Date: Sat, 30 Jul 2005 10:30:29 -0700 (PDT) From: Robin Reed Subject: Encounters: Glances Disclaimer: if this is illegal in your area or you are underage, begone! All Rights reserved! comments to Any_mouse@yahoo.com 26 November 2001 Glances Ron was nice enough to drop an e-mail note right back. I had been trying to place an ad in the Blade, the local gay paper. It had worked for me before. Not the Blade, actually, one of the sleazy little fuck books that exist for guys to get together without having to go to a bar and actually meet face to face with someone. Someone with hungry eyes. It is easier at home, or over the phone. Scrolling through the possibilities. And it is easier to place an ad than it is to answer one. Placing one means that the hungry ones have to come to you. It is much easier, if you craft it right. You have the sample universe, all seemingly willing. It works, even for the faint of heart. I know. So, I was horny a couple weeks ago. I am still closeted, but the marriage has fallen apart and I have moved out and can actually do what I want to do. I decided to go to DC on a lazy Sunday afternoon, have a couple beers and survey the landscape. The need of a man is a heavy longing, sometime. It has always been with me, sometimes near, and sometimes at a distance. But always there. I'm convinced that my marriage, which I worked at for around seven years and put up with for twenty, and my career which I worked hard at for 24 years and put up with for twenty-five, have saved my life. It spanned the time when the AIDS plague first erupted, and then spread, killing a whole generation of young men in their prime. I was on the sidelines then, jerking off. But I often thought about it. Both the death part and the joy of submitting to a fundamental need This afternoon I dressed carefully. Tight jeans, moccasins, nice soft turtleneck. An old Levi jacket to go over the top. I practiced The Walk. Not a sashay, but one free of straight-ahead male determination. A little whimsical. I even let my wrists flop a little when I smoked. It was fun. It felt nice and liberating to let the hard linear lines fade out of my posture. Soften. But I wasn't going to go out and mince around. I usually go places and chicken out at the last moment. Mostly. times. But maybe this would be different. I always thought that. I checked myself, I looked good, and drove down to the Metro station. I didn't want to drive into the city. You can't tell where to park. The traffic is madness. And if you wind up a little drunk and in trouble, you could lose the car altogether. So the Metro is the way to go. You are on foot, anonymous. No threat to public order at the wheel of potential vehicular manslaughter. I had to take the Yellow Line to get across the Potomac, but that wasn't going to get me where I wanted to go. I was headed for Dupont Circle, heart of gay life in the District. To do that I had to transfer to the Red Line at Metro Center. I was preparing to get off the train I was standing, facing the rear of the car, leaning against a pole. I realized with a start that the dark-haired young man facing the rear of the car was someone I knew. In fact, I knew him better than he had any idea. I had been a member of the promotion panel that had decided he didn't have a future with the Company. I had fought for him, fought as hard as I could. But in the end it came down to him and another. The Panel deliberated hard and picked the other. To my growing horror I realized I was going to have to be the one who told him, since he worked in my Division. It was awful, as awful as anything I have ever done. But I wrapped myself in the cloak of the Company and I told it as straight as I could, cushioning where I could. But I told him it was honest, the decision was based on the record and he had just got a bad break. It still didn't go well. He was bitterly disappointed. This afternoon he sat in the first row of seats. His slim body was slumped back in the seat, his eyes were closed in contemplation. His youthful features were relaxed, distant. His dark hair was short and combed to the side. He wore a dark windbreaker and dark trousers. I wondered where he was going. And the thought occurred to me that he might be going to Dupont Circle on an outing like mine. The loudspeaker announced: "Metro Center, transfer point for the Red Line. Doors opening on the left." I turned to face the front of the car, hoping he would not recognize me. The train glided to a halt and the doors whooshed open. I paused with the intent of allowing the other passengers to clear the car onto the platform. I was not to be. I could not wait long, or stay to the next station without heading to far toward Union Station. When I turned to exit I discovered he had hung back. His brown eyes met mine directly. "Hello, Keith" I said. I offered my hand to him as we stepped from the car and walked across the decorative granite paving of the platform. His hand was soft but his grip was firm. "Hi, Rob!" he responded. He seemed pleased to see me. "What are you doing this afternoon?" I answered vaguely. "Just headed Uptown." The Red Line platform was a level above us, and I can never remember which escalator to take to hit the Northbound track. "Lovely afternoon for it." I didn't ask