Houses and Homes

It’s different up here, I admit. It smells sweet. We stop in front of a house that is in need of a paint job. The three-story is ready to give—scratched up, mauled over by decades or centuries of wind burns and rain. Two brick tire tracks head up the driveway to an equally beaten garage. We stand side by side. A house and a garage. I want him to hold my hand, but he doesn’t. I want him to kiss me, but he doesn’t know. Trees hover, spilling giant, brassy, fairytale leaves. The house is leaning into the garage. A light goes on upstairs, and we look away from the house and into each others’ eyes. The rock wall has stone bulbs, pressed together like our knuckles.

But not Forgot-Ten

“Remember Graham’s party?” I ask.

“Yes,” he says, and sips his beer.

“Was that the one after prom?”

“No. It wasn’t after prom because my parents wouldn’t let me sleep over.”

“Oh,” I say.

“It must have been that spring. I think you had on a tank top.”

I laugh.

“And you kept asking if I was gay.”

“I don’t remember that,” I say, “but it sounds like something I would have done when I was that age.” I’m not proud, but I’m honest.

“It worked.”

“We were on the stairs.”

“Yes,” I remember. “Graham’s stairs.”

He wipes some of the condensation off the pint glass.

I look at his hands on his beer. “Was it nice? Do you remember?”

“I think so,” he says. “It was ten years ago.”

Uncontrolled Division

How much cancer should we postpone today, I ask myself, lying back on the paper that makes obscene crinkle-crinkles when I shift. How many days should we wait, I wonder. I don’t ask them. I don’t speak. I close my eyes and make fists. I stare at the ceiling and hear an occasional snip-snip as bits of my body are cut and laid out like malevolent paper dolls, like malignant origami.

Later, at the Bar.

The new one takes me for wine and oysters, and a few hours later, single malts and charcuterie. We talk about the oysters and other important details of the evening, like the herbed gravity bong, the truffled popcorn and the handful of characters behind the bar. When our lips meet our chins do, too. His hands hold my shoulders. My fingers touch is cheeks. We smell like fine grained booze and thinly sliced meats. We taste like smoke and the aftermath of an expensive date with an effusive appetite.

Rubberbands

There is only so much you can push someone before they snap back, or in this case, snap away from you. Away from me.

In this room.

I bet more than half of the women in this room feel fat. The other half is probably on the verge of a nervous breakdown. I hear British accents and a deep, handsome bass, and the chirp of women in stark black stockings and big-buttoned blazers. Women with frizzy curls in silky skirts leaning stoic against walls, wineglass in hands, jealous and judging. The men are the type who look then look away, always seeking out something newer and better, prettier and thinner with an improbable hint of challenge. These are the men that will never be happy and never know it.

Now.

I don’t want to wait to love you, I want to love you now. Maybe this is why I date older men. Maybe this is why I don’t want to date at all.

Serialsly

My last really serious relationship ended in February, 2007.

Since then, I’ve dated upwards of 100 men.

(Okay, that’s a guess, but I bet it’s not far off.)

Since then, I have had unsubstantial relationships with three, maybe four men. Some of them meant something to me and some of them haven’t. I rarely think about The Architect or Mr. Orange. Jon—who was important enough to have a real name—and I still talk. We occasionally go back over what went wrong, which is stupid, considering I’ve moved on and he has been in a serious relationship since we called it quits.

But mostly I’ve dated. There was the Deviled Egg, my best friend’s boss, the Vice Guy, the Owner, the kosher friend-of-a-friend, the coworker, another coworker,  plenty of coworkers, the Asshole, the college friend, the Not Fat Cat guy, the Craigslist Killer, the Williamsburg Waiter, and now, for now, there’s the Writer.

I’ve been, give or take, single since February 2007. I’m coming up on three years of mostly meaningless sex.

And since then, since February 2007, he just jumps from deep love to deep love, a serial monogamist—by comparison—in need of a serious serial killing.