The (further) Musings of Deetz Mac Innes

Musing # 3
The morning was so young and still that I could hear each snowflake float onto the cabin deck. The cold, crisp air hung heavily over everything like the blanket that covered the bed. I took in a quiet inhale, pulling toward me the spent vanilla candle’s lingering scent. I wanted the moment to stay just a little longer, the feel of the thick Egyptian beige cotton sheets and matching quilted blanket held my bliss close to my chest. And I kept still, very, very still for I feared if I opened even one eye the bubble would pop and I’d have to accept that it was all just a nice, a very nice dream.

Most of my best moments were dreams from someone else’s life – a happy endings satisfied only through movies from the Golden Age of Hollywood or a romance novel. Yet if I kept real quiet, maybe that heat coming from next to me that smells like the sandalwood and my sweat was a real person. And maybe that real person, who is groaning and possessively tugging just above my hip, wants to suck on my bottom lip until, until, . . . . And let’s say, let’s just say that real person was my childhood crush who also happens to be the 12th Earl of Glamorgan and looks like someone straight off of a cover of a collection of gay erotica.




“I know you’re awake.” Angus’s whispering startled me but was also reassuring – I wasn’t dreaming.

“Caught red-handed, your lordship!” I grinned, keeping my eyes closed, just in case.

I could feel his breath on my face as he rested his head on his hand with it propped up on the elbow. “Well, you got me up here. Now, what?” We were in the family’s cabin in Gstaad, Saanenland on the western edge of the Bernese Oberland. There are lots of spots for skiing, but the slopes are hardly the most difficult in Switzerland. This skiing is best for beginners and intermediates, of which I belonged to the former category. Honestly, the closest I’d ever come to skis was watching the Winter Olympics. I mostly wanted to come for the people watching (nothing like catching the jet set acting badly), music festivals (one of my favorites, Chris Smithers, is making a rare European tour), and the shopping (these boots I bought for the trip are better for the jungle swamps in Thailand). “I know you don’t ski, Deetz Mac Innes, so you must have some nefarious and truly deviant reasoning going on in that mind of yours.”

“Synagoge Zürich Löwenstrasse,” I said in very bad Züritüütsch, a Swiss-German dialect. I opened one eye warily then shut it just as quickly as he inhaled prior to his tirade.

“Zurich? That’s over 2 hours away!”

“Over three if we take a train and take in the beautiful sights along the way.”

Angus was struggling to stay mad – a promising characteristic in a husband. “Yeah, but couldn’t you’ve said something before? We could have gotten lodging there instead of here,” he said shaking his head.

“No, listen,” I was outlining the full plan now, “I wanted to stay at this cabin. Your family used to vacation here every winter and I have to admit I was a bit jealous. I’ve dreamed about it for years. Plus, I do want to take in the sites here too. And I don’t need to be in Zurich long, we can be back in the cabin just before nightfall if we get an early start.”

His voice still sounded frustrated, “I thought you wanted to tour a synagogue.”

I took in a deep breath and opened my eyes wide as I came to the big ask. “I just need to get a letter, the original, signed by the rabbi.”
I stopped there and let it sink in, waiting on pins and needles to hear his reaction. I closed my eyes again, this time tightly, for I was taking a big chance here. “Rabbi Hertig, as part of his rabbinical training, taught during my last year at Uni, Contemporary Religion and Philosophy. I was impressed with him and he with me. We’ve kept in contact off and on for years.” I opened my eye, daring to look at Angus, “He thinks I have the talent to be a theologian.”

“I thought you dragged me up here to have that overdue honeymoon, not to tell me we’re about to be separated yet again.” Angus’s voice dripped with disappointment.

He was right, of course. His recuperation after losing his hand during our last MI-6 operation was troublesome – I was overeager to be the perfect nurse-spouse and he sunk into a depression that even my clairsentience abilities failed to fully recognize. After that, we separated bi-coastally for nearly a year, me in Japan playing sensei and him (I later found out) attending votes on the floor of the House of Lords very hung over. It was family and fictive kin who got us back together, along with apologies over a five-star dinner and sex in a hotel overlooking the ocean. He knew that getting this recommendation letter meant that I was serious about attending the rabbinical school in America. It meant he knew I’d be away for five years.

“I know, I know, Mate!” I acquiesced. “But, if we’re going to have kids, well, now is the best time for me to go. When I’m done, I can write treatises on changing nappies and vanquishing evil spirits lurking in your child’s tram.” I gave my voice that hi pitch, pleading tone one gets when you’re asking the impossible from your lover. “And I need you in Zurich. You know my Swiss-German sucks.” That plea was to his vanity – ah, I could sense him giving in. Angus knows this is important to me. I had talked of becoming a rabbi since we were children. Yes, there was an ivory tower somewhere with a big playpen inside with my name on the door.

He squinted, his usually green eyes took a grayish tint. He waited a moment, not like he was considering his options but more like he was weighing just how he was going to regain his master status in the relationship. “We’ll go tomorrow. Today, tonight, I want you all to myself.” He tugged on my Tungsten necklace, the one he adorned me with the night before our wedding. I was probably the only married Jewish man, queer or straight, with both a ketubah and a slave contract.

“Yes,” I replied.

“Yes?” he answered sternly.

“Yes, your lordship.” I hid my smile of relief and countered with downtrodden eyes, as fitting my role at the moment.

He tugged at the necklace again then again, his fingernail purposefully scraping against my neck as he looped his finger around the interlocking metal braids. Once meant he wanted to fuck. Twice meant he wanted me to blow him. And three times meant I should be ready for anything and I had no idea what he had here at the cabin.

Knowing him, he had packed well.
- From “The Musings of Deetz Mac Innes, 9/19/2016