where he was going. The moment hung, gently, and he gave a little wave and moved down the platform. I went the other way, studied the track information on a pillar and realized I had to turn around. The platform was dotted with day-trippers, locals and tourists, but despite the beauty of the day on the surface above the crowds reflected the general unease about life after 9-11. I flowed along behind a family with a stroller and gave them space as they lifted the child out of the seat to accommodate the moving stairs. I turned the corner to the Northbound platform, glancing up to see if Keith was waiting there. He wasn't, and I found a place along the concrete barrier to lean and look up at the graceful barrel vault of the station's roof. The concrete was cool and gray. I have always loved the spare geometric pattern that unifies the architecture of the system. There was a moderate crowd, indicating a train would be along shortly. Keith hurried along the platform in front of me. This time he only glanced up, moving quickly, as though he had an important destination further along the waiting area. I was relieved. I didn't have to make small talk, or pretend I was not going where I was. It was apparent that he felt the same way. An interesting data point. Still, I resolved to go one stop beyond the circle, to the Zoo, and walk back. Enjoy the sunshine I said to myself, actually just wanted to not share my intentions with someone who knew who I was. I was not ready to acknowledge publicly my private self. Privately I had worked it out. There were no contradictions. I liked men. There was a heaviness in my loins that only could be satisfied by a hard man. And what exactly were my intentions today? I mulled that one as the lights on the platform edge began to pulse and the northbound train arrived. It was to find the happy hour prices at some gay clubs and watch some football. See what developed. I was not here to find sex, through the heaviness in my loins indicated that I could. To meet someone? Perhaps, though I was not in the market for anonymous sex. I was still basically a monogamous creature, but I was also well aware of my predilection to be a tramp. Two stops and we passed Dupont. I didn't see Keith get off, though he could have. I rose at the Zoo stop and walked out of the station into the brilliant Fall light. There were still leaves on the trees, and the light was lowering. As I crossed the bridge over Rock Creek Park I paused to drink in the beauty of the foliage, this strange intrusion of the wild into the city. I walked down Connecticut Avenue and cut over at 18th Street past the cute little row houses. Some of the clubs I thought I might try were located here. I passed the Club Chaos, down in the basement, where the Sunday feature is a drag show of grotesquely male impersonators. I wound up in a quiet café, drinking Rolling Rock beer and listening to a young man who was very drunk and very garrulous. It was a pleasant way to pass the time. I contemplated what it would be like to make love with him, but it was clear that he was a lost soul, trouble on two legs. At length I tired of having the same discussion over and over, unable to finish a thread. Finally I left him to his whiskey and made my way to the Metro station and home on an empty train before the night fell. It was another busy week in the series of busy weeks following the attacks. In the early morning, lying in my bed in the dimness I stroked myself and thought back. The encounter with Keith intrigued me. Was he on the same sort of mission as I was? Was he gay, too? The thought of his dark eyes made me stiffen. What were his thoughts of me? The thought of pressing myself against his slim body, the fine dark hairs covering his pale skin brought me full erect. I stroked harder, his image clear before my eyes. I felt myself rising toward completion, the skin of my member slick with the first juice. I climaxed, showing my seed across my belly I thought of it being his semen. I ran a finger through the pool and brought it to my lips. I tasted my pearly deposit, stringy and sweet and imagined it was his. I rubbed it into my skin until it became sticky, lying languorous before the steaming morning shower and the rush of the day began. I made it through the week, not an inconsequential accomplishment in this strange quasi-war. I made it through Saturday, too. I wrote a little and did laundry and got some physical activity. But Keith was in the background. On a whim, I called up the web site of the Washington Blade, the local gay paper. Since I started the long slow march to my divorce I had stayed away from computer contact with the gay world. I now knew enough to know that if it was on the computer's hard drive, it was recoverable by anyone who knew even a modicum of techno-savvy. Lists of web sites, temporarily saved imaged that were invisible and present forever. I had found some strange images in my sleuthing, trying to see what she was up too when I was not watching. I once called up an image file at random from a long list and saw a handsome young man with an improbably large erection, his face screwed up in passion, the first jets of his orgasm shooting upward under a clear blue sky. Los Angeles, I thought. I wondered who had