eXposition

Two friends, once-upon-a-time lovers, live together again, the first time in near a decade.  Both have boyfriends;  and, were there someone curious enough to ask they would both characterize these relationships as "serious" and "moving toward commitment."  That said, neither would be comfortable describing what that commitment would look like.  Gay men, pushing forty and just past, both have had enough experience with "monogamy" (including with each other) to no longer believe in either its practicality or desirability.  On the other hand, both men hope and believe that their significant others will (sooner or later) invite them to move into their homes. This arrangement of sharing the house that they once occupied together under different circumstances was a convenience, but a solution that would certainly not be sustainable for much more than a year.  The two men are compatible (in most ways) but there is a certain awkwardness in the inevitable interactions (with each other's boyfriends, with the older woman who lives  in a cottage adjacent to this property, with the teenage son of the older man who in his childhood considered the other man his second father) that come along with this proximity. For the sake of this record the two men will need names:  Milo, the now sole owner of the property that has been a lucrative rental for the past eight years is the father to the eighteen year old boy that lives full time with his mother, Milo's ex wife.  Milo is an immigration lawyer and his boyfriend of three years is one of his clients, a successful chef well on his way to citizenship.  Turk, a landscape architect who has gone from being a grunt for a friends company back in the day, now has his own successful landscaping business.  His boyfriend is an artist and freelance writer who with the support of wealthy parents and Turk's generosity lives well beyond his meager income in a spacious loft downtown.  Milo sees himself in Turk's relationship.  He remembers his own stupidity in purchasing this house and putting Turk's name on the deed in equal ownership when the reality was that apart from monthly contributions of a quarter to a third of the mortgage for the last five years of their nine year cohabitation, Turk gave Milo nothing.  "Well, thats  not true," he reminds himself, "He planted some flowers." Turk, on the other hand, recognized Milo's generosity but--as he pointed out innumerable times during the negotiations--he had not asked for the gift of a fifty percent stake in the house but there it was... and the money that he had gotten from his ex in that transaction had made it possible for him to start and build his business.  He was grateful.  Milo knew this.  And the two no longer wasted their energies trying to establish what was or is or will be fair.  They split the expenses evenly now.  And Turk, in what he considered a grand gesture, had let Milo have the master suite upstairs and settled into the boy's room on the main floor of this attractive bungalow.  A couple months into this arrangement there was a period in the midst of the holidays that both men coincidentally found themselves without the distraction of their current lovers.  Both had keys to their respective partner's habitats.  Both had volunteered to take care of the other residents at these addresses, their boyfriends' fat and happy cats, but they had both, interestingly, elected to only visit the animals and not take up occupancy for the almost identical ten day itineraries of their boyfriends' holiday visits with their respective families.  On the second night of this period, Turk had made a late night connection for sex with a stranger online.  Milo had woken briefly to the raucous sex and again a couple hours later to a car door and a vehicle pulling out of the gravel driveway.  He said nothing the next day about the event, secretly enjoying the place to which he and his ex had evolved.