Thug Lover keeps asking me about u said the Blue Light Special when he arrived Thursday night . . . i was in the middle of baking cranberry bread, one for the friends i would join on Christmas Eve, the other for him . . . he told me i have to start calling him if i'm not going to be sleeping at home . . . it sounded reasonable to me but his gossip clearly had a subtext.

later, he sat on my white leather chair, brooding about all the work he had to do over the holidays . . . quite a change from his high spirits just two days before . . . not only had he been hired by to cook a couple of geese on Christmas Day (mine is already well done), but he had to prepare a traditional East German meal the night before for Thug Lover and his friends . . . i didn't really understand what he was whining about: use of his culinary skills would earn him some badly needed income and assure his continued rent reduction in Pavonia Newport.

don't worry, it will all be over in a couple of days i soothed while the Frankfurt Banker accused him of being a spoiled child . . . and if it gets too unbearable u always could live here i said, as offhandedly as possible . . . u don't have enough space for a roommate he replied . . . i've got almost as much space as u have now in Pavonia Newport, but i'm not looking for a roommate. it would work only with a boyfriend.

there, i said it, a soft offer was on the table . . . his demurral didn't surprise me . . . it also came as a relief.

given his mood and my desire to complete some last-minute gift preparations prior to catching a late morning train to suburban New Jersey, sleep took priority over sex . . . i got up early to burn and label a couple of CDs (U2's "How To Dismantle an Atomic Bomb" and Eminem's "Encore" plus a mix featuring my favorite tracks from The OC) . . . by the time i had finished Blue Light Special still hadn't awakened so i put on the soundtrack from The Thin Red Line . . . who died? he asked when i rejoined him in bed.

i love sleepy chit chat in the morning . . . so far ours has mostly been about me interpreting the Blue Light Special's dreams but he wasn't volunteering any today . . . what better time, then, to probe your holiday lover about his country's past than while listening to Hans Zimmer's haunting soundtrack for a World War II film? . . . how did u first become aware of Hitler? i whispered.

the Blue Light Special turned slightly to give me a startled look . . . c'mon tell me i urged, wondering how he would handle the question . . . my curiosity had been piqued a couple of nights earlier after i pointed out a short story in the fiction issue of The New Yorker titled "The Girl from Hamburg" (he wears a bright red zippered jacket with the name of that city printed across the front and lately i've been clipping Germany-related articles for him from the Times so we have something to talk about besides sex) . . . when i told him it was about a Jewess who's impregnated by a man who hides her from the Nazis he asked what's a Jewess? . . . yeah, right, i'll bet u have no idea what zyklon B is, either.

my great grandparents first told me about Hitler. they were very conservative, from the south. they had a favorable impression. they hated Americans, too. i used to spend my summers with them but i found out early not to always trust their opinions. a Turkish family with a boy my age lived not too far away from their farm. when they found out i had spent the day with a dark foreigner they told me i couldn't see him anymore. i did anyway, of course, i just hid it from them. but it wasn't until kindergarten that i began learning how bad Hitler had been for Germany.

i didn't quite know what to make of his less than ringing condemnation of Der Fuhrer but he didn't add anything when i drew an analogy about how some Southerners grew up in the post-Civil Rights era with great grandparents who still favored segregation . . . so we got up and ate slices of the cranberry bread that i had baked for him . . . then he started complaining again . . . i told Thug Lover that we stopped celebrating Christmas in my family once my brother and i turned 18 but he told me he's expecting a gift from me. he wants a pair of headphones.

it so happened that i had a pair of expensive, barely used Pioneer headphones in their original packaging . . . here give him these, i offered . . . they're 25 years old but hey retro is in and they still produce great sound . . . are u sure u don't want them anymore? he asked after listening to Bowie sing "Let's Dance" at high volume . . . yes, just so long as he doesn't throw them away when he finds out where they came from or how old they are . . . i'll tell them i bought them in Chinatown he said . . . i have to go there anyway to pick up the carp for his dinner.

i barely could contain the spluttering incredulity of the Frankfurt Banker. . . have u gone mad? why are u enabling his relationship with Thug Lover? . . . this time i had an answer for a change: because i'm happy with the way things are. i'm not really ready for a full-time relationship with someone who still prefers to think of himself as a fuck buddy even though we're spending almost as much time together as newlyweds . . . the present situation works to everyone's advantage so far as i can tell.

it sure seemed that way Christmas night even though he hadn't given me the goodbye look back i always crave as the subway doors closed behind me in Penn Station when we parted Friday morning . . . i hoped he would call to wish me a merry Christmas when he was through with his cooking gig for an antiques dealer in Tribeca . . . it didn't look promising as the hour grew later but then the phone rang around 11:30 p.m. . . . perfect timing, too: as it happens Hugh Grant and crowd were demonstrating in Love, Actually--last year's overstuffed Christmas turkey-- that l'amour IS all around . . . all U have to do is look, especially during the holidays.

i'm such a sucker for cheap romance.