summoned this picture to the hard-drive. But there seemed little reason for caution now. I had a lap-top at my little place, and I frankly didn't care anymore what my future ex-wife or her lawyer could divine about the crannies of my mind. I had to be discrete, of course, because of the potential impact on my job. But now I was free. It was a magic time in my life. By that I do not mean glittering good. More a sense of giddy freedom, with the knowledge that the abyss beckoned to me. But the abyss will take me anyway at some point. I will now encounter it on my own terms. I clicked on the icons and looked through the "personals." I wondered how the market was doing since the big metropolitan dailies started to carry gay ads. This had once been the only outlet for alternate life-styles, a revolutionary vanguard of sexuality. There were six categories. One each for bisexuals (a short list- if you were in this paper there was little need for a fig-leaf), women, and men seeking the same for a continuing relationship. One for brief encounters that shouted out: danger! And one each for men and women who had passed briefly and shared a sidelong look. In a crowded place, a bar or supermarket, who had been unable to say what they felt. A mechanism to take a second chance at a passing fancy. I was not unfamiliar with the ad game. When I felt the most trapped in my marriage I would sometimes scan the pages of the gay paper, careful never to keep a copy, reading in coffee houses during breaks I found in my job in the city. It was pleasant to daydream about casual sex. But as my marriage became increasingly two hostile camps under one roof I began to think about actually acting out on my daydreams. One problem was responding to the ads. The game was that there was a substantial charge to respond by phone, and it would leave a record. I mailed a few responses, but realized there was no way I could leave my work number, much less take a call at home. It appeared that the smart way to do this act of unfaithfulness was to place my own ad. I composed one mentally, finally screwing up my courage to go to the advertising department of the paper and pay to have it published in cash. Untraceable. That also meant traveling to the paper to pick up the responses. It was quite an adventure, and I will never forget the lovely lady who worked as a receptionist. She told me I had beautiful eyes. I thanked her, wondering that while soliciting sex from men in the greater metropolitan area I was still attracted to this lady. The nature of sex is an eternal mystery to me. Over the months I placed several different ads, screening the dozens of responses which ranged from the bizarre to the appealing. For the most part it remained a process of mental arousal. But there was an increasing desire to consummate one of the exchanges.. I arranged assignments, sometimes seeing the man I arranged to meet. But I was never able to bring myself to actually walk up to them and consummate the rendezvous. Anonymous sex was too dangerous, and the thrill was only in the sick feeling in my belly that I was capable of this desire. I composed a list of likely men I might call back. I toyed with it, dreamily imaging scenes of intense passion. One of the letters contained a phone number, and I went to Herndon to meet a recently divorced Justice Department Agent for an early coffee. It was an uneasy meeting, neither of us quite sure what would develop. There were no sparks, and I thanked him for his time and left for an appointment in Maryland. The closer I got, the urge more insistent, the more the risk of exposing myself. The thrill was in the anticipation, I concluded, not in the act. But it was insistent and building. A few weeks later I arranged to meet a young man at a strip mall off Route 7. He was standing where we had agreed, and after an awkward introduction, I agreed to follow him to his house. As I drove behind him I thought how insane this behavior was, and yet how exciting. I noted a butterfly net in the back of his little white Ford Fiesta. I asked him if he was an entomologist, and he said he was. At some point he asked me if I was married. I said I was. He had kissed me ferociously, almost clicking his teeth against me. We were in his bedroom. We were lying against one another, he was slim and boyish and wanted me badly. I was so aroused that I erupted the first second he touched me. The release was too soon, no buildup, just a jet of wetness without completion I was embarrassed and tried to jerk him off, but didn't know to lubricate his thin erection. It irritated him, and we parted badly. I tried to call him later, to see if there was a way we could meet to try to fix things, but he was adamant that there was not. I dropped it and walked away from the payphone, scratching his name from the list. Feeling frustrated and a little lost. The next week the fever was on me again. I was lobbying at offices downtown in this job, and was frequently driving early. The commute from the suburbs only worked very early, and there was normally time to kill before my first appointments. I could work out oat the health club, or have breakfast and read the paper. Or I could play with my little list of names from the ads. The one I placed this time had said I was