Title: Half-Way Kisses (Happy Birthday Chrissy!)
Author: Bernie
Title: Mathieu Dandenault / Janne Niinmaa
Rating: R
Disclaimer: This is all fiction
Dedication: Chrissy! ÒChrissy itÕs your birth-day, happy birthday ChrissyÉÓ You know the tune you have all seen that episode of the SimpsonÕs, with Michael Jackson, you know the one I mean.
* _____ * ______ * _____ *
All lovers have a language that is theirs alone.
As are all lovers so are Mathieu and Janne. They have codes, things they whisper, sentences they begin so the other can finish, jokes that they can mouth the words along to.
These are traits that start out being sweetly amusing and endearing as all loversÕ quirks first are, then become annoying when, as with all couples, they reach the half away point of love.
There are two choices now, one is toward acceptance and commitment, towards rolling your eyes when a particularly old story is told and re-told again. Or there is a break up and the division of furniture. Mathieu and Janne decided to find their loverÕs tics amusing again, and are still together.
Their words are sometimes a fortress against the world. When they sleep together there is always a final kiss until, surrounded by pillows like a fort, the blankets piled over them like whipped cream, they fall asleep.
JanneÕs back is a surprise to Mathieu the first time, every time. After a break in seeing each other the spiral of colours always shocks him. After that he wonÕt notice, doesnÕt sense anything different under his fingertips, the patterns of ink as familiar as the taste of JanneÕs mouth, the lines a convenient map for his tongue or his fingers if they make love during the day when the design can more clearly be seen.
But for a second, every time, it is a shock. For a second even seeing Janne is a shock. A jump in MathieuÕs heart.
It is a surprise to wake up with someone every first morning. Mathieu will lie rigidly in JanneÕs arms, afraid for a moment that he has crawled into the wrong bed, and worried that he will find himself lying against Boyd with his heart in his throat and adrenaline sizzling in his veins. But JanneÕs arms will tighten around him, and some softly spoken Finnish will colour the air blue and white and gold.
They met at a concert in Toronto one summer. It was half way through their break, halfway between their homes. Mathieu had come to escape the boredom of Montreal, Janne to escape the stickiness of Philadelphia in the summer.
The remnants of Judas Priest were playing and Mathieu ditched his friendÕs plans for this show at the same time Janne decided to go to The Opera House to see a band he had always wondered about.
Mathieu had half recognised him in the crowd, there had been the promise of understanding between the two of them. In the overly loud room they had pretend conversations within the noise and resorted to sidelong glances, sizing each other up.
Before the end of the show they stepped out of the hot hall into the only slightly cooler night, Mathieu turning away from the taxis and waiting to see if Janne would follow.
He did, they sat in a bar, trying to read the intentions in each others eyes through the haze of smoke and humidity. Finally, slightly dizzy, Janne dragged his fingertips down the inside of MathieuÕs arm, from his elbow to his wrist. He rests his fingers against MathieuÕs hand, finally meeting his eyes, steeled for any reaction.
Dandy looks up from the white hand on his and smiles, almost definitely shyly.
It slowly evolved into more than one night. But the actions of the first night resonate. When Janne kissed Mathieu that first time on a hot night in Toronto half-deaf from the concert, MathieuÕs eyes floated closed, their first kiss sleepy eyes and an awakening at the same time.
When Mathieu kisses Janne that first time his hands will skim across his shoulders to rest against his hips. They meet half way to what is the most comfortable, their chests touching lightly.
For all its awkwardness, and all first kisses are a little awkward, there is a sweetness in first kisses that is not found anywhere else. There is a touch of mutual surrender in the first kiss; there is invitation and exploration. A first kiss is never just a kiss.
They stood between the beds in MathieuÕs hotel room kissing for hours, JanneÕs hands linked at the small of MathieuÕs back, for so long their legs were sore and cramped from standing. So the kiss travelled to the bed. Perched on the edge, sitting half facing each other the kiss continued.
The first ritual as lovers that Mathieu and Janne adopted was the soft slow kiss as greeting. Even though they may hug, touch hands, smile into each others eyes like lovers do, the first kiss always has to be in privacy. It has to be slow and sweet.
The very first kiss was almost demure, and although they have a thousand other kisses like all lovers do, the reunion first kiss is always closed lips and the tasting of skin, like the very first kiss.
Janne slightly parted his lips for Mathieu to lick cautiously at the inside his mouth and thus began their second kiss. This lead into all the others kisses that would follow.
Some days it progresses to fiery burning kisses, sparks from fair skin to fair skin, the frantic shedding of clothes. Or it is a tumble backwards, onto a convenient surface, table, bed floor, garden, giggling and tickling and the sudden shrieking pleasure you were not even expecting.
There is the slow almost worshipful lovemaking. When they are looking into each otherÕs eyes, their mouths half-open gasping out hot air. A connection that is deeper than flesh on flesh. Or even the terrible half-asleep, think-they-should-rather-than-they-really-want-to sex, which is ok, but they are both glad when it is over so they can nap. Mathieu will wake up from those nights and laugh, lick across JanneÕs back or his cheek smiling at his loverÕs complaints about wanting sleep. The freedom to be grumpy and imperfect around each other, to decline to have each other just because they are there and they are often apart.
Sometimes, not those nights, other nights, maybe alone on Long Island, or fed up with travel and lonely in San Jose, they will wonder if they are meant to be together. They will wonder if it is destiny, if they have just stumbled into this and remained because there seems to be no one else.
It would comfort them to know all lovers have felt like this. All have wondered how it is possible in a world of billions of people how one can be found who is The One. They donÕt know that all lovers wonder how you know you are in love. All people have tested their pulse, waited to feel flushed with love, have expected the prickly sensation of anticipation when their love is next to them.
