When I heard that one of my housemates, a fellow midwesterner, was sticking around for Christmas this year, I'll admit I had mixed emotions.  If I'm going to spend Christmas alone, I'd rather not do it in a crowd.  This was going to cramp my soaking-in-a-lukewarm-bath time, I would not be able to do the Risky Business dance routine downstairs I'd been practicing since September, and I'd have to pass out in my own room, in my own underwear, like any other night.

On the other hand, I like my housemates in general (and some in particular), and when my housemate Lucky offered to make his famous "kamikazi salmon" dish for Christmas dinner, I was very nearly moved to tears.  You see, I had been somewhat traumatized by this dish when it burst into flames at a backyard barbeque last summer and nearly burnt down the house.  But after some coaxing and cajoling I assented to dinner, just the two of us, and even agreed to bring the roofies.

Lucky's a CBNH (Cute But Not Hot — better under the circumstances than HBNC, which is more my type) early thirty-something, fashionwise at the intersection of technogeek and metromod.  He puts more thought into his look by far than I do, has more gay friends than I do, and has logged far more time in local gay bars than I have.  Of course, he's NOT GAY.

I know, I know.  When I first met him I thought, hmm, this lady doth protest way too much.  You didn't even have to ask him.  He'd volunteer it.  Like, you'd run into him in the kitchen in the morning...

"Good Morning, Lucky." 

"Good morning, Mike.  I'm NOT GAY."

"Um, OK."

"Just wanted to make sure we're on the same page. I'm. Not. Gay."

I was like, "even better."

I mean, textbook case, right?  He even had the mysterious girlfriend who lives abroad.  You know, so that at the end of a long night of appletinis and sweaty shirtless whoop-whooping on the dance-floor at The Paradise making eyes and licking his lips at you, he could say, "No really, I can't—I have a serious girlfriend in Uzbekistan."

"Um, OK."

"Ask anyone.  She's coming to visit in six months."

"Even better."

But as I settled into our through-the-looking-glass house, I realized it didn't matter either way. The laws of attraction are less like the laws of classical physics and more like quantum phenomena.  Sex and sexuality look Newtonian on the surface, but get all Niels Bohrish on you when you peek under the hood.  The principle of complementarity definitely applies.

But I'm from the No Means No generation.  And anyway, I'm too old to be bothered to persuade anyone of much of anything anymore.  So when someone says they're straight, even if they're a staunch Republican cruising for tea room sex, I say "more power to ya."

To be fair, as I got to know Lucky, there emerged satisfactory if not exactly ample evidence of heterosexuality.  The first clue was the utter lack of interest in going to the gym.  No membership, even.  Straight guys with girlfriends in Uzbekistan can get away with that.  His bedroom and home office were very tidy, and there was an attention to design, but it was geek-design, not gay design.  Aside from occasional Zhooshing, his grooming habits were not extravagant.  I could find no proof of product.

A horror of briefs and speedos was later revealed, and seemed genuine.  And from there evidence piled up pretty quickly.  It culminated at a late-night luau last summer when he manned the grill wearing one of those strap-on LED headlamps, virtually unknown in the gay world.  These days that's about the best proof you can hope for. 

I have made my peace with Lucky's sexuality.  He seems to like being teased about it, though, as it gives him the opportunity to reiterate: "Sorry, fellas, I'm NOT GAY."  So when he suggested dinner—not only dinner, but making dinner—for the two of us on Christmas day—I couldn't help but blush, and say, "we'll be just like a gay couple."

He gave me the "I'm NOT GAY" look and reminded me: "without the sex."

"That's what I said," I replied.  "Just like a gay couple."

I told him I'd order out afterwards. 

Dinner was in the kitchen on the butcher block, despite the fact that I had prepared the formal dining room, with a linen tablecloth, embroidered place-cards, doilies aplenty, brass candelabra and a centerpiece of rare fruits, silk birds-of-paradise imported from the Orient, and a cascade of flavored condoms and Viagra, had painted my face and dressed in my best kimono and obi, and wore my getas so I could attend Lucky at the grill outside. 

The best-laid plans.  Oh well, there's always St. Valentine's Day.

Dinner was minimalist, consisting of the kamikazi salmon, horseradish sauce, and a bottle of organic Côtes du Rhône from Château de Bastet.  I bought the wine with Tony, My Beloved Garden Gnome, Christmas Eve, after savory crepes in Davis Square.  Tony was adamantly opposed to red wine with salmon, even kamikazi salmon, and went so far as to buy a bottle of Kreuznacher Kronenberg Riesling Auslese just for me.

Lucky was insistent about the Côtes du Rhône, and seemed to think that the salmon could hold its own.  Under the circumstances—just the two of us there on the butcher block partaking in a bachelor's repast, a bottle of MD20/20 would have worked.  It was alcohol. 

(In fact, I really liked the wine.  It's described as "bold and vibrant," with "an aroma of crushed herbs or crushed pine needles," "initially juicy and rich" but then "very dry," with an "almost tannic flintiness to it." As long as there's no "wet dog" in there, I'll drink it, and happily.)

Aside from dinner with Lucky, it was a low-key Christmas, the highlight of which was a leisurely video call from Csaba, my bff in Budapest.  A pseudo-Luddite, it had taken him this long to get a laptop, webcam and mic, so that we could video-conference.  And that was the best Christmas gift a guy could get short of an airplane ticket.