Coming Home with Hedwig

I always expected marriage to be the highlight of my thirtieth year. As a teenager, I had it all settled. A road map to my life, I liked to call it. My fiancé and I would have found ourselves exhausted (and too tanned) from the spotlights of Broadway, perhaps even from the glow of Manhattan. Our two years of wedding planning were coming to fruition and discussions about our options for children and where to find a house outside the city to raise a family would behind as the year ended.

Instead, I was already a father (of three, no less), getting ready to celebrate a decade of marriage, and watching my husband embark on the biggest role of his life. Little did I know then, that I was wrong. But hindsight isnt available for the present in the present. Blaines biggest role (and my own) were yet to come, but at the time nothing excited him more. While we were packing up and moving from our high-rise loft in Midtown to a house north of Manhattan, Blaine began his first run as Hedwig.

Blaine would never admit it to me, but it was his dream role. The one hed adored since hed first seen the show and then the movie (He owns at least seven copies, but he always kept them so separate and hidden I could never prove it. Even now, as I comb through all of his belongings, I can only find three before I lose one). We sent all of our seventy-three years of marriage arguing for our favorites, but something about Hedwig and the Angry Inch always pulled a silence from Blaine. It wasnt until his dress rehearsal that it struck me why.

Hedwig came alive in Blaine. His silence was almost submission—something weve experimented with many times over the years—but Hedwig was different. Blaine was a key to her, or perhaps Hedwig was a key to a part of Blaine Id never been able to unlock on my own. His first night is still vivid to me. Glitter stuck in his lashes, on his cheeks, and in his dimples. Tangy cherry lip gloss transferred from his lips to mine. Not for one night did he ever manage to get it all off before I took them home.

Because it was a "them" coming home with me. After the lights turned off, and the crowd dispersed with autographs and selfies, Hedwig still shimmered around his edges. Some nights, it was a chore to bring him home—or shall I say her? His first few weeks were messy—not so much on stage, although he hit a few bumps, but as he decompressed after. Coming down from the glory and tragedy of Hedwigs glamour took longer with every performance. From day one he required a lot of patience from me. With every passing week of rehearsals, and then shows, Hedwig clawed at the steady strength Id known in Blaine. She twisted him into someone new and more stunning than the boy I first met on a staircase in Ohio.

Blaine was a goddess in those short four months. He was my goddess and my bondage. A deeper understanding of self than Ive ever had before or since. Every night, I took her home, dolled up in Blaines musk and charm, but with her little simper trailing at my heels. If was like she was taunting me to tease him from her, to strip off every clothing layer and ache of passion from his skin until we were only us once more.

Our tenth anniversary arrived during Blaines run. My parents came up for a week, more to babysit Leslie and the twins, but also to see one of Blaines shows. Its weird, even now, to realize Id been married for a third of my life when I was thirty. Nothing ever truly prepared me for it beyond naïve fantasies and the promise I found of a continuation of love with Blaine. My fathers wise words were a lantern some days, but all at once, we seemed to come into our own after ten years.

That weekend, I took Hedwig home to our empty apartment, almost bare to the bones with all its guts in cardboard. Some nights it was exhilaratingly close to an affair, Blaine was so unlike himself. I remember, even to this day, how she teased on the subway ride home. Her fingers scraped along my thigh, in semi-circles and letters I couldnt follow. Blaines face shined with her energy, her eyes teased better than a dream.

I was spread out upon our bed when we arrived, fed wine and grapes. She took her time peeling my suit off. My tie first, knotted around my eyes, then my suit jacket and pants. Teeth pulled the buttons of my shirt free, but whether it was Blaines or Hedwigs Ill never know. It was one of his favorite ways to make me breathless, but if she ever started our nights differently, then my husband and I were alone.

Hedwig always took her time on me, working me up, working me open. I was in freefall already when she slid in, and undone with three rough thrusts. But neither Hedwig nor my Blaine ever paused after one. Especially not Blaine, and that was always how I knew he was sinking back down into his skin. Amongst our frantic hips and the hot breaths searing my skin like ashes, Blaine returned to me every night. Sometimes, every sliver of him came back in the rush of a few hours. Sometimes, Hedwig lingered in a mixture of dawn light and glitter that sparkled in Blaines eyes. She crept into his grin over lunch and as we kissed backstage before she exploded into the limelight for a new audience of worship.

But that night always stood out as different. Blaines thrusts were rough, his focus on a physical brilliance we only found together. It was as if he was surging back to me, for compassion and hope and every bit of memory wed carved out in the world. By the time I found him, slick and panting and desperate, Blaine was on his own. We came back together, not like a clap of thunder but with the steady hum of a motor. Lucid, warming up to each other and back into ourselves. Blaines head rested in the crook of my neck, his fingertips drew invisible patterns in the sweat shining on my belly.

"Good night, lovely boy," I always said to him. "Youll see her again tomorrow."

His magnificence during that time was effervescent. After Blaines run finished, I grieved at the loss of our Hedwig and thrilled at a full reunion with Blaine. He returned refreshed and dazzling, spent every hour of his free time teaching our boys to take their first steps across our new kitchen along the Hudson River. With Blaine came everything I loved about a domestic life and our quieter years ahead. But saying goodbye to Hedwig at the end of that summer was difficult for each of us. We never found the same youthful magic that grew with her that first run. Something about her releasing him back to me closed the book on our twenties. We said goodbye to exuberant sex all morning. We traded it for early mornings under a pile of toddlers and messy, fast breakfast rushes to get everyone on buses and dressed for school. Afternoons at baseball games and ballet recitals instead of curled together in a window seat with sweaters and warm coffee mugs.

Blaine never seemed to falter from the shift, but he spoke about Hedwig often afterward. We watched his predecessors bring new life to Hedwigs whenever we journeyed into the city for a night away from parenthood. I missed her every now and again, in a way Blaine didnt fully understand. She was a part of him, from early life to when they shared the breath of a stage. Hedwig began a legend in our whispers; an echo in our bedroom and a spark of blue glitter in a spotlight for me.