FLASHBACK: until i met David, my sole long-term lover, i ate only Wheaties whenever i ate cereal for breakfast which was nearly every day . . . don't u ever get tired of the same flavor? he demanded, eyeing the variety pack he insisted that we also buy over my economical objections . . . he had the same attitude when it came to men . . . one morning, a month or two after we began living together in a studio apartment, David, an Ohio boy who literally had stepped off the bus from Newton Falls two weeks before we met, proudly "shared" news of his latest conquest . . . i hurled the box of Wheaties at him in a fit of jealous rage and crossed my very own Rubicon. . . u can't imagine the significance of this moment: not only had an anal retentive Virgo thrown an open box of cereal across the room, scattering crispy brown flakes as far as the unmade bed where we had just fucked our brains out, but i also had abandoned a romantic idealism for a cynical pragmatism that has endured to this day . . . what's good for the goose is good for the gander, particulary when David left New York to design sets for summer stock three months every year . . . these separations seemed to strengthen our relationship as much as they changed my eating habits . . . Wheaties, Cheerios, Special K, Total, i ate 'em all . . . my appetite for variety was limited only by the size of the pantry, which could accomodate only two large boxes of cereal at a time . . . my heart didn't have much more room either.

come rain or come shine every Saturday morning i found myself shopping for the week's groceries at Fairway when it was still a small store favored mostly by elderly Jewish women who often seemed to think they were fighting over marked down schmattes at Filene's bargain basement instead of radishes . . . this routine usually didn't afford many opportunities for cruising, but one hot July i noticed a cute, short guy with brown hair and dreamy bedroom eyes in his early 30s watching my every move . . . this went on for aisles and aisles tho we chose separate check out lines . . . he finished first and when i left the store i saw him standing at the corner of 75th and Broadway . . . if this goes on much longer, my ice cream is going to melt . . . he laughed, and within moments we were walking uptown together . . . he displayed none of the reticence that had characterized his cruising technique once i broke the ice . . . why would he? . . . a song and dance man, he had starred in Very Good Eddie, even snagging a Tony Award nomination . . . where is Charles Repole today? . . . directing community theater somewhere i'll bet but that night in 1981 he had a date with me to see Blow Out, the latest Brian De Palma movie . . . we came back to my place after the movie and had nice sex, memorable more for who he was than what we did . . . he was no David, after all, but he was eager to spend the night and his body fit snugly into my arms . . . around 2 a.m. the phone rang, something it never had done before . . . i miss u whispered David, words he never had spoken to me before . . . guilt surged throughout my body like that radioactive dye used in some medical imaging tests . . . fortunately, the complexity of the flim i had just seen gave me plenty to talk about especially since Charles , like most Broadway babies, couldn't have cared less about my favorite director's camera movements . . . i managed not to disclose to David that a minor celebrity was sleeping on his side of the bed . . . Charles had a question of his own when i hung up . . . was that your lover? . . . i explained our situation and managed to go back to sleep in spite of my exhiliration.

i awoke early on Sunday and baked blueberry bran muffins while Charles slept . . . when i summoned him to breakfast he approached the table tentatively . . . what's this? he asked looking at the muffins, the sectioned grapefruit and the steaming coffee . . . what does it look like? . . . no one ever baked me muffins before, he said, wiping a tear from his eye (I KID U NOT) . . . talk about a drama queen! . . . little did he know that i would have made the same breakfast whether he had been there or not . . . and when he asked me why are all the good ones taken?, i smiled like the Sphinx. . . weeks later, long after Charles had been replaced by a less fruity brand of cereal, David returned from Beverly, MA . . . as soon as we sat down to our first Sunday breakfast, i confessed, not because of any guilt, which had evaporated as soon as we hung up that night, but because i couldn't resist telling such a good story and reminding him that my domesticity, while routinized, had been appreciated by no less than a Broadway star . . . to his credit, David laughed and ate heartily (histrionics weren't his style) . . . he even gave a name to the breakfast i served him every other Sunday for the duration of our five-year relationship: J's heartbreaker bran muffins.