looking for an "Early Riser." This particular Monday I made a call to another promising name on the list. The man who answered had a curt demeanor that was a little unsettling. He gave me directions, and told me he would get up early to have coffee with me and see if there was anything there. The next morning I awoke long before the alarm. There was a hunger and a heaviness in my belly. I drove downtown and was early, earlier even than the early hour. I bought both morning papers and drove slowly down the Ridge Road. I saw a light on at the correct address and parked around the corner. The heels on my dress pumps clicked on the concrete and my heart was sunk down in my belly with nervousness. It was the familiar feeling of dread and anticipation. I knocked on the door with my knuckle. I heard footsteps approach and the door opened. "Paperboy" I said, offering the two bundles. "Thanks" said the man. He looked to be in his middle fifties. He was of modest height but had a powerful torso. His hair was thinning and he had cropped it short. Close shaven. "Why don't you come in?" "Thanks" I said, a little breathless. Thoughts of flight ran through my mind as he led me through a formal dining room and into the wood-paneled kitchen. The house was one of those built in the thirties, and the floor plan had not changed much. A close-in house, two story, designed for another era. He turned and pulled two coffee cups from a cabinet over the sink. A small color TV murmured in the corner under soft yellow light. "My name is Rick. Would you like cream and sugar?" he asked. "No, thanks. Black is fine." He poured from the Mr. Coffee and then led me through a door and back up the hallway to the living room. He sat on the couch and I joined him, sitting properly two feet away. The conversation began awkwardly. "So, what are you looking for?" he asked, matter-of-factly, as though strange men came to his door every day looking for something personal. His voice was smooth, his vowels were oval. He wore shorts and no belt. I said I was looking for a friend. That began a monologue for him, and I listened to his soft voice. He told me about his life there on the Ridge Road. He was an entrepreneur. He had invested wisely. He had no day job, save to manage his portfolio. He was a bit of an Auntie, I thought, though his arms and shoulders were powerful., like a collegiate wrestler. He smoked, and that was a relief. I noted my fingers quivering as I lit one of my own. The coffee was strong and good, and we eventually had another cup. I began to turn my thoughts to escape. Once I was acting out the pattern. I was getting further along, but decided that it was the anticipation rather than the consummation that was the excitement for me. I was moderately surprised to find he was a Republican, I don't know why. We talked about politics. I glanced at my watch and told him I was grateful for the coffee and really had to be going. He smiled as we rose and he walked me to the foyer. "I don't think this will work. It's not your fault, you are a very nice man. I just don't know what I want. Maybe a will figure it out someday. But I want to thank you. I enjoyed the conversation." "I did, too" he said. "But I got up early to make the coffee. So I think you owe me a favor." "Of course" I said. I felt bad that I had led him on, but relieved that this encounter was nearly complete and I could go back to real life. "Just show me what I am going to miss." He took me by the hand and led me to the stairs. He turned and walked up. I looked up at him, frozen. This wasn't going to work. I had finished it, said goodbye. Then my feet moved forward and I found myself climbing the stairs behind him, my heart suddenly thumping. What was this? Could he be a killer, enticing seekers and then garroting them in the stillness? What was I doing? It was dark in the hallway. There was a bedroom to the left as we reached the top of the stairs. He didn't stop there. He rounded the corner and went down the hall. There was a bathroom directly ahead. I could see the light reflected on old white tile. Bedrooms were to the left and right. He paused at the door of the one on the right and I stopped behind him. He gestured at the striped coverlet on a neatly-made double-bed. I wondered if he had slept here last night, or if he reserved it for something else. The was a clock on the nightstand next to it that radiated the time in blue light. It was wrong by several hours. The room was bathed in soft orange light from the rising sun. The furniture was in keeping with the house, old and dark and solidly built. "Why don't you take off your shirt and let me see what you look like" he said. "That's really all I need." His eyes twinkled in amusement and the corners of his mouth turned up in a knowing smile. I considered his request as my fingers went of their own volition to my collar and loosened my tie. I removed it, looking at him. I turned and placed it on the bureau. I unbuttoned my collar and slipped the suspenders from my shoulders and let them hang at my side. I finished unbuttoning my shirt, and pulled the tails from my trousers. Then I took it off slowly. I laid it atop my tie. I turned back to him, avoiding his eyes, looking down. "Thank-you." He said. His voice was soft