Probably more than you'd like to know

Once a year or so I undertake a huge filing project. For the past twelve months, all sorts of papers--bank statements, credit card statements, healthcare bills, etc--have been piling up in the back of my coat closet. I just dump them on the floor back there on top of some old scarves and then when the mood strikes me--when I really need some sort of divergent activity--I haul out the little filing cabinet I keep and file everything away.

Which is what I did this morning instead of writing or thinking. There were yellowed credit card reports and old tax stubs with footprints on them and...ah yes proof of my iPod purchase so I can get a reimbursement for a failed battery from Apple. I also found a couple letters from crazy ex boyfriends. And in all of it was something I couldn't remember typing up called My Weekend. I typed it up on March 17, 2003. According to the narrative, I had quite a busy weekend. A part of the story really struck me...

Finally got in touch with this 21 year old who said i sounded really cute, and he wanted to come over. I almost didn't let him because I thought Ben would be back and that would just be awkward, but in the end he did come over. He was taller than me, about 6', and had beautiful thick dark hair and these hazelblue eyes that switchdarted around the room, he wore a patterned short sleeve blue shirt and light, wrinkled khakis and dark black dress shoes. He said i was very cute, and we kissed and made out before I invited him back to my bedroom, where we kissed and made out a lot. He was rather dominant, Matthew, that's his name, and he told me to suck his dick, which was large and very curvy. I don't know if we really connected well sexually ... we kissed a lot, but I got the sense that I wanted him to suck me and he didn't really want to, and he wanted to fuck me and I of course didn't want him to do that at all. He kept asking me to go get my dildo, that I didn't know what I was missing ... finally, we 69d and I came from that, and he jerked off himself. I thought that would be the end of it, but he cuddled up next to me, and that felt nice ... He had asked if he should leave, and I said he was welcome to stay, and so he did. Ben came home, and we crawled under the covers and I turned off the light. We held each other and kissed a lot, it was very passionate and sweet, and we talked about religion after I found out he had moved here from central Illinois in July to become an Assemblies of God pastor, but finally being away from the constraints of his family, he acknowledged that he was gay and now works as a manager for Structure and really likes it and of course doesn't plan on going to seminary school. We talked about his family and how he feels so far away from them. I got the intense feelings that he was lonely, and in those cases of course I want to help ease pain, and maybe that is where I start getting into all of the trouble... I brought back strawberries to the bed and we fed each other these deliciously sweet strawberries. He kept saying how cute and nice I was, how sweet and romantic, and that made me feel good, to know that I was making someone feel good. He spent the night sleeping with me, and we slept in, and spent many hours in bed kissing and rubbing under the covers, just exulting in the feel of one another. I made us breakfast, and we ate at the table--I made him French toast and he said he liked watching me cook. We went back to bed and we fucked, it was wonderful, it felt so good, and then took about a half hour shower under hot water, washing each other's hair, and then went to the couch and watched part of Breakfast at Tiffany's -- he didn't leave until six pm, after another nap naked in bed. What a wonderful time. What is the connection we had? I suppose we were both lonely, both lonely for the connection, and we both realized that the other was genuine ... genuine that is really the key word here ... we both realized that the other was who they were, were not liars, wanted to feel good and have someone else feel good at the same time. He said he could tell right away that I was someone that wasn't going to hurt him. I kissed him lightly on ear lobes and cheeks, I told him how beautiful his body was, I kissed his lips and held him as he slept, and he did the same for me. The focus really wasn't on whether we had a lot in common ... this wasn't a date ... this was two people who wanted the same thing, giving that thing happily and with pleasure to each other. I didn't want him to leave ... he was a refuge, that night was a refuge from anything I needed to escape...

So this morning I'm reading that and I remember the guy, and how I only saw him once but whenever I would go past the Structure in that one mall I would look to see if he was in there but he never was. Up until reading that little story I remembered how we had made out and had sex but what struck me was that I didn't remember him spending the night and I didn't remember the next day we spent together, the strawberries, the breakfast and the movie and the naps and the long shower and how we exulted in each other's presence...I remember none of that. But we did.

All of you are rolling your eyes at me now, so to make a stab at redeeming myself here's a quote from an essay by Joan Didion that I love a lot...."On Keeping a Notebook":

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be...

So that little typed up piece of paper on which I wrote down a very important weekend...I wrote that for myself and threw it in the back of my closet and now I have found it. Almost as if I knew when I was writing it that I would forget it and need to be reminded. And I have to believe myself. I have to believe that it was genuine and beautiful and real, that it was a really fucking special time I had with this stranger. Even though I had forgotten it until now.

Posted by jason at August 7, 2024 12:58 PM