Window open a crack despite the sub-freezing temperatures outside. An overheated Brooklyn apartment, pipes hissing and cooing. It could be the cold. It could be the new year. It could be some burst of confidence. It could be a particular cycle of the moon or the earth's position in the sky. It could be none of these things.
I am reaching out to guys, telling them I want to hang out with them. I am hanging out with them. It's nice to have a body next to me in bed, a person to kiss, to touch, to hold.
The night before last, a blizzard, something close to one, hit this city. I stayed at the hotel I work at, being offered a room for the night so I wouldn't have to commute in the storm. I invited over the boy from New Year's, Fire in German. We watched Bravo and drank wine and had sex in a nice bed. "This is why people want to be rich," he said, "so they can sleep on beds like this."
He's a really funny guy. I don't remember half of the things he said or why they were so funny, but I do know that I laughed and laughed into the night as we lay in bed together, and it was such a nice feeling. I also became more and more aware that though this person is sweet and nice and cute, he's also too young and I also feel like a giant when I am standing next to him.
Last night, snow on the ground, temperatures in the single digits, I wanted someone in my arms, in my bed. The coldness outside inspires me to create other forms of warmness, of heat. I invited this other guy to hang out with that I have been texting back and forth with. We drank wine, smoked weed, and watched Beyonce videos because apparently that's my move with guys now. He was awkward and not what I had imagined. He was also a really nice guy. After awkwardly hanging out in my bedroom for a while, I said, "Let's make this less awkward," and just started to make out with him. We had sex, which was really fun, and better than I had expected from our awkward interactions prior to.
However, there was a slip up, a stupid move, something foolish and reckless. I had started to fuck him at one point, it very clear that that was what he wanted. I put on a condom and lubed up before doing so. I started very slowly, but after a short while we stopped because he was uncomfortable. So we messed around a bunch more and then were dry humping, him sitting on top of me, playing with the tip of my cock against his ass. It felt great, felt too good. I didn't even realize that I was inside of him until I reached for my penis to feel it and felt the base of it against his ass. I immediately pulled out and said I wanted to wear a condom. We continued from there, having really great sex. It was maybe ten seconds of unprotected sex, but I kept thinking about it. I thought about it more and more, it soon distracting me from this sex I was engaged in. I was dreading having to go to Callen Lorde in the morning, again going to my doctor, again taking PEP for what would be the fourth time in my life. I was dreading the concerned look from the doctor, the questions about my drinking habits, the questions about my sexual habits. I didn't know if I even needed to, wanted to know if I needed to, wanted to know how much risk I exposed myself to. And I don't know how one talks about these things after the fact, does so in a way that creates a safe space for someone not to feel ambushed or judged or shamed.
We had stopped fucking and were just jerking each other off. I paused for a moment and asked if he had HIV. He seemed weirded out by the question and said no. I was stoned and not doing the best job of being delicate - in fact, was being insanely awkward about the situation. I tried to explain how I didn't care either way, but I just wanted to know if I had any reason for concern, if I should take PEP treatment. I asked if he often had unprotected sex and he seemed a little scandalized by the question as if we just hadn't engaged in it earlier in the evening. Anyways, leave it to me to kill the mood. Things were very awkward at this point, it surely not being helped that both of us were stoned silly. I told him that I just wanted to sleep by myself and think about things if that was okay. He got dressed. These awkward situations suck so much more in weather like this. He had layers upon layers upon layers that he had to put back on. There were long stretches of silence as he got bundled back up again to head out into the cold, two layers of pants, shirts, sweaters, jackets, scarves. I apologized if I seemed like an asshole. He told me I made him feel terrible.
The good news here is that school again starts for me on Monday and this failed experiment of Charlie being released into the dating public will soon come to end, me not having time any longer to make myself or others feel terrible.
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