and reassuring. I crossed my arms across my chest, self-conscious and feeling vulnerable. The room was warm and still, the smell of the old house mixed with something else, something vaguely familiar. Like Old Spice. The pause was awkward. I took a step toward him and he matched it. His arms came around me. I tensed and then slowly relaxed in his arms and laid my head on his shoulder. I drank in the smell of him. There was soap there from his shower and Old Spice. There was something else, too, a musk that was deep and rich and multi-textured. We stood that way for a long time, I don't know how long. I drank in the smell of him. My heartbeat began to return to normal, and in a very natural way my right hand reached out and gently felt out his manhood. He responded. This too went on for a long time. I marveled at the weight and mass. I could feel him swell against my fingers and I could feel myself respond in kind. His smell was intoxicating. This was not a fevered rush. It was a blossoming. My head came up from his neck, eyes closed, and my lips sought his. I brushed the short stubble on his cheek from his morning shave His lips were full and they opened to meet mine. Our tongues met, gently probing. I tasted coffee and the cigarette and warmth of his saliva. Contained in the kiss was an offer and an acceptance. At the right moment our embrace loosened and took off his tee-shirt. I unfastened my trousers and let them fall to the floor. He unbuttoned his shorts and skinned them off. He wore white briefs and the bulge of his penis distended them in the front. I dropped my boxers on the trousers and we stood and looked at one another, wordless. He hooked the top of the elastic with his thumbs and peeled them down. The tip of his penis was the first exposed, then the dark mass of his pubic hair and finally his balls. His cock stood out proudly, arcing slight to the right from his trim belly. I stepped to him and cupped his balls with my hand. They had a velvety feel beneath the coarse texture of his hair. They moved smoothly and independently under my touch. I caressed his shaft. From the base to the tip he seemed enormous, and the glans was fat and assertive. It appeared thicker at the end, thicker than the base even before the pouting shape of the helmet. It was a wonderful and hypnotic sight. "May I kiss it?" I asked. It sounded ridiculous to me, surreal, the words floating there in the air. I hadn't come here for this, had I? This was too fast. "O f course" he answered. I sank to my knees, eager to examine this marvel. At eye-level he was even more massive. I ran my tongue along the length of him, delighting in the texture of the veins and ridges. I was careful not to take him entirely in my mouth. I was concerned about ingesting his semen. I wanted this to be safe. I licked him like a child would lick an ice cream cone. I kissed his balls, tentative at first, but with growing confidence as his hips squirmed in delight. "You like this, don't you?' he said. I nodded against the mass of him, inarticulate, my nose filled with his smell now ripe. It welcomed my lips and began to fill my senses fully. At some point, and I am not sure how, he was seated on the bed, my face buried in him. And then he was reclined, me on my knees, suckling on his balls, first one and then the other. His shaft was moist and slippery with my spit, and I stroked him until the spit dried and became sticky. He stopped my hand. I was afraid I had done something to displease him. I looked up apprehensively from my work on his testicles and I saw him smile. "You have to keep it wet, silly." He scooped a gob of saliva from his mouth with his fingers and ladled it onto his penis. "Now" he said. "Nice and slippery." It was. I made a mental note. I stroked him with more urgency. My erection waved between my knees. When it brushed the bed it gave me an electric shock. He gripped my shoulders, trying to bring me up on the bed next to him but I shook my head against his genitals. I wanted him to come first and I knew that I would climax quickly. He relented and stroked my shoulders instead. I felt him stroke my hair and I could feel him coming near and then he shuddered and my fingers and hand were coated with his ejaculation and spurts of ropy white jetted over his belly. I slowed my rhythm as he softened, continuing to nuzzle his testicles. Then I traced my forefinger through his jism. Then I caressed his belly with my palm, rubbing it in. I kissed his balls in farewell and rose to my feet. "I need to be going" I said. "I don't want to be late." I glanced at the clock, trying to correct its erroneous message to the actual time. It was disorienting. I felt giddy from what I had done, still aroused. My erection arced up and away from my body. I could taste him on my lips. "Not so fast. Come here." He gripped my hand and pulled me to the bed. I laid down as he scrunched up beside me. I tensed, uncertain what he wanted of me. He surprised me by rolling on top of me. I spread my legs so our groins came together, him soft now and me hard. He kissed me hard and I opened my mouth to welcome him. He pressed his tongue deep into my mouth. His weight was all on me and I it pinned me, leaving me helpless. I wrapped my legs around him and hugged him