we’d become lovers, but many times I let him go by himself to give him the privacy of memory. I had no idea why we were going there now. Neither of us said a word as I let him pull me along the familiar path, the sting of the wind lessened by tree trunks and the snow not quite as deep. Most of it was in the thick canopy of evergreen branches above our heads, though occasionally large chunks of it would fall through, making a muffled thumping noise in the peculiar silence of snow. Finally, we were in the thicket where Philip came to sing the Hallel, and he stopped, turning to face me. I searched his face with deepening confusion.
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
“I want you to know,” Philip said casually as he reached into the pocket of his coat, “that I would kneel if it weren’t so cold and I weren’t afraid I might not be able to stand again.” I knew the cold bothered his joints so that was no surprise; what I couldn’t figure out was why he would kneel in the first place. “Wha—” He held out a small ring, the metal glinting against his black glove in the moonlight. A few brave flakes of snow drifted down between the tree branches and landed on the band. “Clive, I want you to have this ring as a representation of my feelings for you. I have loved you for years, since long before I had an inkling my feelings might be welcomed and even returned. If you wear this ring, I want you to know that I….” Philip’s voice choked and broke there, and I felt my own throat closing tightly. Tears pricked behind my eyes and I struggled to swallow. “I love you too,” I whispered around the lump in my throat. “I… yes.” Philip laughed softly, the sound strangled with emotion. He took my right hand, took off my glove, and slipped the ring onto my pinky finger. I understood that we could not wear wedding bands on the ring fingers of our left hands like everyone else; our commitment to each other was no more
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acceptable than the fire that burned between our bodies when we made love. A pinky ring on the right hand could be excused as decorative jewelry. It would never be decorative to me. Already, I could feel the band burning into my skin, hot where the night air was chilled. I tightened my fingers around Philip’s hand, wondering if I was trembling from emotion or from the cold. “Please tell me you got one for yourself as well,” I said. “Or that I can buy one for you.” His other hand reached into his pocket and he handed me another ring, identical to the one now on my hand. “I know how you are about having everything divided equally,” he said, a teasing note in his voice to cover the tremor of feeling. “I didn’t want you to feel like a remainder.” I snorted. It was true; I hated having dividends that left a remainder. It felt like the math was rough or imprecise, not clean and tidy. He let me remove the glove from his right hand and slide the matching ring onto his pinky finger. I brought his hand to my mouth and kissed the band, then the skin next to it. “You’re a cruel man,” I said, smiling against his fingers. He watched me, waiting for me to finish. “You surprise me with rings in the middle of the night and I don’t even get to have my honeymoon until tomorrow.”
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“Later today,” Philip pointed out reasonably, turning his wrist until I could see his watch. It was, in fact, two minutes after midnight. “Why, Professor Osborne,” I said, gripping his bare hand with my own and watching the way our rings caught the light. “I do believe it’s New Year’s and that tradition calls for a kiss.” “Professor Aldridge,” he said with a smug curve of his lips, “I do believe you’re right.” His lips were cold against mine, but we heated quickly. His bare hand slid under my coat and shirt, making me jump when it came into contact with my warmer flesh. I could feel the smooth metal of his ring against my back and trembled as his mouth opened beneath mine. Our tongues tangled, twisting around each other like I imagined our hearts were intertwined, and for a moment I thought we would melt the snow. We broke apart reluctantly, our lips catching tenderly, chastely, a half-dozen times before finally we were staring at each other, our hips and bellies touching, our rings pressed firmly into each other’s bare skin underneath our clothes. We didn’t speak again, only replaced our gloves and started back toward our separate beds, consoling ourselves privately with the knowledge that we would be sharing a bed only a few short hours from then.
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Halfway back, I flexed my right hand just to feel the ring slide against the inner fabric of my glove. “It’s heavy,” I whispered. “I feel it.” Philip smiled, his own right hand twitching a bit. I wondered if he even knew he’d done it. “It’s your imagination,” he said, teasing me a little. “In six months, you will have forgotten you’re even wearing it.” I stopped, catching his arm to turn him to face me. “Not possible.” I said it lightly, but I was serious. He seemed to catch my undertone and just held my eyes for several long moments until I leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his mouth. I moved away before we could get distracted and risk discovery, but his tongue flicked over his lips after I was gone. It made me wish we were going back to the same bed right then. At the door of the faculty dormitories, we parted ways with longing glances and a squeeze of hands that said we’d be together again soon.
