So, I liked Jason, I'd grown to admit to myself. More than just like, perhaps a crush. Evan after listening patiently through his stories of hand-holding with his boxer friend, loaning money to him, carefully masking my feelings and an urge to tell him, why do you look there, when everything you really want is right here?

And I suffered through hearing about his heartaches and mistakes, sometimes living through them with him, like the time he'd picked up some rough and sexy guy off a construction lot near a swimming pool we had just left. The guy looked like the kind of guys that Uzbeks called a "horib," a hick, a bumpkin, and could barely string together an intelligible sentence in Russian. Not that Jason could notice this with his bad Russian. But as always, I served as the interpreter, the mediator, the fixer, brokering their meeting, on the street. Guys always liked to look at Jason, because he was big and tall, and Jason prompted me to approach the gawking shirtless young man, baring his muscled physique, and ask him to sit with us for a drink at one of the makeshift cafes on the street, at which there was little to talk about except prompt him to come home with us, to Jason's house.

I thought it was a bad idea, i whispered to English to Jason in front of the guy. "I think this guy is not safe," I said, thinking that perhaps he might be a bit crazy. But I could not deny his raw attractiveness. Regardless, we took him in a taxi to Jason's where I sat sentinel in the living room, watching the football game while they had sex in the bedroom, occasionally rapping on the door and reminding Jason that we were going to be late for the farewell party at the house of the U.S. Embassy's Deputy Chief of Mission because I needed to go home and change my clothes. At one point Jason walked out wrapped in the fitted sheet off his bed, hurrying to the bathroom and in horror, whispering to me that the guy had shit in his bed, and he had to strip the bed and shower himself off, furiously tossing the sheet into a washing machine in the kitchen on the way, and into a shower. The boy came out with a wild look in his eye after him demanding money.

I only tolerated this in the name of unrequited feelings, just to be near him and expect nothing more, watching him go through mistake after mistake that summer as the days grew shorter, the swimming pools began to close for the season, the sun gentler, and the desert streets of the city grew ever so slightly more populous as the residents of Tashkent returned from their summer holidays.  ¶ 5:03 AM