That Night in His Room
Chapter 1
The house was like a museum, like those museums that are literally old houses but set up to show off all the art and furniture to advantage. Each room had at least one piece of art on the walls by someone famous (even to me, back then) and everywhere else was wood, wood, leather, marble, wood. I didn’t even think about comparing his house to mine - to our dusty blue gingham couches that sagged on the tops where the cats always slept, our 15-year old television that didn’t even get CABLE for crying out loud, our kitchen with its formica counters and pantry full of processed and canned foods. I don’t think his house had ever held a canned food item, except maybe an exotic brand of imported tomato or anchovy or something, and then only for a special recipe. His parents were farmer’s market people, people.
His room was on the second floor, just as you turned left after the first flight on the circular staircase. It was cavernous, with ceilings like a church and its own little en suite bathroom. (And I thought I was lucky because I didn’t have to share the bathroom at the opposite end of the upstairs hall with anybody.) He kept it messy, but not gross, and there was evidence of him, the pieces of him that all came together into the person he was outside his room, everywhere. I drank in all the details I could: what books was he reading? What color were his sheets? What toiletries were on his bathroom counter? A look into a person’s room can really humanize them, and oh lord did i need to knock this boy low and humanize the shit out of him.
It didn’t work, if you’re wondering.
I suppose it took only minutes before we were pressed into each other, inhaling and kissing and biting and making little sounds. All I felt was my desire enveloping me, taking the form of him but also infusing the air and the bed beneath us and my own limbs and lips. Kissing his mouth was like dancing with a partner you’ve been practicing complicated routines with for years - we always knew when to put where what. There was never a tongue out of place, never too much or too little, never a clash or a misstep. Our mouths just waltzed together, endlessly, until our lips were puffy and numb and red. And it was the most exciting thing I had ever experienced in my entire life. (I’m glad I didn’t know then that would still be true, a lifetime later. I’m glad I didn’t know that the heights of emotion I felt when I was teetering between childhood and adulthood would last only so long, and then be done forever.)
Our clothes met the floor pretty quickly, and it felt strangely natural to be completely naked with this boy (this young MAN), even when I had no intention of having sex with him and was pretty sure he understood that. I guess that was pretty cruel on my part, though I didn’t understand how at the time. I just wanted as much as I wanted and no more and didn’t question my right to have it. I guess it says a lot about him that he didn’t, either. He took whatever I was willing to give as if it were the most spectacular gift in the world (and it was, wasn’t it?). (I should maybe mention here that 6 years later, after this night, we did have sex, a couple of times, and it was as flat as a cola you’ve left out overnight. It wasn’t bad, it was fine - but it didn’t light all my cells on fire like just his kiss did when I loved him with my teenage heart.)
We kissed and kissed and breathed each other in for hours, well into the night, and started up again as soon as we woke (morning breath be damned - if you kiss passionately enough, you can’t smell anything). I didn’t want to go home that day because I knew it would break the spell, it would crush the delicate shell around that total magic we’d given ourselves over to. That night, in his bed, existed outside the timeline of regular life and the real world, and it always will.
Because the spell did break. It wasn’t apparent right away, it happened in trickles and cracks and so many little bruises that built up to pure, incapacitating agony. I’d been so absorbed by my endless appetite for him, and his for me, that i could never have prepared for how brutalized i would feel when he dropped me. That’s what he did, he dropped me. He just...picked up and moved on, like I’d been this great restaurant he really enjoyed but now he was hungry again and there were so many other places to try and nobody wants to eat pasta every night, right? I don’t doubt that he admired me, that he was all-in with me that night in his bed. We were something separate from the universe in there. But my heart stayed put and his didn’t and that’s the end of every sad story ever told.
So I cried. I cried and cried and cried and sat up in my bed and tried to breathe through my violent, racking sobs. And he was fine, he just went on, had fun elsewhere, somewhere I couldn’t see. That was the worst part. Knowing he was still out there, still breathing through those lips I knew so well, still sleeping in THAT bed, still smiling that smile that reaffirmed my heterosexuality every time I saw it. All that continued, but I couldn’t see it. I wasn’t allowed to anymore. He took my treasure and he locked it away and I laid awake every night, trying to summon it back in my mind, where it was all dim and broken.
I’d like to tell you that by the time I kissed another boy(man), that night in his room was not at the forefront of my mind. That I certainly wasn’t still praying for a glimpse of him every time I walked across his college campus - to visit my boyfriend. But I could not extinguish that fire, no matter how hard or long I tried. I just got used to living with it. It was this tumor in my heart or mind or soul, I don’t know, that became comforting after a while - a limitation I grew around and adapted to. I didn’t expect to love someone as much as I’d loved him (if you can call all-consuming lust love, which I think I maybe do, given its power and rarity), I just figured I’d always shove him a little to the side and carry on. I’d think about that night whenever I needed to go someplace thrilling and soothing and wild and safe. I did that for years.