All lovers have wondered why they didnÕt feel these sensations they were promised in the movies and magazines.
They will both carry this guilty imagined betrayal around with them until they meet again. But their midnight fears tended to slip away in the jet stream of their kiss.
Because something happens, the light will peek through the curtains just to shine on Mathieu face, he will look so peaceful and perfect, or Janne will stumble over an endearment in French, mon chere, mon cherie, and Mathieu will laugh and correct him or smile and melt against him, mon amore, mon idole, and they will both think, ah yes but this is love, we are the lucky ones of the billions of people in the world. Their skin will prickle, their cheeks will flush; they will share a perfect lovers kiss under the moonlight.
But on those lonely nights, after losing games and dressing downs from coaches and hostile fans, when they will just want someone there, right there, to kiss it all better and memories of kisses arenÕt enough.
They have in fact twice ended it only to drift back together again. Last year, in late autumn Finland when the days slink into a permanent half-twilight Janne and Mathieu made a decision and a dedication to each other. They made the promise that all lovers will eventually do, to be faithful, to be true, to be in love. But it is only half-way because they made the promise only to each other, with no declaration to the world around them.
It was a mixture of the scared and the profane. They promised each other the half remembered vows they had heard at a dozen wedding ceremonies, and also stupid promises, to not talk during the World Cup, to try to learn a little more Finnish and French, their laughter at the more exaggerated promises, to learn to cook fish properly, to hang the fish slice above the stove not in the utensil drawer, to put drill bits away not leave them scattered around the work benchÉ all this tails off in a realisation of what they are promising.
ÒI love you.Ó Janne finally says to break the silence, and just to say it.
Mathieu gives a half shy smile but meets JanneÕs eyes as he clearly says, ÒI love you to.Ó It is more than enough. It is more than enough to counter the loneliness of Long Island, or the hot boredom of another game in Florida.
Commitment quiets doubts; it is a clichŽ but true. Semi-permanent matters like knowing where they will spend the off-season, joint bank accounts, appearances in wills, makes it much harder to simply walk away. It makes them try harder.
And in times when they donÕt want to try, when they are mad at each other, when they want to be angry or alone, it is comforting that that union is there to fall back on. After huge fights, screaming arguments, shouting matches where love is retracted, there is the base of an afternoon in Finland to retreat to.
All lovers start far too many sentences with the words ÒIÕm sorry.Ó It is still important that these sentences are started.
Even better if the sentence is ÒI love you and I am sorry.Ó
All lovers should accept all apologies offered sincerely. Janne and Mathieu try to alternate being the one to break the silence and apologise.
They went to Paris, as all lovers should, and celebrated the second half of their lives, the together half, where Mathieu ordered meals and booked hotels rooms and Janne finally realised the dependence he must have had on him in Finland. The trust Mathieu placed in him to protect him. The trust that Janne gives to Mathieu as well, for his shelter, his food, with his heart.
That night, lying in bed, feeding Mathieu his evening meal by hand Janne felt the familiar flood of love, but deeper this time, more intractable, impossible to ignore or dismiss as Mathieu just being convenient.
Not only should all lovers go to Paris they should fall in love with each other again there. And they should lie in bed together dropping food into each otherÕs mouths, hold wind glasses to each other lips, lick up the spills.
It was this afternoon that Janne would recall on dreary weekends where they seemed stuck in the house and got on each others nerves, on endless Monday evenings when there was nothing to do and nothing to watch on television, and even the effort of opening a magazine would probably go unrewarded. He would look over and fall in love again, simply and fully.
When Mathieu would wonder if he was really in love he would think of Janne slipping into bed late, lying close but being careful not to touch MathieuÕs warm chest with his cold hands, or his legs with his cold feet instead inching closer as he got warmer.
And Mathieu would smile half-asleep, and would shuffle backwards to warm up JanneÕs cool skin, under blankets that were puffy French pastries.
They renewed their efforts
to keep in touch. If lovers have their own language it is shared through gifts
of paper most of all. The half-nonsensical things written on blank birthday
cards, how big the heart is on hastily scribbled notes letting the other know
they will be late.
Supermarket shopping lists are more important than is first realised. ÒBlack olives!!! BLACK OLIVES dumbass. The line says. There is a heart next to it.
When Janne gets home he smiles at Mathieu and climbing onto his lap traps him against the chair and feeds him green and purple and stuffed olives, the two swapping increasingly salty kisses, leaving the black ones in the refrigerator for another day.
There are the larger decisions looming in their future, where they will live when their careers are over, what they will do, who they will tell. But all compromises start small as they divide their off-season between Finland and Montreal, between families and time together. Between sweet and savoury kisses, the other problems will be tackled in the same methodical way when they arise.
They both have one secret, one teammate they have told. But Mathieu had whispered what had happened to Darren passed out drunk on his couch one evening. Janne had told a sleeping Mike Comrie on a plane over Canada. That is a baby step to everyone knowing, practise makes perfect. And they have decided why worry, what will be will be. Janne half hums to tune laughing at MathieuÕs scowl. But it is true, sung or not if you are in love, and yes they are in love, you will just accept what will be.
Besides which their more-than-friendship is being hinted around by team-mates and friends now. People close to them who suspect there is more than friendship between the two men, and in their own half-spoken way try to reassure them that it will not change anything.
Janne and Mathieu fit against each other imperfectly. But as with all other lovers they puzzle themselves together anyway. They melt and fold until they are pressed close; bend to fit into an embrace, come close to but never entirely break, as they kiss, in this awkward, beautiful half-way point.
End