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
1974
PHILIP was snoring quietly beside me in the bed, and I desperately wished I could do the same. The night was warm, and though our ceiling fan and the air-conditioning unit in the bedroom window moved the air around, it didn’t seem to be getting any cooler. It was mid-July, and even though New England summers were milder than in other parts of the country, they occasionally got warmer than our house was prepared to handle. I had already kicked off the blankets and sheets and spread my limbs out from my body as far as I could without waking Philip. I was glad he was asleep; I wasn’t going to risk jeopardizing that. The first few weeks after we’d returned from visiting the Stutthof Holocaust Memorial in Poland, Philip hadn’t slept well. He had nightmares and often woke in a state of panic. Sometimes he clung to me, crying into my neck; other times he shoved me away as if he couldn’t stand to be touched. A few nights, he’d chosen to sleep on the couch rather than risk hurting me by accident. Those were incredibly lonely nights. I hated the way I felt so helpless, my heart tightening in my chest.
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I did research on what had been discovered about Stutthof during the Nuremburg Trials and what I learned made me sick. I had never truly hated another human being in my life, but I was suddenly consumed with rage and malice toward the perpetrators of the gross abuse my lover and millions of other innocents had suffered. I never talked about it to Philip; I was afraid that it would bring up more memories. I did tell him he could talk to me if he ever wanted to but he only shook his head in refusal. I wasn’t sure I could have talked about it if I were in his place, either. It was only recently that Philip had begun sleeping through the night again, so I was loath to wake him, trying to keep my restlessness to a minimum. When it became obvious that I was not going to be able to sleep as long as the heat continued, I crawled out of bed quietly, intent on taking myself to the couch. Perhaps I would read and hopefully fall asleep before the sun came up. I was barely off the mattress when Philip stopped snoring. I paused, hoping he hadn’t woken, but then I heard his voice. “Clive?” His left hand reached over to the spot on the mattress where I’d been lying. “I’m here.” I took his hand in mine, smiling when I felt his fingers tighten. “What’s wrong?” He turned over on his side, facing me, his voice slurring with sleep.
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“Nothing. I just can’t sleep. Thought I’d go read.” He started to sit up, groaning as his muscles protested the sudden use. “I’ll come with you.” I tried to push him back down gently. point? No use in both of us being awake.”
“What’s the
“Has it been that long, Clive?” he joked, laughing quietly. “Have you really forgotten why maybe I’d like to be awake with you in the middle of the night?” I could feel myself stirring at the suggestion in his voice. Philip had an odd taste for waking in the middle of the night to make love. Perhaps not so odd if one considered his history; until we had moved into our house together, there hadn’t been many other options. And in truth, it hadn’t been as frequent lately as it had been when we’d first become lovers, or even when we’d first moved in together. I blamed it on the stress of the visit to Stutthof, and then the lack of sleep when we’d returned combined with the everyday busy-ness of a school semester. “I don’t know,” I teased even as I crawled back into the bed. “I really wanted to finish that book.” “What if I wanted it on the couch?” Philip grinned, his hands sliding over my hips and pushing down the lightweight cotton pajama pants I was wearing. My skin cooled just a little as it was bared, but his touch heated me instantly. I found I didn’t mind the warmth so much in this situation.
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“We’re too old for the couch,” I told him, tugging off his pajama bottoms. Neither of us was wearing a top, not with the near-tropical temperature. The hair on his chest was liberally salted with gray, like the hair on his head. I had found my own patch of gray only a few days earlier and he had been teasing me about my age ever since. “You might be too old,” he said now. “I could still do it in the shower in the mornings.” I groaned at the image. Even if he could—and maybe he could, I wouldn’t argue with him—I knew I wasn’t strong enough to hold both of us up against the slippery tile. Still, it was a nice fantasy. “I’m definitely too old for that.” I bent to take a nipple in my mouth, rolling it between my teeth before I licked over the flesh, soothing it. “But I’ll never be too old for you.” “Don’t sass me, boy.” He laughed, tugging my hair to pull me up to his mouth. I ignored the fact that I hadn’t been a boy in many, many moons and just focused on kissing him back. I hummed as I pulled back from our kiss, linking our hands together. “Do you remember,” I said, stretching my body out over his so that we touched from shoulders to hips. His legs opened to let me settle between them and I slid my calves under his, cradling them behind my knees. “Do you remember the night we got married?”
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His eyes went distant, a little dreamy, and he stroked his fingers through my hair, over my neck and shoulders. “Not exactly a fairy-tale wedding,” he said, almost an apology, but I shook my head. “It was perfect. Beautiful. Absolutely unexpected.” kissed him. “But that’s not what I was thinking of.”
