FIVE TIMES KISSED (from este xoxo)
( five times kissed | selectively accepting ) @saintspoken
either frank welch didn’t know how he felt, or he was just one helluva good liar. his eyes never showed anything ( they couldn’t, not around david, not at work, not in the world ) and with a wedding ring on his finger from a relationship with a woman foreign to him, one may just as well presume he never swung that well, never would. that same woman turned his back to him, and turned his child’s back to him too. perhaps it was for the best.
but with that badge, everything had to be quiet. you couldn’t suggest anything like that. you’d be fired for being homosexual. that ? mass hysteria. that’s another thing buried alongside all his other issues with the war, with the drinking, with the family … and it was being uncovered.
that first kiss on the rooftop made frank welch no longer have doubts. he isn’t out of his own head, for being that way. the man he cared about most assured him that everything, about himself, was going to be okay.
the world felt differently in the year of 1963. not about gays, no, that wasn’t on their minds yet – but about communists. the chinese. the russians. the cubans. propaganda was all the world thought about. frank welch knew. he was placed at the head of the operation to expose foreign intelligence within the C.I.A., and it started with investigating his lover.
no objections were made at first, despite frank welch having no reason to believe that david castro was a communist spy. he only followed the orders given.
this changed in 1965, when david castro and frank welch resigned from the C.I.A. after sharing the prejudice faced within work boundaries. after signing the papers, the two of them walked down the steps outside of the intelligence building and shared their first kiss in public.
frank had gone near ten years without alcohol, a case of nightmares, or any major regrets. he lived happily with his partner, away from the past 6 years of their relationship filled with racism and blatant homophobia. and according to a cover on time magazine, the world was ready for a new change. a gay right’s movement that appeared successful. dozens coming out to the media on live television. somewhere in that crowd, frank and david are protesting.
harvey milk runs for office. david castro is hired to be on his committee. the first day of work, frank kisses him goodbye.
the year was 1981. david castro had just been admitted into a general hospital.
frank didn’t leave the bedside and did everything from tell stories, to read books, to even singing songs. nothing took away from the fact that his partner was dying. complications due to AIDS, a mysterious problem that hadn’t been around in the early days with the agency. the treatment had been hard on him, hard on them both.
their last night was spent together laughing. hands placed at the side of his cheeks, frank held him for the last time and smiled, unknowingly, that his lover would die the next morning. there’s a joke about two birds and a kiss goodnight before they both drift off to sleep.
the following afternoon, frank’s 23-year-old son visits him for the first time.
he remembered him every day. for a man who’s life had been full of self-hatred, death, poverty and familial issues, frank welch was a happy man. the processing of the relationship with david had changed his life forever, changed his viewpoints forever, made him realize everything he had to live for. the thought without him astonished him. the suffering would have been catastrophic.
his saint. his savior. his other attachment to himself.
every morning frank welch kisses the picture frame of the two of them.
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