For sixty days, I lived with two bisexual college girls who liked to drink and expose themselves. They were both in their early 20s and had enviable bodies. They made love loudly and frequently. I accompanied them on their jaunts to The Continental Adult Shop, an establishment I thought disreputable until I became a patron.
The owner was a women’s rights activist and most of the customers looked like me: college graduates with too much free time. Wayne, the cashier, waxed poetic whenever he saw me. We talked about many things, but our conversations always gravitated towards film festivals and the Academy Awards. He spoke with a contagious lisp and was flamboyant enough to enrage any homophobe.
Surrounded by homosexual propaganda, I engaged in daily heterosexual affirmation. I lifted weights at a fitness club and made eyes at a Georgian belle employee – who would later turn me down after giving me a towel. We dazzled each other with our smiles, future jobs that we kept in our pockets and distant lovers on Grecian isles.
****
Farah drove my high school carpool. I hadn’t seen her in five years, but her phone number was etched in my memory. I called her the day before my vacation ended.
She convinced me to drive two hours in the wrong direction to see her; whispering classmates and scolding parents no longer kept us from hanging out.
We went to dinner; she paid. We went to her parents’ house: my favorite beer was in the refrigerator.
We sat on the backyard porch with an awkwardness only teenagers possessed. My legs dangled off the swinging bench while her feet powered us into the desert sky. I held my beer like a fighter pilot grips a flight stick. Eventually, my white knuckles and sweaty palms receded with the tide of an old romance.
In the haze of smoke and alcohol, we smiled more and laughed harder, casually touching each as if by accident. Soon my arm was around her and, knowing nothing of reflexology, practiced it free of charge. Kneading her flesh with my fingers, I extrapolated upon the night’s possibilities and it looked dangerously promising.
We both were not married but had intimate partners. So like diplomats, we drew up verbal terms with which we could indulge: no future relationship, no discussion, over any medium, of the night’s events, and of course, there could be no love. Agreed.
Her lips were softer than I imagined and she was very delicate and reserved, making certain to preserve my role as the dominant male. I couldn’t taste the alcohol or the cigarettes she had me smoking from her hand; my senses had closed for the night.
In her grandmother’s room, with a portrait of Jesus watching, we fell into bed, anxiously pulling at each other’s clothing. Only in my adolescent dreams was I familiar with her body, yet tonight I hoped I would have the suave of a seasoned lover. I didn’t know if she liked having her necked kissed or sultry promises whispered in her ears, so I did everything half-heartedly, probing like a tentative oncologist.
The walls concealed more than our moans that night; I tricked myself into believing we were doing each other a favor, that we could remain friends afterwards, that we could talk on the phone and forget how we looked at each other and laughed when we were done.
Early the next morning, she made me a breakfast that was too large and greasy for my Guinness churning stomach. With a large smile, she watched and waited for my approval as I ate it for the care with which it had been made: careful not to hurt her feelings or the friendship we had soiled.
To see me off, she wore a Sunday dress and an oversized hat. She walked me to my car and waved to me from the driveway like I was departing for the Pacific Theatre. I very well could have been, because we never spoke again.
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