Rocky Road-ish

A reuben. That's what I wanted. I was drunk, too drunk, had fallen asleep during Bring it On, the new musical, that drunken can't-wake-up-to-save-your-life sleep. I marched to Azure as soon as I got off the subway back in Brooklyn and ordered my sandwich. There was this cute gay couple in there, seemingly like they were on a date, something seemed new about their interactions. One of those boys was particularly sexy. I couldn't quit looking at him, was doing my best to do so without letting him see that I was staring at him. I got hit with deja vu. This moment had happened before, me lusting after this specific boy. Memories started to slowly come into focus. I had had a crush on this same boy once before some years ago, some similar intense reaction to seeing him.

Many years ago, I had briefly interacted with him at Phoenix. I somehow found him on Myspace - it was that time in the world when people still used such service, a time when everyone was on it, a time between Friendster and Facebook. I wrote him a couple of absurd and laudatory messages extolling how beautiful he was, the intense feelings I got from seeing him, something way creepy like that surely, this a time in my life when I still thought things like this could work, before I realized that it speaks of desperation, of clinginess, and of a lack of some necessary social skills that one would want in someone they were going to engage in flirtatious conversation with. I am sure this person probably didn't remember this; I barely did.

My sandwich was ready and given to me. The couple was still waiting for their sandwiches. They seemed so happy, so fascinated by each other, like they were definitely going to go back to one of their houses and have an energized conversation between bites of their food about their lives, still narrating histories of their past and of their dreams for the future to one another, still talking because it's an excuse to look directly at the person, to make eye contact in the hopes that it leads to a more directly physical form of contact, kisses, touches, fingered assholes. I wished them a good future and also did not. There were conflicting thoughts in my mind. I bought a pint of ice cream as well because I wanted it and because I didn't, because they seemed so happy, because fuck them. 

I washed down the greasy reuben with half of the pint. Immediately, I felt guilty, ashamed. I had just masturbated to really vile thoughts that I was embarrassed about now that I had come. That was the feeling when finally I told myself to stop, the feeling I had when I closed the door to the freezer, the ice cream finally out of my hands, behind a closed door.