hard against me. I began to move my hips in the primeval way and my cock felt the sticky residue of his come, imprisoned between our bellies. I felt myself rising and bucked frantically against him until I too erupted, flooding us. I clutched him in the afterglow of my climax. "My God" I whispered. "Yes indeed" he whispered back in my ear. "Yes indeed." After a time he pried himself from me and rose. He walked out of the bedroom and opened a closet next to the bathroom door. He pulled out a towel and tossed it to me on the bed. I could not move. "Blue for boys" he said with a grin. I think I blushed. I don't recall much about dressing. When we were once more in the foyer I kissed him chastely on the cheek. "Can I see you tomorrow?" I asked. "Tomorrow isn't good. Wednesday?" "Same time?" "That would be fine." I counted the hours. Wednesday scared me and Wednesday drew me to it. Wednesday I tried to swallow his cock, all of it down my throat. Wednesday I wanted him to come in my mouth and flood me with his juice. Wednesday I bucked my hips against him and I knew with crystalline clarity that I wanted him to fuck me, to split me open, ram that bludgeon of his into my ass and shoot his load into me. Wednesday I realized I was out of control and Wednesday scared me shitless. Wednesday he was good and in control and he didn't do any of it. But the speed with which I raced through the mental barriers I had established filled me with despair and plunged me into depression. I didn't call him for months. I went back to my normal routine. I destroyed my list of men and resolved not to succumb to the heaviness in my loins. Never again, I resolved. I had no will power. It was straight to AIDS and straight to hell unless I could control myself. I couldn't, of course. But I tried. In the Spring I called him again. He did not seem surprised to hear from me. Cool on the phone. I told him I was determined to have a relationship in which I could manage my lust. On the first visit we had coffee and I told him I was going to try to be adult about our friendship. He nodded and smiled and as I left he pressed himself against me and I felt his arousal. It was two more morning coffees before I begged him to come on my face, and he obliged with a smile. Two more visits and I was I lying across him on the floor of his finished basement rec-room, nude, a political debate in the TV in the background. I licked and slurped him to a climax and captured the warm salty semen in my eager mouth. It was good beyond my wildest dreams and thereafter no visit was complete with the taste of him on my lips and palate, and the taste of me in his mouth joined in a sloppy sperm-filled kiss. We never did have anal sex, though we tried. The visit after that he taught me to lubricate his shaft carefully as he instructed me on safe sex procedures. I rolled the condom down over the glans and carefully down the shaft. He could not penetrate me though, because I was too tight and his erection not firm enough to skewer me properly. But I resigned myself to pleasing him orally. I was his cock-sucker and that was good enough for both of us. I came to pride myself on my prowess. We found the position that we liked the best. He would straddle my chest and rest his weight on the headboard. Then he would lower his cock to my mouth and then fuck my face. I could grip his firm buttocks, massaging the globes. He liked it as I learned to take both orbs into my mouth at once, gently sucking on them and rolling my tongue against their surface. His fat penis would wander over my nose and forehead. I loved the sensation of its heaviness. After he came he would sometimes turn around and fellate me as I sucked on his softened penis. He liked it when I sucked him when he was soft. But above all, I loved it when he rested between my legs and I could feel the weight of him pressing against me as he rode me to completion. It was the perfect relationship. He had no need of me, no craving my constant company the way a woman does. The craving was physical, the heaviness of our desire in synchronization once or twice a week. Casual, with an intellectual appreciation of the political life in our town. Politics and jism. Perfect. But he moved away, for the lights of a resort town and a more casual retirement with another lover who was not closeted. I was devastated. I had found security and fulfillment at the end of his penis, and I did not have the heart to start the hunt again. I saw him once more. His lover had died, not of the plague but of Parkinson's, and he had a prostate cancer scare which left him healthy but impotent. I sucked his balls once more, for old time's sake, and he was encouraged by a mild surge of blood to his once-proud cock. He took me in his mouth and brought me to climax and then filled my mouth with his tongue and my juice. It was almost as good as his. And that is how I found myself cruising through the classified ads. I decided on the "Glances- Men" section. I composed this, and felt a familiar tension in the pit of my stomach : "Transfer to the Red Line 11/17. Your dark eyes met mine. You asked where I was going and I said "Uptown." I should have gone with you. You recently changed careers. We should talk, Coffee?" I am running the ad for two weeks.