I’m not gay but I want to live in a log cabin in the woods with Mao. We won’t ever have sex, but there will be a simmering erotic undercurrent as I stand in the kitchen window watching him tighten his ass as he chops wood, shirtless, sweat pouring off his body. I’ll run upstairs and masturbate, the entire time forcing myself to think of women while my thoughts drift back to Mao. I won’t be able to climax and I’ll eventually go back downstairs, angry. Sometimes we will look across the table and catch each other’s eyes, and in that second, anything is possible, but we both deny ourselves and go back to what we were doing. One day one of us will die, and the other will bury him outside the log cabin. Then he’ll go outside, pen a brief missive to his departed friend, and commit suicide, never able to deal with life without his one true platonic love.