Chris is the brother of a good friend, Lindsay. She may end up reading this; I'm not sure this blog would come up on her radar anymore. She'd told me, a year and a half ago, when I was on a layover in Chicago on a bus trip to New Orleans, complaining about how there's no one in Minneapolis for me, that her brother and I would be perfect together. I pooh-poohed the idea, but she suggested I friend him on fb and just try to get to know him, be his friend. And I did that. I'd known he was a gifted artist for years, through my friendship with her, and her many postings of his art sales and the like, but that was about all I knew. And I didn't glean much more from his fb page. I flipped through his photos and thought he looked like someone I could be friends with, but wasn't the least bit attracted to him.
This past fall, I went to Portland, where both brother and sister live, to see her (and several other friends in the Pacific NW). He'd written on fb about how he was finally going to meet me, before I left Minneapolis. I responded, "As if." I don't remember why I said that, but it became our first in-joke.
In-jokes are something, it would turn out, that we were very adept at creating, which makes this all the harder, what with so many easy references and riffs to be made to our private stock of jokes.
So, Lindsay and I met up with him, at his place, and I was excited to meet my casual friend in the flesh. He opened the door, and sincerely, I felt like the kindest, most soothing, loving, lung-full of air was put in me. I looked him up and down, and was instantly in like with every thing I saw, plus the timbre of his voice, deep and thoughtful, but with a certain mischievousness. I thought the words, "Electrified and soothed." I asked him to hug me, to commemorate this, our first meeting, and the hug was exactly as warm as I'd hoped it would be.
The rest of the night, I kept watching him, listening to him, waiting for a red flag or something that would indicate it was a bad idea to pursue this. Lindsay kept half-joking about finding someone for me to sleep with that night, pointing out dudes she thought I might like. There was slim pickings, and, in general, it had been months since anyone caught my eye. I can't say anyone had ever caught my eye like Chris did. I just kept coyly eyeing him, feeling embarrassed we were having this conversation about getting me laid by a bar patron in front, and with him. I knew I wanted him. I just wasn't sure, yet, that it would happen.
We changed tables, and he wound up sitting next to me. I remember thinking, "Even if this is all that happens, being near him feels so nice..."
We were both drinking Tecate, mine with a shot of Powers whiskey, his with tequila. I looked for excuses to touch him. I touched his arm, for some reason, and again, I just felt electric.
After a while, some friends left, and we opted to move on to a karaoke bar. Again, Chris sat next to me, and I realized that it was going to happen. Our thighs touched one another under the table, and he intoned, "You can put your hand on my leg if you want to."
I was embarrassed, a little, that he would call me out like that, but I did as was suggested. Soon, we were kissing, in front of Lindsay and our friends. I immediately thought it was the best kissing I'd ever had, and I've smooched on probably 150 people over the years (my numbers of other activities are significantly lower; I just like to smooch). We instantly had a physical connection, no adaptations necessary.
And this translated, too, to sex, even though we were both quite drunk and probably not at our best.
We woke in the morning, and, even now, I look back on the couple of hours we spent in bed with a sort of awe. The cadence of our communication could have populated an award-winning rom-com, and was of the kind that usually takes a while to find with another person. We spoke to one another in Russian and French accents, making up characters with one another, rapid-fire, laughing heartily the whole while, kissing the whole while. I told him I was going to take a chunk of his rib meat with me to make a clone. We decided the clone would end up like the dumb Michael Keaton clone in Multiplicity, who keeps pizza in his back pocket. We decided he would only eat junk food, namely Cheetos, and his favorite show would be Ice Road Truckers. We decided he never engaged in foreplay, but always expected me to give him blow jobs, and my tits would always have orange fingerprints after sex from his Cheetos hands (Chris would write, a couple weeks later, a wonderful story about my conjuring of, and relationship with this clone).
We got out of bed and we showered and couldn't stop kissing, with a base need to continue kissing, hungry for one another.
He took me back to his sister's place, where my things and my rental car were, so I could pack up and take the rental back to Seattle, where I would get back on a bus to Minneapolis. I remember packing, half-listening to Chris and Lindsay's conversation that couldn't yet be about how he felt about me, and if I recall, was focused on Lindsay getting a burrito, and again, I thought, "If this is all it's going to be, that's enough..."
He carried my suitcase to the car, and I drove him back to his place. I wasn't going to say anything about a future visit, or keeping in touch. I had accepted that, rationally, this could only be a one time thing.
But then he said it, "So, should we exchange numbers then?" And I smiled. And we did.
I watched him walk back into his house, appreciating every line of his beautiful form, and felt just about as happy as I could remember in years.
In the car, driving to Seattle, I kept focused on the road, and not on who would be the first to text who.
It was him. I don't remember what it was, but it was him. From that moment on, we'd hardly be out of communication 'til about three weeks ago.
I'd like to say my heart isn't broken, but this feels more real, crystalline, than other breakups. There's nothing to be done. It's just over.
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