I
We were distracted by each other’s lips until he finally prompted me with fingers to my ribs. “What were you thinking of?” I licked over his bottom lip and rocked my hips gently into his. We weren’t as young as we had been, neither of us as quick off the mark, but there was still excitement between us. It just meant we got to draw out the foreplay without feeling quite as urgent. “That was the year of the first moonwalk.” “God, yes.” Philip’s hand tightened around my neck and he raised his hips to meet mine. “That was incredible.” “I was thinking of that the night you gave me my ring.” My right hand, with that ring still secure on the pinky finger, snaked under his buttocks, squeezing and lifting him into me. We both groaned. “I was thinking what it must have felt like to walk on the moon, to feel like you might fly away into space at any moment. It must have been thrilling and terrifying at the same time.”
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I could feel both of us beginning to harden against each other, the excitement building now. I had a twinge of wanting, thinking I would like to have Philip inside me, but reluctant to move from our current position. I worked my hand around until a fingertip brushed against his opening and Philip gasped and tucked his face into my neck. I felt his teeth close gently around the skin and groaned. “Did you have a point to this story?” Philip teased, a little breathless as our bodies began to move against each other almost of their own accord. “I was thinking….” I paused again to kiss him, wanting the taste of his mouth. The feel of his tongue wrapping around mine pushed my excitement higher and again the thought of inside rang through me. I broke away reluctantly, breathing hard. “That being with you, loving you, making love… that must be what it felt like. Like walking on the moon.” Philip pushed me back enough that he could see my face, surprise and emotion visible in his eyes even in the dim light. “Clive Aldridge,” his voice broke a little, “you are the most romantic mathematician I’ve ever met in my life.” I smiled and brushed our lips together again, nuzzling his nose.
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“Now that’s not nice of you,” I joked. “Pigeon-holing me like that. Wasn’t it you who said that every man, no matter his position, is still human, whether good or bad?” “Being human doesn’t romantic,” Philip argued.
necessarily
mean
being
“It does when that human is in love with you.” grinned, feeling I’d checkmated him on this point.
I
He snorted and shook his head and I kissed him again. This time my longing to feel him moving inside my body was loud and insistent, and I decided that I was willing to move to have it. The past few times we had done this we’d been the other way around, and I wouldn’t say I was feeling neglected, but I definitely missed the sensation of being penetrated by him. “Philip,” I said, “I want you in me. Is that all right?” The groan that stumbled out of his throat said it was more than all right, and he nudged me up, away from him. “Are you too old to take it on your hands and knees?” he said, only half-teasing. “I love the way you look like that.” I grinned. “I told you I’d never be too old for you.” I crawled backward down his body until I could nuzzle at his flesh, which was well on its way to full-mast but not quite there yet. “But I think I should do this first.” I took him in my mouth, salty and hard, and felt him stiffen further against my tongue. I suckled gently at him,
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then more firmly at the tip, until he was pushing at my shoulders, urging me away. “Don’t want to finish yet,” he explained. With some fumbling, I managed to crouch on the mattress, holding most of my weight on my elbows so that my hips were in the air, at an easy angle for Philip to drive into me. I felt myself trembling in anticipation, holding my breath, waiting for him. Cool fingers teased my entrance and I jumped at the sensation before I recognized the smooth slide of the hand lotion we kept in the nightstand by the bed. I pressed my face against my forearms, concentrating on taking deep breaths and relaxing, making things easier for Philip. More than a decade we’d been lovers, and neither of us young boys at the mercy of our hormones anymore, but Philip’s touch still made me feel like I could fly, like I might go hurtling into space at any moment if not for the way he tethered me to the earth. I had told him that loving him felt like walking on the surface of the moon, and I meant it. I didn’t know how else to tell him that he made me feel alive in a way I never had before him, that I could not conceive of a life without him. The feeling of pressure as he pushed into me broke my musings into tiny, shimmering pieces of incoherent thought. Sensation like the refraction of light on shards of glass melted over my mind and my skin. He pressed forward slowly but with no hesitation until his hips were flush against mine.