And then the tumor shrank. It faced the strongest chemotherapy in the world - me feeling that feeling for someone else (although it can never be like the first time). And it shrank and shrank and shrank until it was medically undetectable. Not gone. Never gone. But the memory of that night became the one thing I never, ever imagined it could become: not about him. I didn’t need or want HIM. Every passing year made that clearer. Just as no matter how many years pass, I will never forget the way my body and mind came together that night in his bed. I’m glad he exists, that he existed and gave me that memory. I just wish I’d realized sooner that the magic was all inside me.
His room was on the second floor, just as you turned left after the first flight on the circular staircase. It was cavernous, with ceilings like a church and its own little en suite bathroom. (And I thought I was lucky because I didn’t have to share the bathroom at the opposite end of the upstairs hall with anybody.) He kept it messy, but not gross, and there was evidence of him, the pieces of him that all came together into the person he was outside his room, everywhere. I drank in all the details I could: what books was he reading? What color were his sheets? What toiletries were on his bathroom counter? A look into a person’s room can really humanize them, and oh lord did i need to knock this boy low and humanize the shit out of him.
It didn’t work, if you’re wondering.
I suppose it took only minutes before we were pressed into each other, inhaling and kissing and biting and making little sounds. All I felt was my desire enveloping me, taking the form of him but also infusing the air and the bed beneath us and my own limbs and lips. Kissing his mouth was like dancing with a partner you’ve been practicing complicated routines with for years - we always knew when to put where what. There was never a tongue out of place, never too much or too little, never a clash or a misstep. Our mouths just waltzed together, endlessly, until our lips were puffy and numb and red. And it was the most exciting thing I had ever experienced in my entire life. (I’m glad I didn’t know then that would still be true, a lifetime later. I’m glad I didn’t know that the heights of emotion I felt when I was teetering between childhood and adulthood would last only so long, and then be done forever.)
Our clothes met the floor pretty quickly, and it felt strangely natural to be completely naked with this boy (this young MAN), even when I had no intention of having sex with him and was pretty sure he understood that. I guess that was pretty cruel on my part, though I didn’t understand how at the time. I just wanted as much as I wanted and no more and didn’t question my right to have it. I guess it says a lot about him that he didn’t, either. He took whatever I was willing to give as if it were the most spectacular gift in the world (and it was, wasn’t it?). (I should maybe mention here that 6 years later, after this night, we did have sex, a couple of times, and it was as flat as a cola you’ve left out overnight. It wasn’t bad, it was fine - but it didn’t light all my cells on fire like just his kiss did when I loved him with my teenage heart.)
We kissed and kissed and breathed each other in for hours, well into the night, and started up again as soon as we woke (morning breath be damned - if you kiss passionately enough, you can’t smell anything). I didn’t want to go home that day because I knew it would break the spell, it would crush the delicate shell around that total magic we’d given ourselves over to. That night, in his bed, existed outside the timeline of regular life and the real world, and it always will.
Because the spell did break. It wasn’t apparent right away, it happened in trickles and cracks and so many little bruises that built up to pure, incapacitating agony. I’d been so absorbed by my endless appetite for him, and his for me, that i could never have prepared for how brutalized i would feel when he dropped me. That’s what he did, he dropped me. He just...picked up and moved on, like I’d been this great restaurant he really enjoyed but now he was hungry again and there were so many other places to try and nobody wants to eat pasta every night, right? I don’t doubt that he admired me, that he was all-in with me that night in his bed. We were something separate from the universe in there. But my heart stayed put and his didn’t and that’s the end of every sad story ever told.
So I cried. I cried and cried and cried and sat up in my bed and tried to breathe through my violent, racking sobs. And he was fine, he just went on, had fun elsewhere, somewhere I couldn’t see. That was the worst part. Knowing he was still out there, still breathing through those lips I knew so well, still sleeping in THAT bed, still smiling that smile that reaffirmed my heterosexuality every time I saw it. All that continued, but I couldn’t see it. I wasn’t allowed to anymore. He took my treasure and he locked it away and I laid awake every night, trying to summon it back in my mind, where it was all dim and broken.
I’d like to tell you that by the time I kissed another boy(man), that night in his room was not at the forefront of my mind. That I certainly wasn’t still praying for a glimpse of him every time I walked across his college campus - to visit my boyfriend. But I could not extinguish that fire, no matter how hard or long I tried. I just got used to living with it. It was this tumor in my heart or mind or soul, I don’t know, that became comforting after a while - a limitation I grew around and adapted to. I didn’t expect to love someone as much as I’d loved him (if you can call all-consuming lust love, which I think I maybe do, given its power and rarity), I just figured I’d always shove him a little to the side and carry on. I’d think about that night whenever I needed to go someplace thrilling and soothing and wild and safe. I did that for years.
And then the tumor shrank. It faced the strongest chemotherapy in the world - me feeling that feeling for someone else (although it can never be like the first time). And it shrank and shrank and shrank until it was medically undetectable. Not gone. Never gone. But the memory of that night became the one thing I never, ever imagined it could become: not about him. I didn’t need or want HIM. Every passing year made that clearer. Just as no matter how many years pass, I will never forget the way my body and mind came together that night in his bed. I’m glad he exists, that he existed and gave me that memory. I just wish I’d realized sooner that the magic was all inside me.