Date: Wed, 8 Jan 2014 07:41:39 -0500
From: Roy
Subject: London's Lights

I've been writing about my life (ie sexual exploits/love frustrations) on
my blog for about six years now.  I don't know why I never thought to share
it to the great services at nifty.org but I thought I'd share this one, the
story of the first time I hooked up with a guy.

If you enjoyed reading this, I have more stories at my blog,
underduhrainbows.blogspot.com, and some of them are more...graphic? And
less memoir-ish and sentimental, I guess, lol. (this was written under the
context of a long running blog but it works on its own.)

I've been thinking of engaging in some fictional stuff and depending on the
response to this, I'll definitely undertake some fiction.

+++

I'm lying on his bed counting each row of yellow light displayed on his
white ceiling and his glowing skin.  He fell asleep on his side while his
head rests on his arms and my head rests there too. One. Two. Three.
Four. Five and I lose count.  Romantics like myself can't count.  Romantics
sleeping next to a boy can't even breathe.  Romantics get too caught up in
art and moments to ever quantify a feeling like love.  That job is for
scientists to hypothesize its beginnings and immediate effects.  Their
assistants handle the graphs showcasing rising intensity, climax, pop,
sigh, drop.  All the romantic has to do is supplement with emotions the
confusion that inevitably comes with first sex, examine its orgasms, how
semen can fly across my stomach while his hand whispers on my chest and his
voice rests on my ears "blow" without the sensation of release, without the
feeling of aliveness.  And only experience aliveness on the 3rd repeat of
Latika's Theme.  I play it on my iPod again because I'm not tired like he
is, not like he is at all.

In all our groping, sucking, kissing, licking, he grabbed my ears and
whispered, "I love you." I'm not like him at all. I have never had a man
say "I love you" to me before. After the "I love you" I pulled him closer
to me and shouted "BELLO! Bellisimo!" in his ears laughing. He's Italian
and I've been taught that those words meant beautiful. And I kissed him
harder but his words still meant nothing, mine did; he is beautiful.  My
kiss did; I kiss beautiful beings. But I don't throw my words around.

"I love you" to a complete stranger he met at London's G-A-Y. It bothers me
because I can't understand it. I understood our introductions and his
invitations to his house, his room, his bed, himself. What I can't
understand is his willingness and insistence on holding my hand as we
walked around SOHO, pass London's lights and its inhabitants, its visitors
and their stares. We were sitting on the bus, on the way to King's Roads
and he was tracing the lines on the palm of my hands, and I'm seeing the
sickly light of London's public bus system. I don't understand low cost
lighting and I don't understand a passionate "I love you."

In his apartment, we talked about America, England, Italy. He told me that
America was the greatest country in the world, a nation he'd visit one
day. It surprised me that even for a well-educated European, America was
still the shining city on a hill. A little later, he asked me if it's okay
I sleep on his bed, if it's okay he turns off the light. When he does, I
never bother to ask questions or talk or do anything but what no lights are
meant to mean. Then he asked me another question, "would you like to fuck
me?" and for the second time, I spoke in a language, in a voice I've never
heard come out of me before.  I pulled myself up from his bed and kissed
him on the cheek, "Je ne sais quoi!---I mean, Je ne sais pas." and that was
that, my broken French for his perfect English; he is Italian.  I was
grasping for words that didn't so quickly relate my feelings; I can't
believe I waited this long to lose it to a stranger.

I asked him, "do you mind if I play music?"

"Why?"

"I don't know."

I selected my "chill" playlist, and Bon Iver started playing. He moaned in
between and around the guitars chords, and when I went down, I lost that
rhythm and gained my own. He would push against me and I'd push against
him, tossing and turning each other like two thunderbolts fighting over a
skyscrapers' needle, and in all this wrestling, he said the things he said
and I said the one thing I cared to say, "do you mind if I play music?"

"Why?"

"I don't know."

I never noticed my voice so gruff, loud, and inappropriate.  What I didn't
know was the music already in the room, a primal base music one hears only
when the rest of the world is out for drinks underneath the bright lights
of Picadilly Square, out jumping from bar to bar trying to forget the
question of why we exist.  Inside his apartment, his room, his bed I'm
trying to find the answer to "why?" cause there was a glow.

A glow I noticed when I looked in his mirror, a biological electricity, an
illuminating sense of self with or without "I love you."  It's the same
glow I see in him fast asleep.  His young, white skin illuminated by a
shocking sense of satisfaction I didn't receive. Maybe I am a scientist,
and I could measure the length of his neck, the width of his arms, and the
depth of his breath. His neck, long, ending at a visible jaw line, though a
more childish jawline than the jawline of a man.  His arms, lean and thin,
so thin, the most minor flexing reveals muscle growth.  His breathes are
deep and hollow at one, two, three, exhale. This suggests relaxation and
deep sleep. His naked chest sparks at a thousand times per second that it
is impossible to discern each one but the results are apparent, recent
actions satisfying.  The eyes, although earlier observed, require further
observation to determine their brightness.  His heartbeats are variable.

And I wonder without London, living and thriving underneath alcoholic skies
and drug infused rainstorms, I'd still be able to see him in a small,
quaint apartment on the edges of King's Road.  Are the lights outside
powerful enough to outshine us?  Enough to darken our desires, to impede us
from a summering world?  Can the lights we make, driven by our passion, our
desire, our lust outlast a fluorescent bulb?  Is it more illuminating than
burning oil, an open window, than the little rows of yellow light unshaken
from a shaken bed?  I never have answers so we waited inside while London
waited outside, creeping closer to our light, lusting but incompetent,
excusable.  Latika's theme is on it's 7th repeat before I move away from
him, we were never cuddling, just close enough to feel each other. He
seemed afraid to touch me. I turn around the stare at the blank, white wall
in front of me. My iPod says it's 3:17AM. I should sleep.

Later, I would wake up to see him looking at me, the same way I looked at
him, and I would give him my trademarked smirk, rub his finger, turn away,
and sleep again. And I dreamed lots of things, of more time with him, of
marriage, of random sex with random men, of random conversations about sex
with familiar men, of him when we were older, then with another man, of
growing older, happier with another man. All sorts of dreams that have
melted onto each other like all the lights of the world from afar.  I
needed to sleep. I needed to wake up. I needed another place to stay for
Friday and Saturday.  I wouldn't find one.

I slept for two days on the Tube every early morning, on the Central red
line, traveling from one end of London to another. Then at night, I would
look for and stay within the green signs of clubs, the rainbow disco balls
of bars, and the low-lighted ceilings of pubs. They offered comfort however
momentary from the darkness of a brightly-lit city.  I got tired, lost, and
scared, and everything seemed unfriendly, inhospitable, then I opened my
eyes.