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When he was as far inside me as he could go, he pulled back and began moving. It was a familiar dance between us and we both reveled in it, no need for words as fingers danced lightly over skin and we moved together. It seemed to last forever, until all I could remember was the moment we inhabited, the smells and sounds, the tickle of sweat dripping from my skin and hair, and the slowly building pleasure of our bodies loving each other. When we finished, my own climax coming mere seconds before Philip’s, I collapsed, not caring for the moment that I was in the wet spot on the sheets. All I knew was that I was exhausted, well-loved, and not even the uncomfortable temperature of the night could keep me from sleep now. Philip seemed to have more energy, as I felt him leave the bed. He came back a moment later, a wet cloth in his hand, and cleaned me tenderly. The gesture warmed me as much as our lovemaking had, this evidence of his care for me. He left again, and when he came back this time he crawled into the bed and pulled me against his body. Our skin, sticky with sweat, clung together, but it was better than being in the pool of my own semen that was soaking into the sheets. “We need to do laundry tomorrow,” I said around a yawn, and he chuckled. “It was worth it.” His hand rubbed up and down my spine, hypnotic and soothing. I felt the brush of the ring he wore on his pinky and remembered the way we had gorged
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ourselves on physical pleasure the week we’d moved in together—our honeymoon. “Philip.” I waited until he acknowledged me to be sure he hadn’t fallen asleep. “Do you think people will ever accept relationships like ours?” He was silent for so long I thought maybe he’d dozed off after all, but when he answered, his voice was alert and thoughtful. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “It was accepted once, in the ancient world, but my memory only extends so far as a time when loving the wrong person could put you in a labor camp waiting for your death. It wasn’t just the intellectuals and the Jews, you know.” I swallowed around a lump in my throat and pulled him closer. “It’s not like that anymore,” I said, although we both knew it wasn’t much better. There were reasons we hid the true nature of our “close friendship,” reasons that our matching rings were worn on the fifth finger of our right hands instead of the fourth finger of our left. Our love and our commitment was as deep as any couple who had ever taken holy vows sealed with rings and a kiss, maybe even deeper than some, but I wasn’t allowed to claim our love in public. I wasn’t allowed to broadcast the one small step I had taken in loving him, the giant leap I had made in choosing to spend my life with him. “Maybe one day,” he murmured against my skin, and I could feel sleep creeping over both of us. “Maybe one day we
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will see the brighter parts of history repeat themselves instead of the darker.” “If it happens while we’re alive,” I said, stifling a yawn, “I’m going to marry you in front of God and everyone. And I’m buying the next set of rings.” I could feel Philip’s lips curve into a smile against my neck, his fingers twitch against my back. “I accept.” I fell asleep and dreamed of moonwalks and weddings, and of burning down the walls that still cast such long shadows in my lover’s mind.
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2004
Wedding announcement in a Massachusetts newspaper:
PHILIP OSBORNE, 76, and CLIVE ALDRIDGE, 65, were married in the state of Massachusetts on May 19, 2004. The former professors and long-time couple were among the first same-sex couples to officially tie the knot following Massachusetts’ legal recognition of marriage between members of the same sex. Osborne, a Holocaust survivor and former history teacher, was quoted as saying that he is honored to have lived to see this moment in the history of mankind and to have taken part in it. Aldridge thanked the state Supreme Court for giving him a chance to openly declare his commitment in a public ceremony. Osborne and Aldridge will have been together forty-one years this December.
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Read how Philip and Clive met in: Vespers in the Snow by M. Jules Aedin Professor Philip Osbourne is Clive Aldridge’s toughest teacher, but he has a secret: Osbourne is sneaking out to celebrate Hanukkah at the risk of offending his peers. Bolstered by the knowledge that his teacher is actually human, Clive makes an effort to form a friendship that will over the decades grow into much more. I have read this story numerous times already and know that it will be one I come back to over and over again. It is moving and poignant and heartwarming and exceptional. This story is perfection inside of just over 5,000 words and is one I cannot more highly recommend. - Enigmatically Emily
Available at http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com
M. JULES AEDIN has been telling stories for years. It’s just that in the beginning, she got put into timeout for them. She’s aiming for a career in advocacy, but in the meantime she and her calico Maine Coon make a peaceful existence in South Carolina. Visit her blog at http://mjaedin.livejournal.com/.
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Walking on the Moon ♥ M. Jules Aedin
Walking on the Moon ©Copyright M. Jules Aedin, 2009 Published by Dreamspinner Press 4760 Preston Road Suite 244-149 Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Design by Mara McKennen This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of International Copyright Law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines and/or imprisonment. This eBook cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this eBook can be shared or reproduced without the express permission of the publisher. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press at: 4760 Preston Road, Suite 244-149, Frisco, TX 75034 http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/ Released in the United States of America June, 2009
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